Mistake number one: Wearing too many hats at the dealership which results in too many interruptions.

Most often the warranty administrator gets pulling in many directions while working at the dealership. Here are a few examples:

They are most often the backup for the cashier. I have often seen the warranty admins come in early to get a jump on the day only to find that they spend most of that time getting up and down to help customers before the cashier gets to work. Then the cashier takes lunch and the admin again finds themselves losing yet another hour of their day. No one realizes that now the warranty admin has effectively cut their workday down to 4 hours of productive time actually doing their own job.

I have also witnessed them doing service manager functions like payroll, taking the manager’s certification tests, misc spreadsheets for the service manager, keeping up on all technician certifications, and calling customers to set up appointments or service follow up calls.
All these extra job functions take time away from doing what is important: proper warranty administration that collects money due to the dealership and protects the dealer in audit situations.

Mistake number two: The service manager wants nothing to do with warranty which results in the warranty administrator turning into a shouting machine that no one hears.

When I hear this comment from service managers, “I want an in-house warranty admin so I don’t have to deal with warranty.” I know the warranty administrator is going to have to adapt by turning into a shouting machine or they will end up quitting.

The warranty admin has no ability to hire or fire technicians or advisors. All the admin can do without service management involvement is to shout, scream, threaten, or quit. What ends up happening is that the warranty administrator just yells to try to get technicians to put in proper comments and time punch correctly. They are after the same tech every time and nothing ever gets any better. But the tech thinks the admin is mean and cranky.

Then the admin is also up and yelling at the advisor for not checking the VIN inquiry, and guess what? They ignore the yelling and go on about their business of making the same mistakes.

The only way to get the shouting to stop is to put a system into place that puts the service manager smack in the middle of holding his people that he can hire and fire, accountable for their actions. The warranty admin can arm the manager with mistakes, but the manager must hold his people accountable to fix their own errors to stop the bleeding.

Mistake number three: Cramming claims through the system to get the job done.

The schedule needs to be clean, the open RO list needs to be done, it’s payroll, it’s the end of the month, or the admin just is overwhelmed. These are all reasons that claims get pushed through the system that should have been corrected to meet policy prior to submission.

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