Questions Your Service Advisors Should Be Asking

Welcome, everybody, to Service Drive Revolution. I'm Chris Collins. This is Christian Today. We're going to be talking about questions your service advisors should be asking. We're going to keep you up to date on the latest news in our industry.

But first, Christians having a midlife crisis.

Oh, is that what it is?

No, I just thought that was funny. Didn't you already have your midlife crisis at least once?

Probably. I don't know. I don't know if I feel like I've had that.

No, no. What we're trying to do is we're trying to get Christian not to travel so much. So we're trying to figure out why he always wants to be gone.

And he doesn't want to be here in the office.

I love that we're bringing this discussion.

To SDR coaches for Canada.

And he wants to be out and about.

Experiencing the Dakotas.

Florida. Where else do you want to go?

I do go to Florida.

Your Tinder profile would be like, long walks in North Dakota, where most people are like long walks on the beach. You're like long walks in Dakota.

You have to qualify that, though. In January, North Dakota, a long walk is about 4ft, and then you turn around and go back inside because it's so bloody cold.

I don't understand it. I don't understand why. Why you don't want to be here. We built this office for you. Like, all the amenities. You got free string cheese, free hard boiled eggs in the refrigerator. Like, there's snacks. There's all kinds of flavored sodas, club sodas or whatever those are.

I've been having an issue with the Starburst lately.

What they. They get in your mouth?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't know what's going on. It's hard to walk past that thing without them. But looks like my travel until. I think you and I are traveling together in a month, but looks like I'm going to be here for a while.

You know those, the. The.

Speaking engagement that you snuck in?

Yeah, I remember that.

That I was thinking they need to fill out the form and do the whole thing too.

They did. Oh.

It was just never presented to me when somebody, just so you guys know, listening, when somebody wants me to go speak somewhere, there's a form we fill out and it's like, where. How long Budget? Like, you know it is. Yep. How come I never saw it, though? I never saw those speakers I was speaking with.

Well, that wasn't on the sheet. That was my inside information. I told you.

Oh, well, then they don't they don't even know how to fill out the sheet. First of all, I never saw the sheet, but if I did see the sheet, they don't know how to fill it out. That should negate them from me speaking, shouldn't it? No. Christians got me going to Denver and then to Florida all in two days.

So the Denver is my thing.

Yeah, yeah. Kind of. I don't know. They're definitely sandwiched together.

So. Yeah, I remember.

Is that Dovsky ski quote the key to salvation?

Low expectations.

Oh, that's the key to happiness.

Oh, I don't know what the key to salvation is.

To accept responsibility for all man sins. Yeah. Yes.

It's my fault.

So it's not your responsibility.

Responsibility 100%.

Jeez Louise. Our leadership training just doesn't work, does it?

Oh, then Arizona.

Hey, we've been getting some great feedback on the BDC training Ms. Mia did. People are loving that they're starting to do it. So we put it up on on demand and like, you don't quite hear anything for a little while. But now in the last couple days, I've heard tons of positive feedback. How much the, you know, the managers love it, but more importantly, the BDC reps love it. And it's great.

So high level of relatability, I think is what comes out of it. It's so cool, fresh. Like, it always feels like you're, I don't know, like you're watching social media. Kind of like it's just cool, it's upbeat, it's hip. She does a really good job with that thing.

Yeah. So if you're on our on demand or in our coaching group, it's up there in the platform for you. If you're not on our on demand, you should probably, you should probably get on it.

It's a darn good.

Very affordable. Maybe we should probably be raising our prices on that too. I would think prices are going up. That's what I know. Everywhere. Okay. Do you want to get to these questions service advisors should ask?

I do. I think that's good.

What's the frame of this? Like, how do we frame this? Like a service advisor that's really effective. That is creating key throwers. That is building a clientele.

Right. Building their. Their customer base in a sense. I contend that people that say service advisors are salespeople have never written service. Service advisors are customer collectors. Your job is to collect customers. Selling is the easiest part. Like, let's face it, if somebody needs breaks and you can't sell them breaks, you yeah. You have no equity, trust or they just plain don't like you because they need breaks. They're going to go get breaks somewhere.

