How To Deal With Angry Customers | SDR #226

Welcome everybody to the big show. Today we're going to talk about how do you handle the most difficult pain in the butt crazy psychopathic customers with ease? How do you turn them from crazy to stable and friendly?

Soft and sappy.

Soft and sappy. And then we're going to go over the news and talk about a couple other things and much, much more. Coming up on on this edition of service Drive Revolution.

If you're listening to this and not watching, Christian has a cup because his girlfriend calls him handsome daddy in Spanish. Papichulo. Yes, Handsome daddy.

So we are making so for our clients in the coaching group, we're making some changes to our advisor service manager comp software and the way things are structured. So every month in different categories we have top advisors, top managers and you're competing against everybody else in your group. So like everybody in the American group is like Ford, Chrysler, gm. Yep, all that. What changes did you make this year?

So this was a suggestion from a client which I think actually worked out really, really well. So we have added on three new groups, which is pretty awesome. But what's happened to this comp is it's grown pretty exponentially over the last 24 months. And we now have what we call the big dog leagues. So this is taking the bigger stores in each category. So our big domestic stores that have a bunch of advisors, our big Honda stores that have a bunch of advisors and our big Japanese brand stores that have a bunch of advisors and essentially now they've kind of moved off. Then we have the regular size store that compete in the regular league. But essentially you have to have X number of advisors to be able to compete in this thing. And it's so funny. So I'm talking to the, the people, I'm like, okay, so what happens if like the league minimum, let's say it's, it's five advisors and let's say that somebody goes on medical leave or has a child or something like that and they dip below and pretty resoundingly, everybody's like, they gotta go. Like, yeah, you can only be in there if you're so big. And I was like, the best way.

To win is to eliminate everybody else.

To eliminate low people, right? Get them all out of there. So I love that there's that passion, that competition. But we've decided so these three big dog leagues are going to have a little bit of a different trophy to win. And there's kind of like an elevated thing to that because the other thing we know is if we grow our business, let's say that I'm a store that needs to grow, add on a few technicians, add on a couple of service advisors, then I get to compete in the big dog league. So we're hoping to instill growth, but it's also one of those things that I think that with any kind of competition or thing that we are part of, you have to reset stuff every once in a while to get the juices loan again. So that seems to have happened. It seems like there's a. The clients are pretty excited about some of the changes and it's going to be cool to watch over the next 12 months to see what happens.

For those of you not in our coaching group, the way that it works is the advisors, depending on the group they're in, are competing in their total sales, their CP sales, their hours per ro. Some of them are on their effective labor rate, their wild cards, which are maintenance items. And so there's categories. And what happens is then the managers win on the average performance of their advisors in the comp. And if you have two advisors, it's way easier to win than if you.

Have 12 because the average has less to get spread between. Right.

So splitting the groups up into larger and smaller makes it.

A little more fair. And also there's more winners. It's gotten so big that people in the middle aren't really motivated to try to win. But if you. If you have less competition, it's easier to win.

Yeah, I think that it's good all the way around. I'm really excited about what's gonna happen. Yeah.

And we always kind of say it's. It's our clients competition, really. We're where it's like fantasy football. We're the commissioners.

Yeah.

But it's their competition. So every year we try to get feedback. And we really only make changes to the rules kind of once a year.

Yeah, it's pretty rare to do a midstream.

One day there's an odd person finding a way around something. But for the most part, any. Any changes happen in January for the new year, and then we'll ride those rules for the year. But it's going to be. It's going to be fun.

I think so too. I don't know if you saw this on the news, but in Beverly Hills there was a stockbroker. He was driving a really nice Porsche and he got on the side of the road, flipped his door open, and then a truck came, took the door off and everything. So the guy's like, oh, my gosh, my Porsche. My Brand new Porsche. And he's like, just hysterical and everything like that. And then a couple minutes later, the cop shows up and he's like. And all he keeps talking about is like, oh, my Porsche, it's wrecked. It's ruined. It's been my dream car. And the cop's like, man, you're so worried about your possessions, you didn't even realize that the truck took your right arm off. And the guy goes, my Rolex.

Joke about consumerism. From Christian Lafferning.

Continue on Lessons in Life.

My Rolex. It's pretty funny. Let's do the news.

Pretty exciting here. So one year after losing its title for nearly a century as the top car seller in America, GM back on top. Beat out Toyota for the total sales in US of 2.3 million vehicles, which beat out Toyota, which is great. They dropped down to 2.1 million. So congratulations to General Motors for taking back that crown. That's pretty exciting. But they America, they obviously did a little better with their supply chain management. Chris, when we were talking about.

The industry the other day, brought up a really good point. In Japan, you're at the mercy of the supplier in a lot of cases, right?

Well, they don't have natural resources there, so they're importing just about everything.

