Paying Your Dues as a Service Advisor

If you call the hotline, the service Drive Revolution hotline, what's the number? And we play your question on the big show, we're going to send you swag. That's how people hit me up on Instagram all the time. Like how do I get a, how do I get a trucker hat? How do I get a coffee mug? Call in with a good question and if we play it on the show, we're going to send you a swag bag. The number is 8333-Ask-STR. Or if you don't know how to spell, it's 833-327-5737. But if you have any questions, we are here at your disposal. Also, you do not have to keep the questions to just service drive related things. If you need relationship advice.

Financial advice, I love helping people fix their marriages or you know, hey, if your girlfriend cheated on you, call in. We'll figure it out. Yeah, yeah. We're here at your disposal, whatever it is that we can help you with. But let's go to our first question.

Hey guys, I have a great situation and question for you. We have a vehicle in the shop. Customer authorized a diagnostic repair of approximately $1,600 and was made aware that the repair may or may not fix their symptom and we would need to go further. If not, customer agreed. We replaced the part and of course it did not fix the problem.

We spent a little extra time for free, unapplied time trying to research, remedy the problem. Got the manufacturer tech line involved and long story short, the next repair is replacing another part in the car of about $2,300. Repair. The customer is of course very upset and frustrated and they believe that they should not have to pay us anything because it did not fix the problem. And on top of that they also believe that we are supposed to remove the part and put the old part back in at no additional charge.

Looking for some advice. How would you handle a situation like this? We are at the point of potentially doing a mechanic spleen looking for suggestions and if you guys have ever run into this in your career or any of your businesses that you deal with. Thanks Bob from Cuba.

Bob from Cuba.

Did he say Cuba?

Cuba?

He didn't sound Cuban.

Communist country. I don't with the good cigars.

Yeah.

Bob from Cuba. Bob. Okay, Bob, first of all, good question. Thank you so much. This is something that I would believe that if you have been working in service for more than a year, you've seen this. I've certainly seen this. A bunch of times in my career. So it's not. It's not unique. I think there's a. There's a couple lessons in. In this is. One is in the frame up front. So the customer needs to understand up front that the. That we pay the technicians by the hour and we're charging for their time just like a doctor or a lawyer. So if they spend time on something, if you go to, you know, go to a lawyer, they don't guarantee the outcome of what they do. And so that's always a frame that I've used in a complicated scenario like this is that it's, you know, technicians have a degree in working on cars, and it's just like a law degree or a doctor. They're kind of a car doctor in a sense. We use that analogy a lot. And so we have to pay them for their. Their time. And sometimes diagnosis is more like detective work. It's not cut and dry. And so they have to replace one part to find out that it's another part. And you. You have to do it through a process of elimination. But that's something you need to say up front. It. It doesn't work in the rears as well.

Never works as well in the end.

Yeah. Then the other thing I would say is when it comes to repair authorization is, and we addressed this last week, should have gone higher, like 1500 wasn't going to fix the car. So I, I like to push into the pain a little bit with the repair authorization and say, like.

So I'm gonna give myself $2,000 to work with, but it could be more. And see what they say, like, read their body language, pay attention. Like, they will tell you if you push into that, oh, I'm not spending more than 1300 or I'm not spending more than 1,500.

And then, you know what you have to work with. I think the other thing too, and it sounds like Bob did try to do that, where they sold the initial job for the 1600 and said it could be more. But I think that part of that is you have to confirm that your customer gets that message. And I would say that doing analogies like you with the doctor and the lawyer, like, everybody gets that, that makes a lot of sense. And we don't always do a great job of that. So I think that, like you said, the lesson is learn not, you know, what to do just to fix the situation, but to make sure that it doesn't happen again. I feel like the mechanics lean is probably the wrong way. I Feel like there's actually, there's a resolution with the customer in this case, because we have the customer, we know what the part is that needs to be done, and we probably want to come up with a resolution before the mechanics lean.

And he said he's calling the manufacturer hotline, which means you're probably with a brand. And so maybe call your factory guy and try to get some goodwill, try to get some help. Even. Even if the car is way outside of the scope, sometimes they. They will help you with that. So I would try for that. And just remember, everybody listening, remember to the words that I use, because words are very important when you're explaining to a customer how we diagnose a car. Use the term process of elimination.

Because what the customer has in their mind is you. You're going to know exactly what it is, and that's going to fix it. But no, it's a process of elimination. And sometimes when I'm. When I'm explaining repair authorization, I'm saying, like, I got to give myself something to work with. It's a process of elimination. So say you have a check engine light on. I got to put an O2 sensor on. Sometimes the O2 sensor is one of a couple things that need to be addressed. It isn't always just one thing with coolant leaks, runability, you know, it.

You.

