After a recent conversation with a big fish in the Canadian automotive fixed ops industry, Walter Schirrmeister, VP of Fixed Operations at The Dilawri Group, I was struck with how seldom the basics are actually discussed in detail. I mean, they’re basics, right? That means a quick overview means you can execute the basics without fail, day in and day out…can’t you?

If that were the case, there would be no need for fixed operations managers, and rarely a need for service managers either. Unfortunately, the basic principles of the service department, in particular, are set aside for the newest trend coming down the pipe. The newest wave of marketing, social media presence, and customer satisfaction indexes – they all take our priority and attention while the “basics” are given lower importance.

As Walter reminded me, there are three basic principles for the service department:

• How many work orders you write
• How many hours per work order you sell
• How much money you keep per work order

While customer satisfaction is critical and reaching our customers is crucial, how we maximize the results every time they visit is what it all boils down to.

I’m sure you’d agree your service department is not a charity. Every staff member, from the cashier up to the dealer principal, depend on your service department to generate a profit. Your customers expect to spend money when they come through your door albeit in exchange for a valuable service. It’s up to you to make those basic principles come to life.

We’re going to review the basics here, if for nothing else than to keep them fresh in your mind. As ideas spring up for how to improve, jot them down, then act on them.

Write Work Orders

Are you aware of how many work orders each of your service advisors are writing? It’s going to vary depending on the size of your store and any additional roles or expectations you ask of your advisors, but an experienced one should be able to comfortably handle 12 to 15 customers per day. In that range, your service advisor should have plenty of time to attentively write up each work order, track them throughout the day, sell any required estimates, and assist in the vehicle pickup and cash-out.

If it’s 8 to 10 that your advisors are handling, you need to ask why. Are your appointment numbers dwindling, requiring additional marketing on your part? Is your advisor not working to their capacity and expecting someone else to pick up the slack?

If your advisors are writing 20 or more work orders in a day consistently, you might want to consider easing their burden somehow. Can you hold back a few appointments per day? Do you need to hire another advisor? Writing 20 or more work orders in a day is a recipe for burn-out and will likely start exhibiting diminished customer care. You may see hours per work order drop off or a higher number of customer complaints and bad CSI surveys. You may just have yourself a rockstar service advisor, so keep an eye out for that as well…

Sell Work on Those Work Orders

You obviously track your hours per RO. You didn’t get to where you are by neglecting that number. Each store is vastly different on what they consider an appropriate hours per RO, so you’ll have to be your own judge on how you stack up in this category.

What you can do is keep track of your improvements. Have you implemented a target for your service advisors and a way to achieve it? How are they doing with achieving that goal? Do you have someone that isn’t pulling their weight and needs either encouragement or additional training or support?

One suggestion: calculate how much additional gross and net profit you’d see by improving your hours per RO by just a tenth of an hour, then see if it’s achievable for your store’s performance.

Keep your Service Sales

This number, friends, is your Effective Labor Rate, or ELR. It’s what you’re effectively selling every hour of your department’s work. You want this number as high as possible because it has a very direct correlation to your gross profit.

There are only two ways to improve your gross profit. You can either raise your labor rate or you can improve your effective labor rate. Raising your labor rate costs your customers more money and is by far the more difficult route to take.

Improving your ELR is the most straightforward way of improving your gross. About ELR, Walter Schirrmeister says, “It’s found money. You’re not charging anyone any more. You’re just taking care of the problems, the crap that shouldn’t happen.”

What crap is that exactly? There are two main issues.

• Discounting. Every service manager has had that conversation with their service advisors about giving unauthorized discounts, so it shouldn’t be an issue anymore, right? Guess again. You’ll be surprised how often your disappointing ELR is because a service advisor is giving discounts. An easy way of tracing the issue is to pull every work order that has less than 70 percent gross profit and determine precisely why it is that way.

If you can stem the flow of discounting, you’ll see the results in your ELR immediately. And, when your service advisors know you’re watching for discounts, they will come to a grinding halt.

