A short video discussion (Chris Collins with Christian) arguing that service advisors rarely need formal training to 'overcome objections.' The speakers say the real problems are system/process failures—insufficient technicians, low shop production, and poor follow-up—which create situations mistaken for advisor skill gaps. They note the only common legitimate objection is affordability, which should be handled with prioritization and offering options (e.g., financing), and emphasize rapport and listening over objection scripts.
Chapters
Do service advisors need to know how to overcome objections? We get this a lot. Could you train our advisors? Problem here is our advisors. Our advisors. Our advisors. I've yet, I think in the last year to talk to anybody where it actually was the advisors. It's usually you need more techs, you need better systems than the advisors. Right. Most of the increase that we see, very little of it has to do with advisor training. In the beginning, it's the systems and the. The addition of production. But what happens is the service advisors are writing 20 hours a day. They're not calling everybody back. They're not selling stuff. They're scared to sell stuff because they don't have enough production in the shop because technicians have been quitting and we haven't replaced them. So we had 20 techs before. We still have the same amount of advisors, but now when we're down to 14 techs and we think that teaching the advisors how to sell is the problem.
Yes.
It's a common thing.
Bottleneck. Yes.
Let's put that to the side for a second, and let's talk about when does an advisor get into a situation that they need to overcome an objection? And let me frame this a little bit.
Most of the time, what you are recommending to a customer as a service advisor.
Is needed. So let's say you call a customer and you're like, christian, this is Chris over here at Bulldog Motors. And you need brakes.
Like, how bad do I need the brakes?
Let's not turn this into an improv, please.
That was a ridiculous question.
What's that thing from Chicago, the improv thing? Bill Murray came from Groundlings. Yeah, this isn't the Groundlings or whatever. Second City.
Second City.
Second City.
Groundlings. Here is here.
This is service driver of Lejon.
Yes, continue on.
You need breaks, Christian. Oh, no. Now, if you don't get breaks.
What'S gonna happen?
I won't stop.
It's gonna cost you more.
Yeah, for sure.
If you don't get breaks from me, it means you're gonna go somewhere else to get the brakes. But eventually, Christian is getting breaks. The only scenario that you're not getting breaks is you trade the car in or sell the car. But in every other situation, Christians buying breaks. What objection do I need to overcome? Except for the objection of, I don't like you, I don't trust you, or you're telling me I need breaks and I'm here to pick it up.
Those would be the. That'd be the trifecta.
Now, are those objections or are Those situations.
Situations for sure.
So most of the time what we perceive.
Advisors needing training on overcoming objections really is a failure in the system or as they would say in Canada, process. The process.
And the advisors lack of petting the dog and building rapport. But I cannot remember as an advisor ever thinking I need to be better at overcoming objections.
Mostly what I thought is I need to be a better listener and I get, I need to get to know my customers better. But overcoming objections. So the only objection out there that's a legitimate objection is a customer says I can't afford it. And then in that situation you prioritize things or you help them or you give them advice. But even then you're not what we're going to talk, we're going to say, do you, you know, we're going to talk them into like maybe, maybe in some situations we have a 0% for six months financing option financing stuff for not overcoming an objection. It's giving them options.
Right. Still solving the problem.
But we're not, Are we going to talk somebody into doing something they can't afford to do?
Probably not.
We could give them options, but I don't, I don't see it as a good idea to talk somebody into. As a service advisor, I remember customers coming in on payday or, you know, after payday.
A couple of paydays.
Yeah, they would get things done and I would prioritize and I would work with them and that sort of thing. But.
Most of the time my experience is when we think advisors need to be good at overcoming objections, they're writing too many ros. They're not building rapport. And, and then we're trying to sell customers on something either they don't really need or they don't trust us. And whatever we're saying is going to come off as us trying to sell them something they don't need. 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 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.
