Shop Operations

Raising your labor rate and trying to increase your average ticket dollar amount in an effort to increase income may not be the way to financial stability. In fact, it might just make you fail! Before you send for the men in white coats and call me crazy, please have an open mind and read on.

When interviewing service advisors, always ask them to rate their “sales skills” on a scale of 1 to 10. If they’ve been in sales for more than two years, and they respond with anything less than an 8, something is wrong. Either they recognize that they don’t have what it takes, or they lack self-confidence.

How to break down the myths of customer service, get into customers’ heads, and figure out the best way to serve them and turn a problem customer into a customer for life.

When your service advisors recommend additional services that are outside of the customer’s original concern, and the customer initially declines those additional services, in most cases, your advisors should call the customer back at the appropriate time to re-offer the services.

We all know that people love choices, especially when they are making a purchasing decision. But when selling diagnostic services, you need to use an “assumptive close.” This means you just assume that the customer is going to authorize your recommendation.

A customer returns to your shop and is not happy. They tell you that you had replaced their alternator in the past, and it recently failed while they were out of town. Most shop owners and service advisors will then ask the customer why they were not contacted before the customer authorized the repair. Asking that question first is a mistake, because it will immediately put the customer on the defense and escalate their anger.

How many times during the day does a customer stop by or call, and ask to only speak with you, the shop owner? Do you know why? It’s because in general, the experience the customer has when dealing with the owner of a business is much different than when dealing with an employee.

As I look back over my 30-plus years in business, and reflect upon the things our company has done to grow and improve our business, a lot has changed as it relates to the movement (and obtainment) of information.

In the first three parts of this article series, we talked about the ways that you can use web technologies to enhance customer service, increase customer satisfaction, create satisfied repeat customers and improve your shop’s bottom line in the process. In this article, I want to talk specifically about the web technology everyone else is buzzing about – social media – and how it can change the world of advertising for local businesses like yours.

A few months ago, my mom passed away. She lived a long and fruitful life working hard as a single mother to ensure her three children had food on the table, a roof over their head and clothes on their back. Not an easy feat in the early 1960s in a small, western NY town. Looking back at my upbringing, I recall we didn’t have as much “stuff” as my friends in school, but one thing she always had for us was her time and love.

Ever wonder why a customer does not see the value in what you are recommending and declines the service or repair? Our sales approach, at times, assumes that the customer fully understands the reason for or benefits of a particular service or repair, when in reality, they may have no idea what we are speaking about.

A customer calls to tell you they discovered that they could have bought a part you sold them for less somewhere else. You can reduce those calls by doing a great car delivery that includes going over the repair order in detail, but when that call inevitably comes in, consider saying something like this …