• Paying more than you should. In a service department, things get messy when you want to pay less for a service than before, but in some instances, it’s a necessity. With today’s modern alignment technology, it no longer takes a technician 1.5 hours to complete a four-wheel alignment. Most can be completed well within 45 minutes or less, so why pay more than twice that time? And does a full-rate technician need to perform the alignment, or can an apprentice complete the task just as well? By paying a lower rate technician to complete the job in a reasonable time frame, you can improve your ELR by several dollars.

It’s not an easy conversation to have, truth be told. You will likely experience a push back from the technicians who are losing out on gravy work. As a manager, it’s your job to make the tough calls that are primarily best for the business while caring for the needs of your staff. Your full-rate technicians will have time for other full-rate work that they are qualified to perform instead, and a technician that’s a team player will understand…just maybe not right away.

As a service manager, you’ve got a hard role to perform. You have to balance a happy and productive staff with the business side of your department. If you’ve gotten away from the basics, you may have a difficult task ahead to correct the course, but ultimately, what is your priority? Running a profitable department.

You have customers that come through your service drive every day with cars that have seen better years. Vehicles with hundreds of thousands of miles even though they are just a few years old, low-mileage cars that have been through two or three decades, or mistreated vehicles that didn’t stand a chance against their owner’s ambivalence.

You do your best to provide the best service possible for each of your customers through your repair recommendations, your maintenance suggestions, and your urging for more consistent visits to prevent the laundry-list effect of concerns. If you’re human, you’ve even dealt with customers to whom you’ve felt bad selling service and repairs because the vehicle isn’t worth the investment.

At times, it’s a tough situation to be in. Do you swing for the fences and try to sell all the repairs to recondition the worn vehicle? Do you tell your faithful, trusting customer that the vehicle simply isn’t worth the money they’re ready to spend? Or do you help them limp by with minimal repairs, until the next time they stop in for a problem?

The catch often is that your pay is tied to your 'customer service'. You’d like to realize the benefits of your actions immediately so the tendency is to sell the repairs and maintenance, putting blinders on so you don’t make an attachment to your customer’s position.

Is that truly serving your customer’s needs the best?

There’s always another option – the sales referral. With those words, silent screams are going up across the continent from service advisors, service managers, and fixed operations directors. It isn’t a new concept by any means although its use is far less common than it should be.

Sales referrals from the service department should be a process every staff member is familiar with. It’s meant to be a way of retaining a customer that may otherwise defect to the competition without the input of your service staff. Here’s how it should operate:

• A service staff member recognizes that a customer may benefit from a new vehicle instead of conducting repairs on their current model.
• That employee suggests to the customer that there may be a better way opposed to repairs.
• The customer entertains the idea and agrees to consider their options with a sales team member.
• The service staff makes the introduction with a trusted sales colleague, then leaves the process.
• The customer decides whether to buy or lease a new vehicle or to continue with repairs on their current vehicle.

Unfortunately, service employees don’t always see the benefit of the sales referral. Most service positions are commission or productivity-based, and the sales referral is a potential reduction in their income. This obviously weighs heavily in their decision whether to approach the service-to-sales handoff or to continue with the service sale 'obliviously'.

Make the Process Beneficial

The primary problem in the sales referral process is monetary. If you’re asking your service team member to forego their chance of a sale so a salesperson can reap the reward, your request will fall on deaf ears.

Every member of your staff should know that service-to-sales handoffs are a respected and productive decision in your eyes, and each one should be rewarded whether the new vehicle purchase happens or not. You might consider compensation by way of gift cards or a small amount cash for each sales referral they provide, then a greater sum should the transaction take place. It could be $25 for the initial referral plus $100 should the customer take delivery of a new vehicle, or even provide a scaled amount based on the number of referrals in a quarter or year.

In addition to financial compensation for the sales referral, you can help encourage the action by publicly recognizing employees who give referrals to their coworkers.

Sales and Service Employee Relationships

A blind eye cannot be turned to the all-too-common poor interdepartmental relationships. This plays as big a role as any in an employee’s unwillingness to refer service clients to the sales department. Service and sales departments often operate as two different worlds, as if children of the same parents who are in constant disagreement. Whether you choose to acknowledge the spats or not, your customers view the uncomfortable altercations when they happen.

