How To Motivate A Tough Technician

Foreign.

Welcome, everybody, to the service Drive Revolution Friday. Drive by, where we answer your questions. I'm Chris Collins, and this is Chris Choan.

Hello, everyone.

First, we would like to say a wholehearted Feliz Navidad.

Yes.

Which is Spanish for Happy Holidays.

That's right.

Or Merry Christmas. But I think people prefer the happy holidays more.

I think it's more encompassing. Like, it gets the whole.

It includes everybody.

You know what's fun about the holidays is that I get to hang out with my kid. He comes out here, and he's been here for the whole week. And earlier today, he goes to me, he's like, dad, you haven't listened to a word I said. And I'm like, it's a weird way to start a conversation.

So today, what's going to happen on the big show is we're going to open Christmas gifts. So I put a lot of thought and effort into this gift for Christian. This is actually his Christmas gift. He's going to open it here on the show, not at our company get together tomorrow. So when everybody else is opening their gift tomorrow, you will have already opened your gift here on the show.

Okay, I'm ready.

So you're gonna feel great now, but later you're gonna feel like you were missing something because you opened your gift early. But for the audience, yeah, it's worth it. And then we're also gonna answer your questions. If you have a question, Remember, the number's 8333 Ask SDR. That's 8333 Ask SDR. If you're wondering why Christian is wearing this sweater. If you're listening and not watching this on YouTube, it is a Christmas sweater covered in cats is the best way I can describe it. He's been wearing it for two days because with our coaching clients, we've been doing ugly sweater contest calls. And.

We can't win.

No. But we've had the ugliest sweaters, pretty much.

So now I had on a different ugly outfit yesterday, but I didn't where I thought it would be weird to wear it again, but you clearly had no issue with that.

I have no shame in my cat game.

So we're gonna do the questions. We're gonna answer questions, then we're gonna open your Christmas gift.

Okay.

Are you ready? Do you have any. Guess what your Christmas gift is?

I. You know, what's weird about me is I don't like to guess. I just. I want.

But if you liked to guess, would you have a guess?

No.

Okay.

All the years You've given me gifts. I've never been good about guessing what it was.

Let's answer these questions and then get to the gift. I'm more excited about the gift.

Yeah.

Okay, first question.

Chris. I work at a Hyundai dealership and we have issues where customers bring their car in supposedly under warranty. And warranty parameters say that we cannot replace any parts unless we have a duplicatable issue or we have proof of a failing part. A lot of times customers will bring their vehicle in. We're so backed up that we keep their vehicle for a day and we can't duplicate their issue. Call them by the end of the day. We have our shop foreman drive their vehicle either overnight, depending on the issue, or we'll have our shop manager drive the vehicle. And then we try to explain to them the issues that we have and why we're running into this issue, that we can't duplicate their vehicle, duplicate their concern.

How would you explain this to a customer? Or would you have any solutions that you've had to this issue?

You know what's funny is that totally reminds me of a store that I was in a couple of weeks ago. And Randy, bless your heart, by the way. So, like, service manager in the store is completely deaf in one ear and mostly deaf out of the other earth. And guess who goes on road tests with the customers. Do you hear noises?

Randy?

Randy goes on the road test. Now, when I was there, he went on two road tests with a customer to hear noises.

Was it a C and D?

2 times out of 2, he heard the noises.

I'm pretty impressed that the deaf guy can hear the noises. So I told him I was going to mention that.

What's the name of this caller? Anonymous oh, Anonymous Randy. Larry, Larry. Larry. Anonymous Larry, there's a bunch of answers to this question. First, I would point out that we are going to a lot of effort. You are going to a lot of effort by calling the show, asking the question. We appreciate you asking the question. To treat a symptom, not a cause. Right. So this happened to me not that long ago where somebody was like, hey, what we need to do is train all the managers and advisors how to.

Explain why we can't get work done.

Extensive training on that.

Yeah. And then I was like, well, why don't. Instead of doing that, why don't we.

