You scratch out a living day-to-day, week in and week out. You push your service staff to accomplish as much as they can from every customer (within reason, of course). You think you’re having a fantastic month. You get to the end of the month and check out your DOC’s bottom line. That decimal must be in the wrong place, right?

Whether that’s your experience or not, the point is that there’s never enough money left in the pot at the end of the month. As soon as you think you’ve done the best you can, someone from above (we’re talking dealer principal or GM) doesn’t wait more than a couple moments to ask you how you’ll do better next month.

And you know deep inside, it’s true. There’s always money left on the table. There are opportunities that can kick your sales up another notch. There are possibilities that could make your net rocket through the stratosphere.

All it takes is one small change to increase your profits month over month. There’s no magic formula to spending less on expenses and increasing income without changing course at all. In the automotive industry, if there’s one thing you can count on, it’s this:

Status Quo is not an option.

It’s not good enough to be content with how you’re doing. You have to strive to do better, and it’s not just for yourself. Unless you’re the one signing the checks, you have someone you answer to; someone who didn’t get where they are by not pushing to be better in business.

And another thing: once you achieve it, you’ll need to keep doing it month after month after month. You know it’s true, probably from past experiences. Any changes you make need to become second nature. They need to be deeply engrained in your staff or you’ll find a quick, successful blitz followed by a landslide of effort.

Before getting into your hidden sources of income, let’s look at how to successfully roll out an upsell or additional service offering.

• Get your team on board. Anyone who’s involved with the upsell NEEDS to know the value the service holds. They need to know the benefits, who it’s for, and why it’s important. They don’t need to be totally sold on its necessity, but they need to be sold out on providing it to your customers.
• Get your team motivated. Just telling your staff to do something might see a result for a few days or a few weeks but won’t develop an ongoing habit. Show them how the increase in sales will improve their income over the month or year. Provide a spiff for a set time period to kickstart their progress.
• Track your results. Find a way of measuring your results in a reliable, accurate way. Create a specific op code to use on the work order if you can. Or, have your staff members track their own. If there’s an incentive offered for it, you can count on them to accurately keep track of their own.

Here are a few places you could find a value-added upsell or opportunity.

The Detail Bay

Most dealerships wash their customer’s cars during a service visit, and if you don’t, you should. But try turning this expense into a money-maker. Offer detailing packages to your customers at the service desk. You’ll find a simple wash and vacuum package is popular among your clients. Who among us would wash their own car when we could pay someone else a modest price to do it?

There’s a lot of dealers who already sell car washes and detailing, but you could always be busier in that department. If you need to hire another body to pick up the slack, it’s a low-cost solution for a decent profit. And customers with clean cars are happier, so CSI should benefit too.

Stone Chip Repairs

One of the most basic, easy repairs a body shop can do is a stone chip repair on a windshield. It’s so easy, even your service department can take care of it with almost no training required. The repair kit is inexpensive and you can offer windshield stone chip repairs at a competitive price. Even if you’re a few dollars more than the glass repair shop down the street, your customers will choose you because they’re already in your shop.

Your advisors will have an easy time with this upsell too. If they see stone ships on their walkaround, they can explain to the customer how an inexpensive stone chip repair can prevent a costly windshield replacement down the road.

Wheel Alignments

Anyone who’s been in the service department game for any length of time has done wheel alignment pushes. But, maybe it’s time for another one. Selling wheel alignments doesn’t just get that one service – it opens up opportunities for even more upsells. Once you have it on the hoist, you can sell required steering repairs, suspension repairs, tire services and replacement, and brake services. You can even advise on leaks, maybe converting on that as well.

This one is a cash cow. You’ll get the most return on your spiff investment here by far, especially if your advisors are strong and can sell the work your technicians advise.

Accessories

Typically, accessories are a competitive market, but the dealership has the advantage initially. On newer cars that are in for service, customer pride runs hot. Have an accessory display at the service desk so your advisors can easily show your customers features that might be desirable for their new vehicles. You can even offer a discount to certain demographics if necessary.

Your manufacturer has targets for your accessory sales, and you can achieve them with a bit of strategy.

Whether you use one or more of these ideas or come up with other ideas on your own, finding ways to add to your bottom line should be a regular step for you. Implement a new idea three or four times a year so your staff doesn’t feel overwhelmed by change.

What upsells have worked well for you? Chime in with your successful (and unsuccessful) sales opportunities.

There’s an old adage: “There aren’t enough hours in the day”. For some, that applies to recreation, like trying to stretch a fishing expedition out a little longer. For others, it’s all about family time. Who doesn’t want to spend more time with their kids and spouse? And for many, many more, it’s about getting all their work completed.

You have a purpose for the career you chose. It’s not all about the money; it never is. It’s about the things you use those greenbacks for. It’s about buying a bigger fishing boat and better tackle. It’s about taking a week off for a family vacation in the Caribbean, or buying a new swing set for the little ones. It’s about saving up for college educations at Ivy League schools for your kids.

For me, it’s about being able to spend time away from work. I love to hunt and fish. My wife and I enjoy heading out of town to our little hideaway in the woods where the crickets lull you to sleep at night and the bustle of the city can’t be heard. That’s why I work.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve said that there aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done at work. That’s especially true of when I was a service advisor for a major domestic dealership. I would fret and get myself all worked up, trying to leave my desk at the end of the day with all my loose ends tied up, often getting home late, and even more often getting home stressed out and grumpy.

I discovered the problem wasn’t the clock, and it wasn’t my job. It wasn’t my supervisors or skill set either. The problem was my time management, and it’s painfully obvious to see now.

My Achilles Heel

I’ve always worked well under pressure, and that could be part of my problem. When things are quiet and relaxed, I have a tendency to procrastinate my duties until later or even another day. When the environment is fast-paced, I excel. I gather that’s because I don’t have a choice in the matter to be lazy and complacent. Obviously, that can lead to poor communication or follow-up which the creates its own stress later on. But that’s not my main issue.

