Like any dealership position, there comes a need to fill a service advisor’s desk occasionally. There might be someone that resigns or you could be so busy you have to add a service advisor. In any case, you need someone to man that desk as soon as possible to maximize productivity.

From personal experience, I’ve seen zero cases where service advisors receive training prior to starting their job. That’s right – none whatsoever. Most get two to five days to shadow an advisor who’s likely so busy already that they barely have time to explain what they’re doing.

Case in point, I recently had a vehicle serviced and a new service advisor was working all alone. He was barely able to write the work order on his own and did not perform any of the tasks an advisor should. No walkaround, no recommended maintenance review, no recall check (that I know of), and no greeting other than, “I’ll be with you in a minute” without looking up.

For some reason, this has been okay in every dealership I’ve worked. Yet, salespeople need to be certified before they can work a deal. And take a look at other industries – even McDonald’s partners new hires with experienced staff to help them learn.

Sink or Swim Training is Not Okay

It could be called ‘on-the-job’ training, but it’s really sink-or-swim. From my experience, it’s safe to bet that I don’t think it’s alright, and I’m sure you’d agree. So, if it’s not alright to send new hires out to deal with customers without proper training, what’s the best way to prepare them for the role?

Basic Individual Advisor Training

If your new hire has never been a service advisor before, they absolutely need to know the basics before talking with a customer. Online training courses for service advisors can be found in several places online. Here’s a list of online service advisor training programs to get your advisor started within a couple of weeks with some understanding

Close Monitoring

A new service advisor should be closely monitored – buddied up, essentially – for at least two to four weeks. Your best bet is to pay a senior service advisor a handsome sum to be your trainer when required. That way you can have someone devote their attention to the new hire, getting them productive before turning them loose.

Mentoring

Mentoring is just like monitoring, but from a distance. The mentor should be available to help whenever the new hire needs it, and to continue the learning process once the basics are hammered down. Choose one of your best advisors to be a mentor, but don’t forget that it comes with a cost!

Certification

Aim towards certifying every one of your service advisors. While they might not be learning anything new per se, certification creates credibility with your customers. ASE Automotive Service Consultant Training is perhaps the most recognized there is.

How do you integrate new service advisors into your team? What processes do you have in place to train them up?

For as long as I remember, I’ve been attracted to a good deal. How can you pass up something you’ve wanted or needed when it’s gone on sale? I’m a constant browser on Craigslist and other local online classified sites, and I know a good deal when I see one. And what do I do when I find a deal I like? I ask for a deeper discount yet. It’s this haggling, the thrill of winning, that I love more than anything about shopping.

In the service department, the atmosphere has to be completely different than it is on Craigslist. The price is the price – there’s no negotiation. At least, there shouldn’t be. When you have a price listed for a service or repair, it actually hurts you to discount it. The customer equates the repair’s value at the discounted rate, not the full price you originally quoted.

It’s even more egregious when discounts are given when they aren’t asked for. I know the WHY behind discounting – it’s to make the customer feel special, or that they’re getting an exclusive service. But service managers HATE when money has been given away on an RO needlessly.

Here’s what I mean, from personal experience today:

My routine maintenance was due. I changed over my seasonal tires, and also needed a TPMS relearn. Easy enough, right? It should’ve been. But what happened is that the service advisor, instead of putting the TPMS relearn on the RO, told me he’d include it with the routine maintenance pricing. Good deal for me, right?

The service continued and, once it was finished, I cashed out with the service advisor. As he printed the invoice, he informed me that he only charged me $59.95 instead of $79.95. Bonus! I pay, then just double check on my way out: “The TPMS sensors were relearned too, right?”

The deer-in-the-headlights look told the story. He scrambled to bring it back to a technician, saying it will be done in just a moment, and that he’s sorry, he forgot about it. Another good reason NOT to offer freebies, I might add.

But here’s where the deeper problem lies. I didn’t ask for a discount. I was happy to pay the full price for the oil change, and I expected to pay for the TPMS sensor relearn. Had I been charged for both, left with both items completed, I would’ve been happy, happy, happy. Instead, I left somewhat frustrated, even though I paid less than I should’ve.

What Are the Takeaways?

• EVERY concern should be written on the RO, whether it’s being charged to the customer or not. Like my situation, you’ll tick someone off needlessly by ‘doing it on the side’.

