Ever felt unhappy with your career? Of course, you have at times. But we’re talking today about a deeper type of job dissatisfaction than having a bad day or a rough week.

Over the Labor Day weekend, the business research group The Conference Board released details of a recent survey. In the American workforce, job satisfaction has risen to its highest rate since 2005. It’s a promising trend – that is, until you look at the scores.

The Conference Board discovered that 51 percent of Americans are satisfied with their jobs or careers, up from 49.6 percent three years ago. Let that sink in for a second, and think about how it relates to the dealership you’re in right now.

Of every two people you work with, one of them isn’t happy about their work. In a 50-person service department team, 25 people would rather do something different with their life to the point that they say their dissatisfied. That may even be you.

How Can You Discover Who Is Dissatisfied at Work?

There are those typical indicators like a bad attitude and poor performance. For service advisors, you might notice a decline in work orders written while in a technician you could find a higher rate of comeback repairs. But these could be attributed to other things such as problems in their home life.

The best way to find out who loves their job and who struggles to find satisfaction in their work is this: ASK!

If you’re in a management position, and assuming you are satisfied with your work, it’s incumbent upon you to find out if the people on your team want to be on your team. It can feel personal when people tell you they’d rather be doing something else, but it usually isn’t – it’s a matter of personal development more than anything.

Once you know if people aren’t happy doing what they’re doing, what can YOU do about it?

Ever Considered Cross-Training?

No, not like CrossFit. I’ve written before about each person training for the role above them, much like the military does. And that might be the case with your staff; that simply training for advancement will provide the fulfillment they want out of life.

But the automotive retail industry is unique in its structure. There are different positions within departments as well as between departments. It’s possible that simply exposing someone to another role will provide satisfaction, or it might help them appreciate the role they have. I’ve lived it – here are some of the cross-training opportunities I’ve had:

• As a high-school graduate, I started washing cars, then cross-trained as a shuttle driver.
• As a shuttle driver, I cross-trained as a service advisor until I was ready to take on the job.
• As a service advisor, I learned the role of dispatcher (we called it tower operator, but no tower), then took on that role when it became vacant.
• Then a couple years later, back to service advisor, with exposure to the sales floor on weekends. A year and a half of selling later, I settled into the service advisor role.
• Learning a bunch as an advisor, I had an opportunity to be a service manager for a time. Finding it wasn’t a good fit, I went back to the advisor role yet again.

I know, it seems all over the place. But job dissatisfaction was handled by my management well, allowing me opportunities to try new things and, ultimately, discover which role fit me best at the time.

The Bottom Line

Job dissatisfaction is a major problem still, and The Conference Board doesn’t foresee it getting much better in the near future. Don’t lose your staff to opportunities elsewhere because you don’t know they’re unhappy right now. Talk openly with your staff and see if there’s a way to keep your good people within the store, and in a role they thoroughly enjoy. Cross-training might be the ticket.

In every dealership I’ve worked for – and several others I’ve had the pleasure of visiting – the customer experience in the service department was always emphasized. How a customer perceives your department is invaluable if you plan to develop long-standing relationships with your customers. But there’s a factor I’ve personally seen that creates a dissonance for the customers, and it had nothing to do with the service department.

Rather, not the service department alone.

One scenario I’ve been witness to. A salesperson approached the internal service advisor with their customer in tow, scheduling their delivery. The salesperson wanted an unachievable target and the service advisor scoffed at the salesperson. Now, in a busy service drive, the salesperson and internal advisor tee off on each other in a heated argument. And yes, the sales customer was present as well as several service customers.

Who was right and who was wrong in this scenario? Is it the salesperson to blame or the internal service advisor? Both.

The Image You Project

Disagreements happen in the dealership environment. You spend more conscious hours at the dealership than you do at home with family. Getting on each other’s nerves is bound to happen. But it’s not about the disagreement at all, but how it’s dealt with.

A customer should never witness a dispute between dealership staff. In my opinion, it should result in disciplinary action to parties involved in the argument. The damage that happens is so much more severe than the momentary anger that’s displayed and the customer’s discomfort at that point in time.

Think about that new sales customer, following their salesperson to the internal service advisor. Will they be comfortable coming to a service department where they’ve witnessed hostility between coworkers? Will they refer their family and friends? What do they now think about their salesperson after seeing their darker side?

And what about other witnesses? The service customers who saw it – will they feel like it’s a stable place to bring their car? Is there an angry tech in the back, throwing wrenches at cars? Are they the next person to be yelled at?

