Acura Service Connect FAQ's

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Q. How do customers access the program to make an online appointment?
A. They go to the dealership website and click on Schedule Service Appointment. If you want the customer to select a preferred service advisor, they can click on the photo of the advisor. This will take them to the service appointment calendar, allowing them to schedule a real-time appointment.
Q. Does TimeHighway.com pass the appointment to my DMS system?
A. Yes, there is a seamless and immediate data transfer into ADP, Reynolds & Reynolds, DealerTrack, Lightyear and Automate.
Q. What if my DMS system is down?
A. You will always be able to review your appointments on the TimeHighway.com system and, when your DMS system is back up, the appointments will transfer.
Q. One of my other concerns is that no one actually “sees” the appointment since it is sent directly to the DMS. What if my customer has questions prior to the appointment and needs to be contacted?
A. We have solved that – if the customer adds any comments to their appointment, we send a “customer comment” to the dealership with all customer and appointment information, along with customer comments. This notification includes customer telephone number and email address, making it easy for dealership personnel in case contact is required prior to the appointment.
Q. Do my customers have a choice of contact method?
A. Yes, they can choose email, text or both.
Q. How do my customers know they actually have an appointment?
A. They receive a confirmation email or text message immediately after the appointment is made and a courtesy reminder email or text the day prior to the appointment.
Q. How do I make my customers aware of the availability of online service scheduling?
A. Some will find it on your website. We also send an Announcement email to all your customers for whom you have an email address, plus if there is an email address in the customer record, we generate a Welcome email when we import new customers into TimeHighway. Utilizing an “on hold” message making customers aware of the availability of confirmed, online service appointments is very effective. We recommend that the salespeople review the ease of online scheduling with the customer at time of delivery. We also provide a template for a customer information card with a QR code that provides the steps for online scheduling that can be placed in the customer lounge, by the cashier and on the sales floor, as well as given to the customer with their invoice.
Q. How does the customer change or cancel an appointment?
A. There is a link in their confirmation email, as well as in their courtesy reminder email that will take them directly to the appointment book and they can cancel or change the services, date or time. They can also go to your website, log in and access their customer profile and make the change from there.
Q. What percentage of my customers can I expect to schedule online?
A. Very quickly you will find 15-20% of your customers will book online. And, as more and more become aware of this convenience, this will increase dramatically. We have dealerships that are experiencing over 35% of their appointments being created by customers from their website. Q. What about customers that don’t show up for their appointment?
A. Due to the reminder notification, you will find that no shows are decreased considerably. However, there will be times when a customer does forget or has an emergency and isn’t able to keep the appointment. It’s simple for you to view which customers didn’t keep their appointment and an Edit button can be clicked to send a request to the customer to reschedule.
Q. Are the emails generic or can I provide the verbiage I want to use for my dealership?
A. Every email is totally customizable and can include HTML as well as text.
Q. How is my customer notified when the services on the vehicle are completed?
A. He can log into the dealership website to see the status of his repair or, if you choose, we can automatically generate an email or text message to the customer when the RO is invoiced advising him the services are complete and he can pick up the vehicle at his convenience. If you prefer that these not be sent automatically, the advisor can click the Edit bottom and choose “Ready for Pick Up”. You also have the option of placing a link “Today’s Service Appointment Status” on your website.
Q. The customer receives a confirmation email, a courtesy reminder email and a completion notification email or text message. Is there any other communication generated by TimeHighway.com?
A. Yes, there is the email that can be generated to the customer who doesn’t show up for their appointment and an automatic CSI Thank You email generated after the RO posts to Accounting. We also provide templates for declined/deferred services.
Q. If my advisor uses the DMS to schedule appointments, do those customers get the email/text communication from TimeHighway?
A. Customers with appointments that are made in the DMS will not get a confirmation email; however, they will receive all of the other email/text communications.
Q. What about a customer who walks in and we just open an RO?
A. These RO’s are imported into TimeHighway and those customers will receive the vehicle completion notification and CSI email, etc.
Q. I’ve been thinking about some sort of loyalty program to increase customer retention. Ideas? A.. We can provide tracking of loyalty programs for you if you want to offer a loyalty program based on customer pay dollars, we can track these dollars and include the points in the customer profile. You determine how you want the points utilized – for services or as down payment for a new vehicle.
Q. Can my customer see their service history?
A. Yes, customers can view service history.
Q. I have been thinking about putting something in my customer lounge so customers know when their services are completed. What do you have that can assist with that?
A. TimeHighway provides the ability for you to customize the information that you can display either on an LED Display Board or on a flat screen TV in your customer waiting area which can include the status of the customer’s repair. You can also include advertising banners if you wish.
Q. If I want to show service pricing to my customers, will the system allow me to do this?
A. Yes, you can elect to show pricing of all services to your customers.
Q. I have a printed service menu – can my customer access this?
A. Yes, we can display a PDF of your actual service menu to the customer.
Q. I have a real issue keeping the service menu updated, as parts pricing continues to change. Can you help me in this regard?