• ALL work should be charged, unless it’s a complimentary service every other day too. There isn’t a service manager out there that wouldn’t have happily collected my $30 for a TPMS relearn if I was willing to pay for it.

• ALL discounts should be done by management. I didn’t ask for the $20 off my oil change, and I’m sure the manager wasn’t aware the service advisor did it. But I’m confident that same manager will be scratching their head at month end, wondering where all their gross profit has gone.

I’ve said it before, but it bears mentioning again. If you need to discount, offer it on a subsequent service visit if you can. Or, add a loyalty discount on the whole work order instead of lowering the cost on a single RO line. Once they’ve paid a discounted price for something, a customer establishes that number as the product or service’s true value. You want to build UP the value, not lower it.  

The first fourteen weeks of 2018 have flown by. It’s a time frame where some self-reflection is a good idea. Pull out the measuring stick and compare where you are against where you wanted to be.

Back when you flipped the calendar page from December 2017 to January 2018 (figuratively, of course, because you probably have a digital calendar) you should have set yourself goals for the upcoming quarter and year. Self-improvement doesn’t happen magically or passively – it takes a focused mind and hard work daily.

There aren’t many people, though who’ve actually accomplished this task. Loose goals have been set such as “I want to earn more than last year” or “I want to bring up my CSI survey scores.” But without written-down goals and an action plan, there will be two problems:

• You won’t have an actual target you’ve set for yourself, so how will you measure your success?
• You haven’t given yourself structured steps to get there. The chances of succeeding are slim if you haven’t given yourself a roadmap to follow.

Just DO It

Take ten minutes right now or set aside a short break after work if you can’t stop this moment. Set yourself some goals. Make it short and sweet, achievable, and precise. Don’t accept any wishy-washy hard-to-measure goals from yourself. Pinpoint accuracy.

If you’re a service advisor, there are a few ideas for self-improvement:

• Improve your CSI scores. Your manufacturer and your store will thank you immensely if you are able to improve your scores. Choose an achievable number that you can focus on for the next three months.
• Work towards a higher daily RO count. It’s a tough one simply because the RO is the starting point for a whole bunch more work. If adding ROs isn’t possible, think about…
• Averaging an extra .2 hours per work order. It’s easy to do for a few days but making it a long-term goal can be really hard.
• Bump your ELR by $3.00. It’s very doable. It’s about selling more productive work, rather than the loss leaders. Again, your manager will love you for it.

Why Get Better?

A three-year study by Middlesex University’s Institute for Work Based Learning discovered that 74 percent of employees felt they weren’t working up to their potential in their jobs. Odds are (3 out of 4, basically) that you’re one of them.

Dealerships can be slow to engage in service advisor training, and often the training provided is subpar at best. That’s because most trainers don’t have a hot clue how to do the job you do at the service desk.

But a lack in provided training and motivation is no excuse. Don’t wait for your manager or employer to send you ‘to school’, participate in boring webinars, or make you endure an afternoon with a motivational speaker. Set your own goals and get after it.

In three months, give yourself the satisfaction of achieving your goals. Worst case, you’ll be able to compare where you were, where you are, and look for answers as to why you didn’t get to your goal. But don’t be satisfied with how things are right now. Clearly, from the statistics, you aren’t satisfied with your performance anyway.

Anyone who’s been in the service drive for the morning rush knows the chaos and stress service advisors face daily. I’ve been there and done that, having spent more than a decade as a front-line service advisor myself. And for those who can handle the pressure, it can be an extremely rewarding position. But if you don’t have your mind fully in the game, you’re in for trouble.

The Rewards

Like I said, being a service advisor has the potential to be very rewarding. For some people like me, it’s the rewards that drive a service advisor to get better.

Great Pay

As a mainly commission-based position, service advisors have the potential to make great money. There are very few positions that compensate as well as a service advisor, especially for someone who doesn’t have a college education.

If you work the pay plan right, you can optimize your earnings. Higher hours per RO, top CSI scores, more ROs month after month – they all add up to a great paycheck.

Satisfied Customers

It is, at its foundation, a service position. And when it’s done right, customers are served well and satisfied. There aren’t many things as rewarding in a position as knowing you’ve genuinely helped someone leave with a safer car.

The Risk

But being a service advisor comes with risks. It might seem petty to some, but the mental aspect is arguably more difficult than dealing with any customer.

