It’s the first day of spring, clear blue skies and lovely warm weather. Life is blossoming everywhere as the people are out and about enjoying the sun.
Rodney, on the other hand, who owns an ever-popular bike shop, is running around trying to keep track of all the bikes coming in and going out of his shop. With the arrival of spring, people have been streaming into his shop for bike repairs and general maintenance.
Rodney has a passion for bikes and has been building custom bikes since 1996. He believes in superb customer service and it has made his bike shop a great success. But over the last year, as his shop has grown in popularity, the demand for repairs and general maintenance has increased, something Rodney did not quite expect.
He needs a solution. He is running around trying to keep track of all the bikes coming in for repairs and maintenance, and those bikes ready to go back to their owners. He hardly has time to focus on the general management of the shop, let alone managing the parts needed for repairs and maintenance.
What Rodney needs is a workflow that will handle the flow of bike repairs and maintenance. When customers bring in their bikes, they can quickly complete an electronic form containing all their information and what needs to be done to the bike. Reception can then “tag” the bike before it is sent to the repairs and maintenance workshop.
Once the customer has clicked the save button on the ‘Bike repair orders’ form two emails automatically will be sent out. One to the customer to confirm receipt of order and another to the repair technician notifying him/her of the repair. From there the technician can review the repairs/service, and continue to the “parts required” task.
The “parts required” form will allow the technician to indicate what parts, if any, will be required for the specific repair/service, if the parts are in stock or if the parts should be ordered. The technician also needs to indicate how many hours of labor will be required for this repair/service and what the estimate cost will be for parts plus labor.
Once the “parts required” form has been completed, an email will be sent to the customer notifying them of the cost involved in the repair/service. This email will have a link for the customer to click on, which will take them to a “Bike repair/service confirmation” form. Here the customer can choose to accept and continue with the repair/service or cancel it.
Should the customer wish to cancel the repair/service, and email will be sent to both the technician and customer notifying them of the cancellation.
If the customer decides to continue with the repair/service, an email will be sent to either the person responsible for purchasing or the stock controller, informing them of parts required for the repair/service.
As soon as the technician receives all necessary parts, he/she can continue with the workflow by completing the “parts received” form. Emails will be sent to the customer notifying them that their bike is in the process of being repaired and also to the repair team to continue with the repair.
Once the repair is done, the technician can complete the “job completed” form to indicate that the repair/service has been completed, final labor hours to be billed as well as a service report.
The person responsible for accounts will then receive an email, informing them of the repair/service that has been done. They can then compile the bill and another email will be sent to the customer notifying them of the final cost and that the bike is ready for collection.
To finish off the repair/service, reception can complete the last form in the workflow to indicate that the bike repair has been paid for and that the bike has been collected by the customer.
Rodney, in the meantime can manage his shop and focus on more important things than keeping track of the bikes coming in and out of his shop.
He can easily use this workflow to get an overview of all repair/services taking place in his shop and track how far each repair/service is. He can even follow up with customers who decided not to continue with the bike repair/service, thus building customer relations and improving his service offering.
Are you managing a different kind of repair/maintenance workshop? Such as:
- Vehicle repairs,
- guitar repairs,
- smartphone repairs,
- lawnmower maintenance,
- motorbike maintenance,
- or any other repairs and/or maintenance…
Well, we’ve already done a lot of the hard work for you!
Get a quick start by cloning this solution directly into a free Kotive account right now!
Then change it to fit how your workshop operates.
Bike repairs
The workflow is automatically copied into your account when you select it. Want to make one or two changes to fit your situation better? No problem!
Written by 
Hanri Heath
Stay on top of all the bikes coming in for repairs and maintenance, and keep their rubber on the road. #maintenance #workshops
