Do Service Advisor Personality Tests Work? (Service Drive Revolution)

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Welcome to Service Drive Revolution. We have an exciting show for you today, as always, but maybe this one might be a little bit more exciting than usual. We have an announcement about Top Dog and the Jeep Win My Jeep contest. We're going to talk about personality profiles. Do personality profiles work? We're going to answer your questions and I would say Jeremy putting out the $100 for the best questions. The questions today are really, really good. I wish Jeremy was here, but Jeremy is on vacation. He doesn't care about us, he doesn't love us. He just left for two weeks. Can't zoom in, I guess. Evidently, wherever he went, there's no Internet and Christian is out in the field, so I'm all alone today. Also, we're going to talk about terms you should know, which you'll be surprised. I think this is one of the most misunderstood terms and I've been doing a lot of strategy sessions lately and kind of have come to found that.

People don't understand what this term is. So we're going to talk about that. But first, did you guys know that Ford was going to release the new Bronco on OJ's birthday, which is so funny. And then.

Yeah, after 25 years, they're releasing the new Bronco on OJ's birthday. And then because of, you know, a little bit of a backlash, they've decided not to do that. But I think it's kind of terrible that you would do it on OJ's birthday. Like, I don't know why you'd want to send some sort of tribute. Maybe, maybe I'm giving Ford the benefit of the doubt. They didn't know it was OJ's birthday. I don't know. It's funny though that they were gonna do that.

Let's, why don't we just start off with the questions? What do you think about that? God. Is God here? The voice of God.

The voice of God is here.

These questions are so good. I think we should just get right to them.

God smiles upon these questions.

Question number one. What is the standard percentage of gross generated that should be paid to advisors?

Well, that depends on the brand and what type of shop you have. So if you're a dealership independent truck, it depends. But I would say that the range is going to be between 6 and 8% of gross most of the time. When we go into a service time apartment, we find that it's usually 10 to 12% of gross. But what happens is if you get your effective labor rate up and your average per customer up, you can kind of pull that back into line. But you gotta, you know, you gotta train the advisors and give them a path where they can actually make more money but produce more gross, if that makes sense. But most of the time it's between 6 and 8%. Every financial statement is a little different when you're talking about on the dealership side and manufacturers. Like just for example, on a general motor statement, the parts department doesn't participate in the advisors pay, but you get a parts transfer. On a BMW financial statement, the Advisors are split 50, 50 between service and parts because if you think about it, advisors selling parts as much as they're selling labor. So the brand makes a difference because in a BMW store if you're splitting it with a parts department, then it's going to be a little bit different than it is in a General Motors store. So you need to understand if you have the parts transfer or if you're splitting it or what the actual accounting guidelines are for your, for your manufacturer. But. Good question.

Yes, good question.

This next question comes from Facebook.

What would be the best way to deliver a no fault found diagnostic to a customer without them feeling like you're calling them a liar? The technician's notes do elaborate and say they scan for codes road tested and could not duplicate. Just curious how to deliver that explanation better.

Yeah, so I have a formula for this, I have a system for this and I don't know that I've ever talked about it on the show, but this question is so good that it's, it's going to bring this out of me. But what you want to do with the customers is if you, you want to deflect it to a boogeyman, that's what you want to do. And so what you want to say to the customer is this is what we did, we checked it out. But the thing that I've found is that there's a bubble over the dealership. And you could say like 2 miles, 5 miles depending on your location. When I wrote service I used to say there's a bubble and, and anytime you come inside that bubble, that two mile bubble around the dealership, rattles, squeaks, intermittent stalling, everything stops. And so what I would like to do is if it continues, I'd like to get permission to have a technician drive the car or truck home or I'd like to have a shop foreman drive it with you. Some, something like that. But we did everything we could and inside of this invisible boogeyman bubble, it just doesn't happen. And it's common that, you know, you, you hear it and then you get close to the dealership and it doesn't happen. And then I would just offer to have them road test it with yourself or with a shop foreman or a technician, if you guys are allowed to do that where, where you work. But that usually is the best way to, to handle that. But it really is true that a lot of times customers will experience something and then for some reason, and I don't, I don't know why, but for some reason, when they get to the dealership, it doesn't happen anymore. And so you kind of want to make fun of that a little bit, deflect to the boogeyman while, you know, establishing that we've done everything that we can, but it's not uncommon that when you bring it to the dealership, these sort of things disappear. We, you know, we call it the invisible dome around the dealership. So customers will understand that. They'll get a little bit of a laugh, but it will, it will endear them and it, you know, it makes it non. Confront, confrontational.