A. Yes, TimeHighway offers an eMenu product. This program provides dynamic service menus for the dealership for all factory mileage packages, as well as any dealer recommended services (if you wish to also include these). The appropriate menu is displayed to the customer based on year, make, model and mileage of vehicle. These menus are also used by the service advisors when reviewing needed services at time of write-up and their screen provides talk tracks explaining the benefits of specific services included in the maintenance package. We maintain all pricing of the menus.
Q. Can my customers schedule from my mobile website?
A. Yes – we provide the mobile URL for you to place on your mobile site and customers can schedule from their mobile device. We also track mobile appointments separately from web appointments.
Q. How easy is it for my customers to schedule from their phone?
A. You have the ability to activate specific services for mobile, so the customer isn’t scrolling through 60-70 services on their phone, allowing the customer to create a “Quick Appointment”.
Q. My service department books by service advisor and teams. Can the system handle that?
A. We provide total flexibility for booking the shop. We can accommodate shop loading for Lateral Support (each advisor has own team of techs); Global Time Bucket Hours (book by advisor, one big shop of techs); Resource Time Bucket Hours (multiple advisors share team of techs); Time Bucket Hours by Skill Level (services are assigned a skill level and tech hours are set up by skill level). We also offer the ability to book separately for Express or Quick Service. Plus you can see at any time the total numbers of hours booked and hours left to book for any particular day, by team and by shop.
Q. Who determines the services that are listed on the website for customer selection?
A. All services are totally customizable by each dealership.
Q. What if I want to continue to use my DMS to schedule those customers who call in?
A. You may do that. However, most dealerships elect to utilize TimeHighway internally as well as they want the service drive management and shop loading capability provided by TimeHighway. We set up a back-end matrix with all parameters. This allows anyone who answers the phone to take the call and schedule the appointment, as they don’t have to know op codes, how, what or when to schedule, etc.
Q. How do you access my customer database?
A. We import your customers into TimeHighway.com at time of setup and then poll your system on a nightly basis to maintain the database in TimeHighway.com.
Q. How does the system prevent customers from booking times that are unavailable?
A. We set up a back end matrix with all services, service duration, service depth and appointment time increments, so when services are selected – either by the customer or your internal personnel (if you elect to utilize internally) – the system will only show dates and times that are available for those particular services.
Q. My waiting area becomes extremely crowded on some days. Can I limit the number of appointments scheduled by customers who want to wait for service?
A. Yes, you can set up a depth of waiters per time slot. For example: I want each advisor to have an appointment every 15 minutes, but I only want 1 of these every 30 minutes to be a waiter, plus I don’t want any waiters during the lunch hour.
Q. I have reduced service hours on Saturday. Is it possible to limit the services for which I accept appointments on Saturday?
A. Yes, you can elect to flag services for which, when selected, Saturday just will not show as an available day for an appointment. Q. Am I able to limit the hours an appointment can be scheduled for particular services?
A. Yes, you can set both a start time and end time; for instance, I don’t want SOP appointments scheduled before 8:30 a.m. or I don’t want Engine Concern appointments scheduled after 3:00 p.m.
Q. How do I know if an appointment is a Drop Off, Night Drop or Waiter or whether the customer needs a rental car or shuttle service?
A. Unlike some scheduling tools, we can manage Night Drop separately from Drop Off. Each appointment will reflect a Type – D (Drop Off), DR (Drop Off w/Rental), DL (Drop Off w/Loaner), DS (Drop Off w/Shuttle), ND (Night Drop), W (Waiter), etc.
Q. Do you have anything like the Apple Store that shows customers that have appointments?
A. Yes, we can provide a URL for an “Arrival” Board that you can display on your service drive which will display all customers who have appointments for that day.
Q. My manufacturer has different scheduled maintenance intervals for different years and models. Can the system accommodate that?
A. Yes, we can attach specific scheduled maintenance with descriptions to any year, make and model of vehicle.
Q. I provide loaner cars to my customers. How do you handle those?
A. We set up the loaner inventory and track them as they are scheduled. We also have integration with TSD.
Q. There are times that when we schedule an appointment, we know that we are going to need customer’s car for multiple days – this always creates a problem with our loaner car inventory – can you assist with that?
A. We offer you the ability to have “Extended Loaner Scheduling”. You can book the car for 2, 3 or 4 days and the vehicle will be taken out of loaner car inventory for that period of time.
Q. We offer Shuttle Service to our customers; however, we have one shuttle at 7:30 a.m. that runs North and one at 7:45 a.m. that runs South. How can you accommodate that?
