Here’s part two of a conversation I recently had with expert Peter Daniel of ADC-Automotive Dealer Consulting about the importance of the Service Advisor, and key indicators to measure his/her performance.
In the first part of the interview, Peter and I talked about the key indicators for measuring service shop sales, and we went into detail regarding Hours per Repair Order.
Today we’ll discuss other indicators that can tell us if the Service Advisor is doing a good job…
ADC, a consultancy with offices in the U.S. and in Puerto Rico, provides consulting and training services to auto manufactures and dealers, focusing mainly on process and profit improvement for service, parts and body shops.
Peter Daniel: There are other factors that could be underlying or behind the scenes…
It can be an indicator that maybe there are process and procedures problems.
For example, maybe there are ten customers that show up at one time at 7:30 in the morning and there’s only one Advisor there. So you can imagine what would happen, the Advisor is more like an order taker than really being a Service Advisor or service consultant, as we like to call them sometimes.
So what would happen in that instance, the dealer would not be staffed correctly at the peak times of their business, so therefore the Service Advisor really can’t be at fault because he really has not been provided the process and procedure support to really do his job and do a correct sales presentation, consulting with the customer on their maintenance needs or their repair needs.
I think another factor when you look at Hours per Repair Order, if they are low, if they are under 2 hours per repair order, could be a lack of selling tools.
I think the two main tools any Advisor in any country needs to have is a printed maintenance schedule according to what the factory requirements are for severe service.
Besides that printed maintenance schedule they should also be using what’s called an inspection form, whether it is a 20 point, or 25 point, or 15 point general visual inspection that would be performed on every vehicle that comes in the shop free of charge for each customer.
And these two tools used by the Advisor, presenting the maintenance menu at time of write up and the technicians performing a visual inspection of these 20 items in the shop, give the customer a chance to buy, and this also informs the customer of the condition of the car, it gives the customer an opportunity to get it repaired while the vehicle is in the shop.
What we find is probably, and I hate to use numbers, but I’m going to say that probably nine out of ten dealers in the world do not have this combination of a correct printed maintenance schedule along with an inspection form.
Al McClymont: 90%, that’s a terribly high number.
Peter Daniel: You know, everybody I think in every position, as well as your company and ours, we all have a benchmark or job expectations, job requirements. So the Service Advisor certainly is the key issue and I think in numbers it is great to say 2 hours per repair order but I think every dealer has to look at the big picture.
(to be continued…)
Tags: ADC, Autologica, Peter Daniel, Al McClymont, DMS, dealer management systems, Autologica, Service Advisor, after-sales, auto dealer, auto dealers, car dealer, car dealers, motor vehicle dealer, motor vehicle dealers, automotive, auto industry, automotive industry, auto service, best practices
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