Why Service Advisors Need to Stop Selling Diagnosis! (Service Drive Revolution)

Any other questions?

God, everybody gets a Glock. One more question. This one comes from YouTube. Hi guys. Really enjoy your videos. I'd like to know more about the Level 1 diagnostic test and the billing strategy behind that. So many times I may have a technician that wants three hours diagnostic for one specific issue. After printing a diagnostic report, it really burns. When you approve that and come to find out the tech figures it out in half the time or less. I find it hard to go to the customer with that news and many times end up eating the cost just to keep the customer happy. Ultimately, the customer is happy, but really, are they? I would love to hear all about the levels of diagnostic testing and the pay structure for the technicians. For now, I've enforced a very strict booking time policy. The customer turnout has been better than ever. I notice. As you both know, if a customer leaves feeling like they were taken care of, they will tell the world. And in turn, more happy customers. It spreads like wildfire.

Thank you.

Clearly a new fan because we've answered this question.

I just, I gotta say though, I've got to give it up to the voice of God. Yeah, that was really good.

Shakespearean. That was Shakespearean, right?

There's a warm glow in my heart and soul.

What was that? God, what was the part about burning. Burning sensation.

It really burns. When you approve that and come to find out, the tank figures out.

Yes, we have handled this, we've answered this, Jeremy has some genius and then I'll tell you my thoughts on it. So.

Well, I. So if you're gonna attack it by selling diagnostic time, two things you have to remember. Number one, when we're doing the art of diagnosing the car, we're not generating parts revenue with that service. So we need to adjust our rate accordingly for that. We go over that in detail, then our on demand program and also in our coaching. So if you need help with that, let us know. The other thing is this. Don't get hung up on your technician's time. So there was an expert that was a.

Person that could fix power plants. And the nuclear power plant was gonna melt down, so they flew him out on a helicopter. He goes in, he's there for, I don't know, 15, 20 minutes, finds the problem, says, change this valve, it'll fix your problem. Now mind you, this whole entire time the alarms are going off, cities in a lockdown because the power plants going.

To blow up and it's a nuclear power plant.

Yeah.

It's going to be a big problem.

Yes. So they change the valve and save it. So the power plant operator, about a month later gets his invoice, and it was for $10,000. So he calls the guy up and he's mad, he's erased.

You were here for an hour, right?

You were here for like 15 minutes. You're charging me $10,000. The expert goes, oh, I am so sorry. I must have sent you the wrong invoice. Let me resend you another one. So he sends him another invoice and it says, time on site, time to locate the faulty valve, $5. Knowledge of knowing which valve to replace, $9,995. So that's the same thing with diagnosing these problems with these cars. Our technicians are that expert. And their hourly rate shouldn't be calculated. If your text filter find it within, you know, so much time, good for them. I'm not saying to over bill your customers, but package these things up so you can deliver value with the checklist that we do, the information and the process that we go through. So the value is delivered with whatever you charge.

Yeah, okay. My. What's this? What's this person's name? God.

This person's name is Carmine from YouTube.

Carmine. Carmine. Understand something. Diagnosis never fixed anything. People are coming in to get their car or truck fixed. What you want to do is do a repair authorization. So you gotta, you know, as an advisor, you got to get good at understanding that. Like, you know, if you have A, whatever 3 Series BMW with a coolant leak, you know that the worst case scenario is the top of the radiator and it needs a radiator, right? So you know that's going to be eighteen hundred dollars. So cost customer comes in with that with a coolant problem, I present a repair authorization. So I say, hey, I'm going to give myself eighteen hundred dollars to work with. If it's less, it'll be less. If it's more, I'll give you a call. But stop selling. Diagnosis. Diagnosis doesn't fix anything. And it causes so much work for you because you got to call them again. You got to sell it again. I want to know right up front, do you want the car fixed or not? Usually it's a, you know, the check engine light usually is an O2 sensor or whatever. An O2 sensor is 600 bucks. I'm going to give myself $600 to work with. If it's more, I'll give you a call. If it's less, it'll be less. But the technician doesn't have to pull the car in and Out. You don't have to spend a bunch of time. It actually saves the customer money in diagnosis because the tech can put in the O2 sensor, recheck it, and you know what it is. How many times you have to call the customer twice, because you place the upper radiator hose and then it's the radiator. And so you're wasting time by thinking in those terms. Those terms are industry terms. They're not customer terms. Customers, for the most part. Now, there are customers out there that are cheap or shop, but 80% of customers coming in value time and just want it fixed. Right. And they're not going to take it out and take it somewhere else. But you're setting your barometer to that 10 or 20% of customers. So get some money to work with and fix. Fix the car. Stop thinking in terms of diagnosis.

Can I ask the question?

Only if you raised your hand.

I. I did.

If you're listening, everybody, Jeremy raised his hand.

Well, I. Because, I mean, I'm a realist and I'm in the real world. So I. I do have a question that Carmine may be running into.

Is Carmine, you gotta roll the R, white boy.

You said YouTube. I thought he was from Utah.

Could be both for sure. So what if it's an intermittent stalling issue?

Check.

Engine light is on. There's a noise from the right front area and there's like five or six different concerns. So how do you.

What kind of car?

BMW.

What year?

Big money waster. Doesn't matter what year.

They're all.

No, it doesn't. No, it does matter.

2012.

