Very few things are more frustrated than feeling like your time has been wasted. Think about something as routine as going through a fast food drive thru because you’re on a short leash, only to be left waiting for your meal at the pickup window for seven minutes unacknowledged (I’ve been there). A customer’s irritation is much the same when they’ve gone through the processes to expediate their in-dealership visit, then to stand in line in the service drive.

Online appointments have made booking a maintenance or repair visit much easier. Time slots are typically in 10-minute intervals to space them out. The BDC and service advisors are personally invested in accurate appointment booking. So why is it that waiting in line after making an appointment is still the primary pain point for 13 percent of annoyed customers?

Poor Planning

I’m convinced that probably half – maybe more – of the issue lies with people booking appointments. I recall often as a service advisor that a ‘gravy’ appointment wanted an booking for first thing in the morning when all the time slots were already filled, but I’d jam it in anyway so I’d be able to earn more that day. Other times, it seemed like someone booked an appointment simply to get the customer off the phone, stacking the schedule at a particular time that was super inconvenient. And then there are the walk-ins…

Of course, the result is an influx of appointment check-ins that can’t be handled at once. Someone is going to be waiting.

The Human Factor

Tell me if I’m wrong… an appointment time never seems to be hard and fast anymore. Once they’ve made an appointment, the customer thinks it’s fine to drop the car off whenever they can. Hours early, a half hour late – as long as they’re scheduled for that day, it should be cool.

I encountered it almost daily. 10am appointments dropping off their car at the 7am opening rush. Usually, more than one per day. Their intentions are innocent, perhaps trying to grab the first shuttle to work. Nonetheless, it made for hectic mornings at the service desk with several people tapping their toes impatiently.

What to Do About It

This problem will never go away as long as there are customers. But you can improve this facet of the service customer experience in a few ways:

• - Schedule appointments at slightly unusual times. Rather than booking on the hour or at the half, book in 12-minute increments. Not only does it allow 12 minutes for a service advisor to write up an RO which should be plenty, but the time will stick out in a customer’s head. When you say, “Mr. Rodriguez, I have you booked in for 8:36 tomorrow morning. See you then,” you can picture their head cocking to the side as the time registers. “8:36? Why such a precise time?” 

• - In busy times, the service manager and valets can pick up the slack by helping with walkarounds. If there are customers waiting to check in, someone can pick up a clipboard with a walkaround checklist, greet the customer, and engage them with a walkaround. Once the service advisor is free, they can inject themselves into the conversation. That should easily eliminate the concern about waiting in line despite an appointment.
• - Look into self-serve service kiosks. The jury is out on their use, but it’s an option to serve your non-appointment or early customers, especially those who would prefer to drop off before hours or pickup after hours. If you use kiosks, make sure you communicate very well throughout the day with those clients.

Do you have any other ideas to address the concern, “had an appointment but waited in line”? Leave a comment below.

In our month-long series on improving the customer experience in the service department, we now look at the second-most common issue identified by customers. In the Cox Automotive Service Industry Study, 20 percent of service customers say they’re most frustrated with service advisors who “tried to push additional services.”

20 percent, or 1 in 5 service customers that express frustration with a service visit, doesn’t seem like a huge statistic to deal with. That’s only the top pain point for those customers, and there are likely many more who think it’s a secondary or tertiary issue. Point being, it’s more insidious than it appears.

What Does “Tried to Push Additional Services” Mean?

The way the response is phrased seems loaded. As a service manager, the knee-jerk reaction is to admonish your service advisors for upselling unnecessary services. Hang tight – that’s often not the case.

While upselling unneeded maintenance and repairs continues to be an issue at stores highly incentivized on sales, this pain point in the customer experience often starts way before customers check in in the service drive. Like most (if not all) CX issues, communication breakdowns start early on.

Often, it’s related to inadequate training when appointments are set. A couple scenarios:

A customer calls in and requests a service B, a basic oil change and tire rotation. The dealership staff, whether BDC, cashier, or service advisor, fields the call and enters the appointment in the system. Unfortunately, they don’t check the customer’s history or current mileage, and there’s additional maintenance needed.

