What Questions To Ask Customers At Write-up

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Welcome, everybody, to your Friday drive by on Service Drive Revolution, where we break dance, fight.

And answer your questions. What's about to happen is a couple nice people called in some questions. We're going to play the questions and then we're going to do our best to give our advice. If it's your first time listening to the show, this is the show for anybody who loves the smell of a shop in the morning.

Who knows how to create an ro.

Knows how to make an appointment, knows how to take care of a customer, make a friend.

Always remember shift F9.

I'm Chris Collins and this is Christian F9 Lafferty.

Shift F9, please.

If you want to have your question answered on the show, get a pen, get a pencil, open up notes on your phone and write down this number. You ready? 8, 3, 3, 3, ask SDR. The SDR stands for Service Driver Volusion, but that's 8, 3, 3, 3,. Ask SDR. Let's go to the first question.

Hey, guys. Love the show. My service advisor is good about 25% of the time. Like, he. He's got about 25% of his customers that are just absolutely love him, like, know him by name, send him gift cards. But the other 75% absolutely despise him, won't call him back. He focuses on those 25% and then he can't handle the rest. I get constant phone calls and voice messages. I'm the service manager. I get constant voice messages of.

Can't get a hold of him enough in four messages. And then he just blames it on the customer, says, I called them back. They never called me back. Okay. So I'm just curious, is it. I'm shorthanded as it is, and trying to find good people, as you know, is not the easiest thing to do. But he doesn't fit my culture. I think I know what the answer is already, but I just figured I'd ask you guys, being that he's got those 25% that are very dedicated and absolutely love him and leave him amazing surveys, but the rest just don't care for him. Thanks, guys. Look forward to hearing from you. Wow.

Think it's real or is that a. Do you think he's punking us?

No, I think that's probably real.

Really?

Yeah.

Sorry.

So one out of four customers are happy?

Yeah. So I was. Wrote that down. Like, the only industry I can think of where you can be successful one out of four times and have a job is major league base. As a hitter.

Yeah. No, no.

I mean, just think about if you, if you.

Dedicated your life to improving his performance by 100%, he'd still be pissing off half the people. I would say that. I would say that. If he's pissing off one in a hundred, I'd be pissed. Like, that's one. That'd be like one every couple weeks, right?

Yeah, but think about that. It's like the chances are better that he's going to make them upset than help them.

What would be better is why don't we go through all of the places that you could help him apply for a new job.

All right? Tsa.

No, you can't. What? You catch one of the guns that come through, you get one out of four.

Okay. All right.

The post office, 25% of the mails rate.

That's accurate. That's.

I don't even know if this guy should be driving.

He runs three out of four stoplights.

What if he's a waiter?

Oh, he could do McDonald's and gets one out of four orders. Right?

No, we got it. We got to think of a new job for this guy. Where, where, where's their job? Where, where you don't have to make anybody happy.

I have the perfect career for this person.

What?

They could be a weatherman. Like literally, weathermen are right. One out of every four times.

What about a lifeguard?

Sorry.

Just be a lifeguard on the stupid people beach. We didn't.

Oh my God.

It's a way to.

Shark. It's okay. It's probably just a dolphin.

Just mother nature doing its thing.

Natural selection.

What a terrible average.

Oh my God.

I do kind of think that maybe this is a. This is a joke.

That's a Maybe he's exaggerating.

If you said like, if you did it the other way where he was like maybe one out of four.

Yeah, 75.

I would even allow that. But I think 100% of the customers.

Should be happy. Like, if you're a good advisor, you're not pissing off anybody in a year. The top advisors don't. They don't have customer issues ever.

Yeah.

They own it.

Lifeguard.

Lifeguard. Okay, pilot. Well, we got a 25% chance.

I would fill out an online application for that advisor.

Somewhere else, but no. And you know, when you're talking about it's hard to find people, it's first thing. Stop saying that. And if you, if you're a, you know, fun person to work for and you're fair, go just spend more time recruiting. Put some more effort into it. There are people are out there. And there's so many bad places that people are working with good people that want to work for a cool boss.

Just, you know, change your. Change your approach. That's it.

Yeah. And it won't take much for him to improve his status.

It's harder, but it's not impossible.

Yeah. He can do it. We have faith.

Okay. Good question. Thank you. We'll be sending you some swag.

That's funny.

Let's do the next one.

Hi, my name's Andrew, and I work at an independent shop in southern Indiana. And I was wanting to know what are some of your suggestions for asking the right questions that at right up so that you get the customer concern fully nailed down. Are there any tricks? Let me know.

First of all, Andrew, let's address the elephant in the room. The Indianapolis Colts got dramatically better.

That's what he was really calling about.

