Transparency is key – This is the hardest one in our business since we have a history of doing just the opposite and our customer’s guard is up. In order to accomplish this, you need to make certain that you are doing everything possible to allow the customer to relax their guard. Empower your customer and engage your customer early during the repair process by offering choices and listening and asking clarifying questions. Do not be afraid of transparency and simply embrace it. Both customers and employees enjoy transparency

Remember that customers are people – This is one I hear on the service drive every day. We associate customers with their vehicles and then naturally when it comes time to discuss needed repairs we are thinking of the vehicle instead of locking in and listening to the customer. The challenge would be to remember your customer by name by remembering a fact about them instead of the model and color of their vehicle. This type of name recognition will help you build a relationship with the customer instead of their vehicle.

Use humor to help lighten the mood – In no means do I intend you to suddenly become a stand-up comedian when dealing with a customer, actually that type of behavior could cause the adverse effect and our customers will see right through it. Nothing is more upsetting than asking for a product and having a clerk or owner be rude. In contrast poking fun at yourself will help the customer feel more comfortable so that he or she can better open up to you about their need.

Treat others the way you would like to be treated – Ok this is one that has been taught to us since we were old enough to remember and understand so why is this simple behavior so easily forgotten? Put yourself in the customers’ shoes and provide the same level of service and respect you would want. This classic lesson is a simple task that will help create trust.

Use open body language – Get out from behind the counter, smile, engage in open conversations, make eye contact; our customers can tell consciously and sub-consciously how you feel being around them. Simply be yourself, every customer interaction is unique and should be treated that way, keep it simple and don’t overthink it.

Relationships take significant time and effort to build, but can fall apart quickly. Do not take the relationship for granted, appear apathetic and the rapport will fall apart faster than you built it, guaranteed. Use these simple steps to avoid the pitfalls and start cashing in on the currency of trust in your service drive. 

As a service director or general manager, I would encourage you to spend time on the service drive to observe and listen to the conversations your service advisors are having on the service drive with your customers. I would be willing to bet that after a few minutes your level of frustration will reach a boiling point. Today, this moment, is the exactly the right time to get back to the basics of performing a proper write up that will help you build a strong foundation with the customer. This foundation will be the building block of creating exceptional customer service scores, customer retention and along the way you will sell more service.

Generally speaking the conversation will go something like this:

Advisor - “Hi how are you today, how can I help you”?

Customer – “’I’m here to have my oil changed”

Advisor – “ok great, are the keys in the vehicle?”

Customer – “yes they are in the ignition”

Advisor – “sounds good, if you would like to have a seat in the lounge we will get going on it right now”

When I use the word “generally” what I really mean is this a very general greeting and our trained service professionals should be anything but general. General is the same greeting I get when I walk into Walmart and unless you plan on being the lowest price in town your customers will soon discover your competitor.

As I mentioned it’s time to demand excellence and this previously mentioned greeting will simply not hold in today’s competitive environment. Our customer’s expectation level is at an all-time high and I simply don’t see an end in sight. The easy fix is to script out the verbiage you want them to say to every customer that comes in to your store. This will only create a perfectly trained robotic staff that begrudgingly follows the script and we have trained them to not think for themselves. The real fix is to teach your people how to be personable and conversationalist. This is the key to creating lifelong loyal customers.

Now, I know an advisor's time is tight, but if we can control the time they spend with each customer, every minute that ticks by with the customer engaged with your advisor is a brick building the foundation of future business. Of course, there is some very critical information your advisor needs to get from every customer such as updated contact information including email and cell numbers. Along with their main concern and perform a quick walk around and recommend additional services. Unfortunately these items have created a giant wedge between the advisor and the customer – and the customer feels it, trust me. My point is we can still get all this information in a non-scripted way and all the time communicating with the customer in the way they would like to.

Here are a few items to consider in your next advisor training session that will help them be more relatable to the customer and help carry on a conversation with them.

• Listen and show genuine interest
• Ask purposeful questions about them and their vehicle
• Respect – Space, privacy and their point of view
• Focus on the positives – do not dwell on the negatives
• Give compliments
• Be up to date on current affairs
• Speak clearly
• Use humor – light hearted

Last but not least…….

