“We believe in service yielding success. It all starts with the service experience. We want to not just provide good service, but we want to provide an experience.”
Maximize Your Dealership’s Service Productivity and Profitability with Service 360:
At Plevna Implement, a family-owned third-generation farm equipment dealership, success is deeply rooted in their commitment to exceptional service. With 78 years of business experience and steady growth, Plevna Implement has transformed from a small operation to a thriving enterprise, now employing 64 dedicated individuals across their three locations in Kokomo, Nappanee, and Auburn, Indiana.
Plevna’s initial venture into dealership management software with DIS started in 1987, marked by the green screen era, subsequently moving to servers, and now the latest transition to cloud technology. We spoke with Kent Shrock, President at Plevna Implement, who shared with us how Service 360 has vastly improved the efficiency and workflow of their dealership.
What does a typical day in the service department look like?
Kent: “Communication is key. Staying in touch and setting good expectations are key. Arrival times and what priorities are, what diagnostics conclusions are as it relates to repair, and just trying to keep customers informed all along the way, trying to keep their costs in line and trying to do a good job and execute.
Our guys are resilient, and they work hard. And that’s what’s great about Service Logistics. Much of the stuff that takes up a little extra of their time has been minimized with Service Logistics. The efficiency and the workflow of getting the job or the repair order right to them and getting them on the job quickly have been vastly improved.
Being able to see the work order without four or five pieces of paper – which is how we did it in the past – that’s a big deal.
Being able to time punch right from their mobile device – that’s a huge deal because they can be on and off multiple jobs quickly.”
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What are some of the biggest challenges of operating a service department?
Kent: “There’s always a story to every job. And entering that story is an important part of the process, and making sure that good notes have been taken. Again, part of the Service Logistics function is being able to capture good notes, and taking photographs. If there’s a warranty involved – knowing what needs to be done after that job is completed.”
What impact do you think this shift to digital processes will have on your dealership and others?
Kent: “We were all paper. Something as simple as printing a work order and then, within the hour, putting more parts on that job. Being able to have the digital function for the repair order right there on your phone or your device is huge.
There is a little bit of a learning curve to new technology, but it really hasn’t mattered whether it was technicians, young or old. They’re catching on pretty easily.
If you think about what a service department does, they sell an inventory of time that is fleeting. And if you don’t connect it to a repair order, that inventory is lost. So, it’s really critical that we’re efficient with our time and managing that time.”
“This is not just a business system.
This is not just conducting and facilitating the administration of our work.
This is a lifeline to our organization.”
How have Service Logistics Go and Service Scheduling helped you and your teams’ workflows?
Kent: “The neat thing was that we’ve had some input and worked alongside DIS, which I’ve been grateful for, to try and make sure it was tailored. And one of those features that we really were integral in bringing out was the queue function.
What we found with the queue function was that the technician knew what was coming next, which he wanted to know and was grateful for knowing because they like to know what’s coming. He felt a significant purpose because now he has two or three or four, or five jobs lined up.
Then between him and the service manager, they could facilitate the order, and having the flexibility in that queue feature allows us to do that.”
What is your favorite Service 360 feature?
Kent: “I do like the scheduler. I do like the calendar feature, how you can drag and drop it onto the calendar and into the queue. That’s really nice to go back in and look at the pictures.
Warranty is the hard part of what we do. There are often questions, especially on big repairs. Being able to go back in and as a service manager and look at it and look it up quickly to answer those questions is a huge, huge, huge benefit.”
Read Next: How to Make Your Dealership’s Customer Service Ready for the Digital Future
Do you have any advice for someone looking for a dealership management system?
Kent: “There’s a number of business systems out there, some in the industry and some not in the industry, that are options, and I keep coming back to the people at DIS that make a big difference.
I think that’s what’s kept us engaged with DIS for so long is, at the end of the day, if we call, you answer, and we get somebody to call us back. And this goes back to our competitive advantage as a dealership – this is the way we see the world.
It’s not just a service we provide. We do it with who we are and who we want to become, and as a result, we get to know you, and we get to connect with you.”
