How To Compete With Tenured Service Advisors

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Is it's time for your Friday drive by on service Drive Revolution and I am Chris Collins. And the phone number, write this down, open up notes on your phone 8333, ask SDR. That's 8333, ask SDR. Remember, if we play your question on the show, you're not only going to be helping others by asking the question, but we're going to send you a swag bag of service Drive revolution stuff like hats and coffee mugs and notebooks and T shirts and all kinds of good stuff. So call, call in your questions. We would love to hear from you. And let's go to this week's question.

Hey Chris, this is Daniel. I just had a quick question for you. So I'm a newer service advisor at a pretty large dealership up in the Pacific Northwest. I've been trained in the express side for about five months. So strictly oil changes. We're currently switching to an open service drive. So I'm going to be writing main shop work or more major repairs. So I just had a quick question. With not a lot of experience, how can I compete with all these other advisors who've been working for 20 plus years in the industry? And I also just got a new pay plan, 5.5% commission on gross sales with a decent base pay and 5 to $10 on spiffs depending on the job. Any advice for a new service advisor and anything else you could tell me. Thank you.

Thanks for the question, Daniel. That's great.

It doesn't matter how long you've been somewhere, how much experience you have as an advisor because the difference maker, the most important ingredient to being successful is available to anybody and it doesn't require any experience. All it is is connecting with your customers on a deeper level. And so I'm going to send you my book, the Millionaire Service Advisor. So you have it. But in there I tell a story at the beginning about my rich uncle and how my rich uncle bought me a house, bought me cars, sent me on vacation, but my rich uncle was actually my customer base. And I go through the math there that if you connect with two or three customers on a deeper level, and by deeper level I mean talking about their kids, their work, their interest and you really get to know them and they trust and like you that over four or five years you have this customer base that becomes your rich uncle that you know, when I was a service advisor I didn't, I didn't have to take any more incoming calls. There was, you know, there was a line of people at my desk waiting for me. Maybe one of the things I'm most proud of is when I was off. So when I would take a day off, the other advisors would say, we hate it when you take a day off because your customers pull in, they find out you're not here, and they just leave. And so, you know, that's how I wanted people to feel. I wanted them to feel like I was their person in the car business. So I have a video on YouTube called Pet the Dog. I would watch that video, Google it. Chris Collins, Pet the dog. And really pay attention to, you know, the things that matter. The car that you're servicing and what you're doing to the car. So whether it's an oil change or you're rebuilding the engine on the car really are irrelevant to how the customer feels. And so managing the trust and their perception is the most important thing. And you can only do that by being genuinely curious about people, asking questions, getting to know them, and slowing down and taking the time. So. So you also find in your career that you can write less customers, but spend more time with those customers. And not only will you sell more per repair order, you will be more effective because, you know, all of us kind of have this threshold. Like when I was a service advisor, I couldn't write 20 a day every day, especially at the place I initially worked, because there were so many holdovers. If I wrote, 28 of those would be held over. So now the next day I got 28 right. I'm managing too many customers that need a call, they need follow up, etc. And so for me, the number was like 12 to 14 that I could really spend time, follow up, over deliver, and over communicate with customers. And part of the reason why we lose trust as service advisors is we're not communicating with. When people have to call us to get status or call us to check we've lost, you know, then they're like, oh, well, I'm. I'm doing this. And they're not thinking about me or the cars or trucks gone into this black hole. Now I'm trying to figure out where I am in the priority line instead of making them feel special and important. So your secret weapon is connecting with every customer on a deeper level and petting the dog. Watch that video. But thanks so much for the question, Daniel. 8333. Ask STR as a number if you have a question and hope to hear from you guys real soon. Thank you so much. We'll 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 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 it's offers.chriscollinsInc.com I'm Chris Collins, and I'll see you in the next video.