This next question, wait, what did you.

Think of that answer?

God, I thought it was a great answer.

Chris, whenever you can blame the boogeyman.

Blame the boogeyman, always. This next question comes from YouTube. I have a question about how to get the customers to engage with you during the walk around when they bring their vehicles in, but also how to do it without feeling like I'm looking for added issues to upsell and more about making it like I'm keeping them safe and looking out for the customer, which is what it's all about.

Yeah, so it's the, the thing that you want to do and maybe get a notepad and a pen and kind of write this down. But number one is you want to treat anybody coming in like if they were your mom or your dad, like I always say, like, if you wouldn't sell it to your mom or your dad, don't sell it. So kind of get off a little bit on what you're going to sell them. Like, if your motivation when you're riding them up is just to sell them something and that's your motivation, you're gonna project that, and you're not really coming from the right place. What we want to do and the place we want to come from internally is we want to keep our customers in safe and dependable vehicles. That's what we want to do. So if you, if you weren't going to sell it to your mom or your dad, I Wouldn't sell it. Right. Second thing is, is you want to be curious. You really want to know the customer on a deeper level and pet the dog. So if you watched our pet the dog video, then you, you understand this. But if you haven't, go to YouTube, just type in Chris Collins, pet the dog. The video will come up. Watch, watch that video. But it's a story about how I had a bulldog, my first bulldog, and he was diagnosed with cancer and kind of what happen when he needed to have surgery to, to remove the cancer. And the doctor and what made my, my ex wife Satan say, I don't want that doctor to perform surgery because he wasn't connecting on, on the level that, that she was on. And so the thing that I always noticed as a difference in the service drive when I was an advisor, there were eight advisors. There were eight of us, so there were seven other advisors. And the thing that I noticed about the other advisors comp.

Maybe with the exception of one veteran advisor, there name was Dawn Sly. She, I think I learned a lot of my approach to customers from her because she really, really cared about customers and really.

Kind of understood this intuitively like a lot of people do. But when, when I would approach a car, I was really.

Just, I don't know, really, really interested in who they were and what they did and why. Like, I just wanted to know why. So I wanted to talk about like, where are you headed today? Oh, you work there? Well, what do you do there? Oh, well what, how does that work? Like what? So they're, you know, they're in sales, they're a programmer. They, they, you know, they work at a brewery, whatever it is. Like I'd be five questions in. And we never talked about the car. You have to remember that the car is a commodity. Anybody can service the car. There's nothing special about the car. I know everybody wants to think that the car is special. There's nothing special about the car. What's special is that every customer has a story. And understanding their story, their motivation ends up being your biggest asset. But also just makes your job as an advisor feel like you're doing something good. Like you feel like. I always felt like when I was an advisor, I was actually protecting people from other advisors because I was going to do the right thing and I really cared about them. And so just ask questions and be curious about people. They'll lead you. If you look at the, if you look at their car, their truck, they're going to have bumper stickers, they're going to have things in the car, they're going to be dressed a certain way, but people are just projecting who they are and if you pay attention to that, it will lead you where you want to go and you'll become genuine friends with your customers. But I don't. You don't want your motivation to be, what am I going to sell them? You want your motivation to be, who. Who is this person? What is important to them? What do they do? What, you know, what is their family life like? How many kids do they have? What are their hobbies, what are their interests? That, that does it all for you. And then check history and advise them on how they should keep their car safe and dependable. You, you have to fundamentally believe that maintenance saves customers money in the long run, right? So all those, you can look at the Car Care Council, all those facts, but there's tons of numbers out there that if you spend so much in maintenance, you prevent this much in repairs. And also, Jeremy talks about this all the time, that every car out there on the road on average, needs a couple hours of work done on it, and that doesn't even include parts. So, you know, there's new cars that need absolutely nothing and there's old cars. The average car on the road now something like 12 years old, they probably need five or six hours worth of work. So selling work and your numbers on an advisor are less about being manipulative and, and selling the customer something, and it's more about them trusting you and you following up and you offering the work early enough in the day that they can get it done without, you know, having to leave it another day. It's more about the system and your communication than it is about you being good at selling. Advisors don't really have to be good at selling. They just have to be good at caring about customers and being, you know, being trustworthy, being genuine and authentic and, and good with time management, presenting early enough so that the customer can save time and money and stay in a safe and dependable vehicle. That's, that's our, that's our goal more than anything else. So I don't, I wouldn't worry too much about selling them. That's the easiest part. The thing you want to do is really be curious about people, like, really, what do they do for a living? Why, where did they go to school? Why. Why were they interested? They're a doctor. Oh, what kind of doctor? What, you know, should I quit smoking? I don't know, like, ask them questions that, that are relatable, that you you know, learn to be curious and genuinely.

