When Your Opinion Matters

I do find myself from time to time wishing that I had said something different. Most of the time this happens during the heat of the moment in a fight. However, I do find myself in positions where my opinion is considered important on almost a daily basis at work. The most recent of these times was Friday. I work as Warranty Administrator at a car dealership, and anything warranty related goes through me before it is submitted. A customer just out of warranty on their vehicle by only a matter of a couple months. The issue with the vehicle was one the customer had faced before. For situations like this, many dealerships have after Warranty Assistance through the motor company itself, where they will pay for certain repairs for a slightly extended period of time. The sales manager who had sold the customer the vehicle agreed to pay for half of the repair, but we were still looking at $400 of our budget on one vehicle. I made the suggestion to mark the labor dollar amount down to cost so that we used none of our after warranty assistance money. We would make no profit on the labor, but there would still be profit to our department from the parts that were installed on the vehicle. It was decided that my decision was a better alternative, because that money could be needed for bigger repairs in the future. Therefore, people did listen to me and my opinion mattered in this instance.