Hire more techs and not have to explain it?

So you got to. You got to think about it from a customer's perspective. Because you're a customer, I'm a customer. My mom is a customer. If you made an appointment two weeks ago, three weeks ago, your appointment time comes, you come in, you drop off your vehicle, it sits there all day, and then it's a big nothing. That is. It doesn't make the problem go away. It just compounds it and makes you more frustrated in a sense. Right.

Now, I've worked in a service department like that where literally the culture there was, the technicians would. I remember. Here's the funny thing. I remember the first time I got an RO back, I was a rookie and all the warranty lines said C and D. Yep. And I was, I went to the dispatcher and I was like, what does C and D mean? And they were like, cannot duplicate. So I totally understand where you're at. So here's what I would do with customers that had some sort of warranty issue. And this takes a little bit more time. And you might find yourself while I'm explaining this, thinking, well, I don't have time. I would contend that you have nothing but time for two reasons. One is you're. You're going to do double, triple the work if you don't do this. Second of all is the technician's time is so valuable, you really need to qualify all this before it gets to the tech, in a sense. So here was my process. And then you can, you can tell me what you think my process was. If you, you were the customer and you had some sort of issue, it could have been a run ability issue, starting rattle, whatever it is. The first thing I would do is I would explain to the customer that there is this dome, this electric dome that's two to three miles over the dealership. And any time you drive inside of that dome, all the problems go away. I would say that right off the bat because customers would say all the time, like, it was just doing it, or it happens all the time. And it wouldn't happen when I was, When I was in the car. Now, I would go on a ride with the customer and try to duplicate it. But I would, I would tell them the dome thing to kind of put them at ease. That's all it was to put them at ease and help them understand that it's not just them. It's hard to duplicate things when they're in their car all the time. Things happen. And then all of a sudden, we got five minutes to duplicate it. It's. It's not, it's not realistic. So I would go for a ride with them. Now, most of the time, I would not be able to duplicate it on that ride. But the customer perceived, oh, they're, they're trying, and they couldn't duplicate it. I was not able to duplicate it with him.

Now, remember, I'm saving the technician time because if I. If they can't duplicate it with me, how's a technician reading an RO with my description going to duplicate it? Right. So then what I would do is, if we can't duplicate it, I would say, here's what I suggest. If you would authorize for my technician to drive at home and say, like, it's a cold start issue or whatever, I can ask one of my better techs to drive it overnight and see if it happens, and then we have a better shot at it. But I would get approval. Now, it wasn't in a technician's day where they're trying to flag hours. It was easy for them to drive it and duplicate it, but it wasn't taking away from their time. So they would, they would see it a little bit different. And oftentimes it was the foreman that would drive it home. But that's kind of how I would handle that. Going back to the very first thing is you are in a sense treating the symptom, not the cause. In the sense that it sounds like you need more technicians because you want to be booked out one or two days, but not a couple weeks.

That's right.

Anything to add to that?

It was pretty good. I didn't use the dome thing, but I like it. And what.

I put some in ease.

Yeah. So I did my thing was, I think we were doing the same thing. It's so funny, but I said it's like taking a kid to the dentist with a toothache, and then the toothache always goes away by the time they get to the dentist. So it's the same exact thing. Kind of putting them in that whole, like, parent thing. And like, oh, yeah, I've gone there and had the wasted trip and everything like that. And then in addition to the road test, I was a huge fan. I feel like it was. It's probably a lost art now. Maybe they don't do it anymore. But as an advisor, I was a huge fan of those diagnostic check sheets, like where there was a list of questions that you would ask about.

