How To Be A Good Service Advisor

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Happy, happy Friday. Happy happy Friday because it's time for service drive revolution. I'm Chris Cones and this is Chris Joan.

Hello everyone. Chris Joan, Happy Friday.

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Yeah, it's a swag box.

Yeah, it's a swag swag box. Okay, let's go to the question.

Hello, Chris, this is Nathan. I recently took over a spot as senior advisor of a Chevy service department. Me being 21, I've only been in the business for about three years now and just trying to see what are some good advice for a young advisor trying to make it in this business.

And Nathan has taken a position as a senior advisor at a Chevy store, which tells me that Nathan's probably not writing express work and he's looking for a couple of tips on how to become the best senior advisor that he can be.

Okay, well, let's hear your ideas.

Okay, so I've got two that came to mind really quickly. The first, Nathan, what I would tell you is I don't care what your co workers are doing, hold yourself to a higher standard. And the second thing I would say is if you make friends first, the rest gets really, really easy.

What do you mean by that?

So if you connect deeply with your customers, it becomes less about selling and way more about your connection with them. And it's really just advice from a friend.

So if you're a senior advisor, are you in charge of other advisors?

No, but what I would say is it would be natural for Nathan to go into a store. And if he's looking to try to figure out how to do his job, Nathan might look to other advisors. My experience is it's not all advisors are doing everything exactly the same. So what I would say is Nathan should hold himself to a higher standard. Higher standard on sales, higher standard on csi, higher standard on how he communicates with his customers.

Yeah. So then I would go to the. Also to the receptionist and to the Porters and tell them that you're waiting for a tow in just Randomly, as vague as possible, so you get all the toe ins. I would get there early and do the night drops. I would work through your lunch. So when everybody else is at lunch, you're there because people do call or drive in on their lunch. And then, yeah, I would just think about everything in the sense of collecting customers. It's all about collecting customers, making friends. And forget about the car, forget about the truck, the brand. It's not about the commodity. It's about your personal relationship with your customers and building trust and protecting that trust, always doing right by them. If you wouldn't sell it to your mom, don't sell it to a customer. But really genuinely take interest in their family, their hobbies, their cares, their likes, all that more than anything else. So connect on a deeper level and just think like in a day, like how many of my customers are key throwers. Because that's usually a good barometer to how well you connect with customers, how many people trust you to the point where there's whatever it needs, whatever it needs, do it. Like that's, that's the real test, right?

Yeah, it is. So I was going to ask you this only because you were also really, really young when you started writing service. I was a little bit older, so it's probably a little bit different of a thing. Do you remember thinking back, did you get a good piece of advice when you were really young, just starting out?

No.

No. I mean, so the things that I remember about that is I got passed over a bunch of times.

I remember the last time I got passed over it was this kid that was a dealer kid who.

For some reason moved to Seattle. But he was in the, in a 20 group with the owner of our dealership, his father was. And so I got passed up for the next advisor position because of this kid. And I remember he was terrible and he wasn't there that long. I also remember the kid had a Rolex, which is random, but I just thought it was so weird that a kid like, you know, my age, that was a dealer's kid had a Rolex. So I remember I got passed up. I remember when I finally did get the position, my service manager said that if I dropped below 2.5 hours per hour, I was fired. And then I proceeded to go around and ask everybody what hours per ro were and everybody had a different story.

Oh, wow.

So I didn't understand what hours per ro were.

And then also our manager was the kind of manager that you could only see the numbers like once or twice a month. And so he told me that I was fired. Like, you gotta understand, like, I. I really wanted that job and I really wanted to make money. And so the idea that I would get fired if I dropped below a certain number really did. Like, I wasn't messing around.

Yeah, it did a number on you.

For sure, because I couldn't find out what the number was or how to calculate it. I remember that was very, you know, frustrating. It kind of, in a sense, created this scenario where I just felt like I was faking it because I didn't know. So. No. And then we had. So we had a dispatcher, and he was terrible. I mean, all he ever did was.