As a veteran of six dealerships and, having interacted with dozens more, I haven’t seen a dealership with cohesive service and sales departments. This “in-fighting” is perhaps one of the most detrimental problems facing dealerships. It produces ill intents, bad attitudes, and a black cloud that prevents the involved staff members from performing their duties fully – providing exceptional customer service.

While the issue runs deep, it can become a stumbling block or barrier that gets in the way of the service-to-sales handoff. To overcome these ‘sibling rivalries’, team-building exercises involving every department can be encouraged and employed. Provide safe social situations for service and sales staff to mingle, such as free tickets to major league sporting events, concerts, and celebrations of milestones and target achievements as a whole instead of as individual departments.

The process of encouraging sales referrals from your staff is the same as the vehicle sales process. Demonstrate the benefits, eliminate the negatives, and ask for the sale (or referrals).

When we can focus our efforts on providing exceptional customer service – the kind that truly takes our customer’s best interests to heart – we all win.

Feel free to share your dealership’s sales referral success stories as well as any other challenges you face in receiving sales referrals from your staff.

It’s not a personality thing. You don’t have to swap family photos and go for dinner once a month. It’s important that your customers feel welcome in your service department, though, and that professional courtesy and approachability can set you apart.

The barometer for your service department’s friendliness and professionalism is almost certainly your CSI survey score, right? It’s what you use to gauge what your customers truly think about your service department. After all, your customers answer the survey honestly, don’t they?

Not so. Virtually anyone who has completed a customer satisfaction survey, whether for a restaurant, an online help chat, a spa, or a car dealership knows those responses are closely tied to someone’s personal income. No one wants to be responsible for someone taking home less of a paycheck because of a bad experience, so most people will complete the survey with full marks.

The degree of dissatisfaction can influence the survey, however. If you’ve received straight zeros or ones across the whole survey from someone, you can safely assume that customer is unhappy. Even when the service visit went swimmingly aside from one aspect, some customers will destroy you on the whole survey when just one question should really take the hit.

There are three kinds of survey respondents:

• The trained customer. This is the repeat customer that you’ve trained to provide the responses you want – all perfect scores. They know their survey answers have an effect on someone’s income and don’t want to rock the boat. They may have had a less than stellar experience, but you might never hear about it because they’ve been trained (by you) not to mention it.
• The disruptor. This is the customer that comes in with a chip on their shoulder or with something to prove. Even perfect service results in less than perfect scores simply because “there’s always some way to improve”. You’ll never fully satisfy this critic and their scores will reflect it.
• The honest respondent. Making up a tiny portion of your survey results, the person who answers honestly about their service visit will have answers typically ranging from neutral to perfect. You might see a “dissatisfied” answer now and then, but largely the answers will stay close to the positive side.

A fourth group will never answer the survey no matter what you do, and you’ll never get away from the disruptors. It’s their lot in life to make everyone experience their opinion whether it's detrimental or not. It’s the main reason your CSI scores will never, ever be perfect.

The biggest problem with customer satisfaction surveys is this: we turn our honest respondents into trained customers. It happens whether we mean for it or not. We explain to customers that they’re going to receive a survey and we’d appreciate if they could answer it “completely satisfied” across the board.

If a response comes in with less than perfect scores, we contact the customer, often sounding hurt that they didn’t give us full marks, and ask what we could’ve done better. It’s uncomfortable for the customer so they either don’t do the surveys anymore or begin to answer “completely satisfied” on everything and neglect their honest opinion.

So if we can’t count on the CSI survey scores to find out if our customers actually like us, what do we do? How do we determine if we’re providing a comfortable environment, if our staff are friendly and courteous, or if we’re attentive to our customer’s needs?