A second customer books their service appointment online. They select the mileage best as they recall, then pick an appointment time. They arrive at the service drive and learn that they’re way off on the mileage estimate and additional services are required.

In both cases, the service advisor is RIGHT in recommending the additional services per the time and mileage according to the maintenance schedule. The customer’s perception, though, is that they’re being advised to do services they didn’t expect on that visit. And their ire isn’t misplaced.

How to Deal with It

Proper training and communication are fundamental in setting appointments properly to avoid this issue. Anyone – absolutely everyone – who takes appointments for the service department should be able to check a customer’s history and the maintenance schedule, and comfortable to make recommendations for services at the time of booking.

And secondly, every appointment booked online should be contacted to confirm their required services. This is the time to make recommendations that have been overlooked and to confirm an accurate mileage.

An Imperfect Metric (Again)

Just like last week’s topic – “service took longer than expected” – there’s no way to fully eliminate this issue. In fact, I had a fixed operations director that said to me on more than one occasion, “If I don’t have a complaint about a service advisor being too pushy at least once per month, they aren’t doing their job well.” It’s the service advisor’s role to advise on services and repairs that customers need. Even done as gently as can be, there are some customers who will always feel like they are being pressured.

Avoid Unnecessary Upsells

Service advisors have to be very careful not to be too aggressive in sales also. I know many service advisors, myself notwithstanding, who saw an easy target and sold repairs that could easily have waited and maintenance that was premature. With a sales-based pay plan, there’s always a temptation to make the easy money. While you can get away with it, you can and will get caught from time to time. It damages not just YOUR reputation, but the whole dealership’s reputation.

More than anything, being mindful of proper communication and following the process every time (not cutting corners) will help improve this subjective metric.

The customer experience in the service department is perhaps the most crucial place. Customers are coming in to pay an invoice for something that’s almost always intangible – an oil change they can’t see or taking your word for it that their brakes are actually worn out, for example. At least in sales, they can put up with an off-base experience because they’re getting a vehicle out of it.

Last week, we mentioned that the top pain point service customers have is that “service took longer than expected”. Three in ten complainants say this is their top issue, which means that it’s a serious concern. Let’s talk about what that means, and how it can be addressed to improve CX.

What ‘Service Took Longer than Expected’ Means

At first glance, the phrase ‘service took longer than expected’ seems to sound like the visit was unreasonably long. That can often be the case, and I’ve heard time and time again (not to mention personal experience) that there’s no reason an easy oil change should take an hour and a half or two hours. But there’s more to ‘longer than expected’ than that.

Having spent more than a decade at the service desk, it almost always comes down to communication, not the actual time spent from drop-off to completion. The phrase indicates that there was an expectation that wasn’t met. And whose job is it to guide a customer’s expectations? The service advisor.

At some point in the process, the customer developed an expectation that their car would be completed within a certain time frame. And when the minute hand passed that mark on the clock, expectations weren’t met any longer.

Now, granted, it’s often the case that customers have their own idea of how long a service visit should take before they arrive. Still, while the appointment is being set and during check-in at the service desk, the service advisor is responsible for correcting that expectation as they communicate.

How to Adjust Expectations

There are a few strategies to use when setting the customer up for an accurate timeline for their visit.

Communicate an accurate time frame according to shop flow. I hated to disappoint customers and was always overly optimistic for ready times. It resulted in frustrated and impatient customers, though, more often than I would care to recall. Be realistic about how long a visit is going to take so the customer can properly structure their day.

Be diligent in getting it done. Dispatching is probably computerized in your shop, but sometimes priorities get skewed. If it looks like your customer’s vehicle is slipping through the cracks, get on your foreman/dispatcher/manager and have it assigned. It’s usually up to the service advisor to first write the RO properly so it’s dispatched accordingly, but things happen.

