Where have all the good techs gone?

It’s a question that many, if not most, dealerships are all too familiar with right now. Ask any fixed ops director, and they’ll sigh as they tell you that yes, it’s true – there’s a shortage of (good!) service technicians. It’s unfortunate and frustrating, especially as it coincides with the fact that cars are now more complex and sophisticated than ever. Aside from that, the new car market is slated to see another drop in the coming year, so service departments are becoming an even more critical revenue source for dealerships.

So, why is it that a good tech is so hard to find these days, and what can you do find more and better trained, motivated service technicians?

Nationwide Shortage

Many of the more experienced techs in the industry today are members of the Baby Boomer generation – and they’re retiring at unprecedented rates, leaving dealerships struggling to replenish and keep up. But experienced technicians aren’t the only ones in short supply; even entry-level candidates are scarce. This is due in part to the fact that there is an actual shortage of training schools across the U.S., but it begins even earlier than that: high school vocational programs are few and far between. When financial crisis hit the country at full force in 2008, these programs were among the first victims of budget cuts. Even as the economy improves, their return has been almost non-existent.  

Seek and Find

Despite all these factors contributing to a perfect storm of technician shortages, there are still strong candidates out there – you just have to find them. And therein lies the glitch.

If you’re like most of your counterparts, you’re probably utilizing typical resources such as Craigslist and Indeed as you attempt to fill these positions. Unfortunately, says Tim Dalton at Autodealer Monthly, while you may occasionally get lucky with these, they’re more likely to lead you to applicants “who are disgruntled, have developed bad habits, and are just looking for higher pay.

To expand your pool of quality applicants, try these 3 tips for finding good service technicians:


Buddy Up.  Building and fostering relationships with local and regional tech schools is a great way to find solid job candidates. If you can partner up with their career office, for example, you can offer apprenticeships and credit-earning internships. The huge bonus here is that applicants who have taken the time and effort to go to school and perform well there will often prove to be more motivated than someone you might find on Craigslist.

Penske, a 22-rooftop dealer group in Arizona, has been wildly successful with this strategy:

"Penske prefers to go right to Universal Technical Institute’s (UTI) Phoenix campus and invite a select group of students to come and work part-time to get their foot in the door for about $10 an hour. While they’re still doing coursework, students get a chance to see automotive work from the real-world perspective of a money-making shop while the auto group has a chance to observe which of the students they want to hire full-time."

It’s a win-win situation.


Be Social.  It may seem obvious, but too many dealerships are not utilizing the invaluable recruiting tool that is social media. According to a study conducted by the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM), 71% of job recruiters who use social media for recruiting purposes find it to be an effective tool “to decrease time to fill non-management, salaried positions.” And while you might and should include professional networks such as LinkedIn, even simply using Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram can be tremendously successful. You can reach potential applicants directly, but you can also reach their friends and family – you know, the people who know they’re looking for a job as an auto tech.


Offer Opportunity.  Motivated, dedicated job applicants will be drawn to the opportunity to further their training and certifications while on the job. And a dealership that is willing to pay to have their techs educated and certified makes a clear statement that it’s invested in the growth of its employees. If you work for an OE dealership, your OEM more than likely has a training program set up or in the works. OE-certifications have multiple benefits: they come with bragging rights for the certified technician, and they offer more retention value than other certifications, because an OEM-certified tech is more likely to remain with the brand for which they are certified. But even if you’re an independent shop, it’s worth considering footing the bill for your techs to get ASE or similar certifications. If you do decide to offer these types of continuing education opportunities, be sure to shout it from the rooftops in your job listings – and then watch the quality of your applicant pool soar.

Bad News, Good News

Good employees are your dealership’s most valuable assets, but the wrong employees can be among its riskiest liabilities. Interviewing candidates and training new employees costs time and money. All of these things mean it’s critical to ensure you hire the best people for your dealership, right from the get-go. A 2002 study suggests that “the organizations with the more effective hiring systems ranked higher in financial performance, productivity, quality, customer satisfaction, and employee satisfaction and retention. ‘This is . . . proof of what HR professionals have long said: Success is based on finding the right people for the right jobs.’” Below are three keys to effective hiring.

Assess Their Motivation.

