Pappas Toyota Drives Up Vehicle Service Appointments with TimeHighway.com's Online Scheduling Solution

When Pappas Toyota in St. Peters, MO, recently moved into a beautiful new facility, business exploded as the dealership was able to service customers better than ever before with14 service bays, an expanded showroom and customer lounge. However, one problem arose -- the extra traffic jammed up the phone lines, dealer personnel could not handle all the additional phone calls and customers began to complain that they could not get through. The dealership quickly implemented a real-time online service appointment scheduling solution by TimeHighway.com (www.timehighway.com). This solution alleviated the phone traffic and within just three months over 20% of their customers were scheduling service appointments online.

Naples, FL (PRWEB) January 8, 2008 -- When Pappas Toyota in St. Peters, MO, recently moved into a beautiful new facility, business exploded as the dealership was able to service customers better than ever before with14 service bays, an expanded showroom and customer lounge. However, one problem arose - the extra traffic jammed up the phone lines, dealer personnel could not handle all the additional phone calls and customers began to complain that they could not get through. The dealership quickly implemented a real-time online service appointment scheduling solution by TimeHighway.com (www.timehighway.com). This solution alleviated the phone traffic and within just three months over 20% of their customers were scheduling service appointments online.

"With TimeHighway our customers can make appointments online, any time and at their convenience. If a customer still wishes to call for an appointment, the system is so easy that anyone in the dealership can take the call and schedule an appointment. Prior to implementing TimeHighway, only our service writers were able to schedule appointments, which created inefficiency and limited the amount of calls we could handle at any one time," commented Ken Schneider, Pappas Toyota Service Manager.

It's great for load balancing the shop. Before we would just guess how many appointments were needed to fill the morning and afternoon, which would result in bottlenecks at certain times. With TimeHigway I can see at a glance what's been scheduled.

Once the system was installed, TimeHighway launched an announcement email and the dealership sent out a postcard to all 12,000 customers, offering a $5 oil change to any customer that scheduled online. The promotion was so successful that in just three months 20% of the more than 700 appointments scheduled each month were scheduled online. According to Schneider, this represents an extra 20 hours a month that his service department staff can now spend better servicing their customers, answering questions and up selling products and services.

The TimeHighway system integrates well with the dealerships' ADP Dealer Management System and enables the appointment to roll right into the Repair Order, which saves time and eliminates errors on data entry. The system also sends appointment confirmation emails, courtesy reminder emails, an email or text message notifying the customer when the services on the vehicle are complete and a thank you email after the vehicle is picked up.

According to Schneider, the system has also improved scheduling efficiency, "It's great for load balancing the shop. Before we would just guess how many appointments were needed to fill the morning and afternoon, which would result in bottlenecks at certain times. With TimeHigway I can see at a glance what's been scheduled."

Not only has the system helped reduce in-bound telephone calls with 20% of customers now scheduling online, it has also helped increase service traffic -- the number of overall service appointments scheduled has increased by 22% in the past five months.

TimeHighway.com replaces telephone-based scheduling with Internet technology that enhances the effectiveness and customer satisfaction of the dealership. By scheduling appointments directly through the dealer website, customers make confirmed appointments instantly without call-backs.

About TimeHighway.com:
TimeHighway.com was specifically developed for the retail automobile industry by retail automobile experts.

Most dealerships today still rely on the telephone for their customers to call and book an appointment. The concept behind TimeHighway.com© is to replace or enhance this telephone-based process with Internet technology to improve the effectiveness of scheduling appointments and offer new advertising and communication channels for dealerships and their customers. This is not an appointment request form; this is the premier real-time, online service scheduling system that is customizable to current dealership processes.

When the dealership's customer schedules their service appointment, they receive an immediate confirmation e-mail, as well as a courtesy reminder email the day prior to their scheduled appointment. The reduction in inbound telephone calls allows the service advisor to spend more quality time with customers, thus increasing the dollars per R.O., and increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty.

For more information contact Karen Dillon at office: 239-593-4620 cell: 239-438-5359 by email at kdillon(at)timehighway.com, visit the website at www.timehighway.com.

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