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I would argue it all day long that we are expecting our service advisors to put customers first.
We're putting technicians on the back burner.
We don't have enough service advisors in most shops to actually provide the level of customer
service that you want to be provided.
Today's guest is one that I've been looking forward to doing an episode with.
Rena Rena-Bom is somebody that I've followed for a while and really always impressed by
her content and her style in the way she goes about things and really excited to have a fun
conversation with you today. How are you doing today, Rena?
I am wonderful. Thank you. And I am so honored. You've never told me those things.
So I feel a little blushy over here.
Well, I think it's something where you can tell when somebody's really a natural for
the role that they've been given in life and I feel like you are that, right?
You're meant to do this. And it's really cool because I think what you're meant to do is something
that is really, really helpful to our industry as a whole and oftentimes is an underserved part
of our industry, which is that service advisor role and really being able to
do a lot with the training side of it and making sure that we're getting folks up to
speed. So with that, I should probably start with, tell us a little bit about what you do.
Yeah. Well, thank you. So we do service advisor coaching and we do it in a very similar capacity
as the owner coaching platform. So if a shop owner meets with their coach,
they generally meet with them one-on-one and then maybe have the occasional group meeting.
And I found that when I very first started doing this, being a service advisor trainer,
I would teach classes and people would get really excited about the class. They would leave,
they would be pumped. Then I would talk to them in like 30, 60, 90 days and they would say,
you know, there was a few things I really wanted to implement that you have gone over,
but I actually forgot about them now. I forgot what they were. And so what I started doing is I
started coaching people because they really do want to implement the things that they're learning.
It's just they get back to the shop and you're back into the race and it's really hard to
remember what you wanted to implement. And then if you're a one-man show,
so we generally start by sending our low man on the totem pole into training or coaching.
And then we want them to be the one that makes the changes at the shop.
And that doesn't really work very well. So we started working with people one-on-one
and we started working with them every single week. And when we start with a shop, we
actually very rarely ever start with like your brand new person. We're gonna start with your manager,
we're gonna start with your leads and we're gonna teach them the way that we want things done at
the shop or the way that the shop wants things done. And then you'll see it slowly,
well actually quicker, but slowly trickle down to the low man on the totem pole instead
of trying to get this guy to make the changes up here. Does that make sense?
It totally does. And I think it's such a brilliant way of looking at it because
if you don't get that buy-in from the top or you don't get those best practices that are
actually being practiced at the top, it's gonna be hard for a newer person to really embrace that
or even feel safe enough to do some of the things that are being taught.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so.
Oh, sorry, go ahead, Rena.
Well, I was just gonna tell you more about our program because that's not it.
All right.
So over the last couple years, our service advisors have said to us numerous times,
we want more technical training. And so when I was writing service, our customers didn't have
a super computer in their hand where they could Google how much is a water pump on my car
and get a number in their hand, right? So the advisors have been asking for more technical
and I'll tell you, I pushed against it and against it and against it. And then we started
a technical training program. So one of our coaches was a master certified technician.
And so he has put together a 16-week program where we put advisors in it once a month
and they sit and they listen to how things work, like what are the numbers on the side
of the tires and why would you want to know that? How do breaks work? How does your suspension work?
So we do that. That isn't something that's required. That's an optional program that
people can opt into. And then we do a once a month peer group. And the peer groups are
once a month we meet with maybe 10 to 15 service advisors and we talk about hot topics.
So this month, our topic is building more value. And it's just about the really,
really basics. Like, do you know your customer's name and are you using their name?
Are you calling your customer to check in and tell them what's going on with their car,
even if there's nothing going on with their car? And then we also then we report back to
the shop owner every week and let them know what we did. So that kind of wraps our program
up into a pretty little bow. You meet with us once a week, a monthly peer group meeting.