Right. They were, they're saying like I would rather not stop and die in a fiery crash than give you money or high level.

If they would leave you to save $20. You once again are not connecting on a deeper level for sure. You're just making it about the commodity. Okay, so questions service advisors should ask.

And I know the number one. The number one question all service advisors should ask and a lot are let me know when you're ready.

I don't know if this is a joke or not because I have the list. You don't have the list, so how would you know? Number one, this is a new number one.

This is an anti list. Number one thing everyone should be asking regardless of what field you're in, someone comes in, you have an appointment.

That's how you connect with customers.

No, that's not it.

I have the wrong list then.

Yeah, that's the wrong.

It's the worst question to ask. Yeah.

Like I hate it when you go into restaurants and they're like do you have a reservation? I understand why they're asking it, but I still think it's super off putting.

But it's the best when it's an empty restaurant.

You're just immediately putting me into a category of the have or have not.

Yeah. So a really good thing to do is when someone comes up and says, do you have reservations? Say no, I'm sure I want to eat her.

Got to remember that. That's great. Have you tried that?

No.

You know me think anything, I'd like.

To be there when you do it.

Okay. So the first question is service advisors should be asking themselves is why am I here?

This is an internal question to the self.

Yeah.

Okay.

I like that we didn't qualify. We said the questions service advisors should be asking.

Right. Crafty.

So they should be asking why am I here?

Yeah.

So why are we here as a service advisor? To help customers be more. Be less specific.

To help.

To collect customers. I already covered this. To collect customers and keep our customers in a safe and dependable vehicle.

So you gave the answer and then asked the question.

Well, I was helping you and try to, you know, keep them from surprises, unwanted surprises. Safe, dependable vehicle. Right. So that's why we're here. And now if we understand that we're gonna have clarity in what we're doing going forward.

Yeah.

Right now one of my favorite interview questions to ask When I'm interviewing for advisors is.

When you're walking up to a customer's car and you're about to greet the customer, what is it you're thinking? And some advisors say, well, I don't ever go out to the car, which is another problem.

That's when you're sitting at your desk.

Pretending like you're calling an extended warranty or you're on with parts. What are you thinking when the customer walks up? Right. But so if you're approaching a car, what are you thinking? And what I want the advisor to say is I want to make friends. If an advisor says, oh, I'm going to rip their head off or what am I going to sell them? That's not, that's not what I'm looking for. I'm looking for, I'm going, you know, I'm going to make friends. How do I make friends? How do I connect? And then they might say something to the effect of I'm looking for things or clues on how I can connect. Yeah, so like bumper stickers, that, that sort of thing. Right. So the next question is, after you've greeted them and said hello, I like to do something completely.

In a misdirection away from the commodity.

So the car is the commodity, the oil change, the service, the check engine light is a commodity. Right. In the sense that other shops can do that, they can do that repair for less or more money. But that's the commodity. I want to very quickly get away from the frame of a commodity, of a service. So when you say, do you have an appointment? What brings you in today? You're putting them in the frame of the commodity. Does that make sense? So I want to make it personal. And the question that I used when I was a service advisor, that worked really well for me. And it's a little bit of an open ended question, not quite an elicitation question, but an open ended question is, where are you headed today?

Where are you headed today? Now what would be some examples of some answers to where are you headed today?

I'm headed to the dog park.

Straight to hell.

Now I'm the one with the jokes, right?

That's pretty good.

Dog park.

Yeah.

You don't even have a dog, bro.

Yeah, that would make me a little. Is it creepy if you go to a dog park without a dog?

I don't know. I walked by a dog park last night and stood there and watched dogs for a while because I, I had a theory. Like you could literally guess what the dog's name was. By the way they played with the other dogs. Like, that guy's gonna be a Max. Right, Right. That guy's gonna be a Bentley Dog.