Don’t be too conservative. Next to customers frustrated with a visit taking too long, there are customers who get ticked when their vehicle is ready much earlier than expected. Perhaps they rented a car when they wouldn’t have needed to, or they rescheduled an important meeting to accommodate a service visit. If two hours is sufficient, don’t tell them four hours ‘to be safe’.

It’s an Imperfect Metric

Unfortunately, time is a perceived commodity. Likewise, expectations are a personal thing. You can’t control it all, but you can do your part. As a service advisor, there’s one overriding factor that will help mitigate unnecessary survey responses of ‘service took longer than expected’ – communication.

Something went sideways in the shop? Let the customer know it may be an extra hour. A tech smashed their finger and is headed to the doctor? Adjust expected completion times with your customers. Their vehicle went in early? Text them that you may have it ready sooner than you first thought. Just communicate.

It’s all summed up in one thing: communicate with the customer. It’s a lesson I wish I would’ve learned earlier in my career.  

We know that customers want the dealership experience to improve, and that’s definitely true for the service experience. The quest to make service absorption reach 100% or higher has become the focus for many stores due to a sales climate that’s cooling a little. But one thing remains more important than selling any amount of service, and that’s customer satisfaction.

The customer experience (CX) in the service department is fickle at best. Honestly, who can say they enjoy taking their car to the dealer to spend time and money on repairs and maintenance? Service advisors have a huge job to do in making that experience remarkable for customer and, largely, they’re successful.

There’s still plenty of room to improve service CX. We know that’s true because two out of three customers aren’t sticking around once their warranty expires. And if dealers want to retain customers better, an area to target is the customer experience in the service department.

What Are the Pain Points for Customers?

We aren’t going to get into solutions today, but set up the places where customers have identified frustration with servicing their vehicles. There are five areas highlighted in the 2018 Cox Automotive Service Industry Study, although there are certainly more.

“Service Took Longer than Expected”

Of those who identified a frustration with the service department, 30 percent said it was that their service visit took longer than expected. It isn’t that the service took a long time, but longer than expected. The service advisor or appointment setter failed to prepare the customer in advance for the time it would take to complete their vehicle.

“Tried to Push Additional Services”

Advising customers on necessary maintenance and repairs is one thing, but 20 percent of service customers at dealerships thought they were unnecessarily being upsold. This could be one of two things: appointments being set without properly identifying required maintenance prior to the visit, or service advisors that aren’t selling properly. It could be as simple as the language was, “you also need X, and it’s $$$” rather than, “according to your owner’s manual, it’s time to do X. It will keep your car’s Y operating as it should until the next interval.”

“Had an Appointment But Waited in Line”

13 percent of frustrated service customers had this concern. Unfortunately, this concern is tough to address because of human nature. Especially at opening. I always found that the majority of customers wanted an appointment first thing in the morning. If the first appointment wasn’t available, it was common for customers to arrive when the doors opened and drop off their vehicle early.

In the coming weeks, we’ll look at potential solutions to waiting in line.

“Finding Out How Much They Charge”

Dealers, if you are in line with other service providers locally, there’s absolutely no reason to withhold prices. 10 percent of service customers are frustrated with trying to find service pricing. It’s a reason that customers lose trust in the dealership – lack of transparency.

“Did Not Provide a Loaner Vehicle”

Another 10 percent of frustrated service customers cite lack of loaner vehicles as their concern. That’s not the core issue here, though. In many cases, it reverts back to the top problem – service takes longer than expected – where customers are stranded without a vehicle. Promised times need to be adjusted realistically and customers need to be told openly how their vehicle is progressing, and that’s an area that’s often lacking.

Service managers and service advisors, I promise it’s not all bad news. In general, the service CX has been getting much better. Over the next few weeks, we’ll explore ways that we can improve CX further so more customers keep coming back, even after their warranty is up.

I’ll be honest, the title is a cheap rip-off of Dale Carnegie’s book, “How to Make Friends and Influence People”. The direct, no-nonsense strategies he uses for creating a circle of influence are rather obvious, yet they need to be said from time to time.

