Season is coming.
You know it. I know it. And so does every customer who stored their unit all winter, never serviced it, and is now showing up at your door in full crisis mode — like you personally are responsible for the fact that they didn’t deal with it in October.
Here’s the problem. Most service departments don’t prepare for season. They just survive it. Units pile up. The phone rings nonstop. Technicians are stressed. Customers are angry. And somewhere in the middle of all of it, your service manager is trying to hold everything together with duct tape and whatever is left of their sanity.
It doesn’t have to be that way. (Hint: we go over all this in Service Manager Certification.)
The difference between a service department that thrives in season and one that drowns in it comes down to one thing: triage.
What Is Triage?
Think about how paramedics work at an accident scene.
They don’t grab the first person they see and start working. They quickly check everyone, figure out who needs what, and start communicating with the hospital about what’s coming. Fast. Clear. Organized.
That’s what your service department needs to do with units. And before you say, “Sara, we’re not paramedics!” I know. But this one process will change how your shop runs more than almost anything else you could do.
Triage in your shop means this: every day, you line up the units that came in, and a technician does a quick visual look. Not a full diagnostic. Not a two-hour deep dive. Just enough to see what’s going on, start a parts order, and give the service manager a rough idea of the repair and how long it will take.
From there, the service manager calls the customer, gets a go-ahead, and parts start pulling or ordering what’s needed. The repair gets scheduled in the next one to four days. No chaos. No guessing. No customers calling every hour asking if their unit is done yet — which, honestly, is worth the price of admission all by itself.
When Should You Triage?
Timing matters here, and there’s a reason for it.
Triage should happen an hour before lunch or an hour before the end of the day.
Why those two times? Because people want to leave. Technicians want to eat or go home, and that urgency creates focus. Hunger and quitting time are surprisingly powerful motivators.
There’s another benefit to triaging at the end of the day. It lets your technicians wrap up with a win. They assessed units, got things moving, and made progress. They leave feeling like something got accomplished. And when they come back tomorrow, they’re already thinking about the work ahead because your service manager told them what was coming before they walked out the door.
A technician who leaves in a bad mood comes back in a bad mood. Don’t underestimate that.
During slower times, triage once a day. During peak season, triage twice a day.
Three Things to Put in Place Before Season Hits
- Clean the units before they come in for triage.
Every unit should be washed before it gets evaluated, unless there’s an oil leak. A clean unit lets the technician actually see what’s going on. It also keeps your shop clean, which matters more than most people think. Dirt hides problems, and nobody wants to work in a disaster zone…including your technicians.
- Set up a lot system, so you always know where things are.
Nothing is more embarrassing than a customer calling to check on their unit and you have no idea where it is. And yes, this happens. I’ve seen it. Don’t be that dealership.
A color-coded tagging system works great. Flagging ribbon and cattle tags hold up in all kinds of weather. Assign a color to each stage of the repair process and tag every unit that comes in. No exceptions. You should always know exactly where every unit is.
- Build your communication plan before you need it.
This is where most service departments lose time — the phone. Customers calling to check on their unit over and over, as if calling more often will somehow make the part arrive faster. It won’t. But it will eat your service manager alive.
The fix is simple. When a customer drops off their unit, tell them you’ll reach back out within 24 hours with an update or estimate. Then do it. Text, call, smoke signals, pick your method and stick to it. Service managers who do this get back at least an hour every single day. Think about what you could do with that.
Also, meet with your parts manager once a day, ideally about an hour before your stocking order goes in, so parts are moving before the rush hits. And pull your techs together at the end of each day to tell them what’s first on their list tomorrow. Put the hardest job first and let them sleep on it. You’d be surprised how much it helps to come in already knowing the plan.
What Happens If You Skip All This?
You already know. You’ve lived it.
Units sit. Customers call. Technicians are reactive all day. Parts aren’t ready. Your service manager is running around putting out fires instead of managing the department. You’re busy, but you’re not profitable. And busy doesn’t pay the bills.
Triage is not complicated. It takes discipline, not genius. But if you put it in place before season hits, you will feel the difference fast.
If you want help building a full-service process — not just triage but the whole system — our Service Manager Certification walks through exactly how to do it. Step by step, with real tools you can put to work right away.
Season is coming. Get your shop ready before it gets here.
Sara Hey is the President of Bob Clements International, a dealership consulting firm that works with tractor, OPE, RV, trailer, construction, and marine dealers across North America.