Personality naming, like they do.

They do have personalities. And it's funny. The dog park by me. There's big dogs in one section and little dogs in the other section, and they play different.

You know what? So I don't have a dog, but you know that I love dogs. You know what a way to get me to stay here more often would.

Be for me to get a dog bring in Olivia.

Oh, yeah, that would work.

Is that not what you were going to say?

No, I was going to say I should get my own dog.

Oh, well, there's a great idea. Then you wouldn't travel so much.

Yeah.

Wow. We're solving problems. Okay, so where are you headed today? Is going to open your customers up to think about where they're headed today and take them off of the idea that this is a commodity. Right. So it's. It's a little bit of a shift in frame. Shift in script, you could call it. And then the customer say, oh, I'm headed to work. And now I want you to think about this in.

In sections of three. Okay. Because, like, what happens a lot of times is some advisors are introverted and you say, where are you headed today? And then you say, I'm headed to work.

Yep. Now you want to ask what do you do?

This is what happens.

Okay.

Where are you headed today?

I'm headed to work.

That's what happens.

That uncomfortable silence is not normal.

Or they're walking around or they're getting the mileage or they're doing whatever.

Yeah.

But. Yeah, that's what happens. So you want to think of this as, you know, three. Three shots. You're going to fire three shots out of. Out of your revolver. So where are you headed today?

I'm headed to work.

Oh, where do you work?

I work over at the accounting office. Jones and Smith.

Oh, wow. Like, what's the craziest fraud thing you've ever discovered? A Mickey Mouse thing or the sales department there? Mickey Mouse?

No. I used to do the books for Gotti.

Wow.

Yeah.

Would they keep track of the dead bodies on there or was it just money? And how did you handle cash and laundering?

Yeah, we called the dead body line line 86 and got really good at laundering for sure.

Now was that a debit or a credit to the financial statement?

It depends on how they are, 86. So if they are shot, it's a debit. If there's Some sort of torture involved? It's a credit.

Yes. Wow. It's weird how you came up with that. That's funny. So you see, what I'm doing here is I'm getting to an answer that now I can actually connect. The first two really are almost just transactional. So, you know, where do you work? They tell you where they work. What do you do there? They tell you what they do there, and then you ask something specific about that job. Right. And there's. I've always found a way to make that. That third question funny. So if somebody says they're a martial arts instructor, you can say, like, you know, how many people have you killed? Whatever it is. But you can say something a little funny and irreverent that makes them laugh. But now, what have we done here, Christian? Help us understand. We've gone from connecting this. This experience.

From a commodity to what?

To making friends?

No, from a commodity to what?

It's an experience.

Identity.

Man, I feel like I should be better at this.

It's okay. Identity. This is their identity, is their. What they do every day is part of their identity. Now, what sort of people do you talk to about your identity?

My friends.

Your friends?

Yeah.

So now we've become mildly a friend.

We're getting there.

What. What sort of person do you trust to do your bricks?

Technician.

No, a friend.

No. You seen my. Some of my friends. Like, I'm not having cost you my brakes.

Gonna be a long day. Okay.

All right.

So now from here, we want to continue down the path of questions that align with identity, not commodity. So we've bridged. Now we've got to. What do you do there? And then. Do you have kids? Did you see the game on the weekend? Whatever it is? Well, I don't like football. Oh, so what do you like? Right. Every. Every dead end is an opportunity to ask another question.

Yeah.

Where most of the time, service advisors, really, they dead end and they. They clam up and they. They don't ask. Well, you know, if I. If I say, like, oh, did you watch the game over the weekend? Oh, I'm not into sports. Oh, what are you. What are you into? Chess, Science, boring stuff. Accounting, What? And then they'll say, oh, well, you know, I like to whittle. And then you're like, oh, wow. Do you have any pictures of your widow? Right, yeah. So if you have customers showing you pictures of their dog, pictures of their kids, pictures of their whittling, pictures of the car they're restoring in their garage, pictures of dead bodies on line 60. What? 8.