• Enjoy it!!

“If your company’s mission is to climb a tree, don’t hire a horse” is a well-known quote and it really holds true here. If you have a customer facing employee that generally does not like to interact with customers or other people, you have them in the wrong spot to succeed.

Good Luck, enjoy 2016 in the auto industry, it’s going to be a great one!!!

As a service director or general manager, I would encourage you to spend time on the service drive to observe and listen to the conversations your service advisors are having on the service drive with your customers. I would be willing to bet that after a few minutes your level of frustration will reach a boiling point. Today, this moment, is the exactly the right time to get back to the basics of performing a proper write up that will help you build a strong foundation with the customer. This foundation will be the building block of creating exceptional customer service scores, customer retention and along the way you will sell more service.

Generally speaking the conversation will go something like this:

Advisor - “Hi how are you today, how can I help you”?

Customer – “’I’m here to have my oil changed”

Advisor – “ok great, are the keys in the vehicle?”

Customer – “yes they are in the ignition”

Advisor – “sounds good, if you would like to have a seat in the lounge we will get going on it right now”

When I use the word “generally” what I really mean is this a very general greeting and our trained service professionals should be anything but general. General is the same greeting I get when I walk into Walmart and unless you plan on being the lowest price in town your customers will soon discover your competitor.

As I mentioned it’s time to demand excellence and this previously mentioned greeting will simply not hold in today’s competitive environment. Our customer’s expectation level is at an all-time high and I simply don’t see an end in sight. The easy fix is to script out the verbiage you want them to say to every customer that comes in to your store. This will only create a perfectly trained robotic staff that begrudgingly follows the script and we have trained them to not think for themselves. The real fix is to teach your people how to be personable and conversationalist. This is the key to creating lifelong loyal customers.

Now, I know an advisor's time is tight, but if we can control the time they spend with each customer, every minute that ticks by with the customer engaged with your advisor is a brick building the foundation of future business. Of course, there is some very critical information your advisor needs to get from every customer such as updated contact information including email and cell numbers. Along with their main concern and perform a quick walk around and recommend additional services. Unfortunately these items have created a giant wedge between the advisor and the customer – and the customer feels it, trust me. My point is we can still get all this information in a non-scripted way and all the time communicating with the customer in the way they would like to.

Here are a few items to consider in your next advisor training session that will help them be more relatable to the customer and help carry on a conversation with them.

• Listen and show genuine interest
• Ask purposeful questions about them and their vehicle
• Respect – Space, privacy and their point of view
• Focus on the positives – do not dwell on the negatives
• Give compliments
• Be up to date on current affairs
• Speak clearly
• Use humor – light hearted

Last but not least…….

• Enjoy it!!

“If your company’s mission is to climb a tree, don’t hire a horse” is a well-known quote and it really holds true here. If you have a customer facing employee that generally does not like to interact with customers or other people, you have them in the wrong spot to succeed.

Good Luck, enjoy 2016 in the auto industry, it’s going to be a great one!!!

Already a promising year starting off in the automotive industry and there is no plan of let down in sight and according to most of the industry experts 2016 will be a banner year. This is great news, right? Well of course it is, however let's avoid some of the common mistakes made during the last cycle when business was good only to come upon a time that followed with a not so great outlook. The last time the industry had a downturn we were all faced with a decision to make several reductions to protect the financial return. I remember sitting down and implementing a strategy of how to get more done with less manpower. At the time the simple goal was to get back in line with the industry standard taking in consideration the reduced sales of parts and labor. This was an extremely tough task and certainly not fun to do, but it was very necessary.

The point I want to make is over the next few years the service and parts business is going to be there for the taking and we all need to aggressively go after it, with one caveat; increase sales and performance intuitively instead of hiring someone to help with the added workload or volume coming in.

Recently, I reviewed a dealers financial statement where their salaries, benefits and training was more than ten percent higher than the industry guide; basically their human capital was costing them financial capital returns. After a short visit with some of the employees, it became very evident most of the hourly employees that were hired on over the last year were brought on with a narrow vision of duties and responsibilities. In simple terms, the “easy” fix was to plug a person in place instead of defining a specific process and training to become more efficient at it.