Whether you’re in new vehicle sales or an advisor at the service desk, the strategies translate from the bestseller to real-life quite well. Oversimplified, it breaks down to three main points.

Maintain Positive Communication

We’ve all been on either the giving or receiving end of negative communication in a sales process. In sales it can be, “Don’t buy a Lada – it’s a piece of junk.” (Lada used so as not to offend American retailers) In service, it could be a doom-and-gloom message like, “If you don’t have your transmission serviced today, it could blow up on you within weeks.”

Negativity breeds negativity. If you present a negative message, it can easily come back at you with a negative response. Changing those two messages might look like:

“Everyone has their own personal taste in vehicles. I believe the one I’m offering has industry-leading dependability.”

“A transmission service today will help ensure that your vehicle is as reliable next month as it has been so far.”

Carnegie offers that criticism, condemning speech, and complaints tend to build a wall between people rather than a bridge. Keep your message positive and it will be received better overall.

Stir Up a Want

Your customers need to want what you have for the sale to take place. In sales and service alike, that happens when you present the product or service as a feature-benefit presentation. Customers want the benefit that comes as the result of making a positive decision to obtain the feature.

It’s rather simple when selling vehicles. There’s a product you can go through feature by feature in a walkaround. In service, you have to use word pictures in many cases. Practice your sales techniques with (insert eye-roll response) role-playing to nail your strategy.

Show Sincere Appreciation

Perhaps you made the sale today, or maybe they’re going to schedule a second visit. Maybe they’re just going to think about it. In any case, they’ve given you the time to make your presentation, so thank them!

Sincere appreciation may have slight differences from person to person, but in general, certain things convey the point. A lighthearted smile. Eye contact. A handshake. Walking them to the door. Light conversation. And most of all, saying “Thank you for coming in to see me today. I appreciate it!”

Don’t take a single customer’s business for granted. Whether it’s a grind or a slam dunk matters not. How you interact can and does influence whether they’ll return, speak kindly of you, and even send their friends and family to see you.

We already know that text messaging is the most desired method of communication for most service customers. It’s trending in the right direction with dealership service departments engaging customers by text more consistently, although there’s much room for growth.

But when the service advisor needs to make an upsell or report on a vehicle’s condition, a text message often doesn’t convey the same authority. It also makes it easy for a customer to respond with “not this time” or an outright “no”.

It’s also well documented that a visual is more persuasive than just words. Embedding explainer videos in a text message exchange with a customer prods them toward a positive decision when it’s done right.

Here’s how you can employ and effective text messaging strategy for your service advisors to engage customers better.

Create the Content

Manufacturers often have videos on the owner’s portion of their websites explaining why certain services are needed and how they’re done. Use them if you can, but you’ll want them all in one space such as YouTube.

But it’s guaranteed you’ll need to create at least some of your own content, and it needs to be professional quality. Hire a videographer for a day and create common service videos. Plan ahead with the parts and vehicles you’ll need. Common services you should include are timing belt replacement, transmission services and all other fluid flushes, brake pad and rotor replacement, common front end components, and wheel alignment.

Clips should be quick – 60 seconds or less if you can. Give a brief explanation of what the component does, why it needs service or repair, and how it’s done.

Create a Playlist

Assemble all of your videos in one location. The obvious and easy place is YouTube, however, if you can host your own videos somewhere that’s even better. This playlist should take only seconds for your service advisors to find and link.

Provide Templates

In text messaging, it’s tough to convey urgency or tone well, and it’s easy to misconstrue a message. Each word matters. So, for common services that your advisors will be messaging customers about, write templates that they can send to customers. And to ensure videos are sent to support the message, have the link embedded in the template already.

Responses to templated messages must still come from the service advisor, but it takes some of the burden off.