When assessing a candidate’s motivation, interviewers frequently focus solely on the amount or level of motivation a potential employee demonstrates. But quantity is only half of the equation: Quality is an equally important consideration – in other words, not simply how motivated someone is, but what motivates them. Is the candidate motivated by the factors associated with a particular job, or by a dealership’s mission, culture, and other overarching ways of conducting operations? The ideal candidate is motivated by a balance of these things. Someone who is motivated by individual success in their position may do a good job, but if they aren’t on board with the mission of the dealership as a whole, they won’t be the right fit. “[T]he key in your job interview is to identify what motivates your candidate. Then, decide whether those qualities, characteristics, behaviors, values, and approaches exist in your workplace. If they do, you’ve found a dynamite employee from your job interview match dance.”


Do Your Research.

To find the right person for the job, you must have a thorough understanding of the job itself. “Have a job description for each position to be filled. Job descriptions should be specific, concise, and clearly understood.” They should also evolve with the dealership. Merely having a standard job description thrown together that an interviewer pulls out any time the position needs filled suppresses the opportunity for growth and learning. “The basis for future performance is a thorough study of what has been done in the past.” Thus, each time a position opens up (or is added), it’s important to spend some time assessing or reassessing what does and does not seem to work, or what did and did not work in the past. “If the previous person was promoted, what can they or their manager tell you about necessary skills for the position? If the last person in the position was not a good fit, find out what mistakes not to repeat.”


Hone Your Questioning Skills.

To get the best answers, ask the best questions. Tonja Wheatley, for buildaninterview.com, suggests asking open-ended questions, using follow-up questions to get beneath the surface of a response, and controlling the interview with redirecting questions. She also advises focusing each question on a specific skill or trait – and knowing the difference between the two.

Skills-related questions regard a candidate’s “developed or learned abilities necessary to do the job. Skills are measurable and should be the focus of the initial interview.” Asking skills-related questions tells you whether the candidate, if given the position, has the actual ability to do the job. For example, are they proficient with the types of computer programs the job uses? Are they able to work overtime or abnormal hours if the position in question requires it (and in the car business, it usually does!)? The answers to these questions will determine whether a follow-up interview is warranted.

Once you’ve determined, through the initial interview, that a candidate does in fact possess the skills necessary to perform the job, it’s time for the secondary, or follow-up interview. This is where you start to dig a little deeper: Just because a person is technically qualified to do the job doesn’t necessarily mean they are the right fit. To get a feel for whether a job candidate is a good fit for the position, ask what Wheatley refers to as traits-related questions. “Traits are natural abilities that would help a candidate succeed in a job. They are measured by a person’s pattern of behavior. . . . Trait related questions would include areas such as organization, initiative, creativity, integrity, and decision-making. Hiring a person with the traits to excel in a job can be the difference between a good hire and a great hire.”

For job candidates, the most important thing when interviewing is to be prepared. For the interviewer, the most important thing is, also, to be prepared. Being thoroughly prepared for interviews, through research, assessment, and quality of questioning, will allow you to make the absolute most of your hiring process so you can hire the right people the first time around. Especially in this business, where employees tend to come and go, you may be hesitant to spend so much time preparing to interview job candidates. But hiring effectively from the get-go will reduce turnover rates, which will save you loads of time and money in the long run and allow your dealership to truly flourish.

It’s the goal of every business to make money - and how can we do that? By increasing gross sales. And how do we do that?“

There is more than one way to skin a cat, as they say in Georgia,” says W. Scott Wheeler, founder and president of Automotive Consultants Group, Inc. Similarly, there are many ways to increase gross sales – increasing car count is one of the most common. That said, in many instances, increasing car count works. But it’s not the only KPI worth focusing on. If you only look at car count, it could cause problems for your shop down the road, whether by overworking technicians or maxing out facility, says Wheeler. He adds that increasing car count is often viewed as a “Band-Aid for all issues” and that it’s important to ensure it’s the best way to increase your gross sales before you implement it."

“Before you go to raise car count, is that the real problem?” Wheeler asks. Again, increasing car count can be effective, but in order for it to happen you have to look at other KPIs and make sure they’re working.