And we spend a lot of time. So I'll tell you that you're not asking me, but we have a lot of
people say, well, your program is more expensive. At the end of the day, we're not. We are actually
probably the least expensive for what we provide. Oh, I'm sure there are a lot of people listening
right now. And as even the part where you're talking about the technical side
of service writing, so often, I think we put people out there on an island and you see so often
where maybe we hire somebody that doesn't have industry background, but has good people skills
or whatever it might be. And it can be kind of a eerie feeling to be on that island and not
fully confident on what you're trying to sell or what you're talking about. And
you know, I think that does lead to some of the service advisor turnover. We'll talk about
that as we go through the podcast and we'll talk a lot about everything service advising in the show.
So I'm excited about that. But I do want to talk about your origin story and what got you into
this industry in the first place because I do love hearing about people's stories and you've
got a pretty cool one. Thank you. Yeah. Well, so growing up, my dad had a wrecking yard. And
so summer vacations, I spent in the back office of my dad's wrecking yard. And so I learned about
cars really young age. And then my dad would take the cars on the semi to the scrap mill.
We did that. We went on in the tow trucks to pick up cars that were going to be in the
wrecking yard. I feel like it just it was never like I wasn't young and going,
I want to be a service advisor. Like that wasn't my dream. It's just what I learned about. And
I really always liked people. And I enjoyed like you like I enjoy, I really actually enjoy people.
I enjoy their stories. I enjoy having conversations with them. I enjoy helping them.
So then I went away to school. And again, not really sure exactly what I wanted to do
when I came back, I ended up working at a repair shop in their accounts payable receivable.
And I never took the job actually the day that I started, they said, Hey, our service advisor,
just I think quit or was fired on I don't remember. So I sat in that chair and I never
left. So I worked as a service advisor for 12 years. And I was really fortunate that
when I first started as an advisor, the shop that I worked at was a huge proponent of
training. They sent me to training. And then that training company reached out to me about
10 years later and said, we've been following your career. And we want you to come on board with us.
So I did that. But then I quickly realized that I wanted to do it different because like I said,
I just training is great. I do classes still. But to me coaching is that's where it's at.
So I decided to open up a coaching company. How when you make that decision, how hard is
that decision? Is it something where you had I guess I go back to my own experience, right?
And starting a company, it is an intimidating thing. There's so much uncertainty. There's no
guarantees. And it is a little less safe than maybe what we've grown up with or we're
accustomed to. How was that decision making process in your head as far as, hey, I'm going
to make this leap and I'm going to do this? Well, I am very lucky because my husband is
very supportive and he encouraged me. And I think coming from a family of self-employed
people that it just, I don't, I guess it's, is it in your blood? I don't know if it is,
it's in mine. And so I think that just the encouragement, it was crazy because
my friends, we sat around for many Friday nights talking about what's the name of the company going
to be? What are the colors going to be? It was like my whole group of friends helped with it.
They didn't, you know, come to work with me every day, but they helped me pick
everything out. And so I feel like I was just encouraged by the people that I surrounded
myself with. Yeah. And I, similar to me in that you take a lot of pride in that upfront, right?
And kind of that brand is going to be something you're going to live behind for a long time. So
you want to be intentional about it. But then also same thing here where I was lucky to have
my family own a shop. And I think you're, you're exposed to some of the challenges up front.
And I would say starting a business is very, very difficult. Anybody that's ever done that,
I give them all the credit in the world because there are so many challenges and so many things
you can read about in a book, but until you actually go through it, it's hard to describe to
somebody. So I do think there's that element of, you know, there's going to be challenges.
You know that there are going to be roadblocks in front of you, but you still make that
push. And it's not an easy thing to make that call. But when you do, you kind of go all in and
pretty cool to hear maybe you had some similar experiences to me and just getting it off the
ground. Yeah. Having a good support system. And I'll tell you, I think that now AI helps people
so much because you can say I'm opening up a business in X-State and what are the steps
that I need to take? Because I had to move my business from Washington to California,
which was not easy because I think most people are moving their companies out of California.