Train on Implementation

As always, it doesn’t make a lick of a difference to have the tools if they aren’t used. Show your service advisors how to use videos in text messaging properly. The desired effect of a video clip is as authoritative support, not just another gimmick or system that some manager thought would be a good idea.

Text messaging isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Why not use it effectively in the service department. A word of caution, though: you still need to always ask the customer their preferred method of communication.

To say that the dealership I worked at was Dog Eat Dog would put it mildly. It wasn’t just a competition to be at the top of the figurative service sales board every month, because that would imply there were rules to the game. There were dirty tricks and underhanded methods, and no one’s hands were clean.

One of the battles that happened on the regular – probably almost daily – was a fight over whose customer was whose. An appointment would be inputted into the service CRM with a name you recognized, and the fight was on. An advisor would put their employee number on the appointment, claiming the visit for themselves. Or if there was a different advisor’s number on it, the knives came out.

“Hey, that’s MY customer!”

“No, I helped them on their last visit.”

“But I answered the phone and set the appointment.”

You get the idea. It wasn’t pretty, and I’m absolutely sure that it wasn’t just our team that fought those messy grudge matches. There were days or weeks of mistrust between each other at times. It’s as if the challenges of dealing with customers just weren’t enough.

But when a feud sparks between two service advisors, as is apt to happen from time to time, how do you deal with it? Service managers, it’s up to you to set the rules.

Make a Plan

In our store, we didn’t have clear guidelines about the rights of an appointment or customer in front of us in the lane. It’s the service manager’s job to steer the ship, and the oarsmen need to all pull in the same direction based on the instruction given.

Don’t mince words or allow loopholes as you tell your team how to deal with repeat customers. Often, a consistent relationship with one service advisor is a good way to have it. A plan could be that a repeat customer returning within six months goes back to the same advisor, for example. You’ll have to determine what works for your store.

Set CRM Permissions

For us, it often came down to who set the appointment in the CRM. Our hardest fights were over appointments set by the BDC, though, and it was common to go into the appointment and change the advisor number.

DON’T ALLOW IT! Cut it off at the knees by having your CRM remove the ability to change advisor numbers until the appointment is converted to an RO.

Draw Clear Boundaries

Here’s where it falls apart. Just setting a rule doesn’t go quite far enough. There need to be repercussions for wrong actions. Again, this has to be something that fits with your store, but always draw a line in the sand that has consequences when crossed.

Discipline Offenders

Be fair but firm. If someone breaks the rules you set and ‘steals’ an RO or appointment, act on it. Discipline can be losing the RO to another advisor or sitting out a day at home. Repeat rule breakers need to be treated with stiff consequences that send a message. Make no mistake – if someone colors outside the lines you draw, it’s a sign of disrespect for your leadership. That can’t go unaddressed.

Let the Customer Decide

Sometimes, the lines aren’t clear. In that case, let the customer decide which advisor they’re going to deal with. It sounds juvenile, like choosing teams for a game of pick-up hockey. It works, though, to let the customer walk up to the service advisor they’d prefer to deal with.

In a dealership, relationships get messy – as messy and complex as they do in a family. It’s often necessary to be the parent in a situation. It’s not to dictate the outcome but rather to find a way to work together and live at peace.

The Cox Automotive Maintenance and Repair Study states it clearly: the #1 reason car buyers go elsewhere for their automotive service is because of Value Perception. Right or wrong, they think they’re paying more than is fair for similar services at other repair shops.

In the past, I’ve delved into the details about value, including a reminder last week to implement a ‘features and benefits’ approach to selling service in the drive. But you only get that opportunity when customers first give you the opportunity. And if they think you’re overcharging before you get the chance, you’ve already lost.

It all starts with YOUR understanding of value perception.

What is Value Perception?

Perceived value has little to do with the facts, if anything. Ask 10 people, "Who charges more for routine maintenance, a franchised dealer or an independent shop?", and 9 will tell you it’s the dealer. There’s a perception that dealerships overcharge.