There’s a misconception that increasing car count will automatically increase gross sales, Wheeler says. Some other KPIs you should assess before making the decision to increase car count include: average repair order, gross profit margins, net operating profit, productivity, and efficiency. Track these on a daily basis; it’s important to know how your shop is doing every day, says Wheeler. Wheeler himself gives clients his version of a KPI tracker in Microsoft Excel.

The first step is to identify the right car count benchmark you should be hitting consistently. Ask yourself:

• What is your current car count?
• What are your current gross sales?
• What NOP are you trying to achieve?
• What are your GPMs?

If your current numbers aren’t matching up, it might be time to evaluate what you need to work on before you resort to increasing car count. Every shop has a “sweet spot,” explains Wheeler, but they’re all different, and exact numbers for each will vary.

Wheeler suggests also considering these five factors before increasing car count:

• Physical space. How much increased car count can your shop handle? Eventually you’ll reach your maximum capacity.
   
• Technicians relative to car count. You need enough technicians to handle however many cars you have, or you’ll run into obvious problems. If your shop is smaller, says Wheeler, you need to know what your technicians are capable of (i.e., efficiency and productivity). If you end up with too many cars, warranties might go up as technicians may be more prone to error under pressure or if they feel too rushed. Watch your warranty numbers; if they go up, you’re pushing your facility’s limits and your technician’s capabilities, warns Wheeler.
   
• Technician-to-service-writer ratio. Increasing car count will increase the number of phone calls coming in, so you’ll have a high demand for your service writers and technicians. According to Wheeler, a good ratio is 3 technicians to 1 service writer.
   
• Marketing efforts. With more cars, you’ll need more business. To get more business, you may need to increase your marketing efforts. Wheeler recommends offering promotions, such as a free oil change upon referring three customers. You need to know your ROI on marketing, Wheeler says, if you’re going to do additional marketing. If you double your car count, you should in theory send out double the mailers.
   
• Productivity. It should be at 100 percent or higher, says Wheeler. If it’s not, adding more to your car count won’t fix anything. If your shop is operating at full productivity, though, increasing car count will help. The higher the productivity, the more car count you can handle - but find out how soon until your techs are maxed out. If need be, hire an additional technician. 

Aside from increasing car count, what are some other ways you have successfully increased gross in fixed ops?

You walk into a department store. The first thing you notice is a stack of bracelets, in four colors. The yellow bracelets say, “Just browsing.” The pink ones read, “Time is of the essence.” The red ones say, “Please assist me” and the orange ones say, “I’ve got time.” Each customer who enters the store selects one or two bracelets that apply to them, and wear them while they shop to let the store associates know whether or know they wish to be approached.

You leave the store and hail a cab. As soon as one pulls up, the driver jumps out to help you load your bags. He then opens and closes your door for you. When you arrive at your destination, the driver again gets out immediately so as to open your door for you. He helps you unload your bags, and even offers to carry them to the door for you. He does all of this, for each and every person who patronizes his taxi service, with no expectation or even hope of receiving a tip.

If this sounds a bit foreign, that’s probably because it is. These scenarios are examples of the Japanese concept of “omotenashi.” I first heard about omotenashi from Tonya, an owner loyalty manager at a Nissan dealership in Mississippi. Omotenashi “is our new Golden Rule,” says Tonya. 

So what, you ask, is omotenashi? Jeffrey Spivock, writing for Spafax Content Marketing, explains:

[L]oosely defined as the act of selfless hospitality, [omotenashi] is a cornerstone of Japanese culture. To welcome someone into your home or establishment and be able to anticipate their every need is seen as a privilege for the host, and working in a service industry is regarded with the utmost seriousness and respect. There are no menial tasks if the result ensures a great experience for a guest.

The spirit of omotenashi goes beyond typical customer service, as illustrated in the examples above. It’s all about a selfless anticipation of the needs of your guest, whether they are a visitor to your home or business. The idea is that your guest should never have to ask for anything, because it should already be available to them. The Japanese culture blog Kitsune Journey notes that for a guest to have to ask for anything, even something as seemingly minor as a cup of tea, would be embarrassing for the host, “who is expected to have everything arranged and organized.”

