Chris Collins (YouTube, Jan 9, 2020) advises novice service advisors that their primary role is building rapport and documenting customer concerns—not diagnosing mechanical problems. He emphasizes emotional connection, asking personal questions to elicit better symptom descriptions, arranging test drives to confirm issues, and relying on technicians for diagnosis and repairs. He warns that advisors who were former technicians often undermine sales by pre-diagnosing and discounting work. The talk uses a Subaru example and anecdotal stories to illustrate the point.
Chapters
Linda Lard Lillard. Lillard. And I'm guessing she's from Texas because her email is something Texas. I'm new to your YouTube channel and service advising, but using your channel to learn as much as possible in conjunction with my training I'm going through at the dealership. My main concern and what I seem to not be able to find within all of your videos is the most common mechanical issues or problems that most come up for service advisors. Example, a guy came in the other day with severe tire wear on two front tires. It was an all wheel drive Subaru, which I would have no clue that if you had an all wheel drive, you should always replace all four at the same time. She means all four tires at the same time. I know there's an infinite number of answers to this, but as a novice service advisor with zero mechanical experience, what are some of the most general basic questions you get most often and answer so much? So, Lindy, it's a great question and I understand the spirit behind the question, but it's the wrong question because what you want to understand is your role as a service advisor is not to diagnose anything. It's not. You don't need to diagnose tire rotations. In the end, what your role is is to make friends with the customer. Make the customer really comfortable so the customer can explain their concerns with the car. You can document that and then let the technician do the work. You got to think of yourself this way. The technician's the doctor and you're the nurse receptionist. Your job is not to diagnose anything. Your job is to make them feel comfortable, to get them to fill out the paperwork, get all the information and te up the doctor for success. Right? So the only variable in this maybe would be that you could recommend maintenance when maintenance is due and understand that. But you do not need to know anything about the car as much as you need to be really, really good with connecting with people. Spend your time connecting with customers on a deeper level, spend your time making friends. The car is a commodity. Anybody can service a Subaru and in fact, I don't know if you know this stat, but 70% of clients end up going to independent shops after their warranty is up. So you're losing more customers because we think the car is special when it's not, it's a commodity. The car is an excuse to make friends with the customer. So Subaru customers, and I know this because I was a Subaru service advisor, are the most interesting characters out there as far as car Brands go, they're outdoors, they're mountain biking, they're freaks, they're crazy. And focus on that. Focus on making friends with them, getting to know them, asking four or five questions. Where are you going today? What do you do? Where do you drive your Subaru? Your kids, your dogs, your hobbies?
Emotional connection.
Yep, emotional connection. And don't worry about diagnosing the car. The reason why is in service advisor training. All that isn't in there is because you said it. There's a million different.
Things or variables that could happen. And your job is to be a customer collector, connect and then make the process easier. Back in the early days of our industry, customers pulled right in the shop and talked directly to the technician. That ended up being a distraction because the technicians were doing all kinds of other things and not actually just working on cars. Your job is to make it like you're the communication between, but you make the follow up better. You make the customers comfortable. You get them talking and opening up. Think about, if I get you opening up about your personal life and then I ask you about a rattle, I'm gonna get a much better description than if you're nervous and it's all a transaction and I'm running you in and out like a. Like a number, Right? So go on. Test drives confirm what the customer is saying. Really, really put your hands on it. But you don't need to know how to fix it. You don't need to know how to diagnose anything. Let the technicians do that. And over time, you're going to learn because you're going to see certain things over and over again. But, I mean, I remember when I was a service advisor because I was making so much money and doing so well. One of the Volkswagen technicians, his name was Shane, he was a prick, that kid. And I remember one day, bro, he. He was doing a recall on a Jetta and he didn't disconnect the battery and he blew the airbag. And I thought it was the greatest thing. He broke the windshield on the car because he didn't do the job right. Yeah, because he was such a jerk. But anyways, he calls me out and all the Volkswagen texts and I don't know, there were like 12. And he's got this, like, wood box, this, like, wood crate, and there's like a disc on it. And he calls everybody around, all the techs who are around, and he's like. And I didn't know what I was being set up for. He's like, so what is that? And I was like, I think I said a brake rotor. He goes, oh, my God, you can't be a service advisor. You don't know the difference between a brake rotor and a clutch discount. And he goes to my boss and says he can't write service. He does. And my boss is like, his job's not to know the difference. That's your job. His job is to make friends. The reason why he sells so much is because people trust him and like him. It has nothing to do with that. And I don't know, whenever I had a technician recommend something or whatever, I just go out and say, could you explain it to me? Could you show me so I would understand? And that. And that's how I learned. So just, you know, Lindy, make friends with customers, get them to trust you. Be in it, you know, an investigative reporter and get all the information. But you don't need. You don't need to know all that. Don't diagnose cars. One last thing with that is sometimes the worst advisors are advisors that used to be techs.
Yeah, I see that.
Because they know everything they can diagnose. They never. We never make any money because they'll just diagnose it in the drive. But they didn't spend really time diagnosing. So a third of the time they're wrong.
Right. And then to discredit the work that the technicians do in the back and they want to discount. It can go wrong in so many ways.
So. Good question, though. We'll send you. We will email you and get your info and we will send you some swag.
Swag bag.
And I would suggest reading the Millionaire Service Advisor because it'll help you with some of that. There's some good stories and analogies in there for you on how to be a service advisor.