The truth is surprisingly different than perception. From research as well as personal experience, dealerships are typically competitively priced. There are some outliers in every store that don’t lineup with the region, but most dealerships will be either less than 20 percent higher in price than an independent, or less than the competition.

An Understandable Error

Franchised stores are a different animal than independents, big box stores, and aftermarkets. They offer premium services like shuttle rides, loaner cars, specialized techs, and multi-million-dollar buildings with comfy lounges. Customers are right to think they’re in a different class than mom-and-pop shops, and that erroneously translates into the expectation they’ll be overcharged. They think it’s not just a little bit more, but double the cost to service at your dealership.

What You Can Do About It

Your store doesn’t have to be the lowest-priced option, but it should be within 15 to 20 percent of others in your area. It’s been proven time and time again that the expertise and extra amenities customers receive at a dealer are worth a small bump in price. It boils down to displaying the value propositions you offer.

Hammer Home the Expertise

Your biggest advantage over non-OEM repair shops has always been and will always be your people. Both the technicians and service advisors, not to mention the support staff, are ‘tuned in’ to what their vehicles need. No aftermarket can hold a candle to it.

Review the Service Benefits

Other shops can match the salesmanship by reviewing features and benefits, but the fact is that most will not. If it’s something the customer can expect when they visit your service department, you’ll establish much more trust than you’d imagine.

Make Extra Amenities Obvious

Free breakfast with every oil change at your café. Loaner cars for overnight repairs. Complimentary shuttle service within city limits. Whatever unique service offers you have daily at your store, you need to make them clear to your customers. When they know what sets you apart from the competition, it’s a much easier decision to choose you.

How to Get the Message Out

Obviously, it’s tough (and expensive) to attract new customers. Your best bet (and cheapest) is to ensure that every car buyer that comes through your lot knows why it’s best to use your dealership’s service team.

Displaying a competitive pricing comparison with a provider like InteliChek is one way to do it. Whether on your website with a widget or on a digital screen in the dealership, you can show how your services stack up against other local businesses, dollar for dollar, service by service.

You can’t deny that a primary role for a service advisor is to generate income for the dealership. There’s constant talk about hitting 100% absorption rate, striving to increase dollars per RO, and generally bumping the service department’s total revenue year over year. There are strategies offered all the time to increase the bottom line and teach service advisors to sell more… but have you lost sight of the big picture?

Having spent more than a decade in the trenches as a service advisor myself, I can personally attest to it. You lose sight of the reason you’re at the desk in the first place. Striving for a better paycheck this month becomes the goal, not the result of a job well done. And along the way, you discover you’ve cut corners and taken the easy road instead of the right road.

You need to rediscover WHY you’re selling service in the first place.

A Service Advisor’s Purpose for Selling

The intent to have a service advisor upsell services is of a singular focus. It’s fully, completely, single-mindedly about ensuring the customer can trust their vehicle’s reliability by advising them of the necessary services and repairs it requires. That’s it.

The Way to Sell is Features and Benefits

Because a service advisor’s goal is to serve the customer’s needs primarily, there’s only one way to do it in a transparent and trustworthy manner – by explaining the WHY and the HOW.

Say a customer’s car is booked in for a seasonal service with oil change, but their current odometer of 60k miles, it’s due for a transmission service too according to the factory maintenance schedule. The advisor should know how to encourage them to complete the service the right way.

“Mrs. Jones, the required maintenance at 60k miles includes a transmission service. Just like your engine oil, it breaks down over time and needs to be changed to prevent undue wear and tear that can lead to a breakdown. For your vehicle, it includes changing the transmission filter, filling it with OEM fluid, and checking the transmission’s performance. Would you like to have that done during today’s service for $159? That’s a great value especially when you consider how long the service interval is.”

The feature in this case is a transmission service. That’s what you’re trying to ‘sell’, or rather, advise at the correct interval.

The benefit is preventing wear and tear and a resulting breakdown.

It isn’t pushy or negative, just explaining the facts thoroughly so the customer can make an informed decision.

