How to CONTROL Your CUSTOMER

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This question is from Janae Goodbrand.

So, Janae, we're going to send you a service Drive Revolution package with a shirt and a mug and some other fun stuff. So what is, what is her question?

So, Janae says, I work in an independent auto shop in a small town in Alberta, Canada. I got hired to be the service advisor and partsman for the automotive side of the business. But when I got hired, I had zero experience as a service advisor. I know it's my job to be 100% attentive to the customer, but between running to my text for information, parts runs, and answering the phones and calling customers with quotes, etcetera, I find that I'm not giving my customer the attention they need. How can I effectively balance everything so that I can be there for the customer, create a trusting environment and connect with them while fulfilling my other responsibilities? My boss has left the whole department to me with only the expectation to upsell and expect success with little guidance. And my heart aches for the customer because I know we can do better for them.

Good question. So, I mean, there's probably a bunch of answers to that.

And.

Probably one is being honest with your customers up front and telling them, like, the truth, right? Like, we're gonna check it out, then we're gonna need parts and, like, just telling them the process and what happened. So we're gonna check it out and figure out what's wrong with it. Then we're gonna have to source the parts, sometimes sourcing the parts. They have them locally, they don't. We have to go get them. But, but that takes a little. And just at the time of write up, going through the steps of the process, like, when I was an advisor, I used to do that. But my intention behind doing it was getting the customers to pick up the phone when I called. Because, you know, a hundred years ago when I was an advisor, the thing was, if the tech still had it in the bay, because our dispatch where I worked was such a disaster that if the tech pulled it out, it might be the next day before it went back in. Because, you know, it was one of those places where it's so disorganized that by two o' clock you were calling all the customers you wrote up to tell them it would be tomorrow. And they'd be like, but I make it an appointment a week ago. And you're like, yeah, well, the ownership here just doesn't care. That was my, my experience. So what I would tell them is like, here's the process. It's going to get dispatched to a tech. Once the tech has it in their stall, they're going to check it out and they're going to tell me what's wrong with it. I'm going to call you right then, and if we can get your authorization and you pick up the phone, so what's your day like? And I would be like, are you going to be in meetings today? What's the best number to call? Like, I would go through all these things, but the customer then knew to be ready for my call because it could mean the car staying another day if they didn't. And it wasn't. It wasn't a bad thing to tell them that it didn't. It never turned them off. It actually kind of pulled them in closer to me because it was like, we're part of this together, and here's how this works. And you have to do your part, I have to do my part, but if you're not available for your part, I can't do my part. Right. Telling them the truth. I used to always say to the other advisors I worked around, why don't you tell the customers the truth? That, you know, the truth is, once it gets in, you know, we got to say yes or no. Or the other thing with that is I would get an authorization upfront, too. So I would say, hey, I'm going to give myself $2,000 to work with, because if it's in there, we want to fix it. Right. We don't want to pull it in and out. So they help with that. So I would say, like, having some sort of thing that you test out in the beginning to tell customers, okay, here's the process. Once it gets in the shop to attack, we're going to check it out, then I'm going to call you, you're going to okay the work, and then we're gonna have to source the parts. And depending on if the parts are local or not, it could take a day or two to get the parts and just walking them through what the timeline to repair is. Yeah, right.

Yeah. Setting the expectation, anticipating needs. I think the, the key thing with all of that that you're saying there is finding a way to be proactive. Anything you can do to be proactive and anticipate their needs and your own and have a true goal.

Of getting the customer back in their car in a timely manner.

Yeah. If you're saying that you feel bad that you're not meeting their expectations. You might not be able to change what you do. So change their expectations. Change the narrative. Right. Change what their expectations are. Yeah, like. Yeah, set them straight. So that would be one. Another one that I thought when. When you were reading that is like, I know a lot of independent shops where the parts get delivered two times a day. Like, there's vendors out there that'll deliver and I don't know, Alberta is pretty big. Like, that's not a small town.

Yeah.

That there's got to be parts vendors that will deliver to you that you don't have to go pick them up. Now, I know there's going to be weird situations, like maybe you have to go to a dealership or something like that. But there's also. There's also parts runners, too. So a lot of times you can hire somebody that will go run parts for you. There's apps out there for TaskRabbit, things like that, where you could pay somebody 20 bucks to go pick up the part and pass that along to the customer. So when you quote on the alternator, add in the $20 for the TaskRabbit. There's ways, you know, you gotta test these systems and figure out a good one. But I know in a lot of parts departments, you can't afford a driver full time, but you can pass along the cost to the customer. So you can add in a taskrabbit or something like that to get the parts picked up because you can't leave.

Yep.

And so thinking a little bit more outside the box that way, with what sort of systems could I put in place that, hey, the customer might pay another 20 bucks or you might just quote them another 20 bucks and they don't know the difference. But you're not having to leave to go pick up a part. So getting vendors that will deliver the parts to you, and in the weird situations where you can't have another solution that you're passing that on to the customer, you know, when you're sourcing the part.

Well, you.

Whether they're going to deliver or not. So, you know, if you should pack in 20, 30 bucks for that.

Yeah.

So that would be one, right?

Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Yeah. And I think when you look at some of these things, a lot of them you think are outside of your control when they're really not.

More.

More things that you have to do with this are you're in control of. Right.

Yeah. Because I can tell you, when I rode service, a lot of the advisors felt like victims, and I knew that the system sucked. But I wasn't going to let that stop me from controlling the narrative. I was going to control the narrative because, let's face it, there's no perfect system. No. No matter what, it's never perfect. Good question. Thank you. Who's it? Janae. Thanks for the question, Janae. We'll get your info and send you some swag. Thank you so much for watching this clip of Service Drive Revolution. Now you can catch the full episode on 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 chrisbulldogcollins, and I'll see you again on the next episode.