Losing Focus on Customer Service

Inherently, commission-based positions like service advisors struggle against doing what’s best for the wallet instead of doing what’s best for the customer. The temptation is always there to oversell, pre-sell, or select the ‘good jobs’ to pad the paycheck.

You can convince yourself that it’s a good idea at the time and that you’re not really hurting anybody. But the fact is that you’re cheating the customer. More personally yet, you’re losing your primary focus – true customer service.

Negative Energy

Upset customers, wrong choices, poor RO write-ups – they all happen to every service advisor, and often on a daily basis. Sharp words from management, co-workers, techs, and the customer take its toll on the service advisor, as you can imagine. While most advisors are type-A personalities, the negative energy that wells up at work can take you down a dark road.

What You Can Do About It

If you’re a service advisor reading this, these tools can help you keep your head in the game – at least, more often than not. If you’re a service manager, fixed ops manager, or dealer principal, these are tools you can encourage your service advisors to use, especially if you see them in a funk.

Hit the Gym

Getting the blood flowing in a positive environment will help you immeasurably. Without getting into the physiology, there are good chemicals released in your brain that promote a positive attitude and outlook. Before work, during lunch, or after your shift – it’s all effective.

Talk!

If you have a spouse or a close friend, regularly talk about your work life. You’re probably lying to yourself if you think you always have good days. Being able to verbalize your frustrations and stresses to someone will help you process and move past it. Just make sure you aren’t lashing out at someone you love.

Listen!

Think you had a rough day? Ask someone you care about how they’re doing. Focus outwardly to combat your own feelings. Listening is as therapeutic as talking.

Be Routine

Get back to work and do the right things every time. Don’t try to cut corners. Focus on doing the basics really well. For example, do your vehicle walkaround on every vehicle, every time.

If your mental game is slipping, the worst thing you can do is ignore it. Take steps to get your mind healthy!

Statistics all support retaining current customers as opposed to bringing in new first-time customers. It costs seven times as much to earn a new customer than it does to keep one satisfied, and so on. But for some reason, 72 percent of car owners still service their vehicles at a third-party mechanic. The 2016 Cox Automotive Maintenance and Repair Study spells it out.

I won’t pretend like there’s one magic bullet that will turn that statistic around for a dealership – it runs much deeper than just one factor. But among the issues contributing to the extremely high defection rate would be something you only get one shot at: a first impression.

In the service department, there are naturally a few things set against you from the start:

• There’s no perceived benefit. Unlike sales, where a customer drives away a new car, there’s no tangible difference in the service department for most customers. They drive home in the same car, just with a lighter wallet.
• It’s not the cleanest environment. Whether it’s just road salt and sand, oil drips, or broken floor tiles and greasy handprints, the service drive is nearly impossible to keep up to the same standard as the showroom.
• The customer needs to meet someone new. Ever tried to make a new friend intentionally? It isn’t easy to walk up to someone you don’t know without feeling awkward.

So, when a customer comes to your dealership’s service department for the first time, they’re ultra-sensitive to their experience. Your first impression had better be good.

A Game Plan for a Good First Impression

Customers who have never been to your service department before – even those who bought their car from your store – need to receive a special one-time experience. It doesn’t have to be all pomp and circumstance but there should be a procedure that everyone follows for known new customers.

Here are a few ideas:

• As a customer pulls into the service drive, if the license plate doesn’t come up in the system, treat them as a new customer.
• Walk up to the driver’s door with a smile and a hand extended for a handshake as they exit the car. Introduce yourself and ask how they’d like to be addressed.
• Welcome the customer to your store and complete a walkaround WITH the customer.
• Complete the service work order.
• Provide hospitality like it’s the first time in your home. Offer coffee or water, let them know where the washrooms are, and make sure they understand services you offer like a shuttle van or rental car.

You’re well on your way to an excellent first impression. But you can go even further if it’s a home run you’re after (and you should be).

• Ask the new customer if they’d like a quick tour of your dealership. It’s a fantastic way to continue building the customer relationship.
• In a sales-to-service introduction, offer more than a quick hello. Offer to book the customer’s first service visit. Let them know you’ll be present that day and tell them to seek you out when they pull in. You’ve made a good first impression before the first service visit.

It takes much more than just a good first impression to retain more sales customers. But it’s a start.  