86.

86 on the financial statement, whatever it is. Now we're starting to make friends and we're connecting on a deeper level now. After that, you could. And I've seen some very successful advisors. This wasn't my. My way of doing it, but it is effective, is once we've connected and we've talked about things that are personal, that align with the identity, we. You could shift and say, so how's the health of. And point at the car?

Yeah.

Now some. Some advisors I've seen in over the years ask if the car has a name.

It's a good question.

Yeah. And it. You'll be surprised. Half of the time the name is not. Not a. Not complimentary.

The Tesla's name again, what did Missy name him?

Clyde.

Clyde. That's what it is.

What's my rover's name?

I don't know.

Winston. You don't know that?

No.

Winston Churchill.

Because it's a Land Rover.

You just feel like you're, you know, the Prime Minister of England.

Got it. Okay.

Okay. But does that make sense?

Tons of sense.

But you can now you can flip it and you're in a different frame. You're in a frame of friend and identity. And now when you say, how's the health? You're referring to the vehicle as something that's living, moving, important, not as a dead vegetable that has no life or importance. Right. Because it is important. It's carrying you and your kids and your life all over the place. And the safety and maintenance of it is important. So how's the health? Very effective.

Right. What do they call that? Is that personification?

I had somebody send me a. I think a DM on Instagram the other day saying that they use. They use the term bumps and bruises, which used to. Was an Aisha term that we all adopted.

Yes, we did.

But that's another one, is when if you're doing a walk around and you're marking down damage or recording damage, you could say, oh, how did the bump or the bruise happen? Another question you could be asking that also implies a living important thing.

That's right.

Right. Okay. What do you think so far about these questions? It's good stuff, Christian. Did not see these ahead of time. No, it's the misfire at the beginning.

Yeah. But there's a couple of things that were a reminder. One is, is that I remember you always saying this about there's a really, really good skill of service advisors and that you had. It was that natural curiosity. And one Thing that I probably didn't do as well as I should have as an advisor is I would ask the first question, but I didn't always go to the second and third.

Yes. You just have to think of it as threes, fours and fives and somebody that's really difficult. A five you're gonna run into once a month. Like, that's a rare human. But I don't give up because it's.

A challenge to then try to break them. Right.

Yeah. And I always look at those sort of things as a learning experience, not an indictment. Like, what could. What. What could work? And then if something works, then I might move that up sooner in the sequence. Right. So the. The reason why. Where you headed today Is my first one is because that worked in the most situations, because everybody's headed somewhere. They're in motion.

Right.

And even if they're waiting for an oil change, they're headed somewhere, they got plans. If they say, oh, I'm headed home, oh, what do you. The rest. What are you doing the rest of the day? Oh, well, I, you know, I gotta get on some zoom calls at work, whatever. What do you do for work now? That's five, right? I'm five in.

Yeah.

But I'm just. They're leading me, and I'm following, but they don't understand that, really I'm controlling it. They're. They're not gonna. Not gonna squirrel away.

Yeah. And I definitely think that they might hold up a. They might hold the fence up. One or two questions. By the third questions, they recognize that they're. Okay, they're connecting.

Now, another one that I've seen advisors use effectively, that I did not use that often, but I have used it. Have your driving habits changed?

Christian is showing me that he had. Have your driving habits changed? Okay. Have your driving habits changed? And you could say in the last two years. Give it a time frame.

It opens. I think that's almost. That's bordering on an elicitation question, right? Yeah. Cool.

Well, it makes them think about driving habits, and then they. They're gonna think about. Well, I, you know, I got a lead foot. I'm hitting the brakes. You know, it's gonna. It's. It's going to.

Alert that part of their memory.

People also really like to talk about food.

Then one. This is yours, actually, that you said.

Would you like to take advantage of our shuttle today?

Oh, yeah.

Explain to everybody why you think that one's important, because I. I see it a little bit different.