Interested in people. If you're not interested in people and you don't like people and you're not curious, you're not going to be a good service advisor. If you're just worried about yourself and how much money you're going to make, probably the wrong motivation.

This final question comes from YouTube.

I've been working at an Infiniti dealership for a year. Coming this July, I've worked my off every single day and my entire team, service director, advisors, shop foreman and techs are all behind me 110% for a service advisor role. I applied but was denied the position based on a culture index personality test issued by the general manager. I want to grow. I know CDK and dealer track. I've worked at a convention center hotel during peak hours, been a sales associate in the past. I know what customer service is and how important it is for customer retention and customer base growth. However, it seems like management could care less.

The Hub could care less.

Because my online personality test said I was introverted, I'm torn. I found an opportunity for an internal service advisor at a Subaru dealership nearby and I'm seriously considering it. Especially because my whole team even offered to be references on my resume. Now our porter is quitting and along with being receptionist porter, following up with customers, putting together paperwork, and even writing up customers as if I was an advisor, I'll be doing deliveries on top of everything, all with cut pay since the beginning of June or so. Should I stay with my team that I see as family and hope that management decides to notice me eventually? Or should I leave and take the opportunity to grow at Subaru?

Yeah. So personality tests, do personality tests work? So this, this is a funny subject. The I, early on in, in my career I remember, I think it was. Well, I'm not going to say who it was, but it was a guru out there teaching leadership. Had this sort of.

Affiliate type relationship with one of the personality test questions. And in his leadership training that I had all my managers doing, he wanted us to buy a package of 50 and do a personality test on everybody new coming in. And I was a little bit skeptical about it, but you know, like anything, if it works, I'm gonna use it. So what I did was I said, okay, if these personality tests are good, let's take our top salespeople and our top advisors and let's give them the personality test and see if we would hire them. And guess what? We wouldn't have hired him. And if you look at the top service advisors in our comp. In our, the advisors that win advisor of the year, because this has happened many times where we've been at the top dog event and we've had the top advisors in the comp that win, that write the most parts in labor. They have the highest hours per ro. They, they have, we have advisors in there that have the best CSI in the country. In the country. And they're, they're introverts. They're not extroverts. They're quiet, they're, they're, they're a little awkward. They, they have weird hobbies, but they're amazing service advisors. But they're not outgoing. They're not, they're definitely not the life of the party. In fact, they're probably closer to, to accountants and personality, really. There's a few of them that, that are extroverts, but for the most part, they're more like me. And I'm an introvert. I, I register as an introvert and I, you know, I was an amazing advisor. If you look at Hasan, who was one of the best advisors we've ever seen when he was an advisor, he, he was not an extrovert. He was an introvert. Very steady and calm and, you know, predictable. So my experience with the, with these personality tests is they're a lot like horoscopes. They really are. Like, they, they're written to kind of please people and managers feel like they should do something. Even the companies that make the personality test will tell you that you should only use it as like 25% of the decision making. So they're, they're like horoscopes. Honestly, the best indicator of who will be a good advisor and who will be a good salesperson or a good technician is past performance. That's the best indicator. If somebody's the number one service advisor at a Toyota dealership out of 12 advisors and they have the best CSI and the best numbers. I don't care what their personality test says.