So people in California were like, wait, what? You're starting a business here?
Okay. So it was complicated, but I did get like AI was very helpful in identifying the steps that
I needed to take. And then it's just, it's all about the right people. It's just finding the
people that want to help you that you can trust to make good decisions for you or at least
lead you in the right direction. So for me, it's all about the people that I work with. I work with
even the coaches that work with me, they all own shops or have owned shops or run shops. So
to some degree, they all are my mentors. And I'm so lucky to have this group of people that I
work with that help me grow the company even when I don't want to. That pushed me to do
things even when I'm like, I don't want to do that. It's change. But I just, I have grown these
amazing people. I have just found that these amazing people and we've found each other. So
they say one of the guys that I work with says, good people find good people.
That is, that's a great, it's great to hear that. I think that is one of those things,
again, until you're in business for yourself, or even if you're leading a team of people
in general, that it goes across whatever industry you're in, right? It's the people. And
I think sometimes it gets lost in corporate speak at times where, you know, I've worked at companies
in the past where they say it's all about the people. I kind of, I don't think you really
think that, but it really is. And I think the more quality people you have, and that doesn't
matter if you're running a business like you are or a shop or whatever it is, good people make a
gigantic difference. And if you have a team of go-getters and people that, as you mentioned,
push you to kind of take it to the next level, that is invaluable. That is really,
really, truly invaluable. It is.
How much do technicians really make? At Wrenchway, we work with some of the best shops and dealerships
across the country. And we've discovered that technicians often earn more than what some
online sources suggest. For example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that technicians make
an average of $47,000 per year. But we know that's not reflective of the true earning potential of
technicians. We've teamed up with ASC to create an online technician pay tool, a free, easy to use
resource for both aspiring technicians and those already in the automotive and diesel industries.
This tool lets you explore real pay data with customizable searches by industry,
shop type, location, and experience level. Check it out at wrenchway.com pay or follow the link in
the show notes. We also encourage current technicians to anonymously submit their own pay data to help
make the tool even better for everyone. Lastly, thank you for your continued support as we work to
promote and improve careers in automotive and diesel. We couldn't do it without you.
Talk about why we're here today. It's the service advisors. And when we talk, I think that's a
really good segue for good people. Oftentimes, I don't know that the industry as a whole
gives service advisors the respect that they deserve. I've talked a lot about this in past
episodes and different types of content that we've done. But a good service advisor has such an
impact on a shop. They touch almost every element of the business, including customers,
technicians, managers, ownership, whoever it is, they're having conversations and relationships
with everybody. Yet oftentimes, they kind of get left in the shadows. Even at times,
they're the face of the company still get left in the shadows. Why do you think that is?
Well, I don't know why. I think here's another person that service advisors touch
is our suppliers. And we want to have good relationships with all of these people. Maybe
it's because shop owners feel like the job is easy. Maybe it's because we have automated a lot of what
service advisors do. At least that's what all of these subscriptions and different software that we
have is it's meant to help make advisors jobs easier. But I don't see that. I see that advisors
jobs are getting harder because we have so much technology. Somebody has to manage that technology.
And so maybe that's what it is, is that we have identified the, we put a lot of resources
towards advisors. And so we think that it makes their jobs easier. What do you think?
I agree. I think I kind of go back to my time growing up in a shop and starting off
as a technician. And I think at times, there wasn't the respect level from a technician standpoint
for a service advisor because you look through the window and they're sitting there on their
computer and the air conditioning. And at the time, our own family shop didn't have air
conditioning. That's changed today. But you're working your tail off and banging
your hands up and doing stuff that hurts. And then you look in and they're having
conversations and look like they're not doing much. What you find out later in life is how
stressful that job is and how much goes into it and how many conversations are pulling you
different directions. And so to the point to where in my own experience in running shops,
I have started to, even as part of our onboarding process, have technicians spend time
with the front counter people because I want them to understand how difficult that job
is up front. And I think that technician service advisor relationship is so important yet we don't
give it a whole lot of time. So really trying to showcase how talented a good service advisor is
really important to getting them the respect that they need.
