By Rob Grant, Director Manufacturer Solutions, Lightspeed

I know what you are thinking … not another industry acronym to have to remember. RECT, or Repair Event Cycle Time, is simply the measure of time that it takes you to repair a customer’s boat, motor, or trailer in your service department. With many parts of the country having a limited boating season, any time a customer’s boat is in the shop for service is time they are not enjoying it on the water.

As Lightspeed has worked with the MRAA and other industry partners to determine ways to improve customer experience in the industry, we discovered service departments play a huge part in the overall customer journey.

Below, we have outlined key metrics you should be reporting on to begin your journey to reduce your RECT. Once you understand how you are currently doing, you will be able to create an action plan on ways to improve your processes and results.

What and How to Measure
In your service department, you typically have two types of customers:

• Internal – Sales Department, general maintenance, etc.
• Customer – This includes all work done for customers, whether it’s warranty or the customer paying for it.

It is best to strictly focus on the customer-facing service work since the idea of measuring RECT is to identify ways to improve the customer experience and ensure they are retained as boaters in the industry and customers of your service department.

Now that we have narrowed it down to just customer work, we want to identify the key areas in the service process that affect RECT. These include:

• Labor Metrics
  • Start Days – Time between write up to the first labor entry.
  • Job Days – Time between the first labor and last labor completed.
  • Delivery Days – Time between the last labor and customer pickup/RO completion.
  • Days to Complete – The total time between the write up and customer pickup.
• Part Metrics
  • Identification Days – Time between write up and ordering parts.
  • Lead Days – Time from ordering parts to receiving parts.
  • Repair Wait Days – Time between parts being received and customer pickup/RO completion.
  • Days to Complete – The total time between the write up and customer pickup.

In your Dealership Management System (DMS) reporting modules, you can create a report or access templated reports that will allow you to report on these metrics. Knowing where you stand will help you identify areas for improvement.

Once you know your situation, it’s good to see how you stack up with others. Lightspeed has created an industry aggregate report available for your service department to benchmark against. You can find it on our website: www.lightspeeddms.com/resource–hub/data–services/

Also, you can subscribe to Lightspeed Industry Benchmarks, which provides a side–by–side comparison of your performance vs. the national RECT numbers and other department metrics.

In this RECT overview series the next few months, we will offer best practices that you can implement to work as efficiently  as possible for the upcoming season.

About Lightspeed
Lightspeed, an MRAA Strategic Partner, offers ongoing product innovations to help dealers service units more efficiently, getting marine customers out on the water faster. To learn more about Lightspeed, visit www.lightspeeddms.com/.