Jordan Peterson talks about this a lot because he create, he created a personality test and I took it. And he built this whole company where he's trying to sell his personality test to companies as a screening device for employees. And nobody liked it because.

It was so negative and honest. And it's funny, like when maybe I'll find it and read it to you guys. I was trying to find it today, but I couldn't in time for the taping of this. But, but literally, like, it says stuff in there, like out of a Hundred people. You. You are last place in this. And that. I mean, it's brutal, but it really tells you, like, who you are. And the. The questions are.

Well, the test is designed to help you really understand who somebody is at the core. But personality tests, honestly, are like horoscopes. It doesn't. I would advise you to go test whoever this general manager is. Go test your top people. If you have top people. I don't. If your average car salesperson selling eight cars, maybe, maybe not. But if you have a salesperson selling 40 cars, go test them and see how they do on the personality test. You'll be surprised that those. They really are garbage at the end of the day. I'm sorry. The only one that I've ever seen that is. Is something that, you know, works is the Colby one. And it's not really a personality test. It's a strengths test. So it tells you if somebody is good at implementing something, follow up that. That sort of thing. Those work pretty good. But even that, his has been a little misleading with really, really top performers, because I think it ends up at the end of the day, even when I, like, I look at myself. That performance and drive is.

More about something inside of you that doesn't show up on a test or you can't explain. Like, I know people underestimate me. They always underestimate me, which I kind of. I've grown to really, really like. But there's this thing inside of me that nobody understands that is a drive that, you know, like I said, it wouldn't show up on a test. So I would suggest that you go somewhere else. Leave that dealership, go write service somewhere else. Be the top advisor. Just do not stop until you're the top advisor. Get, you know, just collect customers. Like, make friends, connect with five. I say in the training, like, if you connected with two or three customers on a deeper level every day, connect with 10 customers on a deeper level every day. Like, just collect customers, make friends. Learn how to motivate your technicians and offer every inspection sheet, be super consistent. And then just mail your numbers someday to that general manager. Just put them in the mail and go, hey, we got six advisors. Look at me, I'm an introvert. Get a copy of that personality test and stable it to it. That's what I would do. Now watch. This is one of our clients. And the general manager is going to call me and be like, how could you say that? But I don't. I'm not a big fan of personality tests. They're voodoo. They don't really predict performance. Performance predicts performance.

Is that the last question? God.

There are no further questions.

The voice of God. Thank you, voice. I'm kind of envious of your voice, honestly. Like, if I could. If I could boom like that. If I had the voice of God.

It's all in the diaphragm.

Welcome to the Chris Collins Top 10 Countdown.

See, you're doing it this week at.

Number 10, anthrax among the living.

Right? No. Okay.

Next thing on my list here is to talk about the Top Dog event. And I've been dying. You guys don't even understand how bad I want to give away this Jeep. The COVID thing has thrown a huge wrench into it, because the way that.

Giving away my Jeep win Chris's truck contest is is that you're comparing previous numbers to being on our program to your new numbers on our program. And during COVID nobody can really do that because, you know, everybody's traffic went down. And although we have clients that have had record months and done great, it's not fair to everybody across the board because different regions were affected in. In different ways. And so we.

We're gonna extend it. I don't know. Like, we thought we were gonna announce that we were just gonna have the Top Dog event in February, and then we got word that that probably won't work because places still are going to be affected by then. And there, that is going to be the beginning of the flu season, and they're predicting that that'll be the second wave, the peak of the second wave, and nobody's going to want to travel. So here's the thing about the Top Dog event this year. Like, we had, we. We had Jay Leno lined up. It just breaks my heart. We had so much going on before Covid.