As we mentioned a few weeks ago, the front end of a dealership includes the Business Office, New and Used Vehicle departments, and the Finance & Insurance department. However, the personnel up front only make up a fraction of the dealership’s entire staff that maintains business operations every day.

Let’s break down the important people who fuel the front end’s counterpart: the back end.

The Service Manager oversees all internal operations within the Service department, including hiring personnel and meeting business objectives. The Service Advisor’s role, however, is more external, as they schedule all appointments, sell services to customers, and serve as a point of contact for those customers.

Vehicle repair orders, or ROs, are created and assigned based on priority, promise times, and skill and availability by the Dispatcher. The Dispatcher keeps an eye on the status of every vehicle and reassigns workloads as they see fit.

Once the RO is created, Service Technicians take over to maintain and repair customer vehicles, using their expertise to recommend additional services.

To give you an idea of what this looks like, let’s say you need your oil changed. When you call the dealership to make an appointment, you’ll speak to the Service Advisor, who schedules your appointment. They will then pass your information along to the Dispatcher, who will create an RO and assign that to a Service Technician, who will actually perform the work on your vehicle.

In addition to the Service department, dealerships also staff the Parts department, which stocks and sells parts and other accessories for both the Service department and retail sales. The Parts Manager controls inventory, hires and manages staff, and works to order, process, and ship parts across the dealership.

The Parts department’s Counter Salespeople sell parts to wholesale, retail, and internal customers. Personnel such as a Driver and a Runner support the department by delivering and picking up parts from other dealerships and stores. The Inventory Clerk orders parts and monitors special orders.

Beyond the Parts department lies the Body Shop, which is staffed with a Manager, who works with insurance companies, works on repair estimates, and hires and manages Body Shop Technicians. Much like the Service Technicians, these technicians use their expertise to perform body work and warranty work on vehicles.

The back end’s personnel work hard to make car maintenance and repair as easy as possible. Now that you have a handle on the helpful humans behind the car dealership counter, click through Reynolds job openings here to join the evolving automotive industry.