How Service Advisors Can Reach The Next Level

Voice of God. Do we have questions?

The voice of God has many questions. And by many, I mean two. Question number one. Hey, Chris, looking for some advice? I'm a writer at a Chrysler dealership for a very large dealer group in Michigan.

Quit. Just quit. Just.

Just stop.

Just.

I mean, I don't need to hear anything else. Just. Just quit now. You're ahead.

What do you think the question is?

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter.

Chrysler, strike one. Michigan, strike two. He's probably a Lions fan or Green Bay packers fan. I mean. Yeah.

Which is worse?

Just both. Just Lions is probably the worst. I mean, at least Green Bay gives you, you know, some sort of winning streak every now and then.

Oh, yeah, The Lions owned by the Ford family, right?

Yeah. There you go.

It's all coming full circle.

Yeah, they're owned by the Ford.

Just quit. Just quit.

Sorry, Voice of God. Carry on. What's the rest of the question?

I've become the go to guy in service for every other department, causing me to take on too much at times and taking me away from my responsibilities to my customers. I feel like this is holding me back from my goal of being the top writer in the group and ultimately becoming a service manager. I have a hard time telling anyone no because I take pride in being someone that others can rely on. Any ideas on how I should handle this to get myself to the next level? Thanks in advance for any possible insight. Your books and podcasts have helped me a ton in getting where I am today.

So I think the first thing you got to think about is.

You'Re not telling people no. What you want to do as an advisor is you want to come from a place of empathy and service and you want to tell them the truth.

That's the key. So it's not about telling anybody. No. It's about having empathy for their situation, trying to do the best you can for them with what you have, what tools you have, and then tell them the truth. If it's going to take two days, it's going to take two days. If the. If the quick lube texts are backed up and it's going to be an hour and a half, I would rather tell them it's going to be an hour and a half now than wait an hour when they think it's 45 minutes, and then tell them.

So that's the worst scenario right there.

Empathy, service, and tell them the truth. And so I'm guessing here is what you're doing is you're projecting this. This weird thing about how you feel about yourself and your self image and trying to please people by telling them what you think they want to hear, but telling them what you think they want to hear is not. Is not going to do you any good or serve you. So I also got the empathy thing's easy for you because you probably already have that. And so it's the truth part. They. That might be messing you up. Sorry.

He also said the other departments are pulling him out of service. So, like, real parts is not doing their job again. So they're asking an advisor for help.

So if you have a hard time telling people no, just reframe it. And so if Christian comes out and says, hey, can you help me with this project?

Or whatever I needed, say, Christian, do I look like I work in parts?

Right.

Stop.

Get off your Facebook, stop checking your email, and get to work. The parts department is not a vacation center or whatever. What would you call it? Retirement home.

Retirement home. Oh, wow.

Is that how you would handle it?

No, I would just say, yeah, I can absolutely help you. That. I just have a question first. What would you do if I couldn't help you with that? And then they'll give you the answer. You say, that's a great decision. Go do that. And then you walk on and go do the other thing.

Wow.

Yeah. So you spin it. What would you do if I can't help you? That sounds like a good solution. Go do that. Just get out of doing it.

You know what's amazing? I actually think all three of us interpreted that question completely differently. So when I heard it, what I heard was not the parts department. What I heard is that, like, it's the sales department come back because they've sold a car and they got a wheel or they got a PDI that needs to get done and everything like that. So that's how I actually heard that question. So what I would say to that point is, remember that anytime, like, the sales department's coming back to you, there's a customer strapped to the other side of that whole request. Right.

It's an opportunity. It's like the free oil change.

Yeah. So it's a deposit.

Do you have an appointment? Isn't that the first thing you ask the sales rep? Right.

Did you call ahead?

But I would just say, sorry, I don't get paid on internal.

Right. So if I'm doing internal work for somebody, I'm putting splash cards on a card. Be like, oh, great, Give me the customer information. I would just say I call them up I'd be like, hey, my name is Christian. I'm going to be taking care of the splash guard installation for you today. I just want to let you know when it's time for your first service, I'm going to be the person that you're going to take care of as well. Because it's really important to us that you have a great ownership experience all throughout the time that you have the vehicle. I'm trying to make as many deposits as possible because I want 100% of the sales customers to come to me if I'm an advisor, because I feel like that's the way to build your business. But that's how I interpreted that. And I think that that's a great thing.

I think we gave him three answers.

Then he. He got great.

More than he call just wrapped up in there for him.

Great question.

Okay, one more question. Hi, Chris. I've recently discovered your videos. I think they're fantastic and insightful. They seem to be centered in doing the right thing for your customer and the right thing will happen for you. Due to Covid, my industry has imploded. Imploded. I really want to become a service advisor, but I'm finding it difficult to get in the game. I think my age is part of the issue, but not the sole issue. What do you recommend is a good course of action to get into the service advisor profession?