An argument must never, never, ever be in front of your clientele. It’s extremely damaging to the positive image you’re trying to project.

A Deeper Problem

What we all know is that interdepartmental relations at dealerships are commonly strained, to put it mildly. Sales hates on service, service bashes sales, and the parts department is everyone’s whipping horse. And let’s not even mention collision repairs – no one ever talks about the body shop.

The fluffy, feel-good message is this: we all have to work together as a team. It’s easier said than done, and that we know is true from our personal and professional lives. Yet, in the dealership environment, it’s so easy to develop a culture where each department believes it’s superior to the others.

However, customers don’t view a dealership as a mall – several small businesses in one location. They view it as one entity and rightly so. For that purpose, there can’t be anger, dissonant messages, or even staff talking badly about each other.

How to Deal with Disputes

There’s a biblical model for dealing with disputes in a community, and it’s extremely applicable here.

The first step is for a one-on-one meeting between the two. When one person offends the other, it’s not appropriate to tell everyone around you how horrible the other person is, how deeply you’re hurt, or repress the problem. The correct response is to seek out an opportunity for a conversation alone so you can both carry on with nothing between you. That’s the adult thing to do anyway, wouldn’t you say?

If that’s not successful, assisted peacemaking should be sought. What that means isn’t running to tattle on the other person. It’s inviting one or two other trusted people into the conversation as mediators. They can help guide the conversation and point out when there are flaws in an argument. This could be a co-worker, team leader, or a manager with the ability to be neutral.

It’s only after those methods have failed that management needs to be brought into the equation. Lay out the problem for them. At this point, it’s out of your hands. It’s like a judgement in court – abide with whatever the decision is from them.

The point isn’t to find someone at fault but to work harmoniously together. It’s easier to go to work in the morning when you aren’t afraid to look someone in the eye. Work goes smoother when you don’t have to be concerned about your customers witnessing blow-ups around you.

 Customers take notice of positive environments too. That’s where they want to do business – wouldn’t you?

Think with Google always provides interesting tidbits. From an August 2018 insights report, their research tells us that “84% of Americans are shopping for something at any given time and in up to six different categories.” Shoes and razors to kitchen appliances and car parts. Americans are constantly looking for their next purchase, and with a minimum of one in four people starting their search on their smartphone.

Yes, you already know people search their phones – you probably do it too. But finding the cheapest kitchen gadget on the Amazon app is very different than sourcing a local provider for a product or service.

How It Plays Out

Here’s a scenario with a shopper – pretend it’s you. As you walk up to the five-year-old Honda Civic or Chrysler 200 you drive, you notice your taillight is busted. That simply won’t do, and you certainly don’t want to get pulled over for something as simple as a broken taillight. Before you even get in the driver’s seat, you whip out your iPhone 7 Plus, unlock it, and search Safari or Google for “parts for Honda near me”.

Four types of search results are displayed, all jumbled together. You have the manufacturer’s website in there, dealership results, local aftermarket parts suppliers, and online parts retailers. Which one do you pick?

Like most people, you disregard the top results – the ones with ‘Ad’ listed on the corner. Because you live a busy life, you’ll usually pick the most convenient option from the first page of results. It might not be the cheapest option, but you’ll sacrifice a few extra dollars for immediacy.  The trouble is, how do you get to be a top result?

Relevant Content Marketing is the Ticket

That’s right, content marketing. It involves putting relevant, searchable information in front of the users’ eyes. But how does that tie into driving dealership traffic from the service department?

Here’s the rub: more people search for auto service and parts-related information every day than for new cars.

So, if you’re looking to create relationships with more customers that will eventually buy a car from you, capitalize on the larger market. Go after service customers and you’ll be nurturing relationships with your next sales customers.

What Type of Content?

Figure out what your customers are searching. Google Trends is a good place to start. You can narrow down the geographical area for more precise search results. Then use those keywords and topics to create dealership blogs that people actually want to read.

For service-related content, have posts with keywords like ‘Chevrolet oil change’, top accessories, services to have the dealership perform, and so on. Write parts-related content with search terms like the aforementioned ‘parts for Honda near me’ or questions like ‘does the dealership charge more for parts’.

Answer questions people have about service, parts, and the dealership itself. The content needs to have meat – substance that people will read and find valuable. And it must have a call-to-action in it, telling the reader how they can respond.

Why Create Content?