But there’s another, even more charming aspect to the Japanese art of omotenashi: it’s very frequently shrouded in subtlety. The Japanese won’t make a big show of their humility and service. The idea is for the customer or guest only to notice the result of the hospitality, and not what goes into making that result happen. As Dominic Carter of BCCJ Acumen puts it, “If, in the course of a service encounter in Japan, you’ve ever been left thinking, ‘How did they think of that?’, you’ve probably been omotenashi’d.”

Returning to the example of the taxi driver, an important aspect of omotenashi is that it is done with no expectation of  reward or favor in return. The very presence of the customer is considered gift enough.

When it comes to omotenashi at her Nissan store, here's what Tonya has to say: 

I take [the concept of omotenashi] very seriously. At Paul Barnett Nissan, "we don’t just sell cars, we build relationships”. We treat our customers like family: They are greeted with a smile, a warm welcome, and a friendly, “How may we help you?” Our service customers who choose to wait on their vehicle here at dealership have a choice of hot coffee, hot chocolate, hot apple cider, tea, or bottled water. We have breakfast snacks as well as evening snacks, which are changed out throughout the day. 

Our sales customers are also offered refreshments while they wait on approval for their purchase . After financing is complete, I introduce myself as their OLM and give them my business card and let them know if they need anything and can’t get in touch with their salesperson, they are more than welcome to give me a call. 

We try to anticipate our customers' needs. If you choose to wait on a service repair that might take a while, you are offered a loaner car to go to lunch. If you prefer, we will pick something up for you. We have a complimentary charging station for mobile devices, both iPhone and Android. We also offer complimentary Wifi. 

We are there for our customers no matter how big or small the need might be. We had a customer who realized that her doctor appointment was scheduled an hour earlier than she thought it was; her car was already in the service bay, so I personally drove her to her doctor appointment and picked her up when her appointment was done. Developing a relationship with our customers and updating them on their vehicle status gives us the opportunity to serve them better. 

On another occasion, one of our elderly customers was at the local hospital and when they went out to the parking lot, one of their tires was flat. The customer called our service department and spoke with our service advisor, who sent a technician out.  The technician inflated the tire and followed the customer back to our dealership, where we repaired the tire at no cost to customer. She called us because she trusted that we would help her in her time of need, and we stood by our pledge that those who do business with us will "experience the difference."

When our service customers come to the dealership and they don’t see me, they come find me; they just want to say hello and tell me how they love coming here and how much they appreciate how well we take care of them.  A customer once informed me that she told her daughter she was going to have her car serviced and visit her other family at Nissan. I have, hands down, the best job ever!

Whether you’re in sales, service, the BDC, or any other department in your store how might you apply the concept of omotenashi throughout your day and during the course of your relationship with your customers?

What do you wish you had known when you were brand new to the automotive industry? Post your best advice for newbies here, whether it's related to sales, service, customer relationships, or anything else relevant to our business!

If you’re not utilizing influencer marketing as part of your digital strategy, you’re missing out on one of the most valuable marketing opportunities out there today. Nearly 84% of marketers say they plan to implement at least one influencer campaign in the next twelve months, and for good reason. Influencers have the reach and the sway to raise brand awareness and drive brand loyalty in ways with which traditional methods simply can’t compete. Here’s a basic breakdown of what you need to know about influencer marketing and how to get started.

What it is (and what it’s not).

The internet offers varying definitions of the term influencer marketing, but I find a definition from the influencer relationships management company Traackr to be the most comprehensive and concise: They define influencer marketing a s“the process of identifying, researching, engaging, and supporting the people who create high-impact conversations with customers about your brand, products, or services.” Essentially, influencer marketing is a strategy by which a brand  (most often) pays or otherwise compensates a key culture or thought leader in a target niche to create and relate content promoting certain products or services.

Influencer marketing generally incorporates two main, intertwining components: social media and content. According to influencer marketing company TapInfluence, “Many influencer campaigns have some sort of social media component, whereby influencers are expected to spread the word through their personal social channels.” This often includes “a content element in which either you create content for the influencers, or they create the content themselves.” The nature of this content component is one of the main factors differentiating an influencer campaign from, for example, a celebrity endorsement. With celebrity endorsements, it is presumed that the brand being endorsed has created the content -- the article, advertisement, commercial -- in which the celebrity appears. Conversely, in an influencer campaign, “the influencer, not the brand, is perceived to be the creator of the entire message.” Additionally, while any celebrity can recite a given script, influencers are almost always people who are considered experts or leaders in their field or niche, which is only sometimes the case with celebrity endorsements.