Discounts Don’t Help

Manufacturers run promotions and service offers which customers might request – that’s fine. But when promos and discounts are used as a selling tool, it cheapens the value. Discounting does more harm than good when used to sell service.

In the transmission service example, the advisor could’ve said, “Mrs. Jones, your owner’s manual says you’re due for a transmission service at 60k miles. We have it on special for $99, a savings of $60 off the regular price. Would you like to get it done?”

The customer now thinks two things: they have to spend an extra $99 on this visit that they weren’t expecting because the owner’s manual says so, and that the $159 service is only worth $99…ever.

Discounting cheapens the value of the service you provide. If they pay just $99 this time, why should they ever feel that $159 is worth it in the future? Feel free to offer manufacturer’s promotional pricing, but don’t do it at the expense of explaining features and benefits.

Unnecessary Services Hurt

The other temptation for service advisors is to sell services prematurely or services that aren’t actually required. If a transmission service is due at 60k miles, there’s no reason to sell it early at 40k miles or 50k miles as routine maintenance.

The exception is if the condition warrants it, but that’s often something you’ll discover in the shop instead of the service drive. And at that point, the service advisor should clearly explain the extenuating circumstance – the WHY – to the customer.

Selling the WHY takes longer. It might not bump dollars per RO immediately. But guaranteed, it will develop more long-term trusting relationships with your clientele so your retention rate climbs higher and higher. And in this industry, retention is where true growth lies.

As we’re about to ring in a new decade, there are going to be plenty of technological advances coming to the automotive market. Whether it’s more electrified models that change what’s required for each customer in the service department or software systems designed to enhance or complement how your department operates, there are constants to keep in mind.

Regardless of how 2019 ended and if you made your target or not, 2020 is a new year and a new start. There’s no time to let your service advisors dwell on the past successes or failures. They need to kick it into high gear when they punch the clock on January 2nd.

Here are three service advisor basics to remind your team to get the new year started off on the right foot.

Always Start with a Walkaround

You’re twice as likely to keep a customer in the fold when you sell them tires. That’s one of the best reasons to perform a walkaround every time they come in. When you’re checking fluid levels, lights, and tire tread depths on every visit, the customer begins to expect it and track it themselves mentally. When their tires are end-of-service, you have the first crack at selling them tires. That leads to brakes, wheel alignments, front end work, and mechanical.

It’s all because a walkaround sets the stage for the visit. It should be the first thing a service advisor does on every vehicle on every visit – well, right after greeting the customer.

Focus on Features and Benefits

“Mr. Jones, your Chevy is due for a cooling system service. Should we do that today?” Some service customers will go ahead, but it isn’t a very convincing sales method. It gives a customer no good reason to agree to the service aside from the flimsy argument that ‘it’s due’.

Instead, service advisors should be masters of explaining services the same way a salesperson sells a car: through features and benefits. When a customer sees the reasoning behind routine maintenance or upsold repairs, they’re much more likely to proceed with it.

“Mr. Jones, at 100,000 miles, your Chevy’s engine coolant has begun to increase in acidity. That’s likely to form deposits in the radiator and engine, which can restrict coolant flow or prevent the thermostat from regulating temperature properly. We can flush the engine coolant today, removing the old, acidic fluid and filling it with clean coolant so it will be good for another 100,000 miles. Should we add it to today’s service?”

Which would you go for?

Role Play

Ugh. I hate role playing at the service desk. However, there’s no question that it sharpens your customer service and selling skills. As uncomfortable as it is to be vulnerable in front of your peers, it’s imperative that service managers make it a mandatory part of ongoing team development.

Choose a time when customers aren’t around – typically right after the doors are locked at the end of the day – and have each person take a turn playing the customer and the staff member. It’s hard to take it seriously, but doing so will honestly help each advisor know how to handle customer objections and the service process a little better.

What other service advisor basics would you recommend starting fresh in the new year? Let’s discuss the ways we can make our service teams better so we can better serve our customers.