u/Deep-Anything6795

Yesterday I talked about notes and documentation as the standard not the extra work.

Today I want to get into the specific thing from that Ford situation that concerned me most.

The extended warranty repairs.

I found multiple open repair orders with extended warranty coverage and no record of the claim ever being called in. No claim number. No authorization code. No note that the call had even been made. Just open repair orders with customers waiting and no way to tell from the paperwork whether the work had been approved to proceed.

For anyone who has dealt with extended warranty companies you already know where this goes.

No documented authorization means the warranty company can deny the claim. The dealership eats the cost or the customer gets a bill for something they paid a warranty contract to cover. That conversation does not go well.

And if the repair had not started yet we had to call back, re-verify everything, hope the authorization window was still open, and restart a process that should have been done and documented during the original call.

All of it from one missing documentation habit.

Extended warranty claims are not something that lives in your memory or on a sticky note. The moment that call ends the repair order gets the claim number, authorization code, rep name, date and time, and approved operations. All of it. Every time.

Tomorrow I am wrapping the week with the full organizational framework and what a properly run operation actually looks like from workstation to WIP to repair order documentation.

Monday was the story about the advisor who got hurt and the two days I spent untangling her workload. Tuesday was about how your WIP reflects your standard whether you are there to defend it or not.

Today I want to talk about notes because I think this is where most advisors fall shortest and where the consequences are most visible when something goes wrong.

The absence of notes is not just a personal inconvenience. It becomes everyone else's problem the moment you are not there.

At Ford I found vehicles that had been sitting for days with nothing on the repair order except the original complaint. No parts updates. No technician findings. No customer communication log. Just the write up and silence.

And the ones that actually kept me up at night. Extended warranty repairs with no claim numbers. No authorization codes. No record of the call ever being made. Just open repair orders with customers waiting on vehicles and nobody knowing if the authorization existed or not.

Every one of those gaps cost time to reconstruct. Time the customer was waiting. Time the technician was idle. Time I was spending on something that should have taken two minutes if someone had just written it down when it happened.

Notes are not optional. They are the record of everything that happened on that repair order. Build the habit. Document everything in real time. Every parts order, every customer communication, every approval, every warranty claim.

More tomorrow on the extended warranty situation specifically because that one deserves its own conversation.

Yesterday I talked about the advisor who got hurt and the two days I spent trying to make sense of her workload.

Today I want to talk about something that came out of that experience.

When I was going through her repair orders trying to figure out where everything stood I kept thinking the same thing. Her WIP was telling me exactly how she worked every day. Not how she worked when things were easy. How she worked when she was slammed and behind and the day was getting away from her.

Every repair order with no notes was a decision she made to not document. Every customer with no update was a call she never made. Every extended warranty claim with no record was a task that got pushed and pushed until it disappeared entirely.

The WIP does not lie. It just shows you what actually happened versus what should have.

The advisors I have seen last longest in this career and cause the least amount of chaos for everyone around them are almost always the ones with clean, current, thoroughly documented repair orders. Not because they have more time than everyone else. Because they built the habit of treating documentation as part of the job rather than extra work on top of it.

More tomorrow on what that actually looks like in practice.

Going to open with something that happened at Ford that I think about more than almost anything else from that chapter of my career.

An advisor got hurt and went on medical leave for a month. No warning. No handoff. I sat down the next morning to figure out where her workload stood so I could redistribute it.

Two days later I was still piecing it together.

Repair orders with no notes. WIP with no real status updates. Parts with no documentation on whether they had been ordered. And the one that got me, several repair orders under extended warranty contracts with no record of whether the claim had ever been called in. Nothing. Just a customer waiting on their vehicle somewhere with no idea what was actually happening.

Went through her workstation and found a pile of paperwork with no system behind any of it.

Had another advisor on vacation at the same time. Better but still not there. Minimal notes. Drawer full of old repair orders. Customers I needed to follow up with and almost nothing to work from.

When you are in the building you fill in the gaps yourself. Nobody sees the disorganization because you are there managing it in real time. The second you are gone everything that was invisible becomes everyone else's problem.

More this week on what the actual standard should look like.

I use the attached worksheets in my service department daily. links for download available on my site.

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https://preview.redd.it/fj2357angw1h1.png?width=1078&format=png&auto=webp&s=76e1f3e3198672df0bb7851e945e02924caf575d

Going to start with a story from Ford that I have not shared before. An advisor got hurt and had to go on medical leave. Trying to figure out where everything stood in their workload took almost two days.
Not because the job was complicated. Because nothing was documented, nothing was organized, and there was no way to tell what was current, what was pending, and what had been completely forgotten about.
It was a mess. And it was entirely preventable.
Monday I will get into what I found and why it matters. Should be a good week.

The thing I keep coming back to after everything we talked about this week is pretty simple.

You cannot outwork chaos indefinitely. It catches up eventually. The people who last in this industry are not the ones who can absorb the most punishment. They are the ones who built something underneath their work that made the punishment less frequent.

A daily briefing. A WIP review cadence. Communication habits that keep customers informed before they call asking. A clear process for when things go sideways.

None of that is glamorous. All of it works.

The Ford story had a good ending not because I was tougher than the chaos but because I was more patient than the resistance. I kept building the structure one piece at a time until it held. And once it held the job became something I could actually sustain instead of just survive.

Build the process. Protect it. Rest when you can.

Good luck out there this week.

There were mornings at Ford where I sat in my car before walking in and the only thought I had was this.

Either they are going to get tired of hearing me or I am going to get tired of saying it. Someone was giving up and it was not going to be me.

That was not some confident leadership mindset. That was just stubbornness. Some days it was genuinely all I had.

I think a lot of people in service know that feeling. You are pushing a standard into a culture that does not want it. Saying the same thing every day to the same blank stares. Wondering how long you can keep going before you stop caring.