A. We have the ability to set up two separate shuttle service options with those specific times.
Q. We also offer Pick Up and Delivery, but have a limit as to how many we can schedule per day. How do you manage that?
A. We have the ability to set a “depth” for each day so that this service doesn’t get overbooked.
Q. How do I know what appointments are scheduled for a particular day?
A. You can view the Daily Log in TimeHighway.com which provides all information regarding each appointment. Or you can view on your ADP, Reynolds & Reynolds, Lightyear, DealerTrack or Automate appointment screen.
Q. What if I’m limited as to the number of particular services my shop can perform on a certain day?
A. We set up the depth for those services so that number can’t be exceeded and, if one of those services is selected and is fully booked for that day, the system will show the next date that is available.
Q. How do I handle it if I have a technician out of the dealership for training or on vacation? A. You advise our Help Desk and we adjust the time bucket hours for the days the technician is gone.
Q. We get a little frustrated with our current scheduler when the customer schedules a diagnostic service – the customer generally will just type in an “X” to get through the detail part of the service. What can you do to help us get more information about the customer’s concern?
A. We have what we call “Diagnostic Sub-items” that are specific to each concern. All the customer has to do is click the checkbox by each sub-item that reflects their current issue. An example for Brake Concern might be: Brakes Noisy, Brakes Grinding, Brakes Vibrating, etc. These then will print in the line-item comments prefaced by Customer States. These diagnostic sub-items also display for your internal personnel when they are scheduling through TimeHighway, making it easy for them to get more detailed information from the customer.
Q. What if my customer selects their preferred advisor, but that advisor doesn’t have the date/time available that the customer prefers?
A. Customer can click on First Available Appointment and choose the day of the week they want to come in and the schedule will reflect the advisor that has that date/time available.
Q. I know I need to get better control of my shop as far as dispatching the work and monitoring that – can TimeHighway assist with that?
A. We provide a color-coded Route Sheet that allows you to dispatch the job to a specific tech, mark the RO “In Shop” and adjust promise time and tech time, if needed. We also offer a “Shop View” URL that can be set up to display all open RO’s and their status against promise time. This display can be customized and also set to blink 10 or 15 minutes before promise time if the RO hasn’t been closed. It’s a great visual that each advisor, the dispatcher or shop foreman can quickly view to be certain there is not an issue meeting a customer’s promise time.
Q. It seems my advisors and techs spend a lot of time going back and forth from the shop to the drive and to my parts counter, which wastes a lot of time. Is there any answer for this?
A. We offer an Internal Chat feature which allows them to chat regarding a customer’s issue without leaving their workstations.
Q. Is there any ability to follow up the customer who has declined a recommended service?
A. Yes, the service advisor can select the declined service – “declined brakes”, at which time a calendar comes up – the advisor selects a future date, perhaps two weeks hence, and the customer will automatically receive a customized email on that date indicating they were recently in for service, recommendation was made to have brake repair….etc. Dealership can also include a coupon or a discount as part of the email if desired. Q. I want my service department to perform a multipoint inspection on every RO, but many times this gets missed. Can you prompt for this?
A. We can do better than that – we can automatically push any op code with every appointment so it prints on every RO.
Q. As we are currently performing a multi-point inspection on every vehicle. Do you have anything within your program that we could use?
A. Yes, we have an eMPI which can be completed that automatically creates a customer quote. Both the inspection and the customer quote can be emailed to the customer. Also, if the customer elects to defer one of the recommended services, we will automatically send that customer an email in 7-10 days regarding that specific deferred service, requesting that they schedule an appointment to have the service performed. Plus, next time the customer is in, you have access to that previous inspection and quote. The customer also has access to these in their customer profile.
Q. I have a real problem during the busy times of the day – so many calls come in and we just can’t get to them. How can TimeHighway assist with this issue?
A. We can help in several ways – as more customers begin creating confirmed appointments from your website, this will reduce inbound calls to service. We can offer a live call center that can take incoming calls for appointments or just provide “backstop” for these calls.
Q. We like to have a pre-work order which expedites the early morning “rush”. Can you assist with that?
A. Yes, we can customize your pre-work order that can be printed from TimeHighway and you can use that to do the vehicle damage walk-around, review services, up-sell the customer and obtain the customer signature for the work to be performed.
Q. We are always looking for ways to follow up to be certain our customers had a positive service experience. Can TimeHighway help with that?
A. You can elect to include a customized survey in your pre-CSI Thank You email that the customer can complete and, when clicking on “Submit”, the survey will be immediately returned to you.
Q. Can the system assist me in notifying my customers for whom their special ordered parts are in?
A. You can elect to generate an email or text message to these customers.
Q. I’m attempting to eliminate the backlog in the afternoon when people are coming in to pay for their service and pick up their vehicle. Can TimeHighway assist with that?
A. You can elect to use PayonLine. When the customer receives notification the services on their vehicle are completed, they can elect to use Express Pay.
Q. Am I limited as to the number of personnel who have access to the system?
A. No, your license fee provides unlimited access to the program. You can also log in even when you are out of town or out of the dealership as long as you have Internet access.