Chris Collins and Christian Lafferty share tactics for service advisors to beat the rush: arrive early, process overnight drop-offs into repair orders, call customers for authorization before the shop opens, and stagger start times so technicians have work waiting. The goal is keeping customers calm and technicians productive from the moment the doors unlock.
The next thing I had on my list is you want to get in earlier than anybody else. So I was always the first one there. I had a key to the place. I was there before the manager most of the time. And so when I worked at the one place, I was there before the manager all the time. Because you show up until 10, but get in earlier than anyone else and then get the night drops. Now the thing that you want to do with night drops is get the night drops, create an RO and call the customers. And I know a lot of times we're thinking like, oh, it's 5:30 in the morning or 6 in the morning, we're going to wake them up. It's okay to wake them up. It actually, I have found, is a pleasant surprise because it takes away the worry. Because think about it. What's going to happen is they're going to wake up, they're going to do their morning routine, then they're going to call around 8 when you're at the peak of helping customers and everything's just starting to pick up. And now you got night jobs calling, wondering what's going on with their car. So let's get ahead of that, let's avoid that, and let's call them and then let's get a repair authorization. So if they're in warranty, then it's going to be in warranty, but if they're not, let's get some sort of authorization. So, same technique. I would say like, hey, Christian, I saw we, you know, we have your Jetta, your Corolla or your F150 or whatever. Tell me what's going on with it. And you'd be like, hello. And I'd be like, hey, I'd say it again. This is, you know, this is Chris from Bulldog Ford, and I, I see that we have your F150 here. What happened? Even if it says on the, on the night drop or whatever, what happened, I still want you to tell me, okay. Because it might sound different than what you write. And then I'm gonna be like, okay, well, your check engine lights on, whatever. Let's give me something to work with here. I'm gonna put down, you know, $1200. I don't know if it's an O2 sensor, I'm not sure what it is, but let's give ourselves something to work with. And then we would have that conversation. And then I would put that on the ro. I would write the time of when it was authorized, and I would do that for every night drop. I would create the ro. I would call. If I can't get them on the phone, I would leave a message. And then, you know, the thing I'm thinking in my mind as, as a millionaire service advisor is I want to have enough work that when my technicians come in, they're like, oh, you know, the momentum starts. There's nothing worse for the shop that a technician comes in and they stand around for 20 minutes and they don't have any work that will set the tempo for the rest of the day. But if they come in and they have tons of work and it's already authorized and that, you know, there's good work on some of the ros, it's just going to create momentum in the shop. They're going to be more productive, morale is going to be higher, and, you know, they're just going to feel good about their day. So as the service advisor, I'm setting the tone because I'm the first step in a technician fixing anything is I got to create a repair order. I got to get authorization, I got to get good descriptions. Right. I have to communicate it in a way that makes the technician efficient and helps them understand. I got to verify things sometimes. So that's what I'm thinking is like, how, how do I set it up for the technicians to have success in that sense? Right. So getting the repair authorizations, writing those night drops. And then I, when I set up a service department and yours might not be this way, but if the advisors are starting at 7, I have the tech starting at 8. I want the advisors to write two or three customers before the technicians come in. When you have the tech start at 7 and the advisors start at 7, often times, and it might only be 30% of the time, the technicians don't all have work because we're writing as the technicians are trying to find work.
That's right.
So I want to put a gap in there so those night drops become work for the technicians that might be coming in early or whatever it is. So write those, those night drops, get in there early, get repair authorizations. So we're setting the technicians up to win and setting the tone and the pace for the day. They're going to be more productive.
Yeah, I think in the most ideal situations, you could even load the shop up with some of those cars. I've seen advisors before. Let's say that we're in a cold area state. They'll go out and they'll clean off the car or clean off the truck and say, hey, I've Got it parked right here, nice and easy for you to get to. It's all cleaned off and ready to go. Like something that makes the technician feel like that there's a call to action, like, hey, this thing's already ready and up for you to go. I couldn't agree more that the night drop sets a pace for the whole shop for the day. That's right on. And I would say that is the whole thing. Just like being the first person to get into work. It's not a perfect rule, but I would say that, let's say 8 out of 10 times, the advisor that gets there first typically is the best advisor in the store. That's what I've observed is I've kind of traveled around 100%. It's. It's very regular that that's the case.
And I don't remember people beating me ever. I mean.
And I remember my stupid boss dick folding because advisors were like, oh, well, Chris is hogging all the night drops. And then what would happen is then he had his assistant manager who would come in at 8, would then get the night drops and divide them up between the advisors. It would be lunchtime, and they hadn't been written yet. And customers are calling in. And so they went back to, Chris can write all the night jobs. Because I was. I cared enough to get there, get them authorized and get them in the shop.
But yeah, that customer peace of mind, though I think that that would be a big thing, is you'd worry that. That the thing got dropped, right. You put it into a folder and what, what if the key gets kicked under or something like that. If you don't hear from somebody till noon, like four hours, you're going through the stress as a customer of like, do they even have my car?
Yeah. And the other thing is a lot of incoming phone calls in a service department can be avoided. Like, that's an example of us making the customer call in, plugging up the phones, and once again calling when everybody's, you know, doing other things. It's not the most efficient way. Thanks so much for watching this clip of Service Driving Revolution. We're up 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.chriscollinsinc.com now that's offers.com chriscollinsinc.com I'm Chris Collins, and I'll see you in the next video.