I’m a self-proclaimed tech genius. If you need someone to help you figure out your infotainment system, how to pair your new phone to Bluetooth, find a wiring schematic for a 1970 Dodge Dart, or track down a discount on a pair of sneakers from a retailer in Hong Kong, I’m your guy. I was almost always the person who was called upon to fix printer issues, install software programs, or virtually any other task when the IT guy wasn’t around. That was always a reliable go-to excuse for poor performance – “I’m too busy doing other things” -- but was never truly my worst problem.

I know now that I was never good at time management. I’m still not. It’s something I was never taught on the professional level, and it became my Achilles heel. If you want an expert procrastinator or excuse maker, I’ve got that mastered. But time management? Nope, not me.

My day would start like everyone else, writing work orders and performing walkarounds (on MOST cars). I would fall behind as soon as the morning rush slowed down, right around time for a coffee run. I’d return to a mess of estimates to call, customer phone calls I’d missed, and the late morning customers that just arrived. Being commission-based, I’d grab another customer and postpone the phone calls. Finally, late morning, I’d get around to calling the impatient customers who’ve left messages and selling estimates for the impatient technicians who’ve already kicked the vehicle out of the shop.

That would be the case once again after lunch hour. By the end of the day, I’d have to scramble to get all the work out the door, be there for customers arriving late (because of my poor time management), and apologize to my wife yet again that I had to stay late to get things complete.

Perhaps the worst part is the following day. When a customer is upset about the lack of follow-up, poor communication, or unmet expectations, their comments have a way of reaching the ears of management. Being called into the office to account for a customer’s poor opinion of your service has a way of reducing your self-worth to rubble.

If I had to do it all over again…

I would absolutely ask for more structure to my workload. Not everyone has the same needs for time management training, and you’ll notice the people who have it mastered already. Speaking from personal experience, more people need help with it than not.

Unlike other professions, even among the auto industry, service advisors usually don’t have any certifications. Some may have been technicians first, but most have very little post-secondary schooling if any. That leaves a gap in real-world style training. Universities expect students to manage their own workload, teaching an important skill for life after the classroom. Without that taught structure, some people, like me, flounder.

How you can help

If you’re a service or parts manager, fixed ops director – or any other manager, really – you probably have an employee’s face in your head already. It likely rings true for someone in your dealership, and you can help them out.

If they’re at all like me, they truly do want to succeed but haven’t learned a few fundamental skills to do so. Here are just a few tips you can use to help them flourish instead of falter.

• Help the employee develop a point-by-point timeline for daily activities. Laminate it so the employee can use a dry-erase marker to tick off completed tasks every day. A visual list can help someone like me assess the workload still remaining before home time.
• Check in with your staff member throughout the day. Someone who just manages will just look to discipline mistakes after they happen. A leader such as yourself will help prevent the mistakes in the first place.
• Eliminate distractions in the workplace. I’d often follow a rabbit trail on Facebook or Google News, and my work would fall behind. Some sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram aren’t required for your staff to do their job unless managing the dealership’s social accounts is their role. Block those sites from work computers to minimize time-consuming distractions.
• Coach your staff when complaints come in. Ask what they are prepared to do differently to avoid a time management problem they’ve been called out for. Give suggestions for improvement instead of ultimatums for employment.

Time management is a learned behavior. It’s a skill some of us are great at, while others (like me) may struggle with it for the rest of our lives. Remember that it is a coachable problem. Helping your staff through their time management issues doesn’t just help them today and for their entire future, it increases your dealership’s productivity. Everyone wins.

Members of LinkedIn are bombarded with memes and motivational pictures. Between the Ned Stark photos and the cool car pictures, everyone seems to think they have your answer to management issues. There’s one in particular that is excruciatingly common. It goes something like this:

“When I talk to Managers I get the feeling they are important. When I talk to Leaders I get the feeling I am important.”

There are hundreds of variations and motivational quotes that follow the theme, and there’s no question of the validity of the statements. It’s true that a manager instructs their team to accomplish a task. Aptly, a leader accomplishes the task alongside their team.

There’s a missing link in nearly every picture, meme, motivational quote, and encouraging statement, not to mention in the (lack of) management training materials at the dealership. While everyone knows there’s a qualitative difference between managers and leaders, no one tells us how to implement it.

What does it actually LOOK like to be a leader instead of a manager? You can find the inward personality traits that each typically has in books all over the place, and in articles on LinkedIn and professional resource sites everywhere. But how does it manifest in the people who are great leaders instead of just good managers?

My Experiences

Let’s start small. I began my automotive career like many others – in the detail bay. I washed every car that came through the doors, summer or winter. The crusty tower operator was my direct supervisor and it was obvious why he wasn’t exactly the most liked person in the building. He was aggressive and demanding.

The thing is, when I wasn’t doing something quite right, he would jump in and show me how to do it right. Whether there was a more efficient way of cleaning floor mats or my soap mix wasn’t right, he wouldn’t just tell me what to do to fix it – he’d show me. Often, more than once.

And when I was in the weeds, he was there to catch me up. It wasn’t his actual job to do it, but he saw a need and came to my aid. I can remember cleaning the windows on a smoker’s car three times before it was satisfactory, and only with his help so production wasn’t held up. On busy winter days when vehicles iced up as soon as the water spray hit them, he’d pull the next vehicle in for me so it could warm up.

At the time, I didn’t think of him as a leader, just a jerk. But he taught me skills – not just car washing skills – that I continue to use to this day. The biggest one – you’re never too big to help those below you.

A few years later, I displayed interest enough to work my way up as a service advisor. A couple years in that role left me wanting a bit more, and I threw my name in the hat for a vacancy for the tower operator. My manager at the time was hesitant. I shouldn’t have been surprised, though, because I was a scant 22 years old. I was still wet behind the ears and had much to learn.