You need to develop a way to find your customers’ true feelings. It probably won’t be from asking each one directly, and an impersonal email or follow-up survey will probably garner the same results as the CSI survey. Here are a few ideas:

• Have your staff’s family members visit your department for service. If you want a true opinion of your care and concern, you’ll get it from the people who live with your employees. Here’s the kicker, though: every customer that comes through your door should be treated like the family of your staff members.
• Spend time in the service drive. Either passively or actively put in face time with your customers and staff to gauge for yourself if friendly, courteous relationships are being fostered. Be the example of how to treat your customers by greeting people with a warm smile and firm handshake.
• Sit in your customer lounge. Be anonymous if possible. Listen to the conversations your customers are having with each other and with the people on the other end of their cell phones. You might be surprised how openly people talk to each other about their dissatisfaction and never tell you. You may also hear glowing praise about one of your staff which you can pass along.
• Thank your customers for honest survey responses. These are the results you can actually build off of, ones you can learn from. A quick call to acknowledge their survey response and a statement like, “It’s refreshing to get an honest survey response. Please continue to let us know areas of improvement” will encourage your customer to be open and honest with you in the future, hopefully in person as well as in their survey.

This is just a starting point for a much larger issue. It’s no secret that dealership service departments are a dreaded place to be for most customers. Once you can accurately gauge if your customers actually like you, you can begin to tackle the root of the problem.

I think we’d all agree that the world turns much faster than we ever expected. In the blink of an eye, ten years go by and we wonder what we missed. In as much as that applies in so many ways to our personal lives, it resounds in our professional lives and careers as well.

While we are living in the present, sometimes just trying to keep our heads above water as we are surrounded by the demands of customers, the strains of co-workers and managers, and the many hours spent at the shop, we forget to look to the future. Frankly, with as many hours as you already spend living and breathing work, you don’t want to worry about tomorrow, never mind years from now.

Your professional future demands that you pay attention to what the automotive industry is going to be like in the coming years. No one can deny the incredible technological advances we’ve seen in the past twenty years and the fascinating developments that are happening now at a blistering pace. We’ve seen:

• Cruise control develop from a luxury option to standard equipment, and adaptive cruise control becoming commonplace.
• Collision avoidance systems integrated into most every manufacturer’s lineup, not just anti-lock brakes and traction control
• Monstrously heavy vehicles pare down with lightweight materials and advanced composites.

Yet, while the industry standard in vehicle manufacturing has come such a long way, our fixed operations departments have barely changed at all.

A study was performed by Autotrader to determine what the car buyer of the future looks like and one of their questions was relative to vehicle servicing. The results are quite telling.

Car buyers were asked how they would like to service their vehicle in the future, either in real options or hypothetical servicing options.

• 21 percent want an app-based service appointment scheduler that also contains their vehicle’s service history and recommended maintenance.
• 23 percent want to see home-based vehicle servicing, where the dealer picks up their vehicle, services it, then returns it back when it is complete.
• 31 percent want to be able to service at one of multiple shops in their dealer network, even if they didn’t buy their vehicle there.
• Only EIGHT percent want to continue servicing their vehicle in the traditional way that dealerships employ today.

What does that mean for you?

The “traditional” dealership service model is a dinosaur. It has been operated in the same way for decades where the rest of the world has moved along, as has the customer base. Is it any wonder that customer retention is so difficult at the dealership?

Embrace the world outside your dealership. Discover what it is that makes the modern world turn. Here’s a hint: customer convenience.

Have you noticed that virtually every other industry has made servicing their customers as convenient as possible? You can order your groceries online if you’d like, and even have them delivered. You can shop on Amazon, eBay, and other e-tailers who will deliver your goods within a day or two so you don’t have to fight crowds at the mall or even spend gas for the drive.

Your service customer of the future wants things to be more convenient than they are now. If only eight percent are satisfied with the current service model, that means we need to make major industry changes before other services steal our customers out from under our noses.

Need a few ideas?