Well, and then also, not that I want to defend a technician, but I have worked with
plenty of technicians that have had a handful of bad service advisors, right? Like the service
advisor actually never presented. So they would do their inspections, give them to the advisor,
and then the advisor makes the decision of what work is going to be sold and what isn't,
if they want to put in the effort or if they don't. And so sometimes the technicians are
just burnt out because here they are doing their inspection. And if they don't do their
inspection, we throw it back at them and go, you know, this isn't done, you penciled with this,
but what are the checks and balances to make sure that the advisor isn't pencil whipping
their inspections? They're part of the inspection. So that's a great question. Yeah, absolutely.
Well, and look, we do, right? We have KPIs that will keep performance indicators that
will monitor both the advisor and the technician, right? So we can look at the advisor and we
can see what their average ticket is, you know, average labor sales, what their car count is.
There are KPIs that we can focus on for them. And, you know, we can look at close ratio, which
this to me, I think that close ratio is a good number to glance at. But I have so many
shop owners that call me that say, oh, our closed ratio, our closed ratio. And it's like,
okay, we can manipulate this number so easily that I do not want to focus on this. I would
rather focus on gross profit dollars. I would rather focus on average ticket. I don't want to focus on
close ratio. Again, it's a good number to go. Okay, what is it? Okay, cool. But what but
close ratio doesn't pay the bills. So I hear shops tell me, oh, we have a 70% close ratio.
Cool. What are you presenting? You know, are you presenting everything? Because most likely,
if you have 70% close ratio, your advisors are not presenting everything.
And vice versa, right? If you look at if they're only closing 25%, they might be presenting too
much, right? Or there is, I totally agree with you. And you're the first person I think that
I've heard explain it that way. And I couldn't agree more that I think it's a little bit
of an overrated number. I do think it is one of those numbers where even from my standpoint,
I will glance at and if it's kind of in the same ballpark that it normally is,
I'm pretty okay with it. If it spikes up or down either way, I think that makes me ask
more questions of what's going on. But yeah, I don't, for me personally,
put a whole lot of thought into that one unless something's wildly off.
Yeah. Like I said, I think it's something good for us to be aware of, but I just don't think it
should be, it's not in my top five. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think that there are so many other
important factors. You know, I was thinking before you and I talked this morning, I was like,
you know, I feel like I'm going to say some controversial things because I do have,
I feel like some controversial opinions on some things. And one of those is that I feel
like one of the, and maybe it's always been like this, but I feel like we don't actually
give the technicians our number one priority spot. You know, we do a lot of customer service
training for our external customers, but we don't do maybe any training for our internal
customers. And so I think that maybe there will be a better and bigger appreciation
for a service advisor if they make their technician their number one priority.
That is a little bit of a hot take. And I think you're right. I think
if we ignore that relationship or don't put any time and effort into it, which is very common
in our industry, you kind of let that organically go whatever direction it's going to go. And a
lot of times, maybe they're not speaking the same language or they're not seeing through
the same lens and not fully understanding that they're on the same team. And that relationship
from a service advisor standpoint, and I know I've had a lot of conversations with them as
well about this where, and not just our own family shop, but shops where I'm talking with
just the ownership group or a service manager. And you know, I think the soft skills of a
service advisor often times are it's maybe easier to work on that than it is the technician side
in not saying anything against technicians. But having a service advisor fully understand
and comprehend how important those relationships are and the fact that they
do take a little bit of work is I think an excellent point. I don't think it's controversial law. I
think that is really, really important that you get that down. Otherwise, it's really hard to
extend that good customer service to the customer if you have your own internal rift.
