Appointment & Scheduling: the full procedure

Book every customer into the right bay and tech slot while capturing the vehicle and tire details needed to be ready before they arrive.

• Applies to: Service advisor / front-counter staff.
• Frequency: Every booking.
• Scope: Covers phone, online, and walk-in booking through confirmation and bay/tech assignment. Pricing and inventory checks follow your shop-management software’s quote tools.

What you need

• Shop-management / scheduling software
• Phone
• Tire-size / VIN lookup
• Appointment calendar
• SMS / email reminders

The procedure, step by step

1. Greet & identify need — Answer within three rings, get the customer’s name, and ask what they need — new tires, rotation, flat repair, TPMS, or seasonal changeover.
2. Capture the vehicle — Record year/make/model plus VIN or the tire size off the sidewall (e.g. 225/65R17) so the right tires and parts are confirmed before the visit.
3. Check availability & inventory — Confirm tires/parts are in stock or can be ordered in time, then offer the soonest realistic slot.
4. Size the slot to the job — Block longer windows for four-tire mount-and-balance than for a rotation, and add buffer time between jobs so the day doesn’t cascade behind.
5. Assign bay & tech — Schedule the job to a specific bay and a tech qualified for it, respecting daily capacity so no bay is double-booked.
6. Set walk-in expectations — For walk-ins, take the same vehicle/tire details and give an honest wait estimate or the next open appointment rather than overpromising.
7. Confirm the details — Read back the date, time, vehicle, and services, and note any drop-off vs. wait preference.
8. Send reminder — Trigger an automated text/email reminder one to two days out that lets the customer confirm or reschedule with one tap.

Quality check before you finish

• Vehicle year/make/model and tire size or VIN recorded.
• Tires/parts confirmed in stock or ordered before the slot.
• Slot length matches the job type.
• Bay and qualified tech assigned, capacity not exceeded.
• Customer contact number and wait/drop-off preference captured.
• Confirmation read back to the customer.
• Reminder scheduled to send before the appointment.

This is a free, source-anchored standard operating procedure (SOP) you can print and hand to staff. It documents the work sequence for a Tire Shop business — not safety or regulatory rulings, which defer to the cited authorities, the applicable code, and your own health-and-safety plan. Open the tool above to print it, toggle ink-saver, or (with a free ToolFluency Business account) edit it to match your own workflow.

Sources

• Tire Review — Scheduling as First Impression (tirereview.com)
• ASA Automotive — Automated Reminders Reduce No-Shows (asaauto.com)
• Shopmonkey / AutoLeap — Capture YMM/VIN/Tire Size (autoleap.com)