How Does The Miles Virtual Service Agent Schedule Appointments?

Your Miles Virtual Service Agent will respond to customers and work to schedule appointments on your behalf. To do this, Miles uses customer information to determine the vehicle they are bringing in and your Appointment Settings in Retention Pro to offer available times, available services, and drop off/loaner options. When a customer selects a time, service, and provides their information; the appointment will be created as either Pending or Confirmed, depending on your settings.

How To Configure Settings:

• Go to Service at the top of your screen and select Appointments from the left side menu.

• Select the Setup button at the top right of the Appointments screen.

• Once you click the Setup button it will open another page with menu options to select including Calendar, Services, Scheduler, Website Integration, Calendar Feed, Pending / Confirmation Messages, Available Vehicle Makes, and Max Multibooking.

• You will want to confirm/adjust the settings in:
  • Services - These are the services that your customers will be able to select from when scheduling appointments.  The default duration for those services can be set next to the service and will be used to determine the length of the appointment.
  • Scheduler - Hours that your shop is available for appointments, how many hours in advance an appointment must be scheduled, and appointment time intervals.
    • Also use the toggles for Drop Off / Stay with Vehicle Selector, Ride Available?, and Loaner Available? as Miles will offer these options to customers.
  • Pending / Confirmation Messages - The messages your customers receive when an appointment they requested has been added to your schedule.
    • There is a toggle on this page that says "Auto-confirm all new incoming appointment requests" - This toggle controls whether the appointments Miles creates are Pending or Confirmed.
      • If this toggle is turned off, any appointments Miles creates will appear as Pending in your Retention Pro system until you manually review and confirm them.
  • Max Multibooking - The maximum number of appointments that can be scheduled per time slot.
• Then select Management at the top of your screen and find the Miles Service Drive option in the Company Settings menu.
  • Make any necessary adjustments to "Operating Hours Display" as this is how Miles will discuss your business hours with customers.
    • Example: A customer says they want to schedule an appointment on Thursday at 6pm but your available hours listed are "Thursday 10am-4pm".  If you have put those hours in this box Miles will respond "I can help with that. On Thursday our business hours are from 10am-4pm. Would you like to book an appointment during those hours on that day?"
      
      

Example of a conversation with a customer scheduling an Appointment

• Customer - "I need to schedule an appointment"
  • Miles sees the vehicles on their profile and asks them which vehicle they want to bring in
• Customer - "My Ford F150"
  • Miles provides available services for the customer to choose from
• Customer - "It will be for an oil change"
  • Miles asks what date/time they would prefer
• Customer - "tomorrow at 8am"
  • Miles notices that the time requested is unavailable and offers up to 5 alternative times
• Customer - "Thursday at 9am will work"
  • Miles asks if there are any additional notes for the appointment
  • If your shop has wait/drop off/loaner options available Miles will also ask the customer about their preferences.
• Customer - "Nothing else and I will wait with my vehicle"
  • Miles provides a summary of the appointment information and asks them to confirm
• Customer - "Yes, that is correct."
  • Miles books the appointment and sends the customer a confirmation.

For more on the Miles Virtual Service Agent please see:
How Does Miles Interact With Customers?
Enabling the Miles Virtual Service Advisor
Configurations and Settings for the Miles Virtual Service Advisor