Yes. And there's two things that happen. There is. The first is that, like, I think the customer caught that. I was really. It's important to me, like, if someone comes in with a problem, I want to do everything I can to fix it. And then with the technicians, it's like, oh, he didn't just write customer states noise from front of vehicle, which is what in a lot of cases I think the technician hates. It's like, you have no idea how much the description can affect the amount of diagnostic time. So I was really trying to show both the customer and the technician that I cared about the problem. And there was nothing like that road test. Like, I can't tell you how many times I went with a customer on a road test. And the thing that happens every single day didn't happen during the road test. So it's that little kind of seed of doubt that it might be possible. Because I think the thing that I always worried about as an advisor was a customer come back and get a car off of a could not duplicate, and that they would think I was lying and that we didn't try. It was very important to me that they knew that we gave the effort in. Those were all the things that I did. Not unlike where you're at. I think that at the end of the day, the big deal with could not duplicates is that our team advisors, technicians, management, all need to know that the customer's got way better stuff to do than bring their car in with a bunch of concerns.

It's not what they just do for fun. And I think that the, you know, you'll get people out there that can't duplicate stuff, that the answer is the customer's crazy.

I would agree with you on every one of those points, except for the Last 1. Subaru SVX. Customers would come in just for fun.

They were all engineers. They thought those cars were something very special.

They had it figured out.

That was my first 24 line.

Yeah, I've had a couple of 20 liners before.

Great.

Those are awesome.

Thank you, Larry. Next question.

I've been a technician. I've been an advisor. I've done.

Detail, I've done hoarding. I've done every side of service that you can think of. But now I have a technician who is well into his 50s and.

To.

Motivate and communicate with. If you have any ideas or any help would be appreciated. Thank you very much. Chris.

Simple.

Ask them the conversation.

What?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't know. I always start by just kind of getting to know the person, and then if that doesn't work, try to get to know their spouse and then ask their spouse.

Yeah. Thank goodness that the whole you can't teach an old dog new tricks isn't true.

Oh, it's not true at all.

Not even close. Some of our. Some of our best lines.

Look at us. We're old. We're learning all the time. No, I don't. I don't think there's any shortcuts for that, is you got to get to know the person, and you got to test it. Like, this will happen a lot where a manager will say, oh, my advisors don't like to play games. And then we go in, and they love playing games.

They want more.

And they're like, oh, well, you did it different. And it's like, well, just keep trying until something works. Don't give up. Like, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. So if you have somebody in their. In their 50s, they might be motivated by time off. They. You know, a lot of times the. The guy. The guys in our industry have never been recognized or told they do a good job, especially in the shop. It could just be you telling them that they're valuable and that their experience and wisdom of time is, you know, a big deal. Another way that I've seen those older techs be motivated is give them a trainee. Invest them in the trainee. So, like, let's say the vets making 35 an hour, and the. The rookies making 20. Give them the difference. So. So the $15 or $15 override for every hour the kid flags, and so they're vested in a kid. Because what happens is when you're mentoring somebody, you have to go back to the basics. You have to rethink things, and it makes you better at fundamentals. And as you teach, you learn. So sometimes giving them a mentee is a good one, but get to know him. Take them to lunch. There's no shortcuts for that. Try, try until you figure it out. Yeah.

There's always an answer at the end of the day.

Great stuff. Good questions. You ready for your gift?

Well, I was saying that I could go first.

Oh, you have a gift for me.

I do.

This is a gag gift.

We'll see when your gift is not a gag gift.

Go ahead.

Come on.

Let's see the adults. Novelty.

See how this calendar, whatever this is, Because I know that lately I feel like you've been. I really like when we get to travel together in the last few months. Like, I've. You've been solo, and I've been going other places, and, like, I've just not been there.

Oh, you miss. You miss traveling with me?

Yeah.

What is your favorite part of traveling with me?

So my favorite part is timing.

Oh, I bitch about everything.

Sort of. But don't. Don't blow it for everybody is as soon as we get off of a plane, I set my little timer to see how long it's going to take you to complain about not wanting to travel anymore.

What's the. What's the average?

I feel like getting off of the jet bridge is the average, but sometimes you say it is. We're getting off the plane. Yeah, it's pretty fast.

You know what's great?

What's that?

I have no travel. I've said no to everything. The next one is something in 2026.

Wow.

