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welcome everybody to service driver
revolution
and your friday drive-by where we answer
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sdr
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by calling in 8333 ask sdr and we have
we have a couple great questions today
i'm pretty excited about so let's get
right to it i am a service manager that
just recently inherited a store a few
months ago and i was discussing with one
of my service advisors
about the fact that his penetration of
sales of
preventative maintenance was
considerably lower
than the other advisors i have in the
store so we were having a conversation
and during the conversation i you know
kind of questioned them why do you think
your
preventative maintenance penetration is
much lower than everyone else
and he looked at me and he said
i am afraid to sell preventative
maintenance to customers because i'm
afraid that they're going to give me
bad csi scores for my surveys okay ron
so i
i need to kind of establish
just the basic architecture of how a
service department works
and then then we'll talk about the
individual advisor
after that so the the
thing that we want to understand is
in in the good old days way back when
the customers pulled right in the shop
and they talked directly to the
technician
and
that became ineffective for a couple
reasons one is that technicians weren't
efficient
because you know they're helping
customers and working on cars and then
also just you know the paperwork
communication
parts you know all of the aspects
that uh
have to be handled all the details that
have to be handled it wasn't efficient
for the technician to be doing that so
we added a layer of expense called
service advisors and a service advisor's
role was
to
improve communication to the customer to
advise recommend on how the customer can
keep themselves in a safe and dependable
vehicle in the long run right
and uh communicate with the technician
coordinate paperwork accounting all all
of those things to keep the technicians
in the back doing the thing that that uh
makes us money which is turn
hours
so that layer of expense that layer of
personnel
was to improve the process
so i i always kind of bring up this
little reminder that if the customer
could pull right in the shop and deal
directly with the tech
and it would be better
than why do we have service advisors
what are they there for right
so i just
i i want to set that basic
frame or basic understanding
before we get to the local part which is
your individual
advisor so
an advisor that that feels like oh i'm
not gonna i'm not gonna save customers
money in the long run
i'm not gonna recommend something
because i'm afraid
that i'm going to get a negative
csi
uh
is not in a sense really because
the service advisor doesn't really
believe in what they're doing
two they're they probably are not very
good at petting the dog and making
friends with customers and building
trust
and so a service advisor's role is to
build trust and make friends with the
customers get to know them on a personal
level become a friend
and not just an acquaintance that's
doing a transaction in a sense
and uh i i always say you guys have
heard me say this a bunch of times if
you wouldn't recommend it to your mom
don't sell it but if you have a service
advisor that doesn't believe that
alignment save tires or that you know
power steering eventually would prevent
the need for a power steering rack for
two thousand dollars
or the brake fluid
doesn't break down or you know then uh
they probably should be working for nasa
and not for us because they clearly
understand something that we don't
understand so a service advisor's role
is to keep the customers in a safe and
dependable vehicle
and it's proven that preventative
maintenance i think the stats by the car
care council we talk about this in our
advisor training is like
it's
you can look it up on google but
whatever it is
for every dollar you spend on
maintenance it's pretty dramatic what
what you save in repairs in the long run
so i think your advisor just needs to
understand that if they're making
friends with customers and building
rapport
and honestly suggesting things that
customers need and they can't pull that
off without getting a negative csi
they probably aren't meant for the
service drive because it's pretty easy
customers
uh expect to maintain their cars
it's you know if we're over selling or
we don't know how to uh make friends or
deliver things in a way that people
don't hate us then yeah maybe but um
that you know that's a
that's a pretty uh tough situation to be
in
that we're allowing that in the drive
honestly um
so
you know maybe give them some training
on maintenance and have them spend some
time in the shop to understand how the
fluids break down
and have have a technician explain the
benefits to them maybe also might help
but uh
that's why advisors are there i mean the
the
job is called service advisor that's the
whole purpose of it
so that's my thoughts on it thanks for
the question
next one i wanted to know
how you guys felt about the manufacturer
surveys and how in depth they're getting
nowadays
for instance nissan just came out with a
question do you feel like
the advisor was trying to upsell you on
something that wasn't needed
or you know was the vehicle fixed right
the first time and especially now during
covid
um
you know trying to get parts and people
having to come back two or three
different times
and the questions that they're asking
about
you know was your car fixed right the
first time
how do you guys feel about that and um
kind of how
uh you guys suggest getting around that
with a customer and trying to overcome
that i'm sorry you gotta come back for a
second or third time cool thanks for the
the question christian that that's a
good one
um i would like to point out that my
trusty sidekick christian is not here
because he's actually out in the field
think about this for a second christian
in the sense that
what we're saying is the manufacturer is
asking the customer how they felt
and so
let's separate ourselves from the idea
of we're selling
alignments we're selling water pumps
we're selling breaks what you know
whatever it is
and let's think about what we've really
been in the business for a long time of
doing which is managing feelings
and
that that question shouldn't scare us in
the sense that if we're really
genuinely taking care of our customers
connecting with them on a deeper level
and then recommending what they actually
need
and in an empathetic way that isn't
pushy
they're not going to feel like we're
trying to sell them something they
didn't need right
the only time they're gonna feel that is
if we don't connect if we're running
them through like a number if we have
service advisors writing 25 ros and
barely any time to touch anybody make
friends with them let alone follow up
yeah customers feelings are going to be
on the negative side on just about
everything and so i would just think
about your process
in the sense of don't think about it
as far as
the you know
we're uh
we're writing them up we're selling them
this or whatever but think like how
would i feel if i came in and this
happened and i was told this or i was
greeted this way
and think about it from the context of
feelings
and that's really what we've always been
in the business of but we kind of take
it for granted because
in the service department they aren't
buying something
that uh
is aspirational most of the time they're
buying something they need right
customer comes in
on the hook on a tow truck
they have to fix it
or they're you know or they're gonna
take it to a junkyard so
understand that um
when they come in for maintenance they
kind of have to maintain it right when
they come in for
breaks
diagnosis anything else they kind of
have to and so
we we have a captive audience in that
sense and i think that has caused us
over the years to take for granted the
fact that we're actually in the business
of managing
expectations feelings emotions and we
probably as an industry could do a
better job there
so maybe go through your process or have
your wife go through the process and
give give you uh a you know unbiased
opinion of how different things in the
steps made you feel or made them feel
and manage feelings but
that's it's probably at the end of the
day a good question not not a bad one in
my opinion and then you ask a question
about uh how do we manage fixed right
um
i think customers understand
that uh there's issues with parts
and once again we're managing
expectations and feelings
and so i've seen
more than a couple times in my career
that we totaled the customer's car
and the advisor still got perfect csi
because of the relationship the advisor
had with the customer
and that just to me is proof that if the
advisor has equity
and has built trust over time and our
processes support that
it's real easy to say hey you know
nissan's going to reach out to you and
they're going to ask you if this was
fixed right
big stripe means we had the part we
don't have the parts so we don't have
the opportunity to fix it right so
please answer the question accordingly
and
if we have any sort of equity they're
going to understand that and we can we
can educate them in that way but
when we're not managing emotions and we
don't have equity and trust then we're
leaving those sort of things a chance
and i personally hate to leave csi to
chance i want to do everything i can in
the process
to
endear the customer to us so we have
equity and they like us
versus it's just an exchange of you know
a commodity for money and you don't want
to be in that situation so
take a look at your your processes and
just understand the game you're in is
managing feelings
not selling uh an oil change and if you
do that you'll you know you'll approach
it a little bit different great question
thank you so much
um thanks everybody for that remember
the number is 8333 ask sdr if you have a
question and we'll see you again real
soon on service drive revolution
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