Nobody talks about how lonely that is. Or how heavy it gets. Or how close some people come to just deciding it is not worth it.

The trust I eventually built with those advisors and techs did not come from a speech or a meeting. It came from six months of showing up the same way every day until the numbers made the argument I had been making the whole time.

You cannot force anyone to trust you. You can only outlast their resistance.

Do not be the one who gives up first.

So after talking about what chaos actually feels like to work in, today I want to talk about what I did about it at Ford.

Nobody was going to give me the structure I needed so I built it myself.

Started with a daily briefing. Ten minutes every morning. Where are we, what is coming in, what is still open. Nothing fancy. Just consistent.

People hated it at first. Showed up late, stood there with their arms crossed, acted like it was a waste of time. Kept running it anyway.

Then built a WIP review cadence. Every advisor touching every open repair order at set intervals through the day instead of just when a customer called asking about their car.

Same reaction. These were people who had been doing things their own way for years and a new process felt like criticism.

But after a few months the results started showing up. Fewer angry calls. Faster throughput. Techs actually trusting the advisors because the jobs were being managed properly. People coming in less stressed because the day had a shape to it.

Nobody became a process person overnight. But nobody kept fighting it once their numbers went up and the phone stopped blowing up at two in the afternoon.

Structure feels like a cage when you first build it. Once it holds it is the thing that makes the job survivable.

Tomorrow. Earning trust from people who never asked for you.

Yesterday I talked about going from Lincoln to Ford and the culture shock of working inside a department with no real process.

Today I want to talk about what that actually feels like day to day because I think a lot of people in this industry have normalized something that should not be normal.

When there is no structure in a service department the advisor becomes the system. Everything lives in your head. You are tracking repair orders mentally because nobody built a habit around updating them consistently. You are fielding calls from customers who are frustrated because communication has no cadence. You are presenting recommendations two hours after they came in because you were too buried to get to them sooner.

None of that is the fault of the person doing it. It is the fault of an environment that was never set up to support them.

The thing about chaos is that after long enough it stops feeling like chaos and starts feeling like the job. You stop asking why it is this hard. You just accept that it is.

I accepted it for too long at Ford before I started fixing it myself.

Tomorrow I'll get into what that actually looked like.

When I moved from Lincoln to Ford years ago I went from one of the most structured operations I had ever worked in to something that had no process, no support from management, and a group of advisors and techs who had zero interest in changing how they did things.

Took about six months before I stopped feeling like I was drowning.

Looking back the burnout I felt had nothing to do with how hard I was working. It had everything to do with working hard inside a system that had no structure underneath it. There was nothing to fall back on when things went sideways. And on a service drive things go sideways constantly.

This week I am going to talk about what actually caused my burnout, what I learned from that experience, and what building real structure into your day actually looks like in practice.

Curious how many people recognize this.

There is a conversation happening across the industry right now about video multi point inspections. Some OEMs have already mandated them. Others are getting there. And the technicians who have been asked to adopt this process have not always embraced it without friction.

Here is the reality that cuts through all of the debate.

Video MPIs sell more work. The numbers are not close.

Customers are two to three times more likely to approve recommended services after watching an inspection video. Dealers using video inspection tools have seen up to $144 more per repair order. And 31% of customers report higher satisfaction with their service advisor after receiving a video MPI.

Three minutes of a technician's time. Documented on video. Sent directly to the customer. And the approval rate doubles or triples.

For the technicians who resist it, here is the conversation worth having. Dealers using digital inspection tools with video have seen up to $144 more per repair order, which means more hours approved, more work completed, and more income generated for the technician performing it. The three minutes invested in a video MPI does not cost a technician productivity. It directly funds it.

Now here is where the advisor comes in. The video is the technician's tool. But the process around it is yours.

Here is the cadence and standard for every video MPI that comes through your drive.

Step one is the introduction. The technician introduces themselves and your organization at the start of every video. First name, role, and dealership. It is a small thing that immediately makes the experience personal and professional rather than a generic recording.

Step two is the vehicle checks. The video should cover every critical inspection area with visual evidence. Brakes, including pads, rotors, and system condition. Tires, including tread depth, wear pattern, and PSI. Suspension components including struts, control arms, and shocks. Drivetrain systems including transmission, CV joints, and differential. Fluid leaks confirmed present or absent. The customer's primary concern addressed directly using the language of what they came in for. And wiper condition noted.

The key on the vehicle checks is that gauges get used. A brake gauge on screen showing millimeter depth is worth more than any verbal description. A tire tread gauge showing wear is evidence a customer can see and understand. Visual proof builds confidence in a way that words alone never can.

Step three is value building. The technician should acknowledge what is in good shape. Green check items matter. A customer who only ever hears what is wrong with their vehicle begins to feel like the dealership is always finding something. A technician who says your battery tested strong today and your belts are in great condition builds trust that makes the recommendations that follow feel honest rather than opportunistic. Customer friendly language throughout. No jargon that requires a degree to decode.

Step four is overall delivery. The ideal pace is between 120 and 170 words per minute. Fast enough to respect the customer's time, measured enough to be understood. No profanity. No pauses that suggest uncertainty or a lack of preparation. A clean, confident, professional presentation from start to finish.

Your job as the advisor is to make sure this process is followed consistently on every vehicle and that when the video reaches the customer it is accompanied by a phone call that walks them through what they saw, answers their questions, and presents the recommendations using the RIM Method.

The video opens the door. Your conversation closes it.

Three minutes from the technician. One phone call from you. And the data shows the approval rate on the other side of that combination is dramatically higher than anything that came before it.

Invest in the process. Hold the standard. And make sure every customer on your drive knows their vehicle was inspected with the same care and transparency you would want for your own family.