To take it a step further this created a small silo effect within the workforce. They explained to me that one person does this task and then they pass it off to the next person that does the next task, and if “person A” does not do their job it at causes problems with “person B” completing their duties. As I analyzed the process, I realized that every person has become “specialized” in their duties, instead of being aware of the final goal and what they could do to make the process flow smoother.

Making this transition is a tough battle, but necessary. Here are some tips to help this flow smoothly and help you not fall in the excessive manpower trap.

• Look for more efficient ways to get the job done – identify the bottlenecks, is it the process or the people?
• Improve communication – open book here, be transparent, explain what and why things are happening
• Explain and then re-explain the reason and the goal – Employees will have a lot of questions, meet them head on and allow plenty of time for questions.
• Determine if the task is a “necessary” or a “nice” benefit to the customer – Examine which ones are mission-critical and really matter, which ones are questionable or discretionary, and which ones were assigned years ago and are no longer necessary.

Already a promising year starting off in the automotive industry and there is no plan of let down in sight and according to most of the industry experts 2016 will be a banner year. This is great news, right? Well of course it is, however let's avoid some of the common mistakes made during the last cycle when business was good only to come upon a time that followed with a not so great outlook. The last time the industry had a downturn we were all faced with a decision to make several reductions to protect the financial return. I remember sitting down and implementing a strategy of how to get more done with less manpower. At the time the simple goal was to get back in line with the industry standard taking in consideration the reduced sales of parts and labor. This was an extremely tough task and certainly not fun to do, but it was very necessary.

The point I want to make is over the next few years the service and parts business is going to be there for the taking and we all need to aggressively go after it, with one caveat; increase sales and performance intuitively instead of hiring someone to help with the added workload or volume coming in.

Recently, I reviewed a dealers financial statement where their salaries, benefits and training was more than ten percent higher than the industry guide; basically their human capital was costing them financial capital returns. After a short visit with some of the employees, it became very evident most of the hourly employees that were hired on over the last year were brought on with a narrow vision of duties and responsibilities. In simple terms, the “easy” fix was to plug a person in place instead of defining a specific process and training to become more efficient at it.

To take it a step further this created a small silo effect within the workforce. They explained to me that one person does this task and then they pass it off to the next person that does the next task, and if “person A” does not do their job it at causes problems with “person B” completing their duties. As I analyzed the process, I realized that every person has become “specialized” in their duties, instead of being aware of the final goal and what they could do to make the process flow smoother.

Making this transition is a tough battle, but necessary. Here are some tips to help this flow smoothly and help you not fall in the excessive manpower trap.

• Look for more efficient ways to get the job done – identify the bottlenecks, is it the process or the people?
• Improve communication – open book here, be transparent, explain what and why things are happening
• Explain and then re-explain the reason and the goal – Employees will have a lot of questions, meet them head on and allow plenty of time for questions.
• Determine if the task is a “necessary” or a “nice” benefit to the customer – Examine which ones are mission-critical and really matter, which ones are questionable or discretionary, and which ones were assigned years ago and are no longer necessary.

We have all experienced the let down of a well qualified, proven performer slipping through your fingers at the last minute to make a decision to stay with their current employer rather than joining forces with you. Sometimes they even decide to go with another company that has their hat in the ring as well. The point is, when you are trying hire the right person there are usually other players in the game and this high stakes game is very competitive. According to a Forbes article in 2014 states

“Staying employed at the same company for over two years on average is going to make you earn less over your lifetime by about fifty percent more.”

As a manager this type of notion is scary as hell knowing the shortage of skilled human capital. So what can we do? How do you not end up with all the “leftovers” to build your team?

First suggestion put a premium on your workplace environment that encourages those to stay but more importantly attract new talent when needed.

Here are 6 tips that will help you create a workplace that attracts the top talent.