It’s simple. The TWG research shows that 80 percent of smartphone users will buy when they get easy answers. If you aren’t the search result that gets them their easy answer, there’s a very high likelihood they’re buying from someone else. A dealer that will get their future business and develop rapport. A dealer that will get their business when they need a car next.

Be a dealer that makes good on smartphone and online search results.

In sales and service, there are times you know a customer just isn’t going to buy. There’s no way. Sometimes you can tell by reading their body language, and others outright tell you they don’t plan to buy today. They might tell you they plan to buy a new car in three or four months, or they’ll perform that necessary service add-on during the next visit.

What happens? As commission-based sales professionals, those are leads that should be followed up on. More often than not, they’re swept under the rug and the service advisor or salesperson chases the next carrot they see, and that customer never buys.

I’ve done it myself on both sides of the coin: sales and service. In extremely rare instances, with customers that you’ve obviously connected with well, they return to you and request the sale. 99 percent of the time it’s a lead gone cold.

The cost is great, though – much greater than the single sale that isn’t made. That’s because it happens with most salespeople and service front-end staff, compounding the problem.

There’s Evidence!

I have another client in a dealer group that is on the verge of proving it. It’s all relative to website traffic and how follow-up call campaigns are performed.

The scenario is this: a dealership notices their sales numbers are slipping and renews a fervent push for their staff to make follow-up calls. That’s common practice in the automotive industry. There may by a spike in delivered units, but that’s not the metric that’s being watched.

Three to four months after the strong push for follow-up, online traffic reaches an all-time high. The reactionary follow-up campaign has had limited immediate success, but it certainly has an impact months later. Customers, especially repeat website visitors, can be reached to generate future sales also.

The numbers? Three months after, traffic is higher than ever. Four months after follow-up, website traffic is dropping up to 15 percent per week. That say a lot when you’re receiving hundreds or thousands of website visitors per say in an urban area.

What’s the Message?

You already know this. Follow-up is important. For dealership success and sales success for individuals, follow-up can’t be a campaign. That’s what my client is trying to prove to his management.

Reaching out to leads that aren’t ready to buy today isn’t annoying. Sure, it takes time to complete, but most salespeople have the time to invest in a few calls every day. Customers appreciate when a salesperson follows up to make sure you haven’t bought yet, let you know of a unit you might be interested in, and casually asking for referrals. It’s part of a relationship that started the first time the customer contacted YOU.

It’s not the easiest thing to train new habits into seasoned salespeople, but follow-up is one aspect they likely understand and see value in. For new hires, follow-up training should be done under supervision, helping them properly engage with previous leads and keeping the dealership at the front of their mind.

There’s no need to test the numbers. We all know the value in follow-up. Make it part of every day for every customer-facing team member in your store.

Dealership service departments slow down during the summer months. Kids are out of school. Summer holidays happen. Overall, there’s just a sense of relaxation as people enjoy the weather, a break from the norm, and hey – even dealership personnel are entitled to some time off too.

But September is right around the corner. It’s back-to-school time. Everyone’s just settling back into their routines. Credit cards are recovering from a harrowing onslaught of summer activity charges. October is when things really get into the swing of things.

Then October rolls around. Seasons change to crispy fall weather and there’s Halloween.

November has the whole Thanksgiving weekend.

Then Christmas takes over December.

We All Have Our Excuses

There’s something every month, and what follows it up? An excuse. There’s always an excuse for why things are like they are in the service department. There’s a holiday or someone’s away on vacation. It’s school summer break or it’s too cold outside. And they truly play a role in how the service department operates. Yet, they are all just excuses.

I’ve used each one of the excuses I’ve mentioned, most of them truthfully. It’s easy to justify why the department’s performance isn’t growing or isn’t achieving quite as much as it could – or it could be about my personal performance too.

There’s a crude phrase about excuses that rings true here…

“Excuses are like… ahem… rear ends. Everyone has one and they all stink.”

Excuses aren’t any good to anyone. What they do is attempt to deflect responsibility away from the individual or department. But if you have an excuse, there’s a very good chance your inner lawyer is at work, helping you justify your position. And if your inner lawyer is at work, you probably should be doing something differently.

When’s the Right Time to Step It Up?

There’s no time like the present. You’ve missed enough opportunities already.

Here’s the thing about the summer excuse – and I know, we’ve been ragging on summer a bunch. Summer offers excellent opportunities if you gear your service department toward the right target. Emphasize air conditioning services and subsequent repairs. Encourage pre-trip inspections and subsequent repairs. Intentionally book service appointments spread across slower weeks, then implement accessory spiffs for your service staff.