Need a morning java? Grab your smartphone and Google the nearest Starbuck’s. You can pace a mobile order in seconds and pick it up on the fly. Where is the best place for sushi in Miami? Google Maps will give you top-rated restaurants near your current location. Browse their menu online so you don’t hum and haw over the options at your table.

Service industries have done a great job of making it easy to find a solution. It’s something that goes hand in hand with speeding up service and making it more convenient. Wait a second – that’s the same thing automotive dealership customers have been saying they want too!

It’s Not About Selling Online

It’s not a matter of making new or used cars available for purchase online. Most dealerships aren’t anywhere near that point in their business acumen. The overwhelming majority of customers aren’t ready for a fully online purchasing experience anyway. So, you’re not about to set up your Amazon store for new and used cars.

There’s still a mobile solution you’re able to provide aside from an online store. For most dealers, you’re about to discover an area that can be improved exponentially.

The Mobile Experience

I think we can all agree on the popularity of smartphone use. Nearly every shopper through the door, for sales, service, parts, or otherwise, has a smartphone in their hand, purse, or pocket. That’s a tool they use just like you do, finding the simplest and fastest solution for their concerns. Unless there’s a rock-solid personal relationship established, that customer is going to search for the fastest way to get what they need.

Google makes it easy. Looking for an oil change? Type ‘oil change near me’. Searching for new tires? ‘Tire sales near me’. A GMC dealer for the new Terrain? Search ‘GMC dealer near me’.

Tack ‘near me’ onto anything you want to find. It’s the way people find what they need in close proximity to their current location.

That’s the Massive Opportunity You Have

Geo-targeted searches are big business at the moment, especially on mobile. But dealerships aren’t exactly the best performers in these searches. Check it out for yourself:

• Search ‘oil change near me’ on your smartphone and look at the results. You might be sitting in your office at the dealership and your store may not even show up on the first page.
• Search ‘tire store near me’. The same thing is likely.
• Take a look at the results for ‘car dealership near me’. Is your dealership on the first page of results?

It’s most likely going to be those pesky independents and chains again. Midas, PepBoys, and those other mom-and-pop shops know the importance of being searchable. They capitalize on the convenience factor. They currently own smartphone search results.

What they don’t have is the facility that you do. They can’t offer the same high-level products and services and don’t have the technology that your shop does. You have an advantage over the aftermarket, but you need to show up on search results better than they do.

It’s a Content Thing

Your online experience is driven by your web content, and your website needs to be optimized for a mobile experience. There are keywords that you need to be using on your website to get noticed in search results.

Obviously, there are a couple that you’ve already heard about here. Target first the loss-leader customers with this content. Then, target the people who search for problems like ‘Ford F150 Check Engine light’ or ‘Honda Civic engine noise’.

Here’s the reasoning behind it: if a customer searches an immediate problem on their mobile device, you want to be the first solution they find.

Writing new, evergreen online content is key to continually improving in search results. There’s never too many content pages on your website, and each will factor into your mobile searches too. Strive to add at least one new geo-targeted keyword to your website every week in some way.

Now that you have a six-year-old pop song from Carly Rae Jepsen running through your head… this post has nothing to do with dating. It IS, however, completely to do with getting to know your customer. More specifically, learning how your customer wants to communicate.

As a service advisor in years gone by, one of the biggest pain points in the position is reaching a customer whose vehicle is in the shop. For any number of reasons – the technician needs more information, the problem is intermittent or we need help duplicating the concern, there’s an estimate prepared – it can be critical to reach the car owner in a very short time. Like, right now is perfect.

Reaching the customer isn’t always as easy as picking up the phone. It never has been. You have service customers who work factories and can’t answer their cell phone. Office workers and executives could be in big board meetings. Even stay-at-home parents may be tied up changing a diaper or in the backyard with their kids.

What might feel frustratingly simple to you – “just pick up the phone!” – just isn’t as easy as it seems for some customers. And that small thing, an unanswered call, can play a big part in your day. The technician is frustrated that they can’t proceed on a repair. The repair line can be closed out as “Cannot Duplicate Customer’s Concern”. The customer is ticked off that you haven’t done anything on their vehicle. Or, after finally reaching the customer, you get the repair approval but it’s too late to finish the fix today.

The 80/20 Rule

Customer contact falls under the 80/20 Rule. In almost everything, a process works for 80 percent of the time. That’s where you should put the majority of your attention instead of the 20 percent.