You got to be honest with the customer and tell them the truth. It's not your. It's not your car. It's their car. Okay, let's. Let's go to the next question.

Hey, good morning, Chris. My name is Willie Lagos. More than a comment, than a question, actually a thank you. Every morning on my way to work, I watch your videos and your. Your show, basically, and it just pumps me up, man. More than anything, I just wanted to thank you and your team. It's made me grown, made me a better service advisor, and as a whole, just as a better person, man. So I just really wanted to thank you. Please don't stop. And man, one of these days, I'm definitely gonna join your class. So I appreciate it. Thank you so much, Chris.

Oh, thanks, Willie. That's really, really sweet of you. I appreciate the. The kind words. It means more than you know. Thank you so much.

Is that the last question? We have one more we can do. Okay, that wasn't really a question.

No, but that was good.

This next one is.

My name is Ice. I'm from Seguin, Texas. I am currently a service writer and I've been starting for about six months. And March when this whole Covid thing happened. I've been in the industry for six months now and I haven't stepped foot before then. I have gradually seen improvements in my work there, but I haven't been getting the proper recognition. When I started, I got on a pay plan of hourly and now six months into it, I am not able to progress my pay plan. However, I am now a full time advisor. It's still hourly. I have gone to the owner who has then referenced me back to my managers who have then denied me of any kind of future profit growth anything into a year. I believe I've been working hard enough and have shown my worth there to have a pay raise within my first year evaluation. I feel like I've properly talked to my managers and my owner on how to get this compensation, but I'm not seeing any growth. I am a person of growth. So I am currently thinking about stepping away, but it's kind of hard when I know I need a year's worth of experience to move from another dealership. You can help me out with just trying to, I guess, understand how that works or if I am being taken advantage of. Like, I do feel that would help out a lot. Thank you so much. I appreciate it all.

Yeah. So it was Ice. Did I hear that right?

Ice. I'm not sure. Close.

It was hard. It's kind of a badass nickname. Ice.

Oh, yeah.

What's your name?

Ice worked really well for Cube and Tea.

Ice. Cube and Ice. Tea, that's right. Do you have a joke about ice? No? Nothing? Okay. So I think my opinion is that what you have right now is an opportunity.

And you mentioned in there and it sounds like you have a pretty good head on your shoulders and you kind of understand that there's a price to pay, but you need to be there for a year.

In the long run when let me tell you how much advisors make. You ready? Can I present this like a Christian joke?

You can.

Christian, what do advisors make? Hmm.

Kris?

A half a million a year.

No, no, wait. So I'm going to say, what do advisors make? And you're going to say, I don't know. Kris, tell me what advisors make.

Oh, it's so hard being on the other side of this.

So, Christian, what do advisors make?

I'm not sure. What do they make?

Exactly what they're worth. That's what they make. And so focus on your numbers. Here's the thing that you have right now is you have an opportunity to put together six months of stats where you can Walk into any service department and say, listen, this is what I do. These are my numbers. These are the numbers I'm putting up. Would you like somebody this good? Customers love me. I sell. So I think what you have right here is an opportunity to put together a track record and focus on collecting customers and learning everything you can about the job and beating your numbers every month. Every month. But if you. If you can, at the end of the year, you're putting 120,000amonth in parts and labor. You have high hours per O and you have great customer satisfaction numbers. You're going to make exactly what you're worth. And if they don't want to keep you where you are, you'll go somewhere else. Chances are at that point, they're going to keep you. So you have an amazing opportunity. We all had to pay a price in the beginning. I got passed over, I think five times to be an advisor. I wasn't paid commission right away. It's an opportunity. Once you do become commission, you're going to make a great living. But just remember, it's about collecting customers. When we send her swag, let's send her the millionaire service advisor book. Also read that book, like, immerse yourself in that book and focus on your results and your numbers. And at the end of 12 months, even if you have to eat top ramen, I ate top ramen in the beginning.

It's the best 13 cents you can spend.

Yeah, you go to Costco, you can buy a ton of it for $4 or whatever. You won't exactly be well nourished, but you got to pay a little bit of a price and an investment. So pay the price and you'll figure it out. I literally, in the beginning, was sleeping in our band room. Like, I would sleep in our band room because I would to drive back to my mom's, you know, was an hour and something. So there were nights where I'd sleep in the band room and then go to work, you know.

Yeah. I love how aware she is of the potential of her job. Yeah, I think that's really exciting. Those are the kind of people that really get it going for me. Like, I love that stuff.

Great, great questions. Thank you so much, Ice. And check out that book. Read it. It's an easy read and it'll give you some good ideas. But focus on your number. So remember, the number is 8,000, 333 Ask SDR. Have a great week and we will see you next time on Service Drive Revolution.

Thanks so much for watching this clip of Service Driver Revolution. 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 833-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.