Chris Collins and Christian advise Bobby, a service advisor at Penticton Hyundai, on excelling in an internal service role. Key moves: treat it as ambassador work balancing service and used-car interests, cut used-car turn time because vehicles depreciate daily, minimize recon costs, and push for a flat pre-authorization budget like $1,500 to speed repairs without approval lag.
Up to $1,500.
Foreign.
Welcome to your Friday drive by. We're so glad you are here. This is where we answer your questions. The phone number is 8333-ASK-STR. That's 8333-ASK-SDR. If we answer your question on the big show we will send you a swag bag. And there are a couple parts hold calculators still in the inventory. So I would hurry up and jump on that old school calculators. The clicky clicky clicky ones.
They have beeps too.
I am Chris Collins. This is Chris Joan, better known as Daddy Chulo. Handsome Daddy. You know that's how it translates, right? Papichulo is handsome Daddy. I do know that it sounds Papa Chulo sounds better than handsome dad.
Handsome Daddy sounds creepy.
Yeah.
So I like.
Do you think that Latin like people in Mexico think papi chulo sounds groovy?
No, no, no. Every Papi, papi chulo. Every time I hear it, it's spoken in a tone of endearment.
Do they whistle at you, Papi Chuno?
Not anymore. They stopped.
Okay, let's go to this week's question.
Hey Chris, this is Bobby this side from Pendicton Hyundai. I am based in British Columbia in Penticton. It's a small town in Okanagan Valley. But just wanted to tell you that I really, really admire the work that you're doing and helping all the advisors out up there. So my question is that I recently started as a service advisor that got moved to an internal advisor now and I feel a little weird on that aspect. Reason being there is a cap on it now, right? I always love like a high commission job but over here I have a cap. So from here I really want to know like hey, what's the way I can improve in the things that I'm doing as an internal.
That's a great question. Actually I admire you for asking that because you are capped. Like it's different and there's variables too.
Homes.
So let's just talk about the kind of the basic role of an internal advisor. How does.
The sales department make the most money? And let's just specifically talk about used cars for a second. How do they make the most money?
I believe they make the most money by selling the best cars.
At the highest value and also having the customer coming back for service. So selling them a extended warranty.
And a car would be reconditioned and not have to come back after it's sold.
Wrong. But what I was thinking about is the turn. So a car, a used car is going down in value, Right?
Every day.
Yeah. So if you can get those used cars recons and up to the front line for sale and in the, you know, in the database or however you're doing it so they can push it to the Internet.
You know, every day that you cut the average turn makes the used car department a tremendous amount of money, right?
Yes.
Because those are depreciating assets.
Then the key to used cars is to buy low, sell high. So if you're clobbering every car and every car needs $2,500 worth of work, it's going to be really hard for the used car department to make money. So you want to see yourself as an internal advisor, as being an ambassador for the dealership and doing the, you know, doing the right thing for service and doing the right thing for used cars. But if you focus on the turn and it's something you track and something you talk about. So if you track what it was before and then whatever you get it to by creating new systems and improving the efficiencies and speed to the front line and the quality and remembering too, that most customers buy with their eyes. So the detail might be the most important part of recon in a lot of scenarios. Unfortunately, it's pretty fair. Just like we eat with our eyes, right? Like, what was Hoagie's analogy? Like if you have a steak and then you throw it on a garbage lid, doesn't taste as good. Yeah. But it could be Kobe, like, right? Fancy, fancy steak. So same thing with used cars. It's all about the attention to detail and the look of it. So focusing on the turn and then, you know, pdi, same sort of thing, but to a lesser degree.
That would be the, the, you know, the first place I would start.
Yeah. I think that there's three things that you can learn from being an internal. Because what if I heard that question right? He was an advisor and then got kind of moved to being an internal advisor. So there's a couple of things I think that are, like, characteristic of like, really, really strong advisors. One is like the ability to communicate within departments. And then the second thing is having a system for organization moving things through. Right. So if it's a customer or an internal, you can pick up those skills either way. But if you're just focused on how fast can I get the car through the process? And two, lot it requires you to be able to communicate really well with the used car department, the parts department, vendors, and then the detail department, so you get really, really good at that. Stuff it's actually almost. You could make a case it's more complex than customer handling because really at the end of the day with the customer, they're the kind of the main focus and then you communicate with the other ones. But you get really, really good at that stuff. And that should actually make you a better advisor in the long run. I've got some stores that actually before they put someone into a customer facing role, they'll put you as an internal advisor first. Just so you kind of get the reps right. And then you're opening and closing ros. You're understanding the approval process. You also understand the lag. Like when you have a car that's got its used car inspection and you're waiting around for an approval that it really messes up the rest of the show. So all that stuff are lessons that are learned as an internal. So what I would say is embrace the. The communication portion. The. The system itself and then the speed to speed a lot is just like for a customer, how fast can they get their car back?
It's good. Good question, man. Good luck with that, Bobby.
Yeah, it's good stuff. I guess there was one more thing I was going to say is if you're really good at being an internal advisor, a lot of times you can get the used car department to give you a flat.
The budget.
Yeah. So anything like, you know, up to $1500 you can just do so that speeds things up dramatically too.
Maybe you have that already, but if you don't, you gotta. You kind of gotta earn it usually. But it, it gets the cars to the front line a lot quicker. If they don't have to come in and out, you don't have to wait for a used car manager.
You know what that reminds me of?
It sounds a lot like this whole pre authorization thing we've talked about once or twice with customers.
Christian, it's way over the line. You got to bring that up.
Yeah, yeah.
You want to talk about my divorce too? What? What do you want? What are you. Where are you going with.
That's for the next episode.
What do you do with a car's. Yeah, never mind.
What if it's blue?
Yeah. Well, thank you for the question. Remember the numbers. 8333. Ask STR and we'll see you next time on Service Drive Revolution. Thanks for watching this week's drive By. I hope we gave you something to think about over the weekend. We're uploading new stuff every day, so make sure you subscribe and click the Bell icon so you don't miss out. If you have a question you'd like us to answer on the show, call 833-ASK SDR and we'll answer your question on the show. That's 8333-ASK SDR. For special deals on our books and training, head over to offers.chriscollinsinc.com now that's offers.chriscollinsInc.com I'm Chris Collins, and I'll see you in the next video.