In terms of customer contact, keep doing what you’re doing…except for one thing. It’s a small question that will help eliminate SOME of the pain in contacting customers.

In the walkaround that your service department WITH THE CUSTOMER should be doing with every RO write-up, you’re confirming the customer’s information. It’s one of the final steps before printing the repair order. One small change can make all the difference in communicating with segment of your customer base.

“How would you like me to reach you today?”

See where it’s going? It’s not just asking which phone number is best to call. It can open a dialog that allows for clarifying questions. You’ll get answers like this:

“I actually have a meeting between 10 and 12 today and won’t be able to pick up my phone. But if you text me, I can respond right away.”

“My job doesn’t allow me to take calls while I’m on the floor. But if the repair is less than $XXX, just leave me a voice mail with the details and go ahead with it.”

“I’ll be on a flight. If you need my approval, it’s going to need to wait until I land.”

It’s no longer a guessing game of IF you’ll reach the customer. You’ll also find out if people will be available at their home number, their cell phone, by text, or by email.

It might seem like a really minor difference, but it can make a significant impact on your service department. Your technicians will appreciate the faster response, your customers will love the communication in the way they want, and the service advisor will appreciate that they don’t have to try four different numbers before reaching the customer.

Just slip the question in at the end of the walkaround. “How would you like me to reach you today?”

If you didn’t look at your cell phone before climbing out of bed this morning, you’re in the minority. The Pew Research Center reported last month that 95 percent of Americans own a cell phone of some kind. It’s become the go-to source for news, entertainment, and yes, even communication from time to time.

Obviously, the retail automotive industry has been moving towards texting as a method of communicating with customers, albeit much slower than other industries. The benefits are incredible:

• You can send a message to a customer in just seconds.
• You can receive a reply within seconds also.
• Pictures and video clips add real value in messaging.
• Whole sales transactions can occur via a customer’s smartphone.

Without a question, the cell phone is the best thing to happen to the way businesses communicate with their customers since the advent of email. But using it isn’t the be-all end-all for communication. And what you’ll find is that texting isn’t necessarily the best way to communicate with your customers in certain situations. There are limitations.

Too Much Detail

Sending quick messages is so easy with a cell phone. But if it’s like reading a novel, a text message isn’t the right way to get the message across. If there’s a bunch of detail you need to convey, texting isn’t right for the situation.

Instead, consider sending an email. You can write as much as you need, include attachments, and not be ‘that person’ who sends annoying long-form texts.

Texting Isn’t Proper Enough Sometimes

Texting is great for casual, open dialog. It can work really well in business situations. But when the tone turns from casual to either formal or negative, texting is definitely not the best media to use. There’s almost no way to interpret tone, which can make your discussion take a turn for the worse.

When your tone is formal or you’re trying to work through a dispute or concern, take the conversation to another format. Use email and CC a person in authority as a safeguard. Or, better yet, talk over the phone or face to face so there are no mistaken tones.

After-Hours ‘Ba-Dings’ Aren’t Appropriate

Ever sat at home and received text messages from your boss or someone who is invading your personal time? If the shop is closed, there’s a good chance (though not always) that the customer perceives your texts as an interruption. It’s an annoyance that can drive potential customers to another dealership. There have to be boundaries somewhere.

If you MUST talk with a customer after hours, make sure it’s on their terms. Start with ‘Pardon the interruption’ or something similar, and ask if it’s okay to talk now. But an overriding thought you should start with is, “Can this wait until I’m back in the shop?”

There will be some people who may not agree. If that’s the case, feel free to comment on your suggestions for proper texting as it relates to business.

There’s an important message you want to get across to your customers. The car they test drove last month just received hot new incentives that finally put it within their budget. Your dealership has construction happening, and there’s information to reduce the frustration of accessing the service department. Or maybe, you’re sending a repair estimate along with pictures or a detailed explanation.

For more than a decade, email has been a go-to for communicating these types of messages. It’s reliable (as long as you have the right email address) and is a non-intrusive method of communication. But, according to 2018 statistics from Smart Insights, automotive services have an email open rate of just 13.17 percent!

Think of it in these terms: less than one in seven of your emails are read by the recipient.

If you think that sounds atrocious, it’s because it is. You have much better success in getting your message read by sending a text message, but that’s not always proper.

What’s the Problem with Email?

