by Tim McDonnell

As part of our celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Mitchell shop management solution, we’ve compiled 20 helpful tips for Manager SE users. We reviewed literally hundreds of ideas and selected 20 awesome tips and tricks from shops using this software every day and participating in the Manager Forum, an interactive community of Mitchell 1 Manager SE users.

These tips have been shared by auto repair shops just like yours. In their own words, they discuss their experiences and ideas that make their workday better for all concerned – and that includes you. We’ll be publishing the tips here in the Manager SE blog — one at a time — over the next several months. Enjoy!

Manager SE Tip #7 – 

Handling Too Many Quotes on Our Work-In-Progress Screen

“We simply give out too many Quotes to customers. I am inquiring if there is any place in Manager to store these so they are not on my screen and in my face all day long. I usually wait for about a week, then print it, file it and delete it, but it would be nice to be able to just push it to another area just in case that customer comes in soon after that.”

1. “The best practice is to collect as much information as you can and create a Revision for the customer. If you can at least get the name, phone and vehicle basics, you then create a Revision that has the advantages of A) being out of view, B) pop-up reminders when they come back to have work done C) date stamping so you know if the quote pricing in Revisions is recent or old, and D) allows you to follow up with the customer during slow times (tie a recommendation to it). I know this takes time and may seem difficult during busy times, but in the long run I think you’ll find it worth it.”
2. “When a person comes in asking us to estimate their request, we create an Estimate. Once it’s made, we ask for an appointment. Yes = estimate stays and a time/date are added for the Scheduler. No = estimate data is moved to a revision and estimate is deleted. Simple! The only Estimates on my WIP are scheduled appointments. The only RO’s on my WIP are jobs in progress. The only Invoices on my WIP are completed jobs that have not been paid for or not yet delivered. When a customer comes in, we go to the schedule and open the estimate there. At this time it is converted to an RO and becomes visible on WIP. All RO’s n WIP are vehicles being worked on and all INV’s are completed work. When the invoice is paid and posted it goes off the radar.”

 

 

 

If you’d like to read more user tips on the Manager Forum, simply click on the Forum button in the toolbar of your Manager SE program (see graphic below). Even if you’re away from Manager SE, you can still be connected to this community on the Internet at www.managerforum.net and gain valuable insights from content shared by your peers. Take a moment to open the Forum and check out what you’ve been missing!