Okay, so. So one of the things that I'll see happen in the service drive is. Is I'll head on there, and then I'll hear advisors saying to the customer, will you be waiting with us today? So one of the things that I've learned is if you get a really, really full waiting room, it starts to kind of back things up, and everybody has, like, a heightened level of awareness. And the one thing I would tell you is if you sit in the waiting room for 15 minutes, it literally feels like two hours, so that your concept of time is lost. So when someone says to me, will you be waiting with us? My I believe my subconscious says, well, that's what I'm supposed to do. Right. And then there's another thing going on is. Is that, you know, I think that we probably have recognized that over two years ago, three years ago, we were pretty lucky in the amount of loaner cars that we had in our fleet. And everyone knows now chip shortages and the such, no one's got any loaner fleet. Like, they. They've been harvested, they've been given back, and not many people have loaner cars selling them. Right. So what I do have is a shuttle. So I want to push them towards a thing that I have. So if I just say you're offering.

Up a solution in a preventative way.

That's exactly right.

I'm trying to get ahead of this bus. That's exactly right, because it's coming. Yeah.

So that's great. That's what I thought, strategically, is a really, really good way to do it. But, yeah, So I was telling you that everyone really likes to talk about food. Like, how do you make an egg roll?

I don't know how you push it.

I love it. I'm trying to remember the restaurant one. Okay, so another one that Christian pointed out that we should probably mention here is when you get to the point that you're creating the repair order, you've checked history, and you recommend to the customer some sort of maintenance or whatever it is that they're due for, and you're recommending that. And they say, you know, I think I've already had that done. And you know from looking your history that they haven't done it with us, is asking them, you know, have you had it serviced somewhere else? Now, when I was a service advisor, I'd ask, have you had IT service somewhere else? Do you mind if I just call them and see what's been done there? So we're not, you know, we're not duplicating things that you've already Done. And I literally, it was always hard because the other place wouldn't answer the phone and they were as busy as we were. But I always made the attempt to call the other service department or shop or whatever it was and ask them, you know, in a nice way, like, hey, I have it over here. And you know, what have you done? Did you do the coolant? Because, you know, oftentimes it's hard to tell, even with brake fluid. Like, they might have had it done in the last year and it could be dark. And just looking at the color doesn't always tell you. And, you know, I want to be a good steward of that trust that the customer is giving me. So I'm going to put in a little extra work and try to qualify. So asking them, you know, where have you been taking it? And then also gone through the glove box and looked at receipts. Sometimes the receipts are in there and they'll tell you that the receipts are in the glove box.

Yeah, I've had plenty of customers give permission to look at it.

They're like, I don't know what I.

Did, but please look, I feel like it's such a great sign of goodwill.

Yeah. No, I mean, and also it opens up the conversation. And I would go right at this too, is, why are you cheating on me? What? What, what is it?

It's a learning opportunity, is what it is, for sure.

Yeah.

Is it because I don't call you enough, Is it, What is it? Like that. My beard.

I would say something, but I would try, you know, and try to make it feel awkward as I could.

Bad Valentine's Day gift.

Yeah. So that's, that's one that you want to, you want to think about and then the next one. And this is really important because this sets up a lot of things. It's setting up a frame, it's giving importance to this. And you're, you're pre planning, in a sense, is if I need to contact you, what's your day look like?

If I need to contact you, what's your day look like? And then, well, should I text you? Should I call whatever it is Now? I would ask that question after I had introduced the inspection. So I'm like, hey, well, we have it here today. The doctor is going to check it out. They're going to do a 32 point inspection, a 57 point inspection, a 12 point. Isn't it funny that everybody has a.

Different amount of points?

Points, yeah. Basically, we're going to check your breaks and, you know, the important stuff. But if we find something, I'm going to let you know. And so now I want to follow that with.

You know, if I need to contact you, what's your day look like? And then they'll say, well, I'm in meetings until noon. Well, can I text you while you're in a meeting? And you know, go down that road and figure that out, but have a plan so they know that when you're trying to contact them, it's really important. Not just, you know, leaving that open ended and leaving it to chance.