Looking forward, make the fall months about routine maintenance and vehicle safety. If you have snowy months in your climate, take on a winter tire drive or alignment specials.

In the spring, get back to suspension work and vehicle detailing packages. And when summer rolls around next year, start it all over again.

Whether your service department naturally slows down in certain periods of the year or not, there’s literally no good reason to let off the gas as a department. You have customers out there that need the products and services you have. Your dealer principal expects your hard work every day. No excuse changes their expectations. But here’s what you can do instead of making excuses.

1. Turn excuses into challenges. If the service department normally has a slow couple of weeks once school lets out (or in), make it your goal to buck that trend. Here’s where intentional scheduling really comes into play.
2. Make service ads fresh for every season or month. It’s super important to keep your ads catchy and fresh so they don’t become old hat to old clients and potential customers.
3. Have a plan for slow times. Have your BDC or service staff call customers with declined services or missed appointments. Forge forward to catch up with outstanding recall notices.

There’s always an excuse you could use. If you’re looking not just to make a paycheck but to either make a difference or get noticed for a promotion, ditch the excuses and look for solutions instead.

From CSI scores and online ratings to Google search results, everyone wants to be first. The service department is expected to be perfect and keep a perfect 5-star rating online. How else do you attract new customers, after all?

People are constantly searching for ‘the best’ this and ‘the best’ that. Google searches are dominated by ‘best nail salon’ and ‘best Thai restaurant near me’, and similar searches across every industry. That includes ‘best oil change’ and ‘best service department’ for your city and community. It seems customers want THE BEST service possible.

A recent Think With Google report blows that up.

It true that people are searching for ‘the best’ everything more than ever before. Think With Google reports that in the past two years, ‘the best’ searches have increased 115%. But the criteria for something being the best is relative to the consumer.

Google’s Head of Ads Research and Insights, Sara Kleinberg, gives more on that:

With so many options and so much information online, consumers increasingly can and have to make decisions based on differences beyond quality, price, and basic features. The deciding factor is often personal criteria for that product and how it solves their individual needs. Convenience, for example, can enter the “best” equation. One person told us, “A taqueria 10 miles away might have 400 5-star reviews, but I'd be fine with a 4.5-star taqueria a stone’s throw away.” One person might be swayed by product features, whereas another won’t. “I don’t care if a vacuum cleaner has a light on the front or an automatic cord winder. The best one for me is best at picking up pet hair,” another person said. That’s not to say price and quality aren’t part of the picture. But how they fit in depends on the shopper. As one person said, “I don’t necessarily look for the best product in the market, but for something that would be the best for what I need the product for.”

What Does That Mean for Your Service Department?

It means that a customer might not care that you have a 5-star rating if your department doesn’t have availability when they want to come in, because convenient hours matter. And a regular client won’t be influenced by a higher-rated dealer’s service department if you’ve treated them well in the past. And a new customer may not be willing to travel across the city to visit ‘the best Chevrolet service department’ with a 5.0 rating if there’s one in their neighborhood with a 4.5 or even a 4.0 rating.

You need to be good – very good, in fact – at what you do in service. The workmanship, customer service, and price need to be competitive. But as for being ‘the best’? There’s only one place that it matters.

Online. Your website content needs to include keywords that draw search results for ‘the best’. Your dealership website’s service page should have ‘best Nissan oil change’, ‘best oil change’, ‘best diagnosis’, ‘best tires for Honda’, ‘best brake job’, and so on.

Having the right keywords will make your dealership rise to the top of the search results on Google. Isn’t that where you’re going to find new clients, much more so than the expensive mailers and balloon-filled summer barbecues, and even better than the Tube Man you inflate by the front door?

Increase your online visibility simply by adding relevant content and keywords to your website.

With more than 15 years of experience in the service department, I had more than my share of ups and downs. Part of it was to do with me personally, and other situations were related to my environment. Some of it could be attributed to variables while some of it, like the service department, was fixed.

