How Service Advisors Can Transform Their Career (Service Drive Revolution)
Chris Collins coaches a service advisor on five things advisors overlook. A missed suspension problem on a Honda Pilot shows why thorough inspections matter. The bigger shift: treat your role as a business within the business, not just an hourly job.
Chapters
Okay, so let's recap the top five things advisors take for granted. Number one was history.
Yep.
Number two was the relationship. Number three was the technician's time.
No, it was the parts manager's fault.
Number four.
Number four, I like to label this on prevention. And there's a great story that happened at our shop about six months ago. And I may have said this before, but we had a newer Honda pilot come in 2016 with 50 some thousand miles on it. And the first time it was in, the customer mentioned a concern and it was about, you know, shaking and the suspension feeling really rough. And we totally missed what was wrong with the car. And the reason for it, after I talked to my technician was he felt that the car was too new to have these issues. So it had control arm bushings that were blown out and the front struts were gone. And in his mind, a car that's 4 years old with 56,000 miles on it doesn't need that repair. So he didn't even look at it. So that's when I said, okay, if we're going to really be the best shop, Hispania, California, and then move on to Southern California, then the world, we can't take anything for granted. So prevention is key. And I think a lot of times advisors can take prevention for granted and they overlook it. The prevention of a courtesy inspection, having a good technician thoroughly inspect the car so you can sign off at it. And when the customer says, so I'm good to go across the country, like, yes. You're not lying to them. Right. Because your inspections are good. Preventive maintenance. How do you feel about preventive maintenance?
Well, I mean, it's proven that it saves, it saves customers money. Right. So the Car Care Council says, what, every $800 saves you 8,000 or something like that. But it's a, it's a huge number.
That's an 8 to 1 return on investment difference.
But I think as an advisor, I learned from a mistake early on is I remember this customer had an Audi and he came in and he had a coolant hose leaking. And we, we replaced the coolant hose.
And.
He took the car. And then like, I don't know, over the weekend on a voicemail from him, he was very upset.
Oh, wow.
Monday I call him back and he just did. He like hated me. He was so mad. And he said, you know, you guys fixed that coolant leak in its back and it's worse or whatever. And my wife was driving to Spokane, so we were in Seattle. His wife was driving To Spokane with her kids, got caught. The, the. And what happened was it was another hose, right? And we just replaced the one hose. And like, at the time I was just thinking, like, how stupid is this? Like, they're all the same age, right? Yeah.
Do reho's on it.
Yeah. And, and that's the thing, that advice, the idea that his wife got stuck on the way to Spokane with the kids on a weekend when we were closed, we couldn't do anything.
Right.
Where do you tell it? Like.
Not good.
Right.
And so prevention comes in many forms.
It does.
But you, you have to really, as an advisor, think about preventative maintenance. So one thing I, I think is crazy is that a lot of the manufacturers now kind of have this mentality that at a hundred thousand miles of cars are disposable. They're disposable. So they don't recommend power steering fluid. But it like power steering racks are going on some of these cars, right? It's 70, 80,000 miles. And when you drain them, there's literally chunks of metal in there. So the idea that you don't replace some of these fluids gets clouded by the idea that some people oversell fluids.
Right?
And so I don't think, like, if coolant is, is lifetime, which means 100,000 miles. Right. Just think about that psychologically. Like manufacturers still call coolant, that's a hundred thousand miles lifetime. Listen to that metaphor. Like the car is disposable at 100. Don't replace the coolant. Push the thing off a cliff or put it in a smash.
Right?
Right. Okay. So.
It'S just the manufacturers want the customers to perceive that they don't have to maintain the cars. But at the same time, and especially in extreme weather conditions and things like that, you do need to replace some of those fluids. And it's nuts. And it's nuts to even debate that. But because people oversell and have over recommended and you have the, you know, the Bee Gees and all that pushing their products, it gets a bad, a bad reputation. But if you just think about preventative maintenance as a whole and you pay attention to what happens, like the connection between power steering and the fact you're replacing so many racks.
Right.
And that's why I always say, like, if you wouldn't tell your mom to do it, don't do it. I told my mom to replace her power steering fluid.
Right.
Because I would rather have her do that than spend two grand on a rack.
Absolutely. For sure. So this all comes down to, you know, going back up to Number two, which is the relationship. We have a great tool in our coaching program, which is the vehicle timeline, and we start the relationship out with that so we can understand what are your goals for the car that way. Yeah, we can plan and avoid surprises. Exactly. So prevention is key. You've got to be able to believe in the preventive maintenance that you're selling. Understand, it gives your customer an 8 to 1 return on investment. So if you spend $1,000 of maintenance, it's going to save you up to $8,000, you know, down the road. It's a great return on investment for the customer.
So I'll tell you that the thing that changed with me is a couple incidents like that where the guy's wife was stuck. I never did not do an inspection on a car and not tell the customer what was wrong with the car after that.