Yes. Well, I think where it gets controversial is if you were to tell a service advisor
without any context, we need to make our technicians our number one. How do they
implement that without the customer feeling like they are number two? Because we never want the
customer to feel like that they are number two. So I had a shop that what was happening is that
they were getting busier and busier. Their shop was growing, but their technician productivity
was dropping. So we stood back and we gave ourselves a full view of what is actually going on.
And the service advisors, they were working so hard, so hard. The phones were ringing and
customers were coming in, but then we had a technician that would walk up that would say,
hey, I need something. Yeah, I'll be out there. And we backburnered them and we slowly saw the
productivity in the shop just go lower and lower and lower. And then the technicians got to the
point where they were like, yeah, look, they're busy. They're going to be on the phone. They're
not going to answer. They're with the customer. They just knew that the advisors weren't going
to put them first. And so I feel like they just kind of started to slack a little bit.
So we decided to shift the shop's priority and the priority was going to become the technician.
So when a technician walked up and they were in front of a customer, they would say,
is it okay if I check in with the technician really quick? I want to get your car in as
soon as possible. And so the sooner I get him moving, the sooner I get you moving.
So you let the customer know it's in their best interest for me to. And again,
you know that there's going to be, because I hear this a lot, there's going to be that
technician that's like, hey, next week I need to take Friday off.
Cool. That is something that you can write right here. And I can get back to you later.
So you do have to have a system to figure out what is priority for them. Because that might
be priority for them right then. But I'm with a customer. So it's going to take a little bit of
understanding and training between the two, like the office and the shop to say, yes,
you are my priority. And it has to be like, you cannot continue working on a car until
you talk to me, for me to be one. Boy, that is, there's so much good to pull out of what you
just said there, because I think all of us have seen this in a shop where
that technician is waiting around for something. And I think there's data to prove that when you get
off task, how long it takes you to get back on task. And so if you're waiting around to get
that part that you don't know where it's at, or if you're waiting around for them to get off
the phone, the service advisor to get off the phone, it can be that roadblock to productivity
in a well functioning shop because there are just roadblocks everywhere when you start looking at it
through that lens. That is such a good point. Well, that shop has significantly increased
their productivity. And what ended up happening is their total sales went up because of it.
People bought more because of it. Like it actually really works. But you have to make
sure that it's implemented with care. So it's interesting to think like a customer calls and
they're like, yeah, how much for breaks? And if I have a car that I need to actually make a sale on,
that takes priority over somebody coming in the door. But we cannot make that customer feel
that that's on the phone. And so it's a balance and it takes a while to perfect it,
but it can be done. And this shop that I'm talking about, they have three advisors and they have four
technicians. And their shop also, their average ticket is over $1,200. And they're not in a high
end area. They are kind of in a little bit of an armpit. And the shops around them do not do
what they do. And so it is 100% that they have created this her seizure in their shop that puts
the technicians first, but without anybody else feeling that. And it has, you know,
and they do have a lot of staff. You know, some people might say that they're even front end
heavy, but I would argue it all day long that we are expecting our service advisors to put customers
first. We're putting technicians on the back burner. We just, we don't have enough service
advisors in most shops to actually provide the level of customer service that you want to be
provided. You work with a lot of shops. If you were to put a percentage on the amount of shops that
are understaffed up front, would you have a number that comes to mind? 50%
Maybe more. And I also think that, and I understand being a small business owner thinking,
okay, this is going to be a whole nother mouth that we have to feed. But so far at all of our
shops that have added those additional customer service people, they have paid for themselves.
Stuff doesn't get dropped as much. There's, you know, the consistency. I do think that's
where process falls apart a lot of times too, right? If you're understaffed and you go and
say, you have a game plan of how you're going to attack your day, and then inevitably you have
all of these other things come up, you're whatever game plan you had going into it can kind of go
to the side. And even for those people that really, really are intentional about process and making
sure that they're following the process is, if it's just a rapid fire throughout the entire
day, every day, it's really hard to do those little things well.
