A hoist throws a fault at 7:15 on a Tuesday. The service manager tags it out, rings the tech they always use, and rebooks two customers. Group facilities hears about it on Friday, when someone asks why that bay has been empty all week.
Dealer groups run workshops that only earn when bays are live and showrooms that only sell when the floor is comfortable. Every rooftop has its own service manager, its own phone full of contractors, and its own version of whether the job is done.
OpsChase puts workshop, showroom and yard maintenance across your dealerships on one queue: manufacturer-required vendors and local contractors in calling order per site, follow-up through to close-out, and every stalled job visible to group facilities before it shows up in the roster.
A dead bay is a roster problem, not a maintenance ticket
A compressor trip, a hoist defect, a jammed roller door or a wash bay pump that will not prime does not just wait in a queue. It takes a bay off the roster, pushes bookings, and leaves technicians on the clock with nothing to lift.
The repair usually happens. The problem is everything around it. Nobody else knows the contractor was called. Nobody knows if they confirmed. If they cannot attend until Thursday, the service manager finds out by calling again, and the regional manager finds out not at all.
Dealerships need the work order to carry the rooftop, the bay or area, the trade, the attend-by time and the proof your group expects. Once it is on the job, the follow-up belongs to the platform instead of whoever remembers to ring back after close.
Manufacturer-required vendors and local contractors on the same job
Most dealer groups live with two contractor lists. Some trades and fit-out items are tied to brand programmes and approved vendors. Everything else runs on the local electrician, plumber and refrigeration tech who know that site.
Import both and set their order per rooftop and trade. Where a brand programme names the vendor, that vendor gets the job first. Where it does not, your regular local firm leads.
The regular contractor order settles the question that otherwise turns up after the invoice: who was meant to attend this site for this trade.
Showroom comfort sells cars
A showroom that is hot on a Saturday afternoon, a flickering light over the hero display, or a front door that sticks reads to buyers as a dealership that does not look after things. Sales staff report it to the dealer principal. The dealer principal emails facilities on Monday.
Raise showroom air conditioning, lighting, doors and signage the same way as workshop plant, with an attend-by time set by priority.
Planned servicing keeps faults out of trading hours
Hoists, compressors, extraction, fire equipment, wash bays and heating, ventilation and air conditioning all need regular servicing and inspection records. When those schedules live in a spreadsheet per site, some rooftops slip and nobody notices until a fault or an audit.
Put planned maintenance on the same queue through scheduling. Services get offered to the regular contractor ahead of time, attend outside peak workshop hours where you set it, and close with the record attached. Licence, insurance and induction status sit on the contractor through contractor compliance, so the team can check them before the visit, not after.
Proof from the bay, not "all sorted"
A text that says the hoist is fixed does not help when a technician asks whether it is safe to lift, or when head office wants to know what the group spent on compressors this year.
Set proof templates per trade: photos of the bay or plant, service reports for hoists and compressors, certificates for electrical, gas and fire work your sites need. Proof of completion means group facilities can check any rooftop from one screen instead of sending someone out to look.
What the group sees with every rooftop on one queue
With dealership maintenance on one queue:
- Service and sales managers raise from site and see their own rooftop.
- Group facilities and regional managers see every open and stalled job across the network.
- Manufacturer-required vendors and local contractors are in calling order per site.
- Planned servicing runs on the same queue as breakdowns.
- Photos, reports and certificates are attached to the work order.
Service managers still know their techs by first name. The difference is that the work order, not the phone, holds the record.
Starting with the rooftops that hurt most
Pick the dealerships where bay downtime or showroom complaints come up most. Import those sites, your brand-programme vendors and each site’s local contractors. Set site-scoped roles for service, sales and dealer principals. Set proof templates for hoists, compressors, heating, cooling and electrical. Raise the next workshop fault into OpsChase instead of another phone call.
Read the dealerships industry page or book a demo with your rooftop list and contractor books. Check pricing when you are ready to put every dealership on one flow.
Every bay off the roster costs a booking. Put the repair on one queue, follow up the right contractor until the work is done, and know which rooftops still have work open.