You know, just tell us what we couldn't do. He was absolutely terrible. He threw my arrows in the Ali wants.

And what's weird is all that was allowed, like, that behavior was allowed, like, was. It was terrible. There was no. It was a complete open floor. And so they would just make appointments. And then it was just like, hold on. Write as many as you can, put them in dispatch, and then at 2 o' clock, start calling and telling people their car won't make it in. Like, that was kind of what it was. But.

Nobody at. No, nobody ever gave me advice. I never. I mean, I'm telling you that.

That.

The thing for me, like so many things in my life, honestly, was I didn't even start thinking about the technique of being an advisor until a consulting company came in. And they'd been there a while, they changed our pay plan. They made some of the systems better, but, you know, it wasn't a huge difference. Mostly they just raised the labor rates. But.

One of the consultants said, hey, will you go talk to these other advisors at North County Ford in Seattle? And I remember going, okay, well, if I'm going to go talk to them about how I'm getting the numbers I'm getting, I better figure out how I'm getting the numbers I'm getting, because I didn't know. And so there was this guy, his advisor. His name was Thomas Kemper. Kemper, that's his real name. And he was terrible. Terrible. He would avoid the drive. He was always in conflicts with. With customers. And he could barely write six hours to save his life.

Like, it's tough when it's a mess.

He was the worst. And so I started paying attention to what he did.

I don't. I don't even remember how I figured this out, but I'm like, well, if I take the worst guy in me and I compare me to the worst guy.

I'll figure out what the technique is. Right. So, like, I just figured, like, when he walked out to a car, he was real. He was real concerned whether somebody had an appointment or not. Like, there's nothing more important than if I walked out. I was just more curious, like, who these people were and what they did and, you know, and so I'd try to find common ground, and then I would ask them about, you know, their day and that sort of thing. And I could have cared less about the car, but really the reason why I didn't want to talk about the car was because I didn't know anything about cars.

Yeah.

So if I talked about the car, I was always. Because I was so young. Right. I'm 19, 20. I thought that if the customers were talking about the car, they would ask me, like, well, where's the water pump? Or, I don't know. They would ask me a question I couldn't answer. So.

No, I never. Did you get advice?

No, I always joke. My advisor training was exactly like this. I know that we're running short on time, but I'm gonna try. There's your desk. Here's a keyboard. Let me know if you have any questions. Yeah, that was my training. So, you know, what you did just spark something for Nathan, though, is I love the idea of, like, you. You have to learn what the. The game you're playing. What do the terms mean? Like, we'll talk about HPRO or hours paro, or we'll talk about elr, but the truth is, a lot of people don't know exactly what those things and how they're calculated. Learn that stuff, and you'll have a better command of your numbers. Yeah.

What's funny is, even to this day, like, when you talk about effective laborator hours per O, a lot of people don't know. People that have been in the industry for a long time don't know what that is. Like, how many times do. Are we, like, talking to somebody about El are. And they'll say something to the effect of, you know, it's 70%. You're like, you're. How can you. That's gross profit percentage. Or, you know, like, they. They say things. Also, wasn't angel saying that one of our most searched things on our website is effectively rate? Like, that page gets the most traffic.

Oh, that would make sense.

Second most. You just said.

Um, lately, I've been getting a lot of. It's your door rate minus your cost of your tech.

Yeah.

Which. That doesn't even make sense in any scenario because your door rate never is.

So I think that what I've done from now is I don't even correct them. I just say thank you.

Oh, you just let it go. Oh, you're talking about when you interview people for a coach.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's, it's sad, actually, because it's not people want to know. It's just not, you know, it's not something that they're taught.

The DMS tells them. I mean, it's.

Great question. Thank you. We're going to send some swag your way. Remember the numbers 8333 ask SDR and we will 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 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.chriscollinsInc.com I'm Chris Collins and and I'll see you in the next video.