Maybe no one else wanted the job, or maybe I was actually the best candidate. Whatever the reason, I took the seat in the tower and did quite well at it…in time. See, the manager knew that an inexperienced and young team member in such a crucial role would take time to get up to speed. Knowing this, he took the educated chance, fully aware there would be part of the burden he’d have to shoulder himself.

I’ve never worked for a more patient person. It’s only now, from the outside looking in, that I see how much of the load he must’ve bore while I was getting up to speed. The lesson he taught has also stuck – when you’re a leader, you carry part of everyone’s load so the team succeeds.

Perhaps the most important lesson I learned came from the DOC. Rather, from the person who introduced me to the DOC. Again, as a youthful tower operator, I was quite successful with the numbers. My role included claiming labor times and quoting estimates for repairs, and I was great at getting every .1 submitted and paid. And then I heard about all the background numbers…

The DOC opened my eyes. It’s like going from the production line at a LEGO plant, making one rectangular red brick for years on end. Then one day, you discover all the amazing and complex structures LEGO can build, and with so much more than just your red bricks. The DOC helped me discover WHAT numbers were actually important and WHY we do things and WHERE the money goes and WHO is having a great month and WHEN we needed to pull up our socks. And my manager showed me HOW it all tied together.

The lesson I took away from the manager wasn’t actually to do with the DOC itself, although it made me much better at my job and every role I’ve held since. The lesson I learned was to train the person below you for your job. It’s a military mentality. If something happens to you “in the field”, your team should be able to carry on with hardly a stutter. If everything falls apart when you are absent, that would be considered a failure in my eyes.

There have been dozens of managers that I’ve worked with and worked for that haven’t been nearly as involved in shaping my career. They were the ones who instructed and commanded without explaining the WHY in the process. If you want to see better results from your team members, give them a glimpse into what they’re working toward. That could be revealing certain parts of the financial statements, or it might be more pedestrian like explaining your expectations for the coming month. If you’re grooming someone for your position when you move up or move out, let them know – it tells them you value them and gives them a goal to work towards.

Where do you put yourself in the spectrum of managers or leaders? Give your anecdotes and personal wins/fails as a manager or leader. Find encouragement and inspiration in the stories you hear from your peers.

When you go fishing, you have to measure the fish you catch. When you frame a house, you don’t cut the studs before marking the length. When you’re at the racetrack, you don’t run the quarter mile without watching the clock.

There are benchmarks in everything you do, and you’re made all too aware of the standards of your position. As a service manager or fixed operations director, your role is to monitor, correct, and mentor the staff under you to perform according to the standards you set out for them to do. In the same way, your general manager or dealer principal set your benchmarks, don’t they?

While you can be measured against virtually any criteria, a few stand out as critical. They ensure your success as a manager and are indicators of a healthy department. And yes, they are KPIs – key performance indicators.

What are common KPIs that are tracked?

Gross Profit – this is a big one. Most managers are paid on GP at some level, so it’s no wonder it’s high on the priorities. You know what this is. Income before expenses.

Hours per RO – most commonly used to track your service advisors’ performance, hours per RO is simply that – the average number of hours you sell per work order that comes through your door. It could be over all warranty, internal, and CP, though usually just the customer pay for advisor tracking.

Effective Labor Rate – if you’re trying to find out if your boat has holes in the hull, watch your ELR. Here is where you’ll discover unauthorized discounting and services that are siphoning away your profits.

Net Profit – at the higher level, you might be paid on net profit. More likely, your net is what the people above you are watching because that’s how they’re paid. Said and done, it’s the dollars coming through your door after expenses.

Car count – how many customers are coming in your door? You can have high average hours per RO but if the customers aren’t coming in, how do you turn a profit?

Hours produced – is your shop working at capacity? You’ll be able to tell from the total number of hours produced by your technicians.

CSI – it’s what your customers are saying about you to the manufacturer. It might be flawed and it may be weighted wrong, but you’ve got to abide by CSI.

If you’re an experienced manager, you already know this. If you’re new to the game or are aspiring to get into service management, this may be news. It’s a steep learning curve and there will be numbers thrown at you and reports you need to fill out, and you’ll quickly discover where to find these numbers.

What’s more important is what you do with them.

KPIs aren’t just for measuring. They’re used for making decisions and corrections. If you measure a fish and it’s not a “keeper” size, you toss it back. You don’t measure a two-by-four and mark it, then cut it too short. You use your measurements to adjust your actions, making your department as productive as possible with what you have.

Which KPIs are most important?

Most people would say gross profit is number one, but consider this: Gross Profit is the result you see once other factors are already included. Wouldn’t it make more sense to track the KPIs that are on the ground level?

If your shop is producing good profit but you suspect you’re capable of more, you should keep a close eye on your ELR and your hours produced. This is how you find out if your shop needs more volume or if your giving away the work that you’re doing. If your hours produced doesn’t add up to at least eight hours of work per technician per day, you’re going to need to get more customers in your door. If your ELR is below 70% of your door rate, create a report to flag every instance it occurs. You may have a rogue advisor discounting things or you might have to revisit your pricing on certain services.

If your hours produced low but your advisors are running off their feet, it’s probably time to start coaching them to increase their hours per RO. It could be you need to incentivize them to pull up their bootstraps, or you may help correct their actions. Your advisors can be more effective by producing more hours per customer than by trying to serve more customers at a lower hours per.

CSI and car count are two factors to consider for customer satisfaction and retention. If you’re numbers are good for the customers you have coming in the door, you just need to focus on getting them to come back. Reinforce the importance of the manufacturer’s Customer Satisfaction Index survey to your service staff. When they know what the manufacturer wants to see on the survey, they can help focus their attention on those criteria. If the car count is slipping and your CSI has slumped, you might have a weak spot in your department where customers are being turned off. Seek out a common denominator so you can fix the problem before it worsens.

Not every dealership is measured by the same stick. Domestic manufacturers usually look in a little different direction than the import stores. Premium brands often emphasize different points than the mass-market brands.