And then that's, that's kind of, that's kind of this, the basic set up front. Some, some things I was thinking about on the back is when they pick up the vehicle, I would always like thank them, give them my card and say something to the effect of, you know, I want to be your advisor. And please, if there's anything you need, any questions, do not hesitate to call me. You know, I'm here for you and I want to be the person that you lean on for your service and repairs and you know, really telling them like, I want, Nobody ever says that, like, I want to be your solution.

Yeah.

Most of the time they call and they can't get through. They make an appointment and it's with somebody else. Like very rarely does somebody in our industry just show the desire to be their connection in, in the confusing world of getting your car serviced or maintained or repaired. Right.

The punchline is you have to earn the right to ask. Yeah.

And I'm very, I'm very forward with, with that question.

It's good. I had a couple of different ones.

Go ahead.

Okay.

Spent hours cultivating this list.

Man, that's a lot of air fresheners. How do you like driving for Uber?

I don't always think that you're gonna crack a joke. That's pretty good. Yeah. The Uber guys do love air fresheners.

Yeah.

That was probably my best one.

I like how you sit up and you look into the camera and all that. And most people are listening to this.

I do. I'm very visual.

Yeah. But they're not. They're driving to work.

And then my last thing to piggyback off of you is when you've done the good connecting on the walk around in the morning and you get information. I think it's great when you do follow up calls throughout the afternoon to do recalls from the information. Right. Like, so I'd always remember if I had a client drop off and they're taking their kid to a soccer game. I'm Going to ask how the soccer game went. So I like to kind of follow up so that they know that I was paying attention.

Yeah, you know, in, in, in our service advisor logbooks under the, the piggy bank section, we have a little column there for that to write like, and I did that when I was an advisor is I would write like, oh, has a cast on their left arm, has a kid going to college, whatever it is. And then it would remind me when I would call them to bring that up. And if I didn't write it down, I wouldn't remember.

Yeah, I was pretty fortunate. I had a pretty, you know, forward thinking group that I wrote service with and we would put notes in there for each other. Like in the, in the dms there was like a note section. We just put down, you know, three kids, Randy, Bob, Julie and that kind of thing. And we always, we always try to help each other out with that so that we, the customer, we want them to feel like they're at home.

Yeah, it's fun. So that's questions service advisors should be asking. Great list. I know that inspired some, some ideas. And this will probably be watched in lots of morning meetings and.

After our training sessions, which we're happy to assist you with and hope that it worked. Now let's go to the news.

Tesla says California plans to sue over alleged discrimination and harassment.

Uh oh.

The electric car maker said it will ask the court to pause the case once the state civil rights regulator files a lawsuit. Despite several requests, Tesla said the regulator declined to provide the company with specific allegations or the factual basis for the lawsuit. The company has been fighting a series of lawsuits over allegations of racial discrimination and sexual harassment. In October, a black contract worker won a jury award worth 130 million over workplace racism against the company.

You know what I think this means?

I have an idea as well.

What would that idea be?

Deep in the heart of Texas.

Yeah. Bye bye California. Elon keeps saying that there's a reason why all the manufacturers have left California. California is litigation happy. They're literally. When you talk about inflation in the state of California, there's a level of inflation that is just litigation. Like, yeah, the lawyers are running the state in the sense that litigation equals money for lawyers. And.

Oftentimes companies will just settle because they don't want to deal with the litigation. But it means that they will be moving out of California. I'm sure he's moved his headquarters and once their plan in Texas is going, this plant here in California is not that big. I don't think.

Well, surprising, too. It's, it's outdated compared to what they've done with their new stuff.

Yeah, it really is.

So the size, the scope, and then the, the stamping ability that they've got on the new, the new plants is phenomenal. So.

And he might build one somewhere else. Like, there's tons of states that would love to have those jobs and would.

Yeah, they'd give tons of tax benefits. Like California is not making any friends right now in the business world.

No. Thanks so much for watching this episode of Service Job 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 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.