• If you don’t already, offer a pick-up and drop-off service for customer vehicles. You don’t have to offer it for free either. Although your customers want enhanced convenience, it doesn’t mean you can’t charge a little extra for it.
• Develop a professional web presence and convenient app for your particular store for easy appointment setting and service reminders.
• Team up your dealer group stores to offer basic services to clients across your different makes. Stock common fluids, filters, and parts to make services timely and competitive to the independent shop on the corner.
• At the very least, make your current service model as convenient as possible. Hire enough service shuttle drivers so your customers aren’t waiting a long time to get to work or home. Invest in a fleet of courtesy cars that you can give out for larger repairs or overnight stays.

The future of car servicing at your car dealership will need to dramatically change in order to meet the changing client needs and wants.

Do you know what the service customer of the future looks like in your area? Do you have an immediate or long-term plan to meet those needs? Share your ‘service customer of the future’ ideas here.

I’ve developed quite an affinity for sushi as of late. I don’t know what it is, whether it’s the freshness of the ingredients, the crunch of the tempura, or the sticky rice. I love sushi so much that whenever my wife and I are headed for dinner, the first suggestion in my brain is sushi.

My appetite for the Japanese rolls may be strong, but my taste in sushi varieties can swiftly change from day to day. One day may be a pedestrian California Roll while the next is a Spider Roll. Nearly every sushi dinner will include a favorite, the Totally Crazy Roll (the whole roll is tempura’d and served warm with a spicy sauce – delish!)

What doesn’t change when I go for sushi is the location. I frequent the same location time and time again. I want to be clear about one thing: the restaurant is nothing special. At all. It’s a cinder-block construction building on the corner of a busy street with poor parking. Inside, there’s peeling wallpaper and the melamine on the tables is chipped. The bench seats are saggy and less than comfortable and the lighting is fluorescent, highlighting the unappealing nature of the restaurant.

But I keep coming back, and here’s why:

• The food is delicious. Naturally, that’s the main reason you go to a restaurant repeatedly, right? The seafood is always fresh, the rice is perfectly cooked, they have darling little appetizers, and the typical green tea is hot and soothing, especially on my over-full stomach.

That’s not the main reason I keep coming back, though. I’m willing to bet that there are dozens of sushi restaurants within a 10-mile radius serving sushi just as good as my restaurant, or maybe even better. The food is excellent at Magic Sushi 2, but I can’t say it wouldn’t be tastier elsewhere.

• The service is fast and friendly. I mean extremely fast. The sushi flies out of that tiny kitchen faster than you could imagine possible and it’s fresh without fail. Your cup is always full of ice water and your tea is refilled without asking. Even in their peak times, like all-you-can-eat lunch and dinner hours, you’re attentively served even while your sushi is being made. Although your wait time for lunch may be a few minutes longer, it doesn’t seem like it because the waitress is always there making sure you’re looked after.

That’s still not the full reason I keep coming back. It’s definitely a reason they are a favorite, but again, there’s probably a handful of sushi restaurants near me that have customer service nailed to the same level or better.

• I’m rewarded for returning. My little sushi haven, Magic Sushi 2, has a loyalty program! Whenever I reward myself with a sushi meal, the double down and reward me as well. It can be a free appetizer, a free drink, or a free roll, but I always receive a reward after dining at my favorite sushi spot.

This ties in with the main reason I keep coming back, but it’s not the be-all, end-all. You see, I get a text message that thanks me for coming in, and that same text message lets me know what my reward is for my next visit. It even gives me an expiry date so I know when I need to return by (although I know from past experience the expiry date is flexible.)

• They ask me to come back. It’s true. The reason I come back to the same sushi restaurant is because they ask me to. I receive follow-up text messages from Magic Sushi 2 frequently so they are always at the front of my mind. They remind me that a reward is waiting for me whenever I end up coming back. If they’re running a special or promotion, I know about it in a brief text message. And I return because they tell me they miss me.

You may be wondering what this has to do with your Fixed Ops business, but it has everything to do with it. Literally, it’s exactly what your service department needs to be doing to get your customers to come back.

As I see it, the problem with customer retention in service departments nationwide has everything to do with engaging your customer. If a simple, run-down sushi restaurant can absolutely nail customer retention simply by engaging customers in a way they want to be engaged, you can too.