What’s important no matter which brand or dealer group you work for is that your department is profitable and your customers keep coming back. Striving for better and making improvements is a daily task – your job is never complete. There is no magic number where those above you will say to just maintain. Monthly, weekly, even daily, watch your KPIs for trends and anomalies, adjusting what you can to make your department run smoothly and successfully. 

Your store has a steady stream of customers with recall notices in hand, storming through your door. But unless you haven’t had access to the internet, television, or a newspaper in the past three or four years, you’ve noticed that it’s not just your particular brand that’s been inundated with recalls. It’s industry wide, and it’s because there are more stringent safety and emissions standards than ever before.

Everyone has the same problem – you want to focus on customer pay work, not the piddly .2’s and .3’s that most recalls bank for you. So, your view of recalls becomes tainted. There are thousands of recall customers to deal with in your area, yet you don’t want to reach out to them because they aren’t generating a windfall for your department. They’re plugging up your service drive, your shuttle seats, your parking lot, and consuming your advisors’ day without producing any real results on the bottom line.

Likely, you have pressure from the manufacturer to pound through the recalls as quickly as possible. They want to show that they’re taking the problem seriously, “ensuring public safety” and whatever other catch phrases they can come up with. The end of the recalls doesn’t appear to be in sight.

You can turn it around. Recalls don’t have to be a bane. They can be a boom for your dealership instead. It’s all about finding a process that works for you and your staff, and one that produces results – long-term, revenue-generating results.

Here are a few ideas on how to make that happen.

Make recall customers feel important

Often, if a customer has an appointment for solely recall work, they’re viewed as a second-class customer. They can feel it. They are sluffed off to the junior service advisor who is left to clean up all the scraps, receiving inexperienced, slow service that only increases their frustration.

Make your recall customers feel just as wanted as your customer-pay clients. Because that’s exactly what you’re going to turn them into.

If the customer senses that they aren’t wanted, they aren’t going to open their wallet before, during, or after the recall work is completed. You won’t sell them a wiper blade let alone a transmission service or electrical repair. If they feel like you truly value them, their safety, and their patronage, you may just crack their billfold open.

Get your senior service staff involved in recall customers

Show your recall customers that they are valued by putting your best people on the job. Senior service advisors have the experience to put a customer at ease, making their visit more pleasant and comfortable.

The problem you’ll discover is that senior service advisors know the money is in customer pay work. A minor recall is hardly worth their trouble. That’s when you remind them of their role – to care for every customer the same, converting non-paying customers into those who gladly fork over their money to your service department.

You might have to incentivize recall customers for your staff. You can spiff your advisors for converting recall-only customers into CP customers, and you will find that the best advisors will rise to the challenge. The thing is, they already know this but any commission-based position needs to be reminded occasionally that there’s a ceiling with easy money, but you can break through that ceiling if you bust your…hump.

Streamline recall repairs

You’re not going to convert every recall customer into a paying client on the same visit. It would be folly to think otherwise. However, if you provide exceptional service, you may just earn yourself another visit from that customer in the future where the purse strings have been loosened.

A common procedure is to dedicate a few specialized technicians to recall work, especially during the heaviest periods of a widespread recall. Vehicle after vehicle, that’s all they do, accurately performing recalls for fast, consistent repairs. It has the potential to significantly reduce wait times and can ease the pressure on your shuttle service or loaner cars.

Go the extra mile

As mentioned, recall customers can be made to feel like second-class citizens. Show them that they are valued customers by treating each one to a car wash or some other bonus service while they are in. Make sure it doesn’t chew up too much time or it could backfire in its intention, damaging your survey scores (if your recall customers get surveys) but more importantly, damaging your delicate relationship so they don’t return to you in the future.

Convert your recall customers into sales prospects

Many recalled vehicles are three years old or more. Those are the perfect customers to target for a service-to-sales handoff. I know – you’d prefer to keep your customers in older cars because maintenance and repair costs are higher. But switching your recall customers into new cars not only increases their satisfaction, it also creates a much stronger opportunity for long-term customer retention.

Make a plan with your sales department to offer a bonus or spiff to specific recall customers. Make sure your service advisors know all about it and are on board to convert on the opportunities. There’s no reason not to try switching a recall customer out of their ‘flawed’ vehicle and into something new and shiny.

The overwhelming number of recalls that are currently floating around, whether from General Motors, Fiat Chrysler, Toyota, Honda, or virtually any other brand, is staggering. Your view of recalls can quickly become jaded or just washed out. It’s important to remember that it’s not just about customer satisfaction for your recall customers, but converting on opportunities to increase your service department’s productivity.

Treat your recall customers as first-class customers with friendly, courteous, and complete service, and you’ll reap the rewards. 

There’s a great divide between going through the motions and getting the job done right. Are your customers getting the best from your staff?

I spent a few years at the service desk of one of the busiest Chevy dealers on the prairies. I was one of six service advisors and when it was busy, it was run-off-your-feet busy, and when it was slow, it was still pretty busy. There were countless days of writing more than 30 work orders per day, and in the throes of the ignition switch recalls, it was for weeks at a time.

Being a service advisor is not an easy position. You’re on the front line and you have to engage with your customers and other staff from the moment you walk in the door to the minute your last customer of the day has left the building. It’s mentally and emotionally exhausting – seldom do you leave your desk for a reprieve, and when you do, you’re paged back for a phone call, a tech with an estimate to sell, or a manager asking why you had to give away an oil change for free. If you’re reading this and you are a service advisor or have been at some time, you know what I mean. If you haven’t held the role, ask a service advisor to confirm its truth.

But that’s the role, and that’s what we signed up for. It’s not a job for the faint of heart and at times you have to have nerves of steel when the going gets tough. There are times when you don’t give a complete effort because you’re tired. You go through the motions, and get frustrated when your actions don’t produce results.