Yeah. Well, I don't think you can do the little things, right? The little things. So
it's like, and it's the little things that make the experience so wonderful for the customer
and for your technicians. And so I think that what we're doing is, is we are removing the
ability for the advisors to do the little things because we think that we've automated them.
And it's just, you know, I did a podcast a couple months ago that I was saying, hey,
let's just go back to basics as far as sales goes, because we are, we have been sold this bill
of goods that is, you're going to send the inspection and the estimate to the customer,
and they're just going to make the decision to buy everything. And then you guys just get
to do the work. That isn't true. It's just not true. There will be some customers that are like,
yeah, sure, let's do it. But there is enough people that need that actual human interaction to
make their decision that they won't buy from you. And you know, when I work at shops,
not that I do this with every shop, but I have interviewed a lot of technicians,
because I want to know what they need from us. You know, I work with the person that is providing
you every day with what you need. So what do you want us to work on? Communication is the
number one thing that they ask for. And you know, it's interesting because the advisors will be
like, well, you know, so and so so grumpy, I don't want to go out there and talk to them.
Well, they're probably grumpy because you're not out there talking to them.
So I find it to be everybody. It's the internal customer and the external customer want more
of the advisor. So we have automated a lot of things, which is great and helpful,
but they still need that human. The technician still needs the human to make a decision and
the customer still needs that same one to make a decision as well. So I feel like advisors
feel like advisors are spread really thin because they have so many people that they need to
give guidance and reassurance and information to.
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Just going to throw some ideas out there and see if you've heard of ideas like this or
just maybe talk through them because it came to mind. Do you feel like at times maybe dispatch
of work is a barrier because you've thrown in the business system, there's a time slot there,
and you just kind of let it go? Is there an opportunity to maybe have a full-time dispatch
or maybe even that moves to a shop form and roll where you've got somebody that's dispatching
work to maybe take some of that shop or the office to technician relationship,
maybe a little pressure off of that? Yes, 100%. One of the shops that I work with,
they have this really cool position where they are kind of the foreman for the customer and
they're the foreman for the technician. And so before the customer arrives, this person calls them
and says, hi, I see that we have you scheduled for this and this on this day. What else are we
going to be taking care of for you? I see that you're approximately at this mileage. I went
ahead and looked at what the mileage-based services that are due on your vehicle, what
those are. And so that person does a significant amount of pre-selling and they really
understand the car. Then when the technician now has the car, this advisor has,
they know their technicians. So I have a interview that it's just a document that I created called
the technician interview. And you ask your technician, what do you like working on?
What do you hate working on? What do you want more skill to do? What services slow you down?
Which ones can you get done really fast? What style of communication do you prefer?
And you ask all of these questions. I know there's other ones on there. And I also let my technician
know just because, you know, however you answer this doesn't mean that you're only going to get
to work on the XYZ cars to do XYZ services. But what it means is that I'm going to try to
tailor your schedule to what you like and what you're good at. And it will make the shop
more efficient and productive because I'm doing that. And I think it lets the technicians know
how much we care about them because we really are trying to make it work for what their skill
levels are and what they like. And so like, let's just say that you told me that you hated
working on, you know, cooling systems on BMWs. And this is what I have. And I know you know how
to do it. You just don't like it. So I dispatch this car to you. And I say, Jane, I know that
this is not what you want. And I really put that to consideration. But I need you to take one for
the team for me today. And it is such a different type of like, instead of just saying, okay,
here's your car, here's your car, here's your car, like knowing what you want and what
you don't want and recognizing it. And I think it's kind of like when, because I'm trying to sell
the work to you, right, you, the technician, I want you to buy this job for me. I do the same
thing with customers, right? So when you drop off your car in the morning, I say, Jay, I know you
said that you wanted to keep this car for life. So I kept that in mind. And this is what we
found on your vehicle today. So it's I'm treating them the same. I'm letting you know that I
know what your preferences are, what your needs are, what you want from me. And
I feel like I get a better sale because of it.