• Open communication – Open discussion about company goals and the steps needed to complete the goals. Tip – this includes the good and the bad news.
• Career path – everyone wants to see his or her opportunity for advancement. Show them the path and the steps necessary to climb the ladder.
• Be open with information – The industry buzzword is “transparent” but this really does create employee happiness. Tip – open dialog between employees and management.
• Recognition – everyone likes to be rewarded for their hard work, unfortunately the easy path is to throw some money at it. Although it is a start; sometimes a well thought out public recognition goes a lot further.
• Honor your commitments – As a manager the most important thing you can do is commit to something and then do it. Not falling through on your commitments makes you come across as not dependable or trustworthy.
• Promoting the wrong person – Sometimes the person advancing is not the best performer; it’s the manager’s closest friend. EVERYONE in the workplace sees right through this and it makes their effort seem all for not.

2016 is slated to be a banner year for the automotive industry. Develop a strong team, execute the game plan and prepare to dominate. Good luck.

We have all experienced the let down of a well qualified, proven performer slipping through your fingers at the last minute to make a decision to stay with their current employer rather than joining forces with you. Sometimes they even decide to go with another company that has their hat in the ring as well. The point is, when you are trying hire the right person there are usually other players in the game and this high stakes game is very competitive. According to a Forbes article in 2014 states

“Staying employed at the same company for over two years on average is going to make you earn less over your lifetime by about fifty percent more.”

As a manager this type of notion is scary as hell knowing the shortage of skilled human capital. So what can we do? How do you not end up with all the “leftovers” to build your team?

First suggestion put a premium on your workplace environment that encourages those to stay but more importantly attract new talent when needed.

Here are 6 tips that will help you create a workplace that attracts the top talent.

• Open communication – Open discussion about company goals and the steps needed to complete the goals. Tip – this includes the good and the bad news.
• Career path – everyone wants to see his or her opportunity for advancement. Show them the path and the steps necessary to climb the ladder.
• Be open with information – The industry buzzword is “transparent” but this really does create employee happiness. Tip – open dialog between employees and management.
• Recognition – everyone likes to be rewarded for their hard work, unfortunately the easy path is to throw some money at it. Although it is a start; sometimes a well thought out public recognition goes a lot further.
• Honor your commitments – As a manager the most important thing you can do is commit to something and then do it. Not falling through on your commitments makes you come across as not dependable or trustworthy.
• Promoting the wrong person – Sometimes the person advancing is not the best performer; it’s the manager’s closest friend. EVERYONE in the workplace sees right through this and it makes their effort seem all for not.

2016 is slated to be a banner year for the automotive industry. Develop a strong team, execute the game plan and prepare to dominate. Good luck.

In sports there is an over used saying “next man up” that is referring to the next person in line to fulfill the position vacated by an injury or poor performance. The really good teams have two or three people capable to fulfill the position “waiting” for their chance and for their name to be called. In most cases, when asked most athletes have a story of when they received “their chance” and what they did to make the most of their opportunity. I could go through and name several professional and collegiate programs that perennially have a lot of success and when the coach is asked about the success they often refer to the fact that they have a very experienced team and when someone gets injured there is a person waiting for their opportunity to step up. I could also name several athletes in team sports that have gone on to have a very good career when they received “their chance” and they went on to make the most of it and became a superstar.

The point of this, we need to be looking at our organization and constantly develop people that are ready to be “the next man up” when a spot becomes available.

Think of when your service advisor has a family emergency or is sick, who fills in for them and how ready is that person to fill their shoes? My guess is there is a significant drop off in talent and that person is simply filling a hole for you to help reduce the stress on the department and the other employees.

This is not an easy answer and it is even harder to execute, taking in consideration that fine line of being over staffed and over expensed to simply have the pleasure of having a person ready to step in and help on the service drive.

So how do good organizations do this? They put a premium on training, cross training and a build a culture within the walls of the dealership that fosters this mentality.

The first step is to look at every position; this includes the manager position all the way to the car wash or porter position. Evaluate who would fill the position tomorrow if you lost someone for an extended period of time and then evaluate what training do they need to be ready to take on the added responsibility. I know we all have a shuttle driver, support person, office clerk that could “fill in” but the point is great companies have people ready to do more than simply fill in; they have cross trained and developed the next person in line to be ready for their chance to step up and take on the new role. As managers we need to be thinking, who is the person to take on my duties when we are away from the office? Who is our replacement?