As a service advisor, doing it right is the EASY way. Just going through the motions makes your job exponentially more difficult – your customers are less satisfied, meaning your managers are less satisfied, and to make it all that much worse, your paycheck suffers.

These are common service advisor principles, but maybe one of them is your weak spot. Maybe you like to cut corners in one specific area because it makes you uncomfortable or its not glamorous. Maybe there’s a message in this for you – an area you’ll realize needs a tweak that will make your role more fulfilling.

(I write this section knowing I’ve failed over and over again in each of these areas.)

Greeting

According to the 2016 J.D. Power CSI Survey results, your customer satisfaction is greatly improved when they are greeted within two minutes of their arrival. On the 1,000-point scale, a prompt greeting can improve the score by 44 points. That’s a big difference, especially because it sets the tone for their service visit.

A prompt greeting means a more pleasant customer, usually. That means a better chance of upsells at the service desk, an easier job of selling estimates later on, and a better CSI survey score once the customer is on their way at the end of the day.

Sadly, 27 percent of survey respondents say they had to wait longer than 2 minutes for a greeting when they arrived at the service department. Here’s what that does:

• It irritates them before they’ve even spoken to you.
• It builds a wall against your selling strategies at the desk.
• It harbors a critical attitude toward you and your department.
• It prevents effective estimate sells later on.
• It culminates in poor CSI scores.

The greeting is perhaps the most important part of your job. Done right, it will make your role easier from start to finish with each customer.

Each dealership has its own criteria for a proper greeting. Effective greetings include a smile, eye contact, a respectful introduction with your name, and a handshake. It’s a personal thing as well – find something that works for you and do it every time.

Vehicle Walkaround

The purpose of the walkaround isn’t just to find additional things to sell, although it’s a great way to do so. It builds an extra layer of trust with your customer. They see firsthand that you’re paying close attention to their vehicle’s operating condition, which reinforces a caring, customer-focused environment. It will also make it so much easier to sell things later on in the process.

I won’t minimize the importance of the walkaround to selling additional repairs and services, though. You can equate it to the candy, chocolate bars, and gift cards at the grocery store checkout line – they are impulse purchases. They aren’t things that you knew you’d want when you entered the store but they seem like a really good idea once you see them. If you’re struggling to make an extra .1 or .2 hours on your work orders, this is the place to do it.

Check the basics – inspect the tire tread depth and look for abnormal tire wear, check all the bulbs, check for warning lights, and note the fluids and belt conditions.

Invite the customer to join you on the walkaround. It reinforces the purpose and makes it appear like less of a selling technique.

DO the walkaound on every vehicle. Make it so routine for you and your customers that they’ll find it odd if you DON’T do it.

Work Order Write-Up

This step might appear straightforward, but as a service advisor, you have to translate customer talk into language your technicians can use. Listening carefully is the most important part of the write-up so accurate, complete information can be passed on, resulting in higher fixed-first-visit (FFV) scores and happier customers.

Also, flesh out your customer’s concerns as much as possible. As a customer, there’s nothing worse than seeing “no fault found” on the invoice – no one brings their car in for no reason at all. A little extra investigative question-asking by the service advisor can draw out critical information that could solve the customer’s issue, or discover that it’s a normal condition for their vehicle.

When your write-up is complete, review the concerns with your customer once again to make sure you have the right information on the work order and make any changes that are necessary. This step can often conjure up an additional detail or two which might be helpful.

Keep Customers Informed

The phrase “No News is Good News” does NOT apply here. Whether there is anything to report to your customer or not, consistent interaction is always welcomed by your customer. They may not be pleased about the status report you are providing, but they’d rather know than not know.

This was always my biggest failure as a service advisor. I hated making the phone calls when there was nothing to report or when I knew my promised times weren’t going to be right. But instead of placing the calls to keep customers informed, I’d get incoming calls from customers checking up on their vehicle, and those are ten times worse.

Inbound customer calls are the worst scenario for selling as an advisor. The customer feels like they haven’t been valued already, so chances are slim they’ll invest their money in your services.

You have options to keep your customer informed:

• A classic phone call – this still works for a good number of your customers.
• Email – you can include details and pictures that reinforce the importance of an issue.
• Test message – it’s an unintrusive method of contact that is exploding in popularity.

Whether their vehicle hasn’t entered the shop yet, it is in the midst of diagnosis, you have an estimate to sell, it won’t be ready today, or it’s ready to pick up, your customer wants to know. Schedule intervals where you contact all your customers – say 10 o’oclock and 2 o’clock – so they will know to expect your call.

Incoming calls scramble your day. When you’re on top of your outgoing calls for follow-up, you’re in control of how you spend your time. See how well you can control your phone – try to make all your customer calls before they call you. You can even keep score from day to day so you can track your improvement.  

Active Delivery

When your customers come to pick up their vehicle, it’s a time to underpin their importance to you and your dealership. This is where you can show that you value their business and thank them for their patronage.

It’s also when you can go through the repairs and services once again, reviewing why items are necessary and what they should expect for their next service. By doing so, you open the door to booking their next service visit and strengthening your customer retention.

Imagine what the customer thinks or feels when they pick up their vehicle after servicing at your dealership, and you aren’t there to explain their invoice. Was the work actually required or are you just taking their hard-earned money? Are they not important to you? Was anything noted that should be closely monitored? It leaves the customer with more questions than answers and your cashiers can only do so much.

A personal, active vehicle delivery solidifies a customer’s positive perception on their service visit. While first impressions are most important, last impressions are valuable as well.

They’ve always been your biggest customer and always will be. In the franchised dealership world, new and used car sales are indirectly the biggest piece of the pie for your service department and parts department income numbers. But there’s a reason the sales department is known as variable operations, not fixed ops like you.

The sales world operates in the ebb and flow model. Some weeks, months, and even years are stronger than others hence the term “variable”. There are influences that cause trends including economic upticks and downturns, new model releases that draw pomp and circumstance, and news releases like widespread recalls.