I absolutely love that. I think that is such a that the interview part with the technician,
it really kind of sets the stage for more conversations moving forward as well. And if
you're doing those weekly one on ones or daily standup meetings to be able to positively
communicate with them and proactively communicate with them. So if you are giving them that job,
that is probably against their will that you have that nice little message to say,
thank you for helping me out here. We're in a bind and I just need your help.
And I think it's an interesting dynamic because of so many shops that are struggling
for good technicians as well, it's another retention mechanism, right? You're actually
building that relationship with them. You're showing that you care, you're showing that you're
listening to them. And regardless of size of shop, you're going to have times where that
person's going to have to work on something they don't necessarily necessarily love.
But if you can communicate with them, that sets the stage for communication and being able to
do it in a proactive fashion where it isn't just constantly shoving work they don't love
down their throat. Yeah. I think that your customers, they say things like, you have to
go to this place. They did such a great job with my car. It was done on time. They just,
they took care of me. And I think that happens also in the technician world where they say,
man, I work at the shop. You should go and you should see if you can get a job here
because they treat us so well. And a lot of it does, right? A lot of it, it has to do with the
service advisor and how well the service advisor treats you and your relationship with the
service advisor and feeling like you don't have to sit and wait. I think about how frustrating it
must be for the service advisor. We rely on each other a lot, right? The service advisor
and the technician, we rely on each other. The technicians rely on us to make sure that we
are writing up a good story. So when the customer comes in, it doesn't say check breaks, right?
There's actually like a good story that says, hey, the customer is feeling a wobbling when
they're at 30 miles per hour pressing on the brake pedal. So now when the technician
goes and looks at the brakes and is like, yeah, there's like 60% brake life remaining
and they come to the door to tell me that and I'm on the phone and I'm like,
I don't know about you, but only that's going to happen so many times that
I'm going to get frustrated. I'm going to start to get frustrated with my work.
I'm not going to feel valued. Then I'm going to start looking for that place that,
you know, I heard about my technician friends talking about that like.
Oh my goodness. You talk about turnover and one of the things that's very concerning to me
about our industry is service advisor turnover, right? And how often we're basically chewing
up and spitting out our service advisors and it's hard for any shop to, if that's a revolving
door position for that person to gain relationships with the technicians, gain
relationships with the service manager and with the customers. And, you know,
as you're talking through this, you just look at opportunities to clean things up from their end
so that it isn't just mass chaos all the time. And I just, I get the sense that
that we don't talk enough about that position, the complications in that position and the little
things like, remember a boss that I had early in my career was always talking about communicating
without talking and you were just talking through a few examples of that where you can take away
a lot of frustration just by cleaning stuff up. So what I'm hearing is that and what I'm seeing
is that we don't have enough processes and policies for anybody's role. And I think
everyone knowing what is expected of each other helps really clarify things.
So, you know what I've seen a lot recently, which I think this is, I would like your opinion on this.
So I hear a lot of advisors when I'm auditing their repair orders going, well, the technician wrote
that. So, you know, and I'm like, the technician writes a repair order now, like, well, maybe
that's why people are like, what do service advisors do if technicians are like,
they're writing your repair orders? Well, wow, that blows my mind. And I got to say, so like, wait,
are we holding them responsible for the car and for the technician and for the repair order?
It is so true. And I think you're right. I think a lot of shops rely on the technician
for the write ups. And, you know, even in our own case, the technicians will do kind of the
rough write up and then service advisor will clean it up and clean up everything that
is going to be presented to a customer. And there is a gap, even with us, right? Where,
and I say even with us, like, we don't have any problems. We've always got problems and
we're always trying to fix things. But there are things like properly communicating that problem
upfront to a technician where a lot of advisors don't ask the questions that need to be asked
upfront. And then there's frustration from the technician and not getting the full write up.
