Could Taking Initiative SOLVE These Common Service Drive Setbacks?

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Welcome everybody to your Friday drive by on service Drive Revolution. Today we have two important questions. One is how do you do the schedule in an express situation?

I like it.

And when do you ask for a raise? So those are the two questions. I'm Chris Collins, this is Christian Lafferty. The number, and you want to write this down. Pen, paper, open your notes on your phone. The number to call if you want us to help you through anything that you're stuck with. Any questions you might have, something you don't understand is 8333, ask SDR. That's 8333, ask SDR. So let's get right to the questions.

Hey Chris. My name is Adio. So I recently just moved to a new dealer group and our process for scheduling appointments is kind of all over the place. I was wondering, have you had any experience with setting up separate schedules for an Express team and main shop team and what were some of the pros and cons of it if you couldn't give me some of that information? I really appreciate it. Keep doing what you're doing. Love listening to you. Thanks so much. Have a great one.

Adio. Thank you for the question. We'll be sending you out some, some swag. So great question. Our system and the way that we approach this is we don't have Express in the sense that you have dedicated advisors and dedicated techs doing it because what happens is you have your least talented people touching the most cars and it becomes unmanageable and you don't have room for contingencies. So in our service manager, university and coaching and what we do is we set it up where the, the Express technicians are integrated and we, we spread the Express customers over all the advisors. We limit the advisors to having one waiter per hour, but we'll give them appointments every 20 minutes. So for me to, to answer this question, I would be encouraging you to run a structure that's inefficient, that doesn't work. And the downside of having expressed the way that you're talking about is you're going to have high turnover in an environment where we are losing, I don't know, three to five technicians for every new one coming in, the turnover is over 60% the first two years in technicians that are dedicated to Express. We want to integrate them into the shop. Also your, your.

Cost to run an Express versus the gross it produces never pencils. So you're gonna have to overpay Express advisors. Your, your Express techs are going to be really inefficient. And they're not really creating that much work for the shop when. When you peel it off and. And don't have it integrated. Now, that being said, the way we set it up is it doesn't change the customer experience in the manufacturers push Express because dealerships struggle with getting oil changes done in a. In an acceptable amount of time. So you can have both, but having a separate schedule for Express is like putting lipstick on a pig. You like that analogy?

That was really, really good. Yeah.

Did you use a different analogy?

No, that was pretty good. It's still gonna be. What was that? There was that dog that. Remember we were at a zoo and it was the only dog that was there.

First of all, you and I have never been to a zoo.

Yeah. Together, maybe. I felt like there was a story that we might have told once about a dog. It was a shih tzu. Remember that dog? Yeah. So I think that the way that he was describing his schedule reminds me.

A lot of that dog. Keep shih tzus in zoos.

Yeah.

Oh, man.

There's a lot going on there, isn't there?

So the thing that Ado is thinking right now is.

You'Ve helped me.

Zero.

The amount of help you've given me right now is zero. Because I'm in a system with a.

Quick lube and it's a mess.

Trying to make a broken thing better, and you're telling me I gotta blow up the thing and start over.

Well, that's the right thing. If ADL is an advisor, I feel like that might be a little bit more of a challenge, but. So the only thing I would say is until you convince them to open up the floor and treat everyone the exact same, you might need to make sure that you're not overbooking yourself. Cause I think that that's probably the thing I've seen most commonly with stores that run an express scheduling and a main shop scheduling is they almost always double and triple and quadruple book. And it gets really, really ugly. And cars start to line up outside the back of the express stalls and everything like that. It's a mess. I know what he's going through. Like, I get it. I just think that streamlining and trying to create more of a. I've got this much capacity for advisors to write tickets and this much capacity for people to come in is a better way to do it.

Yeah. So I'm sorry if the answer is a little different than what you think, but if you're not on our system, get on our on demand and in there we teach you a process for the drive that creates sales. Just the process alone builds trust and create sales and then how you can set up the shop to grow your own technicians, increase your efficiency with those quick loop techs and.

Have a better customer experience. Sell more. All. All of it is an outcome of a good system. But the way you're approaching it now, just the schedule isn't going to fix much. It'll become unmanageable either way.

It's taking a rock to a knife fight.

Yeah, I. Every time I've looked at a quick lube lately, the advisor cost of personnel like the expense of the advisors, the dedicated quick lube advisors as a percentage of GROSS has been 40%.

Yeah. I had one a month ago where the expense of the advisors was as much as the revenue of the express loop for the week.

100%.

Yeah.

Pretty.

And that. Yeah. So that doesn't even count the tech.

The quick loop tech doesn't even count the tech.

Which is super inefficient too. They usually run about 50% efficient, but I've seen it as low as 30.

So, you know, and then people do weird things like, well, can we move a foreman over there? It's like you're. You're just adding more expense to a broken system. And then, you know, we wonder why we're not profitable most of the time. But I, you know, and if you want to set up a strategy session, reach out and we'll, we'll do that too. But this express schedule isn't gonna. Isn't gonna fix anything. Sorry. Okay, let's do the next one.

Hey, Chris, it's James. What certain point do you ask for a raise if you're an asset? And I know you know what I mean.

Before we get too far into James question, it makes me think about business. Right. Did you know that Australia's biggest export is boomerangs? It's also their biggest import.

It's a boomerang.

Throw it out and it comes back.

That's right. I like when you get the jokes.

Hilarious. Thank you, James.

Someone laughed.

James is. The kid's name's James?

Yeah, I believe so. I think I got that right.

I don't really know what you mean.

Because I don't know if you're paid hourly. I don't even know what your job is like. I don't. But let. Should we assume he's an advisor? What do we.

Let's say that he's an advisor and he's trying to figure out what. What he needs to do to make.

More money, but he's not paid a commission.

I don't know.

I mean, most of the time advisors make exactly what they're worth because they're commission.

Yeah. There's no other pay plan to negotiate. It just kind of is what it is. And the sky's the limit. Most pay plans. Unless he's an hourly advisor, that could be an issue. Or if he's a technician that everything changes.

Asking for a raise. I don't. Yeah, I don't know enough to tell.

You there might be a little more to that question. For sure. I do. I always like your adage of you make exactly what you're worth, though. Yeah, that's a good way to think about it.

But if you think you're worth more and you're willing to move on if you don't, then I would just set up an appointment and say, hey, I want a career path here and I need to make more money for what I'm doing and just present it that way. But there's no reason to wait. It's not. That sort of thing isn't going to get any easier.

I agree with that.

I go right at it. Then you'll know where you stand too. You'll know how they feel about you. But I guess I'm assuming that you're not paid commission and that you're hourly and I might consider going somewhere where you're paid commission.

I think that's the best way to make sure that you make what you're worth for sure. And then you can analyze and make sure that you have the opportunity. But I feel like a lot of advisor pay plans are the sky's the limit.

Yeah. Awesome. Well, thanks, you guys. Remember, 8333 ask SDR. And I hope you guys have a great weekend. I know we're going to. So you should partake in that with us and have some fun. 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 8333 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.chris collinsinc.com now. That's offers.chrisconsinc.com com I'm Chris Collins, and I'll see you in the next video.