Influencer marketing is also not the same as advocate marketing, which involves having existing customers provide testimonials or reviews about the brand and its products or services. Influencers, who are almost always paid or otherwise compensated, aren’t necessarily existing brand loyalists or even customers of the brand; they are hired because of their influence they already exert over a particular audience.

Why you should incorporate influencer campaigns into your current marketing strategy.

Marketers use influencers to raise brand awareness and increase sales by placing their product or service in front of an audience that (a) is already interested in the type of product or service the brand offers, and (b) already paying attention to the person who is talking about the brand. Even beyond that, though, “[c]ontent created for [influencer] campaigns contributes to overall SEO, benefits other marketing efforts through redistribution, and continues to inspire sales.”

Target Audience. An effective influencer has direct access to consumers who are already interested in the type of product or service your brand offers. They engage with their followers on a regular basis, and they know their audience well. “In many cases,” according to blogging platform Bloglovin, “influencers have spent years growing their readership. They know what products and types of content their audiences enjoy best.” This eliminates a need to track down and seek out members of your target niche, and dissolves the concern that your message may not be reaching its intended audience.

Trust.  Through their continuous engagement with followers, influencers have built up a level of trust and loyalty in their audience that is difficult, if not impossible, to achieve with traditional advertising methods. Need proof? A recent study by Twitter found that:

• 49% of consumers seek purchase guidance from social media influencers.
• 20% said that a Tweet from an influencers inspired them to share their own product recommendation.
• Nearly 40% said they had made a purchase as a direct result (a direct result!) of an influencer.

These numbers are huge, and they simply can’t be ignored in today’s digital marketing landscape.

How to get started.

Now that you know you need to invest time and money in influencer marketing, let’s talk about some basic steps to help you get started.

1.  Identify your target audience.

You first need to identify which influencers are right for your brand and marketing goals. Christina Newberry, from social media management platform Hootsuite, recommends considering the “three Rs” -- relevance, reach, and resonance.

• Relevance.  Fairly self-explanatory. Your best influencers will be ones whose primary audience is focused on and interested in the the kinds of things you’re offering. For example, if I’m an aspiring pop singer, I’d want to seek out established pop singers with a strong following (think Taylor Swift). On a smaller scale, if I’m a car dealer, I might want to partner with a local racecar driver with a loyal following in the community.
• Reach. Reach refers to how many people you reach with your campaign. The natural inclination here is to think that the more followers an influencer has, the more successful the campaign will be. But that’s not necessarily the case. In fact, Markerly, an influencer marketing platform, recently conducted a survey of more than two million social media influencers, and found that “partnering with ‘micro-influencers’” -- in particular, influencers with between 10,000 and 100,000 followers -- “can provide much better ROI than trying to snag a big celebrity.”
• Resonance.  Newberry describes resonance as “the potential level of engagement the influencer can create with an audience that’s valuable and relevant to your brand.” A prime example of this is the partnership between Lynda.com and YouTube personality Jack Douglass and his channel called jacksfilms. Lynda, a site that offers online courses in business, technology, and creative skills taught by industry experts, enlisted Jack to promote its site to his nearly three million subscribers. Jack challenged his followers to try a Lynda course for free, use the skills they learned to create videos, objects, songs, and the like, and then submit their creations to be featured in one of his videos. He provided the link for Lynda below his videos, and the submissions came rolling in -- a prime example of strong resonance in an influencer campaign.

2.   Build a Relationship.

Once you’ve selected several potential influencers, it’s time to start building relationships with them. As with any relationship, you should be sure to take things slowly; you don’t propose to someone on a first date, and you don’t ask someone to promote you before you’ve created value for them. Start by making some quality, value-evidence (not self-promotive!) posts and comments on their pages, and then, eventually reach out. Scott Ludwig, writing for content marketing platform Skyword, emphasizes the importance of showing them that “you’re a person and that you’re actually interested in their business objectives before ever talking shop.” And Bob Pearson, president of the W20 group and the brains behind J.K. Rowling’s massive marketing success, boils it down to this: “It’s really old-fashioned relationship-building applied to the new ways of doing things.”