So I don't. I guess I would need more context because I don't know if you have money in the bank. I don't know what industry you're coming from. I don't know your experience or what, you know, why, why you're thinking you want to get into it. But it. I remember.

My grandfather telling me a story about my dad. It. So my dad, right after he married my mom, didn't have a job. And so my grandfather tried to get him on at the garbage company in Bremerton, Washington, you know, picking up trash. They didn't have any openings, and I think they were union. And so what my dad did is he went down there and swept their office and around the front every day. And how long do you guys think it took before he got put on a truck?

A month?

No, it was a week.

Oh, wow.

And so if you don't know anything about the industry and you want to get a feel for it, I would go to a local shop or dealership and I would ask the manager there, like, hey, I want to learn this. Can I answer phones and help follow up for a couple weeks and just see and just volunteer, put your best foot forward and make a difference. Like go in there and learn and ask questions and help customers and have, have a passion for it. And you can't, you wouldn't be able to stop you if that. If you give to get. You know, we have that approach here and it's the reason why we're as busy as we are and we help as many people as we do is our philosophy is we're going to put out free content that's better than what our competition charges for. So the stuff that they charge for behind their membership wall won't be as good as the stuff we give away for free. So just imagine what our content is behind the membership wall on our on demand platform. Right?

Right.

If we can give away content for free that other people are charging for, imagine how good the stuff is behind and that works. Right. So we're the only ones in the industry that don't feel like the content is, you know, the treasure. Right. The treasure is the relationship more than anything else. So if you really wanted to get into it, I would go volunteer. I don't know, in different states. I don't know how feasible that is. I don't know what the HR laws are with that. But if you, if I was a service manager and you came to me and said, hey, I, you know, my industry imploded, maybe he was a bartender or something and I want to become a service advisor, can I. And answer phones, make appointments, clean up paperwork, file whatever it is, then you'll get an opportunity. When I was a porter, I was dying to be an advisor and I got passed over, I think five times to be an advisor. But I wrote all the internals that they would let me write. Anybody called in sick, I would write service, I would answer the phones if the phones were ringing and everybody was busy because writing the internal ros made it. So when I did finally have a customer in front of me, the only difference was the pay type. But I knew how to use Reynolds and Reynolds. I knew all the codes. I knew how to do it because I'd opened and closed so many internals, I didn't get paid for it. I'd stay late on my own, on my own time to do it. But part of the gap in being an advisor sometimes is knowing just knowing how to write a repair order in the DMS that they have. Right. That's the hardest part, I think.

The other thing too, right now, the feedback I'm getting is there's a lot of people who are apprehensive of people who have been Covid, you know, they lost their job in an industry that is going to come back. So they don't want to invest in that person or hire them because as soon as it comes back, they're going to go back to what they were doing. So I would say I would, you know, identify your purpose and your passion of wanting to become an advisor and then do something totally different. Make a video. And then it's all about persistency. Right? You know, get that video out there, show the world what, why you want to be an advisor, and then pick the car line you want to work in. Because I remember I knocked on 43 dealerships doors before I got my first job. And I remember talking to the Lexus manager at Cerritos and just kind of going through his process and culture and I kind of like, yeah, I'm not going to be a good fit for you just because, just I know my personality. I know kind of what you're describing isn't really the way that I like to work. And you know, that was an interview that didn't work out for me, but I wouldn't have fit in that model. So find a car line that you're going to be comfortable with and that you, you want to work on and be passionate about and then break the mold. You'll find a spot. Wow.

I love both those things. That's crazy.

Wait, we've left you speechless?

Not speechless. I'm just, I just feel like there's, that's, there's nothing more to add.

You don't have an inappropriate joke.

Not that it would pass through editing.

And remember, I remember my second Volkswagen job I got. I literally found out that the service manager worked from like 5 to 2, so anytime after 7am you weren't going to get to them. So I would get there at 4:30 and I'd just be hanging out by the door and after a couple days like, who are you and what are you doing? Well, I'm your next advisor.

Nice, right?

So do things that are totally different.

Give to get, put your best foot forward.

Yeah. Great question.

Thank you so much for watching this clip of Service Drive Revolution. Now you can catch the full episode on YouTube, iTunes or Spotify or wherever you consume your podcast. If you have any questions, go ahead and post them in the comments below. Make sure you subscribe and hit the bell icon so you're notified when we post new episodes. I'm Chris Collins and you can find me on Facebook and Instagram at Chris Bulldog Collins. And I'll see you again on the next episode.