A few anecdotes:

• A few years after buying our first home, my wife and I began a small but important renovation. As a service advisor at the time, there were ebbs and flows in the customer traffic and we only lived a few minutes away. So, during slower periods, I’d meet with the contractor or run for supplies. The renovation took precedence in my day and when that happens, everything else takes second place. What fell behind was every work-related. Customer follow-up, calling estimates, tracking vehicles in the shop – it was all a mess. Other things in life became more important than my job. I had a difficult time prioritizing between work and everything else.
• I was promised the service manager position at a new store acquisition for the dealer group. About 10 years into my career as a service advisor, it seemed like the promotion I deserved and I felt ready. But then, silence. As I waited for the announcement, it didn’t come. They decided to retain the previous manager and simply didn’t tell me…or talk to me at all for the next few months. My attitude and performance at the desk were in the toilet for about six months afterward. I was disillusioned and hated my workplace for a while.
• I’m naturally an introverted personality. It takes effort for me to be around new people and it can be tough to begin new relationships and conversations, even with customers. After moving within the dealer group to the ‘big store’, it took months to build my daily RO count to the norm. It took even longer to feel like I was accepted – a part of the team. My natural disposition made achievements harder to attain.
• To go with the introverted personality, I fear rejection more than an A-type personality. The many hefty estimates I’d be presented in a day were hard for me to call. I feared that I’d be shot down; that the customer wouldn’t see the value in the repair estimate I was presenting. My fear of rejection handcuffed my and prevented me from taking my sales to a higher level at times.

What’s the Point I’m Making?

For me, my biggest challenges as a service employee were almost all ME. Self-centered views are debilitating, and that was one of the tallest hurdles I faced daily.

All of the other challenges I faced – management, technicians, bad customer interactions, low-quality equipment, and under-staffing, for examples – were a mere inconvenience or annoyance rather than a major challenge.

Perhaps my situation is unique, where it was ME getting in MY OWN WAY. But I’d encourage you to take a look at your own situation in the service department and evaluate what truly gets in your way. Is it the environment or your attitude about the environment? Is it your manager’s style or are you having trouble respecting their authority?

Please share what you find to be your biggest challenge or struggle as a service employee. Also, let me know if you identify with mine.

Everyone deserves a little time off. It’s something to look forward to and provides much needed rejuvenation. And whether you’re a service advisor, manager, technician, or support staff, you’re going to get worn out, burnt out, ticked off, or just plain tired. That’s what vacation is meant to address.

But it’s not as simple as just booking a week or two off and leaving for vacation, specifically for a service advisor. For those who aren’t aware, it’s a commission role predominantly. When you’re going to leave on a holiday, your ducks need to be all neatly lined up in a row. Otherwise, all hell can break loose while you’re away, and it usually does.

Taking vacation can be stress-free (mostly) if you can take care of these details in advance.

Hand Off Your Customers

I’ve personally been on vacation and had to answer a call from the dealership to walk someone through a customer’s work order. That can be avoided in large part by handing off your work orders to a colleague you trust.

Sounds easy, but you need to know they’re going to be cared for properly. Your CSI scores and what you earn on the work order is affected if someone isn’t going to properly look after your ROs. And here’s how to do it well:

• Walk through the details of each work order remaining on your last day before vacation.
• Make sure your stand-in knows how to contact the customer, and what the customer expects.
• Tell the customer who they’ll be dealing with.

Book Appointments for Your Return to Work

Nothing is worse for a commission-based employee than not knowing where your income will come from when you return. It’s going to sting a bit on the paycheck when you take vacation, but you can mitigate some of it when you book appointments for the days after you return to work.

Stash Some Cash

That sting on the paycheck? You should be prepared for it. In the months before you are taking vacation, you should begin squirrelling money away to cover your time off. The last thing you want is the burden of a small paycheck when you get back to work, knowing that it’s going to take a couple weeks to build up your work order base again.

Book Vacation in Advance

Everyone loves a great deal, but it’s hard to plan properly for your vacation if you’re waiting for a last-minute package. Your best bet is to book your vacation months in advance. That way, you can get your finances in order to pay off your holiday package, stash some cash for the low period around your vacation, and stack the appointment schedule to ensure your return to work goes smoothly.

‘45’ keeps everyone on their toes, there’s no denying that. The hardball tactics for NAFTA negotiations, steel and aluminum tariffs, and now the looming threat of auto tariffs are just a few of the things you didn’t see coming beforehand.

It’s common knowledge at this point that auto sales are deeply affected by the tariffs. Of course, that’s already being seen in manufacturing from the steel and aluminum tariffs as the cost to build cars increases. And it’s forecasted to have a detrimental impact on car sales if the auto tariffs proposal gets off the ground. Salespeople, general managers, and dealer principals all shudder at the potential impact.

But as service departments in the franchised automotive world, the impact doesn’t seem as great. If anything, it looks like an opportunity to shine bright. Truth be told, it is. Make no mistake, though. It’s more than an opportunity. It’s a responsibility to keep your dealership moving strong, through thick and thin.

