Chris Collins argues dealerships fire service managers too fast instead of diagnosing what's wrong. Service-manager turnover sits around 50%, and common problems include inconsistent customer satisfaction scores, low profitability, and employee complaints that training might fix.
So it keeps coming up in the sense that people call us and they're like, hey, we want to sign up for your coaching, but we want to get rid of our service manager or our service manager is closed minded or our service manager is not any good, whatever it is. And so. Or just the question, what do I do if my service manager isn't any good?
I would say that's happening more often than I've got to replace my service manager first.
Well, there is a focus on fixed ops, is there not?
So that's why I didn't do any news today. And I was going to do a little editorial rant on this, but it's really amazing to me. So every time before we film an episode, I go and research, let's say, the five or six biggest news outlets for automotive. So a lot of things you've heard of, like Motor Trend Road and Track Wall Street Journal, a couple other things. And the amazing thing is, even though there's clearly a huge focus on fixed ops, what do you think the ratio of sales related items to service related items is in all of those things?
80 to 1.
80 to 1. And the only time that one out of the 80 is only if there's a recall notice. So it's not really even. In my opinion, it's not really news. And you could probably make a case that they're, they're even skewing that towards sales. And I just would say that as an industry, we have got to be having more conversations about, about how to make fixed ops is the best it's ever been. And I would implore the media outlets to start to research, you know, phenomenal customer experiences and, you know, tech hiring.
This is your plea to the Wall Street Journal.
Yeah. So I'm sure they're going to listen to this. And I would just say that if you're trying to give your readers bang for the buck, talk a little more about fix than sales.
Okay, so if I, if I ask you, like we randomly meet on the street.
Mm.
And you're like, what do you do? And I'm like, oh, I own a car dealership. And.
Then you, you ask like. Or I ask you, I own a car dealership and I ask you, like, what do I do if my service manager isn't any good? What is your answer to that?
Well, the, the first thing that.
Big sigh.
The first thing that comes to mind is that like, more often than not is, well, why don't we try to fix them first?
But I've kind of got like a List of things that really. Does your service manager really suck? Or we just never really give them a chance to win? Because more often than not we'll have people come into our program that just didn't know what they didn't know. And guess what happens when you start to teach them things.
Okay, so you're.
Did I answer that wrong?
Well, you're getting into whatever your list is already. But I'm saying like, how do you answer that question?
Yeah, it's tough. Service manager turnover is 50% in the industry. Might be how I would answer that question to start.
So then that's saying that 50% of the managers are bad.
Not necessarily. Which is then where I lead into. It's a. They don't know what they don't know.
Or I might even ask, I think I need to replace my service. If you said that to me, I might say, what makes you say that?
Because what do they think? What do you think makes them think that.
Most. I think maybe your experience is different when you ask them why. Most of the time it's processes like the CSI is inconsistent, the profitability or they're just getting a lot of complaints. Like most of the time dealers or general managers will judge the service manager's performance more on complaints and it could be complaints from employees. So like, well, we just lost three techs. Yep. Or it can be customer complaints. One of the two. Okay, so let's give this context and then we'll, we'll go through your list first. But I think it's important to kind of describe where we are as an industry in relation to service managers. So our answer always is give them to us, don't fire them, give them to us. And they'll say, well, he's closed minded. You can't teach an old dog new tricks. Whatever it is. The thing that, that we find consistently over and over again, which is sad.
And disappointing, is that there are plenty of managers out there functioning with all of the confidence in the world. They're, you know, they believe that they are effective and good managers and they really have no clue what they're doing in the sense they don't see the financial statement. So they're running a business and they're judged on feelings, not on actual outcomes. 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 833-3-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.
