Red Bay Service: Online Reservation System Operational

Monday, 1 October

This post will be of most interest to fellow-Tiffin owners; especially those who are not aware of the new online service reservation system that went into effect at 7:00a Central today.

Part of our full-timing plan calls for a visit to Red Bay, Alabama to give the Phaeton a full check-up before we really get on the road.  In addition to wanting everything checked out, we also have a few repairs that need to be taken care of — such as getting the driver-side window replaced (broken seal) and having the levelers fixed (we’ve not had levelers since we had to have one leg amputated in April – post here).  On our lengthy list is also such things as having the existing lights replaced with LEDs and converting the hamper to shelving or drawers.

Not all of the work will be done by Tiffin, but everything hinges on getting the Tiffin appointment first.  You can do one of two things if you want to have service done in Red Bay — just show up and hope for the best, or you can get an advance appointment.  Our druthers was for the latter.

Tiffin had has had an odd system in place where they open up their phone lines for Tiffin owners to call in for quarterly appointments on select dates.  For example, for January-February-March 2013, the phone lines opened at 12:00a Central (1:00a EST) on 1 October (today).  Appointments go fast, so we were prepared to set our alarm to make the call in the wee hours of the day.

Then, out of the blue, we learned that an online reservation system was being instituted and it would become operational for the first time on 1 October.  We have no idea how widely publicized the new system is.  We didn’t get a notice from Tiffin — either by snail mail or email — and there’s no announcement on the Tiffin website (at least none that we could find).  Mui learned about it by happenstance when he was browsing the Tiffin RV Network (TRVN) and found a discussion thread on the topic.  (It’s the one forum Mui follows religiously; and highly recommends to all Tiffin owners.)

Needless to say, he immediately checked it out.  Again, no link to the system that we can find on the Tiffin website, so I’ll link to it here; new users have to register first.  Long story short, this is how we got our appointment for 7:00a Central on Monday, 4 February.

Snip of the registration page for the Tiffin online service request system.

Having already registered, it was a piece of cake for Mui to go on the website at the designated hour this morning, sign-in, select our preferred date, fill-in the requested information (last 8 digits of the VIN, for example), write a few notes about what we expect to have taken care of, and click the submit button.  He received instant online confirmation, which was immediately followed by an email confirmation.

Snip of The login page displays monthly calendars on the left side; and guidelines on
the right side; note that reservations are not available for October-December 2012.

(Note the ‘Existing Appointment Confirmation’ on the right [snipped from the website].  It allows the user to print out the details of the appointment, or cancel it as appropriate.)

Since this was the inaugural use of the online system — and we all know technology doesn’t always operate as expected — we did go ahead and also use the phone system to leave a request for a service reservation when the phone lines opened at 1:00a EST.

Better to lose a little sleep and double up on the appointment request this time.  After all, these appointments go fast.  Take a look at the calendar snip on the left.  I snipped this within two hours of the system becoming operational; several dates for the January-March period have already filled up.  Monday seems to be a really popular day to arrive in Red Bay ;-)

We’ve since left a second message to let Tiffin know we’ve gotten confirmation on our online reservation, so we don’t expect to hear back from them unless they have a question about what we want done when we get there in February.

We realize that having an appointment isn’t going to necessarily get us out of Red Bay fast — especially considering what we have on our list (which, by the way, is not all inclusive, but just a sampling).  What this appointment does is allow us to make plans for the non-Tiffin work we also want to have taken care of while we’re in Red Bay.  And even better, it allows us to finally plan out the first couple months of our life on the road — and that’s a good thing :-)