Yeah. So the car's coming overseas from Japan, obviously. I think that they were in big trouble. So.

Little move there. Getting back to General Motors and.

Moving on. This was kind of a funny one off type thing, but DIYer with an Acura NSX.

This guy. Because who doesn't think this? So DIYer with Acura NSX camper ads chopped in half NSX trailer. So like when you look at an nsx, right? The supercar of Acura, I'm gonna do that in quotes. But the new one's pretty cool. Like.

How do you look at an NSX or even like a Corvette and be like, I know what I want to do. I want to turn that thing into a camper. I feel like there's so many more cars that could be turned into a camper. But I thought that that was really interesting.

Feel like we're out of news.

Oh, you don't think that's good news? I thought that was pretty funny.

Even the picture of the half NSX getting pulled behind the camper nsx.

Don't you get a little paranoid when people are doing stuff like that on the weekends in their garage?

Like, what else could they be doing? What are they building that they're not talking about kind of thing?

What happened to the Other half of the nsx, like where's the engine?

I don't know. Probably sold it.

I don't trust people like that.

Well, you're probably not going to be happy with this one either. So.

Super interesting. Somehow a driver flipped his car inside of a car wash.

That's not new news either.

I think that's great. So 77 year old driver is okay and 77. So I also think that's funny. Like I don't know what it is about the older I get. Like 77 used to sound ancient to me but it's not that far off.

You're driving to work now and you're like, I don't know how many more years I'll be able to drive. I don't know, right around that light. Is that what you're thinking?

Probably.

Your driving has never been that good.

No, I have my.

Imagine when you're 70.

Yeah.

I flip your car in a car wash.

I'm super impressed. Like he literally ruined everything. I can see like the arms in the car wash completely over. Like how do you flip your car in a car wash? I'm super impressed. But congratulations to the 77 year old man for getting that done. And that's the news for today.

So this next topic we're going to talk about angry customers. How to deal with heat basically right. A really, really hot customer. This came up in our new leadership group group on Facebook. It's this, the Leaders Syndicate. So the Leaders Syndicate, if you want to get in there, there's.

Just in, I think like what a week. We had 500 people. It'll, it'll be at a couple thousand.

Really quick, super fast.

But I've been posting videos in there and talking about leadership and answering some questions and there's been some, you know, some deep conversations in there. I've talked about some, I don't know, stuff that you probably normally wouldn't, wouldn't talk about. And one of the questions came up in there, how to deal with angry customers. This, this strategy that we're, we're going to share with you is something we've had in on demand for I don't know how long and somebody even posted in the leadership group as a comment. Well there were two. One said, oh I've been you know, with you guys forever and that, that works.

Technique.

Yeah, yeah. And then somebody said oh I just tried this this morning. It was incredible. Thank you so much. So it does work. I would say it for me it's worked 100% of the time. I know there's probably some fatalists out there that could make it not work, but I don't. I don't know how it wouldn't work because it's. It's such a kind of twist and pattern interrupt.

It's a game changer for sure.

Yeah. I would say that this technique, too, is pieced together from my experience and Don Crevier, because part of this is something that I learned from him, who was one of the great car dealers in our country. But I had the privilege to work for him for a while and I learned a lot.

And. And.

It'S partially on that. So the idea here is this customer is a flaming hot Cheeto.

Yeah.

Like, by the time it gets to you, everybody's dropped the ball. It's probably a comeback third time. Or like, let's just imagine it's the worst possible experience whatsoever. It also works really well with people that are trying to cheat. So somebody who's over dramatizing wants to get something for free. That sort of thing. This. This works really well to neutralize that situation.

Right.

Anything you want to say in the setup?

So I think that what I would say is don't skip any of the steps that Chris is about to go through, because everyone has its own little space. If you do half of it, it's not near as effective as if you do the whole thing. That's my setup.

Yeah.

Don't piece this thing together. It's a system, start to finish.

And one thing that is probably the most important part of this is you can't want to win or be right. There's so many times that you're going to be in this situation because the advisor or somebody wanted to be right. For example, customer says, you didn't call me? And the advisor says, no, I left you a voicemail. Doesn't fix anything to be right.

That's right.

It doesn't fix anything to, you know, you'll get in this situation with the customer. Cause we're like, well, Mr. Customer, our policy is. Or what, you know, those sort of things are gonna create this.

So.

We don't wanna be right. We don't wanna win.

Because you're gonna lose if you win. Right. We want to make. We want to create customers for life. A lot of times your worst customers, like, I still to this day have customers from when I was an advisor that will ask me for advice. And they. The reason why they got to me is nobody wanted to help them because they were so, you know, demanding or difficult. And the most difficult customers oftentimes become your best customers. And this. This strategy is the beginning of that.

And there's almost nothing from a customer service perspective. There is nothing more rewarding than turning that customer into the loyal person.