Now that you’ve established a relationship, reached out, and entered into the necessary agreements with your influencers, effective and respectful communication is key. You should be constantly empowering your influencers with material that is relevant to your mutual objectives and that can help them create content relating to your brand. Ludwig suggests providing them with a steady flow of quality sources and information, including items such as articles, videos, e-Books, white papers, press releases, event tickets, and interviews with experts and industry leaders. It’s also important (again, as in any relationship) to be respectful. Remain open to your influencers’ opinions and suggestions -- after all, they know their audience better than anyone.

3. Measure Your Results.

Finally, measure the results of your efforts. You may want to invest in an influencer tracking and program management platform to help you track things like hashtags, mentions, views, and engagement, since measuring these can be tricky. Tracking and measuring the results of your influencer campaigns is no different, and no less important, than measuring the results of your other marketing efforts: monitor, measure, and change or adjust as needed.

Remember, urges Newberry, “that influencer marketing is one of the hottest marketing trends right now, but you still need to do your research, ensure your efforts align with your overall marketing strategy, and test and track your results to improve performance[.]”

So much killer insight in this video. To get to the related content, skip to 5:10 in the video. 

In a nutshell, here's Gary's roadmap for marketing using DM:

• search hashtags
• look at the account
• see what brings them value
• DM them
• overwhelm them with value

Has anyone done any successful Instagram marketing using DM?

This article is super informative. Some of the insights it offers are things most of us already know by now, such as the fact that today's market is customer driven or that customer experience now tends to trump mere product/price considerations. But it also offers some poignant wisdom about what goes through the buyer's mind when making a decision, as well as providing some questions to ask yourself when considering whether your strategy is up to par in today's market.  

Here are some highlights from the article (portions in Italics are direct quotes):

The factors that contribute to a customer’s overall buying decision:

• Transaction orientation. Customers buy according to how well a salesperson meets the customer’s expectations regarding the buying process. Some customers may want an easy, intuitive transaction that is predictable and hassle-free. Others may desire a more engaged and consultative buying process.
• Reliability orientation. Reliability of products and services is paramount, often because the customer’s operations depend on it. These customers will invariably choose the most reliable offerings over those with the lowest price.
• Quality and performance orientation. Customers desire the best product and service quality and are willing to pay a premium for it. High reliability is assumed. Customers place a premium on the supplier’s sustainability record.
• Brand and image orientation. Customers place a lot of trust in the supplier’s brand, reputation and market history.
• Relationship orientation. Customers appreciate their history with the supplier and the knowledge the supplier has of their business. Long-entrenched relationships between various parts of the customer and buyer organizations are key, and these relationships act as a barrier to the entry of new suppliers.
• Customized solution orientation. The supplier’s ability to innovate to meet customer specific needs is very important to today’s customers.

The five main customer demands today:

1. Be on our side. Customers expect salespeople to be their representatives within the seller’s organization.
2. Be personally accountable for our desired results. Customers want salespeople to take responsibility for every aspect of the relationship between buyer and seller.
3. Be proactive. This means you stay ahead of the curve with customers, anticipating problems and acting in advance to solve them.
4. Solve our problems. In the past, the closing of the sale usually marked the end of the salesperson’s responsibilities. Customers now expect salespeople to not only solve their problems during the transaction itself, but throughout the business relationship.
5. Be innovative in responding to our needs. Because change is the only constant in today’s environment, your customers expect you to respond to their spoken and unspoken needs.

Key questions which may help you develop a new strategy for today’s customers:

• Do you have a clear understanding of the customer’s needs and what matters most in the buying process?
• Do you have a compelling and unique value proposition that creates a differential customer experience?
• Do you fully understand what your customers want to buy and why?
• Do you understand how you can drive growth from both existing customers and new prospects?
• Will your sales strategy improve customer retention while identifying new prospects?

The two things that stuck out the most to me are (1) the relationship orientation bullet point, and (2) the fourth customer demand, solve our problems. The importance of maintaining strong customer relationships after the sale cannot be emphasized enough!

What do you think? Did this article cover it? What stands out the most to you? What do you feel that you and your dealership do really well when it comes to customer experience, and where do you think there is room for improvement?

(Read the full article here.)