Learn to Take Control as a Service Advisor

At the bottom you will find a transcript of today’s podcast on “Write Service and Write Your Own Paycheck: Take Control and Set Expectations”. It’s no secret that service advisors and service writers are directly in charge of their pay. The more they sell, the bigger their paycheck gets. In theory, it is that simple. If you are making less than 100k per year, you need to take charge of your situation. Learn how to take control and set expectations with our in person service advisor training. If your a service manager, get a free estimate on in person fixed ops training and your whole team will learn how to improve every touch the client experiences from initial sale through all follow-ups. Consistency will make the difference on return clients.

Automotive organizational leaders are constantly searching for the next competitive advantage. We all know that it’s the little things that add up to be what separates your dealership from the competition.

At the heart of any dealership’s success and sustainability are vehicle sales as well as closing on a high number of maintenance and repair service opportunities. If you are interested in growing repair and maintenance service sales, you’ve arrived at the perfect opportunity.

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Our team has over 30 years of experience in sales and onsite service advisor training and we are ready to help you greatly increase your overall profit margin.

Service Advisor Podcast Transcript:

Jeff Cowan:

Hello. Jeff Cowan here from Jeff Cowan’s Pro Talk. And I’m back with a new addition to my podcast entitled, Write Service, Write Your Own Paycheck, the path to making over $100,000 a year when writing service in the automotive industry, in the United States of America, Canada, and Australia. And you know, at this is very recording, just over 20% of you doing that job are doing just that, you’re making a $100,000 a year or more. But that means that nearly 80% of you are not. So what are we going to do about that? Well, I strongly encourage you to continue to watch and listen to my podcast. Go back and watch and listen to the old ones again. Go to my website, automotiveservicetraining.com. Automotiveservicetraining.com. And there you’ll find a whole bunch more videos. You’ll find blogs and articles and methods and processes. And in short, everything you need to become the absolute best you can be and get yourself in that club of making $100,000 a year or more.

Jeff Cowan:

Because quite frankly, if you’re not making $100,000 a year or more writing service, you’re doing something wrong. No fooling around here. I’ll tell you that. Now with this podcast today, let’s get into that. I’m going to continue on with the theme I’ve been using here recently, where I take your questions, you, the viewers, that you text, email me, call in with, and you ask me when I’m at live events and I’m going to take the most popular questions and answer them for you using a video clip from a live presentation. So today’s question is, “Jeff, you talk a lot about setting expectations. What’s the absolute best way to set expectations?”

Jeff Cowan:

Well, I’m going to answer that in this video and I can guarantee you it’s the absolute best. I created this method and I’ve never seen it fail. So if you really want to know the best way to set expectations, because that’s really the biggest secret to being a great service advisor, this clip will answer that. Now, after watching this clip, if you think you want to see the whole video, you can go to nadh.org. Nada.org, and you can find the whole video there. But for right now, let me answer that question. What’s the best way to set and manage expectations. If you’re an advisor, this clip answers that. Listen to it, watch it, enjoy it, and know that I’ll be back next week with another podcast. Until then, God bless you all and make it a great week. Take care.

Jeff Cowan:

… Any other way. Okay? But if you were to call around, some of you know I’ve been in business for 32 years. All right. So I started the business by doing walkarounds. So the first 15 years of my business, you couldn’t see my name anywhere, unless it said “walkaround” right beside it. Because at that point in time, nobody was doing walkarounds on service drives. So I built a business on that. So if you call people today and say, hey, what do you know about Cowan? Well, he’s the walk-around guy, right? Well, so most people think our whole process is based on the walk-around and it is a big part of it. I mean, we talk about it, but it’s never been the basis of our program. The basis of our program is simply this, take control, set the expectation, because if you set the expectation, you can manage that expectation, if you manage that expectation, you can exceed it every single time.

Jeff Cowan:

It’s important because it’s not a question whether or not there’s going to be expectations when these customers come in. The only question is, are we going to work off their expectations that you don’t know what they are, or are you going to tell them what to expect? So keep that in mind. The whole premise is setting expectations. Now I’ve got a question for you. Who in here has appointments and reservations that you offer on your service drives? Come on, raise your hands. How many people we have here. It’s what I thought. We got about 75%, 80% of you. Well, from this point forward, I’m going to make a big suggestion to you. And here’s what it is. I want you to stop offering appointments and reservations, and here’s why. Appointments and reservations, kill sales, appointments and reservations kill survey scores, appointments and reservations kill customer retention, effective labor rate, and morale.

Jeff Cowan:

I don’t know if we have any service managers in here, maybe a service advisor if we’re lucky, but let me ask you a question. When a customer sets up an appointment or reservation for nine o’clock and they bring their car in, what do they expect to have happened to their car at nine o’clock? It’s going to go in right now, right? Does that happen? So let’s think about this. Big moment right here. Here’s what you paid for. So I’ve only been working with this customer for three minutes, and now I got to tell them, no matter what I say, we were just kidding. Now you can stand there as polished as you want and say, “No the nine o’clock appointment was to talk to me, so I could ask you questions so I can determine…” “Well, that’s not what they told me on the phone.”

Jeff Cowan:

So think about this. We start out the whole transaction by backpedaling and in their mind lying, misleading, cheating. And we wonder why they won’t buy service from us? Okay? So appointments and reservations kill these things. Let me tell you why. Appointment and reservation have been defined by the general business community to mean right now. I make a hair appointment to get my hair cut because this just didn’t happen. Okay? Get my haircut at three o’clock. I show up at three o’clock and they sit me in the chair, which means right now. If I make a reservation to go to Ruth’s Chris tonight at seven o’clock, I show up at seven o’clock, they seat me in the chair at seven o’clock. It means right now.

Jeff Cowan:

So, that’s the problem with those words. So since they don’t work, what are we going to use? We’re going to use this, check-in time. Because check-in time has also been defined by the general business community. And it’s been defined to mean, you’re going to have to wait. For example, I might have a doctor’s appointment at 10 o’clock in the morning, but they want me there 10 minutes early to get checked in because after I get checked in, I’m going to what? Wait. What am I waiting for? My appointment? When I go to the airport to fly out of here tomorrow, they want me there two hours early to get checked in because after I get checked in, I’m going to?

Students:

Wait.

Jeff Cowan:

And what am I waiting for? My reservation? So check-in time means you’re going to have to wait. Now, when you start setting up check-in times, every time you talk to a customer, you have to explain what it means. Now, this is important. Because see about four or five…