The trend in sales numbers has been on an upward swing for years. Since the economy’s tables were overturned in 2008, where the American automotive world suffered one of the largest setbacks in history, sales numbers have been steadily increasing.

That bubble might soon burst though.

The automotive sales numbers in 2015 set a record. Light vehicle sales were up 5.7 percent over the 2014 sales numbers which were also the strongest ever. Originally, 2016 was expected to once again blow the doors off and increase sales, and car dealerships set their forecasts on those expectations.

Now those forecasts are being revised. 2016 is shaping up to fall short of the impressive sales numbers posted in 2015, not exceed them like originally thought. Both LMC Automotive and Bloomberg have revised their expectations recently.

The sales environment, unlike the fixed ops departments, is volatile because of outside influences. During a customer’s procurement phase, their purchasing decision is heavily influenced by what’s going on in the world, not just on what is going on in their life. Economic fluctuations are obviously a factor as are political changes on the home front and on the world stage. Brexit as well as the American politics have dominated the news and cause insecurity, meaning customers are warier of making big purchases like vehicles.

Top that off with two other items: recalls and manufacturing fluctuations. Major industry players like Takata have issued recalls that affect several carmakers. Volkswagen’s Dieselgate debacle has crushed the TDi sales numbers worldwide, not just in the US. And just this week, General Motors expected to halt production at several plants because one of their parts suppliers was going bankrupt.

You might wonder why this matters to you. You may not think it’s important to you at all, or maybe plays a very small role in your department.

The thing is, you COUNT ON the sales department for a big slice of your income. Every vehicle the sales department sells injects money into your service and parts departments. When those sales numbers dwindle, your gross profit dwindles. You already know this, but you still count on the sales department for a reliable source for your department’s income.

I know you have to plan out your coming year for financial forecasts. Every dealer does it – you need something to input into the doc. Realistically, that number shouldn’t be hard and fast. If it is, you’ll pat yourself on the back when you exceed those numbers, and because of something you didn’t really have control of. Or you’ll beat yourself up over missing the target even though there’s nothing more you could’ve done.  

Then what should you do?

The income your service and parts departments receive from the sales department – the pre-delivery inspections, the used vehicle safety inspections and certifications, the tire sales, and the accessory sales and installations – that can all get cut to a mere fraction of your current numbers at the tip of a scale. One major disaster, one political party folly, or an international incident can make that income stream dry up overnight.

If the sales department isn’t selling, there will be less inventory turnover resulting in fewer new cars to prep and fewer trade-ins and auction cars to certify. What won’t change are the number of people who already have vehicles.

Focus on your current OUTSIDE customers.

Yes, the sales department is your single largest customer, but the rest of your customers make up somewhere near 80 percent of your total income. When you count on your sales department to keep you afloat, you’re hanging your hat on numbers that can change as quickly as the wind direction. The rest of your client base will still need somewhere to service and repair their vehicles whether or not they are buying a new one.

Your outside customers are the reason you are a fixed operations department. There is always going to be a customer base to which you can provide service, advertise, and provide total satisfaction. Here are a few tips on how to focus on the customers you can count on, the outside clientele.

Make scheduling customer work your priority.

Your sales department understands that they aren’t your only customer, just your largest. Your outside customers, though, don’t care if the sales department needs a vehicle safety inspection completed or a new model prepped to go in the showroom. They want their vehicle done in a timely fashion. Schedule your shop capacity focusing on fulfilling your customers’ needs first, then fit your sales department’s needs in as it’s possible. The exception should be sold vehicles to be delivered to a customer – treat these like an outside customer’s vehicle.

Keep an open dialog with the sales department.

Set up a point of contact or liaison with the sales department to determine the priority vehicles. Knowing who needs what and when they need it can help you facilitate everyone’s needs in a timely manner, most importantly your outside customers.

Treat each customer to the highest level of service.

Make sure all of your customers are receiving full and complete care. These happy customers will be repeat customers that will continuously fill your service department. They will also be the repeat SALES customers, meaning several more years of repeat visits. The key is to provide exceptional customer service every visit. Just one bad experience can be enough to send your customer on a search for a new servicing dealer.

Maintain a social media presence.

Your parts and service departments should be highly visible. Attracting new customers is expensive, then turning skeptical first-time customers into repeat customers can be the hardest of all. Social media makes potential new customers feel like they already know you, and reinforces your value and relationship with current customers. It’s free or nearly-free advertising and is completely focused at strengthening your department.

Variable operations managers, general managers, and dealer principals, I can’t emphasize enough how important your business is to your fixed operations departments. It’s crucial. In an ever-changing automotive landscape, fixed operations needs to maintain a focus on keeping their departments full and busy, even when the variable side slows down.

Have you found a way to strike a balance between the varying workflow from your sales department and your service customer base? What works for you?  

In medieval times, when a severe punishment was handed out, the convicted party was often sentenced to time in the dungeon. One such prison was known as an “oubliette” which comes from the French term to forget. It was solitary and frightening and often prisoners would starve to death as their captors paid no attention to their wellbeing.

In the automotive industry, we could refer to the parts department as the dungeon.

There’s little glamour in working in the parts department. Every role, from dealing with irate customers at the front counter to placing orders for ornery technicians at the back counter – there’s nothing about the job that doesn’t seem like a harsh punishment.

Those working in parts departments across the country know what I mean. It’s like the rest of the dealership looks at you with little regard, because after all, how hard is it to pick parts off a shelf? If only they knew…

Parts personnel, you are not forgotten. Your role is more important than anyone else knows, and probably more important than even you know.

Holding it all together

The parts department is the linchpin at your dealership. They are a fundamental tie between departments no matter which way you slice it.

Without parts, your sales team could not do what they do. There would be no license plate brackets, no wheel locks, no block heater cords, and definitely no accessories. Good luck finding the right floor mats for your recent sale, by the way.