They're your friend forever.

Forever.

Forever. They'll. They'll take a bullet for you in the end. Okay, so the. The way that this works is we're going into this. Our mindset is we. We don't want to be right. We don't want to win. So you get this can be in person, or it can be on the phone. Customer says, hey, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The sky is falling, whatever. And you say.

Oh, my gosh, I can't believe that. Please tell me all about it. You just. What you want them to do is puke all over the table. You don't want to interrupt. There's been times I've sat there and you're looking at the clock and you know you're 30 minutes in to listen. It is what it is.

You just got whatever it takes. Yep. And.

Yeah, and by the way, but. And what. Admit and my Lexus never did this, but, you know, and just. They're gonna say all kinds of stuff most of the time. Just let them do it now. Whatever they say or whatever they end up with, once again, we don't want to be right. We don't want to correct them in the moment. This. All we're trying to do is absorb all of the energy from them.

That's it.

We're trying to absorb all the energy. And so whatever they end with, wherever it kind of starts to slow down. You want to say something to the effect or you want to impose this feeling on them is, oh, my God, I can't believe that happened to you. I am so sorry. We are going to use this as a learning opportunity.

So. Right. Oh, my God. I can't believe that happened to you. I'm so sorry. We're going to use this as a learning opportunity. Now, in that moment, most of the time, they are expecting you to do what?

To fight them.

Fix it.

Yep.

Have a bunch of excuses. Whatever it is, tell them the policy, whatever. No, we're not doing that. Worse. No matter what it is, like, they're. Like, they think the location of our building is wrong. Things that are way outside of our control. It doesn't matter. Oh, my God. I can't believe that happened to you. I'm so sorry. We're gonna use this as an opportunity to learn and get better. So that's kind of step two, step three. Is.

Putting them on ice.

All right, explain that a little bit.

So I'm going to say give me some time to look into this. And most of the time I already know what the answer is because I've already researched before I called them. But this has nothing to do with us. This is purely for them to now relax because they've given all this energy. They've got it all off their chest. You've absorbed all their energy. And you apologized and. And you said, we're going to use this as a learning opportunity. Now, when that's followed by let me look into this, they're like, oh, heads are going to roll. Yeah, like this really made a difference.

Right?

Like heads are going to roll. Somebody's going to get in trouble. Whatever it is. Let me look into this. I'm going to call you back and then tell them when you're going to call them, and you have to call them when you tell them you're going to call them. Don't say, I'm going to call you in two hours and then not call them sometimes, too.

It's funny that you just said that because. Did you. Do you remember this happening where you'd get them to backpedal right away when they recognize are going to grow? They're like, wait, I don't want anyone to get fired out of this. You ever have that happen?

It happens all the time.

Like they go backwards even before we get them on ice. Yeah, it's so. It's so funny.

Now also, just like that, when you call them back in two hours, what is the tone?

They're calm. Yeah, they like, so nice.

You're on my side. We're like, you know, I. That two hours in between. I know the world isn't perfect. I know mistakes happen.

You know, it's like they took cbd. CBD or something like that in the meantime. Maybe not cbd.

No, maybe. Or maybe.

I don't know. I don't know what else. What other drug to say there? I was trying to think of one, but I don't know.

Quaaludes.

What's the date? What's the one Michael Jackson took that, like, was an elephant tranquilizer? I don't know that one.

Maybe that's. That's terribly strong.

Okay, so now you're. You're going to have a completely different experience on the after ice.

Right?

We put them on ice. Now we're coming back. The tone is going to be different. And then at that point, I then state the facts. So I would say you know, Christian, I looked into is true that, you know, rattles aren't covered after a year. And I'm, you know, I'm really sorry about that. And I'm going to.

I'm.

I'm going to run that up the flagpole and, you know, I'm on the dealer council, and so I'm going to bring that up because, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But it isn't. So anything we do, I would. I would be absorbing or paying for.

So what. What. But what.

What can I do to. To fix this and make you feel good about it? And once again, kind of like you were saying, most of the time they're like, oh, well, I don't want you to pay for it or whatever it is. But I'm just. After the. After I put them on ice, I'm stating the facts as. As they are. And then they will. They will impose where they're at on those.

Most of the time, I mean, if we've made a really huge mistake, you probably are gonna have to eat something. But most of the time, whatever the solution is is more than fair, and.

It'S usually less like. So I think that was probably one of my favorite parts about this particular lesson is that I remember before I started doing the put them on ice, I would call and offer them something.

And in a lot of cases, when I do it the other way around and ask them what they want.