Text messages are so simple. Apps are easy to use. Virtually everyone has a smartphone, so use the technology to engage your customers as non-intrusively as possible. Receiving a reminder from the car dealership that my car is due for an oil change would be amazing. Having an app notify me or receiving a text message about my services due wouldn’t interrupt my day and would be helpful to make sure my vehicle received its proper maintenance.

Emails are easy to ignore and direct mail is expensive. Use the technology that every one of your customers uses from day to day to be in contact, reminding them who you are and asking them to come back.

They’ll come back, but only if you’ve mastered the other three points.

• You need to offer an excellent product, one worth coming back for. The parts, maintenance, and repairs that you offer have to be spot-on for your request for repeat business to be acknowledged.
• Your customer service has to be a focal point. Customers won’t come back for excellent repairs if they’re treated poorly. Greet your customers quickly on their arrival, keep them informed during their visit, and always treat them like they’re the only one in the room when you talk to them.
• You don’t have to offer a rewards program, but you’ll have greater success if you do. Offer a low-cost bonus or benefit for repeat business, or a Starbucks-like star program for money off repairs or a free oil change. It can increase your loyalty as it ends up being a game to some people, trying to achieve the next level of service. Offer double points promotions or what have you.

And ask your customers to come back. It’s the shop that asks for repeat business that gets the repeat business.

Now I think it’s time for sushi…

Yesterday, I had an appointment for vehicle maintenance at the car dealership. It may not seem like a big deal and I didn’t expect anything of it at all. I was going in just for basic servicing, and the possibility of getting a brake job done at the same time. What started out as a mundane act turned into lessons I wish I had known – I mean really known – when I was a service employee.

My Visit

My appointment was booked over the phone which started out harmlessly enough. I called in and spoke to a gentleman who did his best to book my requested oil change. Unfortunately, his best left me cringing on the other end of the line. As he located my vehicle information from my phone number, he proceeded to mutter every keystroke he made. “Enter…enter…okay, where is it…alright. What was it you needed again? Right, an oil change. Enter…oops, that should be type A…”

After the painful time it took to enter in the oil change in the appointment, he asked if there was anything else. If I had all afternoon, I would have requested that he look up any other maintenance my vehicle was due for. So I left it at that, figuring I would see what was advised when I checked into my appointment the following day.

When I drove into the service department’s drive-thru, I was greeted by a warm smile. The service advisor I had the pleasure of meeting was new to the shop though I knew pretty much everyone else from my time there. She was green, but the service manager was walking her through the write-up step by step. Since I’ve been there before, I was more than happy to accommodate new hire training.

The duo confirmed my basic oil change request that I had booked over the phone, then asked if I needed anything else. A wiper blade, a bulb replacement, and a brake check were added to the list. Strangely, no additional maintenance recommendations came forth from them.

I took a shuttle to Starbucks and requested a shuttle pickup at a specified time as I was meeting someone at the dealership a little later. I got there quickly, but not before hearing the shuttle driver’s life story, his children’s future endeavors, and some quite personal and painful stories the previous passenger had told the driver. All of this was within a five-minute drive.

I settled in at Starbucks and received a call from the service manager an hour later saying I did, in fact, need new brake pads, front and rear. It was the only recommendation I received, and the phone call ended without an updated time frame, the cost for the brake job, or a confirmation for the shuttle.

When the scheduled shuttle time arrived, I packed up and waited outside for the shuttle. And waited…and waited. Twenty minutes after the scheduled pickup, I called to ask if the shuttle was coming, and was told it was canceled because my vehicle wasn’t ready. I politely explained that I had another engagement I had to get back for, and the shuttle was dispatched immediately for me.

The loose-tongued driver arrived and promptly told me the service manager canceled my pickup for what must’ve seemed like a good reason – my vehicle wasn’t ready. Yet, no consideration was given for my situation. How long did they think I wanted to sit at a coffee shop?

The rest of the visit was mostly straightforward. The repairs were completed in good time, I received a call as soon as it was finished, and my car was washed (always a nice touch). When I paid for my bill, I wasn’t given a detailed explanation of repairs completed and that’s likely due to the fact the talkative driver was now the cashier as well.

