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Lucra AI  /  Case Studies  /  Caravan Workshop
AUTOMOTIVE · CARAVAN SERVICING

The whiteboard ran the business for 11 years. Replacing it recovered $487k a year in workshop capacity.

A four-mechanic caravan workshop was losing a fifth of its service slots to no-shows, with the owner fielding 15+ rebooking calls a week. We replaced the diary, the reminders, and the intake. The no-show rate collapsed.
CLIENT
Caravan Workshop
Tweed Heads, NSW
Established2015
TeamOwner + 4 mechanics
Engagement9 weeks
SectorAutomotive workshop
+31%
Productive workshop hours per week
$487k
Annual revenue recovered
5%
No-show rate (down from 22%)
9 wks
Time from kickoff to live
BACKGROUND

Eleven years of caravan servicing, four mechanics, and a workshop diary that lived on a whiteboard.

The owner-mechanic has run this caravan workshop out of Tweed Heads since 2015. Caravan and RV servicing, mostly grey nomads and weekend warriors heading north for winter, occasional fleet work from local hire mobs. Four mechanics, a tight bench, deserved reputation. The work is good. The shop floor is excellent.

The booking system was a 1.8m whiteboard nailed to the office wall. The owner or his receptionist would take a call, write a customer's name and van type into the next available slot, and underline it in red if they'd mentioned a particular issue. Three to four week wait times were normal. Caravan servicing demand is seasonal and concentrated.

The catch: when wait times stretch to three weeks, 22% of customers don't show up. Plans change. Vans get sold. Some forget. He'd fire up the workshop on a Monday with a 7am booking and a 9am booking. One of them wouldn't arrive. The other would arrive and the parts hadn't been ordered because he hadn't seen the van yet.

WHAT WE FOUND

Three problems all chained off the same root cause: no commitment at booking, no information before arrival.

GAP 1
22% no-show rate, no deposit
Customers booked a slot 3-4 weeks out with zero commitment. By the time the slot came up, plans had changed for one in five. The mechanics arrived to no van and no parts to work on.
GAP 2
No info captured before arrival
Vans arrived with a vague description ("brakes feel off"). Diagnostic took half a day before the right parts could be ordered. Parts arrived 2-3 days later. The van sat idle. The mechanic's time wasn't billable until then.
GAP 3
Owner fielded 15+ rebooking calls per week
No-shows triggered chase-up calls. Customers who'd forgotten wanted to rebook. The receptionist couldn't see slot availability without walking to the whiteboard. Every rebooking ate 10 minutes of the owner's time.
WHAT WE DID

Move the diary off the wall, hold a deposit, and get the parts ordered before the van arrives.

We didn't try to digitise the existing process. We redesigned it. Booking now happens online with a $80 holding deposit. A pre-service intake form (van model, year, what's wrong, photos) is required at booking. That intake feeds straight into the parts ordering workflow so when the van rolls up on the day, the parts are already on the shelf.

NEW BOOKING + SERVICE FLOW
BOOKING (3-4 WEEKS OUT)
Customer hears about the workshop
→
Visits site, sees slot availability
→
Fills intake form + photos
→
$80 deposit, slot locked
PREP (DURING THE WAIT)
Intake form auto-creates job ticket
→
Likely parts pre-ordered
→
7-day reminder SMS
→
24h confirmation SMS
SERVICE DAY
Customer arrives
→
Mechanic starts work immediately
→
Parts already on shelf
→
Same-day or next-day turnaround
THE DIFFERENCE

Twelve weeks before and the first twelve weeks after.

BEFORE
No-show rate22%
Deposit at bookingNone
Diagnostic time per job2-4 hrs
Parts ordered aheadNo
Owner's rebooking calls / week15+
Mechanic billable hours / week~108
AFTER
No-show rate5%
Deposit at booking$80
Diagnostic time per job<30 min
Parts ordered aheadAuto, from intake
Owner's rebooking calls / week2-3
Mechanic billable hours / week~142
THE RESULTS

Twelve weeks after the new system went live.

17pp
No-show rate drop (22% to 5%)
$487k
Modelled annual revenue recovered from capacity uplift + reduced rework
+31%
Productive workshop hours per week
FROM THE OWNER

From the owner.

The whiteboard ran my life for 11 years. I thought I needed a bigger workshop. Turns out I needed the diary to actually be a diary and the parts to be on the shelf when the van arrived. Now we know what's coming in three weeks ahead, the parts are ordered, mechanics are productive from 7am. We're doing more work with the same four mechanics. I should have done this six years ago.
OP
Owner
Caravan Workshop
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