Yeah.

Yeah. You're going to be. I think you'll be doing a lot of home team, home field stuff.

You know what's going to happen is people are going to start offering crazy, crazy amounts of money because I keep saying no, and then I'll end up traveling again or something.

Also funny. Claudia wrapped that, by the way.

I think if you're listening to this and you're not watching, it was in a bag with tissue paper out of it. I pulled out. These are penguins.

Yes, sir.

So the wrapping paper is penguins. They're winter penguins. They're not Christmas. Yeah, it's a winter penguin. It's not a Christmas penguin. And it feels lumpy.

Yes.

This is a gag gift, isn't it?

Yes.

Jeez.

Could you describe for the audience Judy, the inflatable friend.

Yes.

A perfect party gift. Adult use only.

Yeah.

What would make you think that this would be a gift?

So now you don't have to buy Judy a seat on the plane if you don't want to, but you can. And also, I was thinking, why would.

I want to take Judy anywhere when.

You'Re going home at the end of the night?

I'm not even into the blonde.

Yeah, I get that. There was a limited space.

Didn't have a brunette.

I probably could have gone a little bit more lifelike for you. At the end of the day, this.

Is not a gag gift.

Okay. So.

So this is beautifully wrapped in.

Did the bows.

Bows is ribbon. And how would you describe that paper?

So it's like Christmas flannel is what I would say.

Just take a guess. What do you think it is.

Using or understanding that I'm using the method of disguise.

Oh, okay.

Like what? It probably feels like.

It'S like the size of a computer, but it feels.

Yeah, it's a laptop. That's it. You guessed?

Yeah.

Go ahead, open it.

Yeah. So we're ready to rock and roll. And it's too Christian from Santa either.

You don't want to guess or you're terrible at it.

1.

Other 2.

It's probably way more than I'm terrible at it.

So Christian's style of unwrapping a gift is not that we're gonna save the paper for next year.

There will be no saving of paper.

Something that we used to do in my family when I was a kid.

Oh, yeah, I remember the paper where you, like, just really carefully get it along the lines for sure. So I've done that in a past.

Life, but you clearly grew up middle class where you could just throw everything away.

All right, so this is a.

You got me. Don't have a pocket knife.

That's okay.

I'll make it through. So it's a box flat.

Yep.

It's got. Looks like it could be a book.

Oh, it could be a book.

That's great.

What is this? Oh, so this is a beautiful picture of Norm MacDonald, autographed, which pretty rare autograph, by the way.

Oh, I know.

It is a.

Vinyl.

So for some reason, Netflix made 500 of those when they put that out.

Oh, my gosh.

They're very rare.

So it's Norm MacDonald, Hitler's dog. Gossip and trickery.

On vinyl.

On vinyl.

Printed by Netflix, of all places.

Oh, my. So there's 500 of these in existence.

This is so cool.

Thank you. This is really awesome.

Thanks for the blow up doll.

Not quite on the same level, huh?

Show them this.

See this?

Look. Netflix. Holy cow.

And in case anybody didn't know, Norm MacDonald is my favorite comedian of all time.

How great is this? How great is that picture of him?

Yeah, it's beautiful.

Now you could frame this. The titles. Can you do any of these jokes? Pork chop desserts, 2 score and 12 parties. LSD flashbacks. Isn't LSD flashbacks where he talks about you kind of got your money's worth?

Oh, yeah. Cause it's a gift that keeps on giving, I think he says. Yep, that's right.

So great.

That's really awesome.

From the bottom of our hearts, we wish everybody a happy holiday. Thank you so much for being on this journey with us and supporting us and tuning in and we, you know, we love and cherish your friendship and good time to spend with family and think about the things that are important, you know?

Heck yeah.

Reflect and then make some big goals for next year. Yeah, that's kind of what this is all about, right? Happy holidays to everybody. Thank you so much. We'll see you again real soon 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 that's offers.chriscollinsInc.com I'm Chris Collins, and I'll see you in the next video.