What I Learned

1 – Your staff dictate your shop’s potential. Although my repairs were completed properly and in a timely fashion, I experienced numerous staff-related problems.

• The appointment booker wasn’t professional and didn’t recommend additional required maintenance.
• The service manager didn’t recommend the required maintenance either.
• The technician didn’t recommend additional maintenance.
• The shuttle driver put forth a very unprofessional image in a very short time.

If your staff aren’t performing their role completely with every vehicle that comes through the door, you’re leaving money on the table. I was fully prepared to spend the money on maintenance because I know there must be additional maintenance due by now, at 80,000 miles. It’s most alarming that the service manager didn’t even check my maintenance history, much less try to upsell in the service drive-thru.

I’ll consider very carefully ever talking about more than the weather with the shuttle driver after hearing about the previous passenger’s private story. It made me uncomfortable, and I have a very tolerant disposition.

2 – No amount of communication is too much. If I, knowing the industry, was left without answers while waiting in the coffee shop, your customers without an automotive background will feel even more confused and anxious. I should have received a confirmation of a shuttle pickup, a detailed price quote, and an expected completion time relayed to me when I received the phone call.

3 – Don’t make assumptions. The staff at the dealership know me, and likely assume that I know what my vehicle needs for proper maintenance. The truth is that, while I know how to check for required maintenance, I don’t. I trust the dealership to check it for me and to recommend when I need work done. Also, it was assumed I was fine to sit at the coffee shop until my car was ready, but who wants to sit at Starbucks for four hours? I like my coffee and all, but that’s a bit much.

You may think that I’m being overly critical of my experience from yesterday, and I would agree if it was an isolated incident. The truth is I have received an upsell from the service department at the dealership only once in the time I’ve been servicing my vehicle there – a wheel alignment – and I followed through on it. You can be sure that I’ll be talking with the dealer principal about my experience just to bring it to light, not to bring judgment down on the staff.

To summarize, surround yourself with high-quality staff that project a positive company image and strive to provide the best customer experience possible. Demand the highest level of service and demonstrate it yourself. And always make sure the customer is fully informed and knows they are cared for.  

When you bring your vehicle to the service department for routine maintenance or repairs that aren’t covered under warranty, you know there is going to be a charge for parts and labor. That knowledge is universal, save for a few clients who think they should be exempt from paying for their own upkeep. Why is it, then, the shop supplies and environmental levies cause such a huge stir when it comes time to pay the bill?

In my experience, it always seems to be shop supplies that cause the greatest heartache for service advisors. Telling a customer that they require a repair that involves parts and labor is a non-issue; a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. Yet, the moment shop supplies are introduced into the equation, your customer develops a firm stance vehemently opposed to shop supply charges.

I’ve seen a few different approaches taken with regards to shop supplies on invoices:

• The first involves the service advisor explaining the breakdown of charges to the customer including parts pricing, labor amount, and shop supplies. The opposition arises when a customer doesn’t understand what shop supplies are or doesn’t think shop supply charges should be assessed on their invoice.
• The second approach is the advisor providing the customer one lump sum quote including parts, labor, and shop supplies all rolled into one number. The problem with this approach is when the numbers on the invoice are more detailed, showing shop supplies as a separate charge and causing a situation with the customer.
• The third approach, and an openly wrong one, sees the service advisor omitting the shop supplies from the estimate provided to their customer, hoping it goes unnoticed throughout the transaction. You can see where the opposition comes into play – the service advisor is essentially lying to their customer.

I’ve seen repair shops post their shop supply and environmental levy rate on the wall where all customers can see it. I’ve heard advisors try to explain shop charges to their customers to no avail. It seems there is no right answer to satisfy those clients who believe shop supplies are just another money grab.

What do you do about it?

In the sales industry, whether you are a car salesperson or a service advisor who sells parts and labor, your job is to eliminate the objections. You only make the sale when your customer agrees to terms. Just like a salesperson who has to sell a customer more car than they want, a service advisor has to sell their customer on a charge they don’t believe belongs on their invoice.

