industry expert / service
• "I don't have the time to review vehicle history and present menus."
• "The economy is bad here and our customers won't buy anything."
• "Our prices are too high versus the aftermarket."
• "Our vehicles don't need any maintenance other than oil changes."
• "I've known that customer for a long time, and he won't buy anything."
Sound familiar? Those excuses will automatically doom our mission to failure! You can't allow the advisor to make the decision for the customer by relying on these excuses. If they want a reliable vehicle, then of course they must maintain it properly rather than wait for a mechanical failure and then spend more money for the repair versus the maintenance. An advisor must advise and then let the customer decide.
Complete a Thorough Vehicle Health Check by Doing a 27-point Inspection Again, nothing new here, so why don't you ask your service manager to survey 100 customer-pay repair orders and check to see what percentage have a completed 27-point inspection attached? The only correct answer is 100 percent.
On those inspections with recommended repairs by the technician, what percentage of the customers said yes to completing the repair? If the customer's response wasn't yes, then did the advisor record "customer declined repair" (CDR) on the repair order? What you might find in many cases is there was no repair made, and there was no mention of CDR because the advisor never advised the customer of the technician's findings. What just happened to the safety factor?
When my trainers conduct shop meetings with technicians, they often get push-back from the techs on the inspection process like, "It's a waste of my time. Why should I inspect the vehi- cles when my service advisor won't sell
the work?" Mission aborted!
At this point, it should be obvious for one to imagine that if our advisors are prop- erly trained to follow these first three steps with each and every customer, every day, we can expect the following:
• Increased sales and gross, • Increased CSI, and • Higher owner retention.
Our mission has absolutely nothing to do with selling a customer something they don't need, don't want or can't afford. Our mission is to advise the customer on what is needed in order to drive away in a safe and reliable vehicle.
In my next article, I'll cover the four remaining steps to complete the mission; however, if you start holding everyone accountable for these first three steps, you will see some amazing results that just might make that bottom line look even better.
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