Being a warranty manager means that you have to
operate as a double agent. You are first a liaison
for the customer, and you are also a liaison for the
manufacturer. Both sides have legitimate concerns.
The customer wants a repair performed under
warranty, and wants it to be free of charge to them.
The manufacturer wants to mitigate unnecessary and
sometimes fraudulent charges to them. You must
have the best interests of both the customer and the
manufacturer in mind, while at the same time, get
your techs paid and make a reasonable profit for
the company. This is not an easy task for sure. First,
you must build a rapport with the manufacture and
establish a high level of mutual trust. We are going
to assume at this point that the dealership and the
manufacture have mutually agreed upon procedure
and reimbursement rates. If possible, always deal
with the same person.
It is important to build on both personal and
36
professional experiences. If at any point either of you
feel like the other one is the enemy, then nothing
will go well, ever. Make it very clear from the onset
that you are there to protect the manufacturer, and
will only allow legitimate claims get to them. You do
this by walking the walk, and backing every claim up
with facts and effective communication. The customer
needs to know that you are going to bat for them,
but the only way you can be effective, is to only
present legitimate claims in a very ethical manner
to the manufacturer. The same thing has to happen
with the customer relationship as it does with the
manufacturer, again it is important to build that trust.
At this point we are going to assume that a thorough
PDI and honest walk thru with the customer happened
at delivery, and it didn’t come with any misguided
promises from staff at your dealership. Don’t make
promises that you will not or cannot deliver on, as
this is how you loose trust from all parties involved.
Having said that, the customer should know to have
reasonable expectations as to what can be covered
under warranty, and what won’t be. The bottom line
here is to create solidified relationships based on trust
and facts.
One of the best ways to build trust is to have very
clear and precise communication. Communication can
take on many forms in warranty such as, face-to-face,
telephone, fax, email, and texting. We use all of them
regularly to manage warranty claims and customer
expectations. When a customer comes in to us for a
no charge claim, we execute on our warranty claim
procedure. Document the customers request first, then
submit the claim. The only promise that we make to
the customer is, “we will get this submitted and go to
bat for you”. The first thing you absolutely must do
while the customer is present, is to take pictures of
everything that you can while making the list of all
the complaints. This serves several purposes and it lets
the customer know that you are documenting visual
complaints (if there is an exaggerated appearance
claim, this will cause the customer to rethink the
claim) and you now have before and after pictures
for the file. Finally, you will want to send them to the
continued on page 38
NATDA Magazine www.natda.org