Can you eliminate the objection? What if you eliminated that extra line on your service invoice? Shop supplies are usually charged as a percentage of your labor rate, and often capped at a maximum. What if you were to charge a higher labor rate and eliminate the shop supply charge, thus eliminating the shop supply argument? Would you customers be happier?

What if you were to simply do away with the shop supply charge and keep the same labor rate? You may eliminate the argument and increase your customer satisfaction, but will you suffer without the added income to cover your actual shop supply costs?

Another innovative solution may be to create a tangible shop supply package for your customers. Pack a tote with washer fluid, brake fluid, a can of glass cleaner, and a couple of microfiber cloths that you can give out when customers pay for shop supplies. If you’re charging a maximum of $50 per invoice for shop supplies, this $10 package can have immense benefits towards customer satisfaction.

I realize you will never satisfy every customer that comes through your door. You can do everything in your power to do so and still find yourself on the losing end of a CSI survey. Have you found a solution that minimizes the shop supply objections your service advisors experience on a daily basis?

When you bring your vehicle to the service department for routine maintenance or repairs that aren’t covered under warranty, you know there is going to be a charge for parts and labor. That knowledge is universal, save for a few clients who think they should be exempt from paying for their own upkeep. Why is it, then, the shop supplies and environmental levies cause such a huge stir when it comes time to pay the bill?

In my experience, it always seems to be shop supplies that cause the greatest heartache for service advisors. Telling a customer that they require a repair that involves parts and labor is a non-issue; a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. Yet, the moment shop supplies are introduced into the equation, your customer develops a firm stance vehemently opposed to shop supply charges.

I’ve seen a few different approaches taken with regards to shop supplies on invoices:

• The first involves the service advisor explaining the breakdown of charges to the customer including parts pricing, labor amount, and shop supplies. The opposition arises when a customer doesn’t understand what shop supplies are or doesn’t think shop supply charges should be assessed on their invoice.
• The second approach is the advisor providing the customer one lump sum quote including parts, labor, and shop supplies all rolled into one number. The problem with this approach is when the numbers on the invoice are more detailed, showing shop supplies as a separate charge and causing a situation with the customer.
• The third approach, and an openly wrong one, sees the service advisor omitting the shop supplies from the estimate provided to their customer, hoping it goes unnoticed throughout the transaction. You can see where the opposition comes into play – the service advisor is essentially lying to their customer.

I’ve seen repair shops post their shop supply and environmental levy rate on the wall where all customers can see it. I’ve heard advisors try to explain shop charges to their customers to no avail. It seems there is no right answer to satisfy those clients who believe shop supplies are just another money grab.

What do you do about it?

In the sales industry, whether you are a car salesperson or a service advisor who sells parts and labor, your job is to eliminate the objections. You only make the sale when your customer agrees to terms. Just like a salesperson who has to sell a customer more car than they want, a service advisor has to sell their customer on a charge they don’t believe belongs on their invoice.

Can you eliminate the objection? What if you eliminated that extra line on your service invoice? Shop supplies are usually charged as a percentage of your labor rate, and often capped at a maximum. What if you were to charge a higher labor rate and eliminate the shop supply charge, thus eliminating the shop supply argument? Would you customers be happier?

What if you were to simply do away with the shop supply charge and keep the same labor rate? You may eliminate the argument and increase your customer satisfaction, but will you suffer without the added income to cover your actual shop supply costs?

Another innovative solution may be to create a tangible shop supply package for your customers. Pack a tote with washer fluid, brake fluid, a can of glass cleaner, and a couple of microfiber cloths that you can give out when customers pay for shop supplies. If you’re charging a maximum of $50 per invoice for shop supplies, this $10 package can have immense benefits towards customer satisfaction.

I realize you will never satisfy every customer that comes through your door. You can do everything in your power to do so and still find yourself on the losing end of a CSI survey. Have you found a solution that minimizes the shop supply objections your service advisors experience on a daily basis?