Without parts, your service department would literally be at a standstill. There would be no oil or filters for basic services, no tire patches for tire repairs, no one to tell you which additional gaskets you need for your head gasket job, and no one to price out those laundry-list estimates you’re trying to sell.

Without parts, your body shop would be twiddling their thumbs. They wouldn’t be able to price out amendments to insurance claims, locate aftermarket parts for those fender-benders, or determine the paint code for virtually every car they are working on.

Without the parts department, your dealership operations grind to a shuddering halt. Why is it that parts team members struggle to get the respect they so often deserve?

I’ve worked with a few absolutely fantastic parts people over the years (shout-out to Amy Fakes, Kevin Henzel, Chris Nickelman, Satbir Dhillon, and Rob Webster) who know their stuff better than any one of the techs that request parts from them. Do they know the head bolts need to be replaced without being told? Absolutely. Do they know you need dielectric grease for that electrical repair? Yup. Will you have both seals you need for the job when you only ordered one? Definitely.

Anyone who thinks working in the parts department is a joke or is easy to do, think again. Better yet, step into their space for a few days to see everything they do. What you don’t see comprises the bulk of their job. Here’s an incomplete list of a day in the life of a parts consultant:

• Order parts for technicians
• Field customer phone calls (with incomplete information – need a VIN number)
• Pick parts for technicians
• Pull accessories for a salesperson to show their customer
• Put away the stock order
• Call the manufacturer for a radio code
• Call the manufacturer due to a missing part listing (insert half-hour hold here)
• Order special order parts for customers and technicians alike
• Return special order parts that were never picked up
• Grab lube tech an oil filter (no, not that one, the other one)
• Order shop supplies
• Call for aftermarket parts/issue purchase order/receive and invoice aftermarket parts
• Stop for morning coffee break…if there’s time.

You get the idea. So when your parts team members look weary sitting behind the parts desk, or more likely standing, cut them some slack. None of their job is self-serving.

Level the playing field

Hopefully you have a better understanding of what goes into the role of a parts team member. It’s amazing that such pivotal people are behind the scenes, isn’t it? So maybe it’s time the parts department received some much deserved attention.  

First, it would make their day if you simply tell them how much you appreciate their hard work. What they do for your dealership is seldom recognized, and when it is, it’s even more seldom expressed directly.

Next, consider your training regimen. When your manufacturer puts on training sessions in your city, do you send your parts staff to attend? If your sales and service staff are involved in training exercises, there’s a good chance that your parts personnel would also benefit. This rings true for new model releases especially, but ride-and-drive events are always a good reward for your parts staff too.

Then, think about their personal development. Is there a parts person who should be groomed for the next parts manager position that opens up? Or is there someone who is using the parts department as a stepping stone to a different position? Some of the strongest candidates for high-level positions might be getting overlooked in the parts department.

Finally, have their backs. It’s so easy to come down with the full force of Thor when there is a part discrepancy. Maybe a wrong part was ordered or something was missed on an order. Maybe the person who requested the order incorrectly described the part or demanded the order without a VIN to verify. There are so many variables in the parts department that it’s literally impossible to get every order correct every time.

So cut them a bit of slack. They’re working with you as hard as they can – usually without the visibility that frontline staff get and almost assuredly with less pay than you think. They don’t desire a confrontation with you or anyone else.

Do you have a method of recognizing your parts personnel in the same fashion as the rest of your dealership team? How do you ensure parity between your departments? Weigh in with your thoughts on the subject. 

You’re not just their boss – you’re their mentor. At least, if you want to be.

Whether you’re employed as a service manager, fixed ops director, parts manager, service advisor, parts advisor, sales, or in any other position in the dealership, you’re hired for a role that involves one overriding factor – productivity. Your main purpose at the dealership is to generate income for the owners and dealer principals that sign your checks.

Part of every role, management or not, is developing the people who are below you. You’re expected to be an example of how to conduct one’s self at the workplace. You’re the utmost of professionalism. You’re courteous and friendly. You’re helpful and supportive. And you’re like that without fail…right?

None of us are the consummate professional at every moment of every day. We blow our tops. We do things that we hope no one notices, and especially hope that no one mimics. Striving to be better in our work environment is plagued with failures and mistakes. What makes you successful – what makes you true management material – is the ability to pick yourself up and resume your professional demeanor.

Providing an example of professional behavior is a great start and probably the most important step. It tells your team members that you value and encourage integrity in the workplace. This integrity translates into productivity in your department as your staff are more focused and driven to succeed.

What can you do to mentor your employees?

These are just three quick points that I’ve discovered personally during my 15-year journey in the automotive industry. It’s not an exhaustive list and I’d welcome any additions. Feel free to weigh in with comments below.

Encourage Clean Living

I think we all know someone in the automotive industry that has been negatively affected by alcoholism or substance abuse. According to SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration), nearly one in ten people suffer from addictions to drugs or alcohol in the workforce, and that number climbs in high-stress environments. I think we’d agree car dealerships are higher stress than an average job, so it’s more likely that one in seven or eight of your employees have some form of substance abuse problem.

You’re kidding yourself if you think substance abuse is only an after-hours problem. It affects work performance along with attitude. It also sets the bar low for your other employees, letting them know what they can and can’t get away with.

Encourage your staff to find alternate ways to blow off steam. Ways that don’t involve alcohol or drugs. Ways that build them up as people and develop character. You’ll find productivity is improved and your workplace atmosphere is much more positive.

Here are a few ideas:

• A workout group that hits the gym after work
• A book club (fiction or non-fiction, doesn’t matter)
• A walking group during lunch breaks or a Fitbit step competition
• Amateur art classes

Promote Family Life

Those who have a family want to go home to them, especially if there are kids involved. There are evening sports, errands to run, dinner to eat together, and spouses who want to hear about the day’s events. These are all positive activities that ground a person and provide a stable foundation which you can build productive employees on.