Identify and develop your people, the more knowledge they have the better off your team will perform. Take the time to cross train and grow your people from within, they will perform better and faster than trying to hire someone from the outside. As you are evaluating your team and you have someone in a position that is not able to step up in the next role, you need to really look at what type of exposure that is to your organization and determine a game plan. The ultimate goal is to have a cross trained person that has been trained in all facets of the organization that is simply looking for their opportunity to “step up.”

In sports there is an over used saying “next man up” that is referring to the next person in line to fulfill the position vacated by an injury or poor performance. The really good teams have two or three people capable to fulfill the position “waiting” for their chance and for their name to be called. In most cases, when asked most athletes have a story of when they received “their chance” and what they did to make the most of their opportunity. I could go through and name several professional and collegiate programs that perennially have a lot of success and when the coach is asked about the success they often refer to the fact that they have a very experienced team and when someone gets injured there is a person waiting for their opportunity to step up. I could also name several athletes in team sports that have gone on to have a very good career when they received “their chance” and they went on to make the most of it and became a superstar.

The point of this, we need to be looking at our organization and constantly develop people that are ready to be “the next man up” when a spot becomes available.

Think of when your service advisor has a family emergency or is sick, who fills in for them and how ready is that person to fill their shoes? My guess is there is a significant drop off in talent and that person is simply filling a hole for you to help reduce the stress on the department and the other employees.

This is not an easy answer and it is even harder to execute, taking in consideration that fine line of being over staffed and over expensed to simply have the pleasure of having a person ready to step in and help on the service drive.

So how do good organizations do this? They put a premium on training, cross training and a build a culture within the walls of the dealership that fosters this mentality.

The first step is to look at every position; this includes the manager position all the way to the car wash or porter position. Evaluate who would fill the position tomorrow if you lost someone for an extended period of time and then evaluate what training do they need to be ready to take on the added responsibility. I know we all have a shuttle driver, support person, office clerk that could “fill in” but the point is great companies have people ready to do more than simply fill in; they have cross trained and developed the next person in line to be ready for their chance to step up and take on the new role. As managers we need to be thinking, who is the person to take on my duties when we are away from the office? Who is our replacement?

Identify and develop your people, the more knowledge they have the better off your team will perform. Take the time to cross train and grow your people from within, they will perform better and faster than trying to hire someone from the outside. As you are evaluating your team and you have someone in a position that is not able to step up in the next role, you need to really look at what type of exposure that is to your organization and determine a game plan. The ultimate goal is to have a cross trained person that has been trained in all facets of the organization that is simply looking for their opportunity to “step up.”

Looking forward to the New Year and in most of my conversations with executive level management about their fixed operations business, they have indicated that 2016 represents an opportunity to make a few little changes to have a really successful year. Some of these changes they point out are doing a better job handling the increased traffic or improving on the customer experience slightly to achieve high levels of customer satisfaction. All of these tactics are well deserved and certainly needed but I would suggest adding one more element to those tactics to maximize their effectiveness.

I have yet to have a discussion with any level of executive leadership that indicated the changes that they will be making to make the team stronger and yield better results. Here is a suggestion, invest your time into your people and help them build strong teams.

I recently read an article on HBR.com that discussed the importance of using the word “together” when developing your action plans for change or implementing a new policy. They continue stating that studies show a dramatic increase in the performance and engagement of an employee that is in a workplace with relatedness.

“The feeling of working together has indeed been shown to predict greater

motivation, particularly intrinsic motivation, that magical elixir of interest,

enjoyment, and engagement that brings with it the very best performance.”

As I read this article and related it to the automotive dealership I was constantly reminded that in most cases, under the same roof, three or four teams work very independently. The teams I am referring to are the Sales, Service and Parts teams. Although history would not indicate this is going to change anytime soon I would encourage any dealer to get everyone working together as a cohesive team.

“So what we need is a way to give employees the feeling of working as a team, even when they technically aren’t. And thanks to new research by Priyanka Carr and Greg Walton of Stanford University, we now know one powerful way to do this: simply saying the word “together.”

Two thousand and sixteen will be a great year for the automotive industry but we need to be aware of the cyclical nature of our business and what is looming out there in the years to come. I am reminded of a saying that applies here “you fix your roof on a sunny day.” So Today, lets focus on our people, build a well-informed cohesive team that is a ready for what the industry will throw at us.