Unless you're one of those guys that's like, I'm not into sports. You're in a good spot. It's going to be fun to watch the Colts this year.

Who did. I don't even know who they got.

They got Maddie, Matt Ryan from Atlanta as their quarterback. Always, like. And then they've. They've. They've made some good moves. They.

They protect him. What will they be able to protect him? And o line.

Ish.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay.

And Matt gets rid of the ball quick. He's a great quarterback. I can't believe Atlanta let him go. But.

So getting good descriptions out of the customer. Okay, so.

I don't know if you would classify this as a trick. I would say that before you worry about the questions you ask.

Let'S think about the mode we're putting the customer into and think about this for a second. Like, do you think better under stress or when you're relaxed.

Do you think better, clearer? Are you able to articulate yourself better when you're around friends or when you feel like you're under pressure in a hurry, in an awkward situation?

We all just, you know, just human nature is when. When we feel like we're surrounded by friends, when we're comfortable in the environment we're in, we're gonna be more creative. We're gonna be better at articulating our thoughts, and.

We're just better collaborators. So the first thing that I always think about is what is our process doing to the customer before we get to the questions? And so I always say, like, what you don't want to talk about in the beginning is the commodity, the car. Right. What we want to talk about is the things that put them in the frame of being a friend or a family member. So we want to talk about work, kids, hobbies, the cults, whatever it is to kind of get that, hey, we're hanging out at a bar, we're buddies talking. And then I would, I would ask questions that are in the. Well, depending on what it is, I would ask questions that are more in the visual side of things or sometimes in the, like auditory. It depends on what it is. Is it a rattle? Then I would ask the question in the sense of, so when do you hear it? What pitch is it? Where is it coming from? The location? I wouldn't say, so what does it feel like? Or where do you see it? So how you frame the question is going to put the customer in the mindset to be able to describe it better. So if it's a visual thing, right? And then I would always try to duplicate it with the customer in a sense too. And I've said this before on the show, but when I was an advisor, I had this thing that would put customers at ease where I would say.

Oh, we, we have the five Mile Dome. They'd be like, what's the Five Mile Dome? And you'd be like, oh, there's this dome that comes over the dealership that whatever your rattle is, whatever your issue is, as soon as you come into that five mile zone, it goes away. Because there's nothing worse than putting a customer on the spot and go, okay, well, where's the rattle? Right? And it doesn't happen because it's random or intermittent or whatever it is. So, you know, giving the customer a little bit of a break, making it comfortable, making them feel like they're a friend and in an environment that's safe. And then asking questions in line with is it visual, is it auditory? What, you know, what is it? And then duplicating it. I think that all of those things, and a lot of times if it's hard to duplicate, I would ask that a technician drive at home so I'd get permission. I would have them sign a release letting the technician drive it home. Because, you know, if they say, well, it happens. I drove 30 miles to get here, but it happens first thing when it's cold in the morning. Well, then I'll let a tech drive at home or I'll have it sit overnight and then the tech will try to go out and start it when they get in. But.

You know, sometimes just asking the questions isn't as important as how you're making the customer feel comfortable.

And then driving it, duplicating it.

So it's like telling the story. You get them comfortable and they're like, oh, tell me the story of the noise. The other thing I was going to suggest too, is to not impart your drive diagnosis onto the description. Have you ever seen that before? Where advisors are like noise coming from sunroof tray. Like they've already think. They think they've pinpointed it perfectly and diagnosed what's wrong is there writing the robot. That's one of the things I think be more of a reporter than what.

I used to put when I was an advisor. I don't see me.

Oh, that's pretty smart. That's good.

I would say rattle around the sunroof. See me. I would have stickers there.

I did post it notes.

I would, I would go show them because there's no, there's no way that I was going to write a paragraph that was going to describe to them what I could do if I was just sitting in the car with them.

Well, most techs are going to look at a paragraph and come see you anyways.

Yeah. So see me.

See me. Probably makes more sense. That's pretty good.

Not the best for the paperwork, but.

Oh, I thought of another career just.

To save the tech time.

I thought of another career while we were answering the second question.

That's be terrible that you don't have to. You can sustain a 75% failure rate.

Yeah, this probably isn't good, but brain surgeon.

Damn.

To get this right, I wouldn't even want that guy to be a barista.

But think about that, doc. What are my chances?

Four times. The coffee's wrong.

So fun. Thanks. Thanks, Andrew, for the question. Hope the Colts did good and I hope that inspires some ideas. Remember, if you have a question, call it in, don't post it in comments and the numbers 8333 ask SDR and we'll see you next time 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 book and training, head over to offers.chriscollinsinc.com now it's offers.chriscollinsInc.com I'm Chris Collins and I'll see you in the next video.