It’s not just one thing that affects our email open rate so much:

• Your dealership uses email to send marketing campaigns. It isn’t necessarily despised by customers, but marketing campaigns are rarely opened. If there’s an important email coming from the same source as that ‘junk mail’, there’s a good chance it’s going to be deleted instead of read.
• Email is no longer the main form of electronic messaging. Customers of all ages – not just millennials – use text messaging, Snapchat, WhatsApp, and other mobile services much more readily. Emails just aren’t checked as frequently.
• Your emails aren’t personalized. Of the email open rate concerns, this is the one that you can change.

Personalize Your Emails

Essentially, you need your emails to look different AND be attractive enough to open. You don’t want your important messages to get lumped in with the marketing campaigns and you don’t want customers to sluff off opening the email until later. A personalized email doesn’t solve all the problems, but it can help.

Send Emails from an Individual Work Account

A salesperson already will do this, as will service advisors. Emails should be personally written with casual, real-world language. Managers often want to send mass emails through their marketing provider, but that’s rarely the best way to communicate effectively.  

Anything that isn’t marketing related should come from an individual’s account, even if it’s to the whole email list your dealership owns.

Write a Catchy Subject Line

If there’s nothing catchy in the subject, there’s no reason for someone to open the email immediately. Write the main purpose for the communication in a clear concise message:

• Your Car’s Repair Estimate from XYZ Motors is Ready
• The Civic EX You Test Drove at XYZ Motors has a $1,000 Rebate
• XYZ Motors is Expanding! Here’s How You Can Still Access Our Store Easily.

Give an explanation. “Your car” and “Your quote” don’t hack it.

Add Your Own Flair

Don’t be starchy and formal. Write how you speak (minus any slang, of course). Conversational language in emails is received much better than formal writing.

There’s no point in telling you that every email you write will be opened. That’s not feasible. However, there’s a very good chance that by personalizing the emails you send, you can achieve a better email open rate than 13 percent.  

If you want to stir up controversy, talking about pay plans is a great way to do it. The most common pay structure used in dealerships for both salespeople and service advisors is commission-based. It’s why these positions have such lucrative earning potential and high turnover rates.

The past few years have been trending another direction. Large dealer groups like AutoNation use a salary plus bonuses pay structure for their salespeople. The rise of no-haggle pricing sees many stores using salary-based product advisors. Yet, the vast majority of car dealerships use the standard commission-based pay plan for the sales floor.

In the service drive, it’s very much the same. Some dealers have opted for a healthy salary plus a bonus (from personal experience) while others pay a mere pittance of a salary plus highly-incentivized commission (also from experience). Only junior service advisors receive a flat salary, but that’s changed out as soon as they become productive.

The question isn’t about which structure is better than the other. I think we can all see pros and cons to both types of pay plans – commission and salary. However, there’s a valid concern about whether a dealership or dealer group should have similar pay plans across all departments.

Here’s an example of what I mean: a salesperson is paid a stair-step commission pay plan that rewards high-grossing sales as well as high volume. It’s not a stretch to assume that, in an effort to close every lead they receive, high-pressure sales tactics come into play once in a while. Customers that purchase visit the dealership’s service department later on, expecting the same high-pressure environment and are met with a customer satisfaction-focused advisor who is paid a salary plus CSI survey bonuses. The experience between departments is a stark comparison, almost like visiting two different stores.

Another contrasting example is this: a dealership has no-haggle pricing and does their best to offer a transparent sales process. The salesperson is strictly paid a salary, or perhaps a substantial salary plus small bonuses, ensuring that customers get the best sales experience without the high-pressure techniques. The customer that has bought in this environment now visits the service department, where a highly incentivized service advisor applies blitzkrieg-style pressure to sell the most at the desk. The customer leaves, wondering where the no-pressure sales experience came from.

One Isn’t Better than the Other

To be absolutely clear, I believe there is room in the industry for both commission-based and salary-based pay plans. The type of clientele, the area, and the inventory can all dictate which style is most effective.

The debate isn’t over whether commission or salary is better. It’s about a uniform approach storewide. The customer shouldn’t be more comfortable visiting one department than the other. The service department and sales floor shouldn’t seem like two different stores. If you use a traditional commission-based pay plan in the sales department, it makes sense to do the same in the service drive. If you use a customer-centric salary system in sales, do the same in the service department.

It isn’t that one structure is better than the other – it’s the cohesive culture and experience you’re giving your customers