Processing a Repeat Customer Through the Greeter Station

The Greeter Station is designed to allow you to enter basic customer and service information. This function allows your technicians to meet customers before the actual service and gather vehicle and customer information to streamline the service. This information is sent to the bay stations and is accessed at a bay when the vehicle is being serviced. You can also process invoices at the Greeter Station just like you can at the Bay Invoicing Station. LubeSoft has two ways to process invoices, giving you a choice of the type of center you want to run.

• Bay/Waiting Room centers create invoices on the Bay Invoicing or Greeter screens and then send the invoices to the Cashier. A cashier at a separate terminal uses the Cashier Station menu option to ring out the customers. This type of center has one cashier console and one or more bay terminals.
• Drive-Thru centers create invoices on the Bay Invoicing screen. When the invoice is complete, the Cashier Screen automatically comes up. Drive-Thru centers have one or more terminals that have bay and cashier functions on each terminal.

After you have been using the system for a while, many of your customers will be repeat customers. When you enter the vehicle ID, if the system finds a matching vehicle ID, it assumes that the vehicle is a repeat customer and lists the information it has about the vehicle and the customer.

Use the following steps to process a repeat vehicle through the Greeter Station:

1. On the Main Menu, select Lubrication Menu.
2. Select Invoicing Menu (1).
3. Select Greeter Station (2) to receive the following screen. This is the first screen of the invoicing process and is displayed until you start the greeter process. All vehicles currently being invoiced (before they are sent to the Cashier Station) are listed on the screen in ascending order by work order number.

4. Fill in the Enter New Vehicle ID field (and State or Prov field, if required) and press [Enter]. The vehicle ID is generally the license plate number of the vehicle, minus any spaces or dashes. For example, “1 ABC-32” would be entered as 1ABC32. The vehicle ID can be up to 13 characters long, including the state abbreviation.

• The format of the vehicle ID is determined by the format set up in the Center Control File. If the vehicle ID is not in the format you specified in the Mask field on screen 6 of the Center Control File, you receive the following message: Vehicle ID does not fit template. Press [Enter] to accept the vehicle ID.
• If you enter a character that is set to be always excluded, you receive the following message: You cannot use ! in a license number (where ! represents a character specified in the Exclude Always field in the Center Control File, which was entered as part of the vehicle ID).
• You cannot create a second work order for the same vehicle ID if it has not been cashed out. If you try this, you receive the following message: Workorder already in progress for this customer. Press any key to continue.

If you are unsure of the vehicle ID or if you use another customer identification method, there are several ways to quickly find a returning customer record:

• Press [F2] from the Enter New Vehicle ID field to bring up the Name Lookup window. Type the customer’s name (format: last name; first name) or part of the name, and press [Enter] to receive an alphabetical list similar to the following. Do not include a space before or after the semi-colon (;). To select the correct customer from the list, press the arrow keys or press [F7] to move to the next screen of results.

• If you use VINs to track vehicles, press [F3] from the Enter New Vehicle ID field to bring up the VIN Lookup window. Type up to the last eight characters of the VIN and press [Enter] to receive a list similar to the following. To select the correct customer from the list, press the arrow keys, or press [F7] to move to the next screen of results.

• If you have the estimate feature enabled, you can search for a saved estimate by pressing [F6] from the Enter New Vehicle ID field to bring up the Estimate Lookup window (see below). Type the last name of the customer who has an estimate on file and press [Enter] to receive a list of customer names. To select the correct customer from the list, press the arrow keys or press [Enter] to move to the next screen of results. Once you pull up the saved Estimate, sales and customer information is automatically filled in on the Enter Invoices – Invoicing screen.

5. Once you enter a valid vehicle ID for a returning customer, you receive the following screen. Read the vehicle and customer information to check for accuracy.

6. Do one of the following:

• If the customer and vehicle information are correct, type Y at the OK to continue? prompt to receive the following screen.
• If you have accidentally accessed the wrong vehicle, type N at the OK to continue? prompt to return to the Greeter Station screen.
• If the vehicle information is not correct, you can continue greeting and change the vehicle information later, or abort the work order and change it in Maintain Vehicle History (1-4-1).

The following list explains the function keys at the bottom of the screen.

7. Review the information in the following fields:

ID

The system displays the vehicle ID of the vehicle you are greeting. (Display only)

Vehicle

The system displays the year, make, model, and engine size of the vehicle. (Display only)

Name

The system displays the customer’s last and first name. (Display only)

13. Fill in the following information:

Description/Color

Fill in a brief vehicle description (up to 25 characters). Entering the vehicle color is suggested. The value entered in this field is displayed in the Veh Desc field on the Maintain Vehicle History screen.

Oil Preference

Specify the type of oil requested by the customer.

Services

Enter up to seven services requested by the customer. A brief description is automatically filled in by the system. The Job Items and AddOns are not shown, but they will show up at the Bay Invoicing Station. Press [F1] to bring up a list of all the valid inventory item numbers you can put in the Services fields. By default, the list starts at the Full Service category (FS). Select an item from the list and press [Enter] to fill it in automatically on the screen. Press [F7] and [F8] to scroll through the groups of items until you locate the item you want. Use the Up and Down Arrows to select the item, then press [Enter] to fill in the item’s part number and description into the Services field. To get out of the Help PopUp without selecting an item, press [Esc] [Esc].

14. To receive the OK to send to bays? prompt, press [Enter] on a blank Services line.
15. Do one of the following:

• To return to the Oil Preference field, type N.
• To send the information to the Bay Invoicing Station screen, type Y. You return to the Enter New Vehicle ID field on the Greeter Station screen.

For additional instruction on invoicing vehicles, see the following articles:

• Using the Greeter Station
• Creating a New Vehicle Record Through the Greeter Station
• Processing a Repeat Customer Through the Bay Invoicing Station
• Processing a New Charge (Fleet) Customer
• Processing a Repeat Charge Customer
• Creating a Manual Vehicle for Vehicles Prior to 1980
• Creating a Manual Vehicle for Vehicles not Currently in the ESM
• Changing the Vehicle ID of a Repeat Customer
• Changing the License of a Repeat Customer
• Using the PopUp Menus