Absolutely.
Like, something in me change. Like, I'd rather have you be mad at me than have you stuck on the side of the road because I didn't tell you what I knew. And I'd rather have a technician re rack a car and inspect it than have a customer leave there and not not know. So it changed me.
Absolutely.
And I think everybody should feel that way.
You probably weren't attached to the money of the ticket. I. And you can see a distinct difference.
Of just think about somebody's wife and kids.
Right.
Like, that's a big deal.
It is a huge deal.
And the guy hated me.
Oh, yeah.
Because in his head, you fixed the coolant leak and it got worse. He doesn't. People like, I don't know, the guy was a doctor or something. He doesn't.
Right.
He doesn't care.
Absolutely. That it's a good lesson.
He doesn't want to hear excuses like, I paid you a bunch of money. I left and it broke again.
Yep. For the exact same thing I brought it in for.
Yeah.
That's even worse. Double whammy.
Yeah, dude.
You blame it on parts.
You should have.
No, no, I. It was hard. That was a hard call. This a good list, kid. I was like 19 or whatever. Oh, I felt so bad.
Yeah. I. I almost got fired from my first dealership job because I took a noise for granted from a doctor who drove an Audi. And I remember, I. This is where my gardener rule of if it's a noise, somebody from the dealership has to drive it with the customer to hear the noise, because customers hear all sorts of different things. So anyways, I remember a shop foreman fixed it and he's like, hey, I Got it fixed. It was a solenoid valve up under the hood and wasn't even what the guy was talking about. What he was concerned with is on the freeway, the passenger visor would rattle, and I just. I blew it. I missed it. And I'm like, okay, from this day forward, if it's a noise concern, I'm going to document the noise, and we're not going to work on it if we don't.
Yeah.
Yep.
So you got to verify it. Number five of the top five things advisors take for granted. Business inside a business.
Yeah. This can transform their entire career. Yeah, it's interesting, too. I talked to an advisor this morning who is new to a shop, not from this industry, completely outside of the industry. And this concept right here, if she would just take this and run with it and understand that she's creating her own business within the business that she's working with, it would be lights out, it would be night, day, different. So what do you see on the dealership side with businesses inside of business?
Well, I always thought when I was an advisor and even selling a little bit, that the phone and the building and all that was the. You know, I was paying that rent with my numbers and I got a piece of what I did. Right.
So a lot less liability from them.
More liability. And, yeah, I didn't have to stay up at night worrying about making payroll or anything like that. So, yeah, I always looked at it as my business, and the business was collecting customers. The more friends I had and the more people I could collect, the better I did. And I wasn't consciously creating key throwers, but after a while, I just realized how busy I was.
Right.
And I remember at one point looking around and the other seven advisors or standing around, and I got through. I'm three deep, right?
And then. It's waiting for you. No, I'll wait. I'm good. I want to see Chris.
And then I've seen that over the years with certain special advisors that have been in our. In our system, in our program that they, you know, people wouldn't. Wouldn't let anybody else help. I remember one time at the Cadillac store, I wrote service. I came back and I don't. I used to have this deal where I could go play. So, you know, my band would play. Right. So we would tour, and sometimes I would get like a Thursday off early, and then Friday, Saturday, Sunday off. And I remember I came back from one of those, and the advisors were like, in a little huddle, and I'm like, what's up and they're like, we hate it when you're gone. And this whole thing. And I was like, why are there your customers just pull in when they find out you're not here? They leave. And I was like, that's awesome. What. Tell what happened? Like, tell me more.
That's great. That's great.
That's what you want, right? Like, they don't. They don't trust anybody else but me. Like, that's it. And if I tell them to do it, there's. There's no reason why they're not going to believe me because my intentions radiate. Like, you can tell if somebody's authentic or not. And there is absolutely nothing inauthentic that I would do or have done to them that they wouldn't trust me.
Yep. And so this is interesting too, because we can flip this to the service managers and to the shop owners. So one thing I've noticed as a shop owner is when I really have coached my employees well, my team members, and they take ownership in their position, their behavior changes. They show up early, they stay a little later. You know, they take pride in their job and they really view it as it's. They're not just making X number of dollars per hour and they're not bleeding the clock. They're actually more productive and their behavior changes, too.
So quality of life improves.
Oh, absolutely. So it's interesting. And my personal assistant now, I've preached this to her for, you know, the past six months, is you're never going to get where you want to go making an hourly rate. So we have to figure out a way for you to add more value to the businesses and be more productive. So stop focusing on hourly rate. And then she finally got it about three months ago, and you can see it click. And it's. It's just really awesome to see that when they understand that they are creating their own business within their. Within the business. So it's pretty awesome. Great point.
So, top five things advisors take for granted. History. Number two is relationships. Number three is the technician's time parts manager, prevention. And number five is that you're running a business inside of a business. Collecting customers is the secret to success. 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.
