Towing volume in the service department
A busy franchise dealership service department generates 20-50 towing events per month across multiple categories.
Customer breakdowns: Vehicles that break down and need transport to the service drive. The most urgent category — a stranded customer is a loyalty moment in either direction.
Vehicle pickup service: Many dealerships offer to pick up customer vehicles for service, especially for elderly customers, corporate accounts, or high-value clients. A service advisor dispatches a pickup, the driver transports the vehicle, and returns it when the work is complete.
Post-service delivery: Returning a vehicle to a customer who cannot pick it up. Less common but valued by certain customer segments.
Loaner recovery: Picking up loaner vehicles from customer locations, accident scenes, or breakdown points.
Vehicles arriving with transport damage: New inventory or trade-ins that arrive with damage preventing them from being driven to the service drive.
The service advisor towing workflow
The service advisor is the primary dispatcher for most service department towing. The workflow needs to be fast enough that the advisor does not avoid it — if it takes more effort than calling a random tow company, advisors will revert to their old habits.
The ideal workflow is three inputs and 60 seconds: customer location, service drive destination, and vehicle description. The platform dispatches automatically, the advisor gets a tracking link, and the job is documented without any follow-up required.
This simplicity requires one-time setup work: configuring the dealership service drive as a default destination, building preferred operators into the platform, and training advisors on the two-minute process. After that setup, every dispatch is faster than any alternative.
Integrate towing dispatch into the service advisor daily routine rather than treating it as an exception. A towing module alongside the repair order system normalizes the dispatch process and ensures consistent use.
Documentation for service department towing
Service department towing documentation serves two purposes: liability protection on customer vehicles and service record accuracy.
For customer breakdowns: Photos at the breakdown location document the vehicle condition before the dealership takes custody. When a customer reports damage after a tow, you have evidence of the pre-tow condition.
For vehicle pickups: Document the vehicle condition at the customer location before loading. The customer should be present or available to acknowledge the pickup — a brief digital confirmation creates a clean custody handoff.
For post-service delivery: Document vehicle condition before loading at the service drive. This protects against claims that damage occurred during the return delivery rather than during service.
A dispatch platform enforces these documentation requirements automatically — drivers cannot complete a job without the required photos. The service advisor does not need to follow up or remind drivers.
Measuring service department towing efficiency
Three metrics tell you whether your service department towing operation is performing well.
Response time: How long from service advisor dispatch to driver arrival at customer location? Under 25 minutes is the target for customer breakdown situations in metro areas. The dispatch platform logs this automatically.
Advisor time per dispatch: How long does it take a service advisor to arrange a tow? Under 2 minutes is achievable with a well-configured platform. Over 5 minutes signals either a training issue or a platform configuration problem.
Documentation completeness: What percentage of tow jobs have complete photo documentation? Target is 100%. The platform enforces this through the driver workflow — a job without required photos cannot be marked complete. See how to set up comprehensive dealership transport documentation across all scenarios. See the full guide to towing customer vehicles for dealerships. See how to set up dealership towing dispatch.