So the thing you want to understand here is you're bringing your experience in. So a 3 series is different than a 7 series. 200,000 miles is different than 50,000 miles. 1986 is different than a 2016. So it does matter.

Okay.

So 2012, 750.

And all those things are wrong. Yeah, I'm probably going to give myself $2,500 to work with.

I was saying three.

Yeah.

I just. I need a starting point. I need no cars. No car is going to get fixed for $250 in diagnosis.

Well, no, I don't disagree with.

And all we're doing is creating more work for ourselves. It's so archaic. No customer ever expects that we put them there.

Yep.

That's our doing.

Yeah. Right. When I say it's gonna be 140.

When. When your car breaks down and you know, you don't own a shop. You're not us. When your car breaks Down. You, you think it's $1,000. Okay, it's $1,500. If you're driving down the freeway and the engine stops, you're like, this is probably $5,000.

Yeah, where's the shih Tzu?

You have a number in your head. Anyways. And then you come in and we're like, well, we need $175 in diagnosis. Then we're gonna call you and you're not gonna be able to pick up the phone. Cause you're in a meeting. And then you're gonna call us back and our advisor's taking a two hour lunch.

And that's not how we do it.

Then once, once we do do it, that actually won't fix it. And we're gonna need more money. And I don't know, it's gonna take about two weeks.

I like the concept. I'm just for our, our listeners and our viewers. There are gonna be some of them that still need a line item diagnostic time. Because that's.

If anybody just tries this. I've never had anybody try it and come back and say it doesn't work.

It works.

Never had anybody do it. And the other thing is. So let's say your, your little BMW customer. 2014-201275-02012, 750. How many miles?

You never told me 132.

Oh, well, that thing's a, you should put that thing on record at this point. They, they're disposable at a hundred thousand miles. But anyways.

Let'S say I, your wait.

You'Re walking the customer over to the sales department and selling them a new car at that point.

This is a joke.

I know. This is why, this is why consumers don't trust.

Run the jokes by Christian. First.

Let'S say the customer goes, oh, I don't want to spend $3,000. I only have $200.

They never say that.

But, but just. They don't stick with me for a second. What if they did?

That's when you.

Do you want to know now or when your tech has four hours into it?

My tech wouldn't have four hours into it if they only had $200.

No, what I'm saying is if you say, hey, I'm gonna give myself $3,000 to work with, right? And they go, oh, I only have $200. Now you know where you're at.

Well, I don't disagree with that. I do agree that. But my question on this is, so, okay, I authorized 3,000. $3,000. That's gonna fix my car?

No, I said if it's more, I'll give you a call. If it's less, it'll be less.

Okay.

I'm just giving myself something to work with and I'm using my, I'm using my best, my best experience knowledge to kind of point it. I know that if it's a three series and it's the power steering, it's probably the rack and it's going to be $1200. I know if it's an O2 sensor on a Toyota Corolla, it's going to be 225. Like I know what, I kind of know what happens and I'm not committing to that. I'm not diagnosing it.

What if you don't know what the code code is? What if the check engine lights on, they don't know what the code is?

I don't know what's average 500 bucks. I, I'm gonna give myself 500 to work with.

You're gonna play the field on the crafts table is what you're basically doing, right? You're trying to hedge your bets a little bit. If it's this car, it's got this simple.

It's obviously harder for a shop than a dealership to do this.

I don't know if I'd let you guys work on my car.

I don't know. We'd always be transparent.

I'm not feeling comfortable right now with this.

Well, that, that's because of your childhood and they didn't tell you that.

I didn't have a childhood.

Yeah, you weren't told you were loved enough. But we love you, Jeremy, and that's what's important. Maybe we left that out. We love you and you need to authorize it through.

I want everybody to know the reason why I bought a shop is to get real world data and bring it back to our, our clients. I will do research on this and I'm going to try your guys method and I'm going to track it. The next 25 diagnostic cars that we get, I'm going to track the results and see if we could because I.

Think you'll be surprised.

Just understand that the difference is stop talking about diagnosis and start talking about fixing it.

Yep.

And I want to know, I want to know if you want to fix it or not. Like sometimes the customers will say, well only call me if it's more than 5,000.

Okay. Like, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

Got it.

I want to know where they're at, but I want to talk about. I want to assume if at the time of ride up that we're fixing the car. I don't want to, like these advisors are projecting on customers. Shop us.

Interesting.

That's what we're projecting by talking about diagnosis.

No, nothing's ever been fixed with diagnosis.

That's a great point.

It never gets fixed and they don't expect it. That's us. We're doing that.

Interesting. How do you do the Carmen thing again?

Interesting. Carmen.

Carmen. So how do you do. Karen?

Karen.

Oh, all right. Karen's been in the news a lot lately.

Hold on. I'm out of rapport with you.

Segue. Segue.

I've been really working on this segue lately. But yeah, so a lot of Karens, right? We got this Karen apparent. Jokes. Yeah, Karen jokes, everything like that. What do you call a group of Karens?

What do you call a group of Karens?

Karen Essence. I have no idea.

Homeowners association.

Good one. Thank you so much for watching this clip of Service Drive Revolution. Now you can catch the full episode on YouTube, iTunes, or Spotify or wherever you consume your podcast. If you have any questions, go ahead and post them in the comments below. Make sure you subscribe and hit the bell icon so you're notified when we post new episodes. I'm Chris Collins, and you can find me on Facebook and Instagram at chrisbulldogcollins. And I'll see you again on the next episode.