You probably don’t know what each of your team members goes home to every night, but you know they go home. You know personally that work takes up more time than any of us want, so when the clock strikes home o’clock, try not to keep your staff members behind. Limit the number of after-hours meetings. Staff appropriately so overtime is rarely essential. 

Harbor Professional Development

Ideally, you’d like everyone in your department to be of the utmost character – the perfect little soldiers for a strong, cohesive army. But, like author Dan Waldschmidt says, “People are messy.” They make mistakes and bad choices. They don’t always do as they are instructed. But desiring to do better and be better is the best characteristic you can have in an employee.

When you recognize in one of your staff members that they have ambition or a quality that sets them apart, whether leadership, influence, or otherwise, you have an opening to introduce developmental practices. You can spend some time mentoring and providing positive criticism, encourage them to read a good book, or follow inspirational people on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.

To that end, the options are limitless. There are so many professional development resources on the market that provide insight, motivation, and inspiration. By no means is this list complete, and feel free to add your favorite resource, but here are a few great sources for professional development.

• Dan Waldschmidt – ultra-athlete, keynote speaker, author of “Edgy Conversations”
• Joe Verde – Sales and Management Trainer, author of several auto industry resources
• Kevin Nations – mastermind mentor and coach
• Grant Cardone – real estate investor, speaker, author of “Sell or Be Sold”
• Robert Herjavec – star of Shark Tank, businessman, renowned author

It could serve you well to have a bookshelf full of resources that you share with your staff. It’s inevitable that, with your encouragement to flip the pages, your staff will benefit from what they read between the covers.

Again, expecting your employees to desire and do better for themselves needs to start with you. What you ask of your staff, you’ll need to be prepared to demonstrate for them. No one expects perfection from you, just the desire to continuously improve. Your department will undoubtedly become more productive and your work environment will be so much more positive.

Just today, Bankrate.com issued a press release about credit card usage according to demographics. The results are rather intriguing, so here are a few of the key points:

• 33 percent of those aged 18 to 29 have credit cards
• 55 percent of those 30 to 49 use credit cards
• 62 percent of 50 to 64-year-olds have credit cards
• 68 percent of those over 65 years of age confirm they use a credit card

That’s pretty interesting, isn’t it? As age increases, so does the likelihood that your customer will pay with a credit card. Okay, so maybe you aren’t struck dumbfounded by this revelation. Maybe that’s because you don’t think it matters much to you.

HOW your customer pays is intrinsic to your service department, make no mistake.

Car repairs and maintenance are slotted into the same category as vehicle purchases, home-buying experiences, and student loans. You’ll remember just last decade the United States experienced a recession that lasted for years. Countless families lost their homes, gave up their cars, and defaulted on personal loans that will taint their consumer credit for years. Millennials were watching this all unfold before most of them were even eligible to apply for a credit card.

Now, those millennials are guarding themselves against the horrific experience of debt going bad. They pay for their purchases as they can afford them whether it’s consumer electronics, a condo, a car, or car repairs and maintenance. It also means that major purchases aren’t made on a whim – they are carefully planned out and budgeted ahead of time.

While your “older” clientele (sorry, I’m referring to those 30 and over) is more tolerant to work order add-ons like unexpected repairs and overdue maintenance, the younger generation won’t be as inclined. Moreover, they won’t be able to, and that’s a choice they make.

How it affects your approach

Although millennials are the smallest section of your customer base, they are the fastest-growing. They are the customers you target because you want to capture their business for future decades. You need to relate to their demographic on THEIR terms or they will simply go elsewhere.

A typical service visit at most dealerships involves an appointment, a write-up process, an upsell attempt at the service desk, and an inspection followed by another upsell. With baby boomers, and Gen-X and Yers, you can confidently try to sell additional work at each of these steps. If they can’t really afford the add-ons, no problem – charge it to the credit card.

With millennials, that approach isn’t likely to succeed and will quite possibly frustrate and upset your customer. A customer that pays cash for all their purchases is more apt to respond to pre-booking for future services and repairs. If repairs are urgent, that’s another matter altogether, but for services that can be postponed a week, a month, or until the next service visit, you’re much more likely to get the sale through planning a future visit.

That being said, you can maximize your current maintenance visits with your appointment process. When an appointment is set through either your service staff or your BDC, you have the opportunity to check your customer’s service history and pre-sell their due services. If that’s not done, you have the ability to try again when your appointment reminder calls are placed.

The same goes for recommended services and repairs from the last visit. If anything wasn’t completed last time around, it should be recommended once again during the appointment process.

Place an Emphasis on Maintenance

Because millennials are restricting their credit usage for financial responsibility purposes primarily, it would stand to reason that emphasizing regular maintenance would resonate with them. The idea that expensive future unplanned costs can be avoided with a bit of maintenance today is much more attractive to someone who knows where each dollar goes.

The principle is foundational in your service department but with other generations, you can often get soft on the pre-selling aspect without much consequence. It’s an excellent practice to use regardless of your customer.

Offer Discounts that Engage Millennials

If you know that one of the important financial factors for millennials is that “cash is king”, use that to your advantage. Offer a modest discount or rewards program that piques the interest of cash buyers.

Keep in mind that credit card transactions cost YOU money. It’s typically in the 2.5% of the total transaction charged. That means you save money by dealing in cash purchases, offsetting any discount you may offer your clientele. Keep it small, though, like five percent.

Space Out Expensive Services

Help your customers who don’t rely on credit by spacing out larger maintenance items instead of trying to hit the home run on one big visit. If a 60K service is typically $1,000, break out some of the services that may be performed on the previous visit so the pill isn’t so hard to swallow at one time. Your cash customers won’t have gobs of money on hand to spend at once, so two $500 visits instead of one $1,000 visit will ease the pain.

If you can capture the millennial market early, you’re going to reap the benefits for years to come. That’s not to say you should abandon what you’re doing with the older generations – if it’s successful, keep doing it. Just don’t let the future of your service department –the millennials – slip between your fingers in the process.