It'S less than what I would have offered. And in the cases where it's more, then I have a decision to make. But, like, when you offer first, there's not too much that can happen. Right. Other than like, you're gonna give more than you needed to, or it still wasn't enough for someone to be happy and they're gonna feel like you shortchanged them. So letting them have that control of the. What is it that makes you feel right? That's super important part of this thing. Do not go in there with an offer of, here's what I'm gonna do to fix it. It's like, what do you need to feel whole is. And you'd be amazed at how often it's a nice car wash. Yeah.

And also I'm framing it that they kind of.

Know that I'm eating it. It's not. This isn't a.

And at this point, your friends. And they don't want to hurt their friend.

Yeah.

So it's really.

That's the. That's the put them on ice technique. Very effective. Works in any situation. Really not Just with customers. Because at the end of the day, most of the time, people want to be heard. Once they talk through it, it's almost like guided discovery. They realize that it's a mistake. They realize the world isn't perfect. They sometimes realize that they are overreacting. But what happens most of the time is we meet them with resistance. We try to justify. We try to tell them how they're wrong. And all that does is build up pressure. That's more pressure, more pressure. And then there's just a point. They'll die on the hill.

That's right.

We don't want them to die on the hill. We want to get, hey, let's get off the hill and let's go down here and have some lunch and be friends. Let's not die on the hill together. And so that's really what this technique is, is it's pulling the pressure away and absorbing their pressure, which nobody does most of the time. Everybody wants to get off the phone, justify. I will say that it takes time. Sometimes they will go for a while.

Yep. So just be patient. Don't cut it off early. That's another thing I was liking it to. It's put them on ice, but it's opposite of it that when they're doing that spewing. It's a volcano. Right. And there's two types of volcanoes. There's like the violent volcano that just erupts and goes really crazy. But you have to be really careful of that one that's just kind of spewing a little bit. And if you cut it off too soon, the lava backs up a little bit. And then you have another explosion, another.

Die on the hill.

Yeah. So you have to make sure that they get it all out and do that. And then the other two things I wanted to add is please know that the best person to fix this, if possible, is a service advisor. That's how you grow your customer base.

Well, when I say we're going to use this as a. Is a, you know, as a learning opportunity, heads are rolling on the back end. How did this get to me?

That's right.

Like, why aren't you calling? You know, this never needed to get to me. You needed to stop being right and listen.

That's right.

Because most of the time it's because we wanted to be right that it got to you.

Yeah. And then the other thing I wrote down is the higher this, the higher the issue goes, the more expensive it gets.

Yeah. Most of it could be. Could be fixed way earlier.

Yep. So I worked for a guy that. He was a genius. And I always remember he told me, he's like, you're the wall.

You worked for Bill Gates?

No, but I would have. But if it gets to me, my only card I have left is to give it away. And that was a great lesson. And I almost thought that he was savvy enough that he would have given it away just to prove the point. But I never let stuff get to him. For the most part, it was rare that that happened, but it never worked out.

Well.

I think that early on, when I was. So I was general manager at 29. I remember. I mean, it's such a funny story, but there was this couple that had bought a 7 Series. This is back when BMW 7 Series, like 2002, 2004.

They had, like, a lot of electrical problems. Right.

They had a lot of everything. Like, techs were literally just walking out because they couldn't, you know, they. They couldn't fix them. It was a. It was a mess. And they were in California. They were buying them back. So this couple had bought a 2003 buyback. So it's a branded title. Yeah, they had put.

These, you know, expensive rims on it. Like Asante rims or something.

Yeah.

They'd come in for service.

We.

You know, wasn't in warranty, whatever the issue was. They said that we had scratched their rims. It was on the walk around. Like, the advisor had. They noted it, noted the damage or whatever. Ends up, they didn't like that answer. They get to.

Don Crevier, and Don Crevier says, calls the parts department, says, get him a set. We didn't sell those rims. So guess how much those rims were mounted with tires.

Grand. Yeah.

So then it made the point, though. Like you're saying, like, it made. Everybody was reeling from it. Right? And so. And it made a point. To me, it was. It was a really good lesson. But then I remember, I don't know, 20 days later, he wanted to go over policy expense. And he's.

The biggest thing was this wheel.

He's like, we can't be giving stuff away, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, yeah, I agree. We shouldn't be giving stuff away. Remember that couple with the seven? And he goes, okay.

So he just moved on at that point. That's great.

Which. That was the. You know, the genius is he was always checking and always looking and attention to detail. But it was so funny.

Yeah, that's great.

Because he gave it away.

It's great. Good stuff. So you know, our intention here is that can help you. Christian's point is if it's getting to you, you know, try to fix that. You're not in the situation dealing with angry customers. But if you do this, this technique will work 100 of the time. So thanks for tuning in and spending this time with you with us and we'll see you next time on Service Drive Revolution. Thanks so much for watching this episode of Service Job Rev.

Good.

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 that's offers.chriscollinsInc.com I'm Chris Collins and I'll see you in the next video.