Cinch the Belt Now

Sales departments can’t prepare ahead of time aside from buying more inventory before tariffs take effect, and even that strategy may not work out too well. Plus, it could all be for nothing -even hurting more than helping – if auto tariffs never go into effect. But fixed operations departments can be prepared if the shoe drops, and none of the changes have any risk associated with them if the industry isn’t dealt the next blow.

Staff Up

It’s been driven home for months now, but filling every technician bench is going to be important. If cars aren’t selling, car owners are going to be fixing. Service department volumes are inevitably going to increase and you’ll need to be fully staffed especially on the bench.

Take a look back at previous posts for recruiting technician talent. It’s the first step to bolstering the service department.

Train Up

Your team can’t afford missteps when the landscape for fixed operations gets ultra-competitive. Everyone needs to be fully invested and trained to do their role well. That means product training where possible, process training as a routine, and technical training for those who need it.

Trainers are going to be in higher demand and their rates are going to go through the roof if you wait. Begin fixed operations staff training now and keep it going indefinitely.

Track Progress

If you’ve been a little lax because things have been going well, get back to tracking your fixed operations numbers. Monitor department gross, hours per RO, and ELR, and compare to each individual. Identify if you have a weak link and train them up. If you haven’t done it before, implement a strict policy on discounts or write-offs – only management can make the call.  

There are tons of opportunities to shore up the fixed operations departments to keep your dealership not just maintaining but growing in a hectic, unstable automotive climate. Look at parts inventories and obsolescence to free up cash flow. Offer birddogs to employees for sales referrals (or bump them up). Create ad campaigns at the dealer level for service, parts, collision repairs, and accessories.

Do what it takes to push stable growth. There’s a good chance your dealership will rely on it in the near future.

Look across your service department’s front line, then in the shop. If you’re one of the average American dealerships, you have a vacancy in at least one spot, probably more.

For those with an opening for a service advisor, you know the strain it puts on everyone else on the front line, and not just other service advisors, as you try to maintain productivity. And if it’s a spot on the bench – or two, or more – it’s painfully evident you can’t make up the lost hours and income with the remaining techs.

It’s important to hire expeditiously, of course. Implementing a stopgap is crucial as your targets account for every position filled. But hiring the wrong person can and will have damaging effects on your team.

So what do you look for in a new hire? What characteristics should be your top concern when you’re searching through applications and interviewing candidates? For both service advisor and technician roles, here are a few traits to seek out for your store.

For Technicians

When you’re hiring techs, the characteristics you need are of the more traditional sort, but not all of them.

Applicable Work Experience

It makes complete sense. You need the techs you hire to bring in their toolbox, pick up a work order, and be able to do it. It’s the skill set a technician develops only through work experience, either at another dealership or an independent repair shop.

Willing to Develop Skills

Cars are constantly changing, and technicians need to learn new skills to stay on top of new technology. Old-school techs may have a problem with this.

Customer Focused

It’s a little off the beaten path from the traditional role of selling as many services and repairs as possible. Today’s successful tech needs to be able to prioritize items with the customer’s patronage in mind, not just making money for today.

Team Player

It’s thrown around a lot these days, and it doesn’t seem to fit the individual technician role. But it’s a trait growing in importance for repair procedures. Many diagnostics and repairs require a second set of eyes or hands, and your techs need to be comfortable helping each other out regularly.

For Service Advisors

I’m going to contest the typical hiring process when it comes to service advisors. You’ll see why.

New to the Industry

Unless you’re hiring for a senior service advisor position because you can’t promote from within for some reason, you want a relatively fresh team member. Someone with an affinity for vehicles is great, but the last thing you need is an advisor going rogue. “I’ve always done it this way” isn’t a response that is going to work for a new hire. Individuals who are new to the service advisor position are going to learn to do it YOUR way, not how they’ve done it before. It also means most of your new hires will be youthful

Technically Minded

You need service advisors who are technical, but not necessarily about cars. What helps more than anything is an ability to decipher what a customer is saying and write it on the work order in a way the technician understands.

Willing to Learn the Product

More than ever, a service advisor needs to have the product knowledge of a salesperson – or perhaps, even more so. You might ask why, and rightly so. But as a service advisor, part of the role is now about educating the customer about how their vehicle works to eliminate ‘no fault found’ concerns before they hit the shop. That only comes from knowing the product and the technology well.