And maybe that grows even more tension within the technician's life. And so
it is a very interesting thing to me that we're trying to get the technicians to communicate
what they're seeing and, you know, really the general condition of a vehicle
to give the advisor the right tools or the right knowledge to be able to confidently
go to the customer and say, here's what we saw. Here's what's wrong with your vehicle.
And yeah, that's an interesting way to pose that question because it is a lot of
pressure on a technician to write up the repair order. But then at the same time, you kind of
run into that same problem we just talked about where if you're understaffed upfront
and the phone's ringing constantly and I don't know about you, but for me, if I'm having to
sit and concentrate and write something up and the phone's going wild at the same time,
yeah. The chances that I'm going to put my full effort into that repair order to send off are
probably limited. So it's such an interesting thing that you're talking about here because I
don't know that I've got the perfect answer for that. And I don't have the perfect answer either.
And a lot of the time, I think it depends on your team, you know. So if you have a technician
that is really articulate, which I have worked with really super articulate technicians,
they're going to be able to put it into words that I am not capable of. But now we have AI that
can help advisors with it. So ultimately, I think that the best policy is that we hold the technician
responsible for the final product of the vehicle and we hold the advisors responsible for the
final product of the inspection and the repair order or the final invoice. So I don't want
my technicians checking grammar and punctuation. You don't have time to do that. Let me do that for
you. And you're right, I got to say, like I was thinking as you were like, you know, the phone
ringing, can you imagine if your phone was ringing and my phone was ringing right now?
Like all of our stuff is on do not disturb. And if it wasn't, I guarantee you when you get back
from this, I get back from this, we are going to have missed calls, text messages, all of the
things. But if we were distracted during this time, it would be so hard to get through it.
So I have empathy because I know that advisors have to juggle that they have to juggle the,
you know, the technicians needing them, the phones needing them, apart suppliers needing them,
all of the things. And I think that the solution that a lot of shops have found,
which I'm not a big fan of is CSRs, the customer retention CS customer service representative.
And, you know, you have this generally unskilled person that is now in charge of the lifeline
of your shop. And I find that to be a little bit scary, which I know that that's not what we're
here to talk about today, but that's where my head goes. It's interesting.
We've tried to resolve this problem by hiring unskilled people to, you know, like
bring in our customers for us, which is like the hardest thing really that service advisors do.
This is, this has my mind going in so many different directions right now.
And I do want to ask about phone skills, right? We talked about maybe shops relying on text message
selling, you know, especially with software, the business software now that will automate a lot
of that for you. Do you get the sense that we're relying too much on that text message and
not picking up the phone enough? Well, no, I don't. I feel like people aren't even utilizing the text
message when they could be. Yes, I do. I feel like a lot of the time I see the biggest problem
still is lack of communication. So it really blows my mind when I see, like, you know,
I listen to recorded phone calls, like a lot of my day. And the most common phone call that
any repair shop in the country gets is, Hi, I dropped my car off this morning and I'm calling
to see what's going on with it. The number one call. And we aren't communicating with our customers.
We aren't saying, Hey, let me call you at 11 o'clock. Probably not going to know what's going
on with your car at 11. Or is it okay if I text you? And so you could send an initial text
message between 10 and 11 saying, Hi, Jay, this is Rena calling. This is Rena with Rena's auto repair.
Your vehicle is still in line. Nothing has changed as far as what we promised as,
you know, like the testing fees. We're just waiting for your technician to become
available, like something along those lines. I would make that sound a little tighter than
what I just did. And then you, the customer are a little bit relaxed because you're like,
okay, nothing has changed. They're not charging them more money. I'm going to hear from them again
by two o'clock. So unfortunately, I think that we don't utilize our technology enough.
I think that's an excellent point. And I almost go back to what you were saying with that,
the shop that you were working with that had that kind of hybrid position
between customers and technicians where you might be able to be a little bit more proactive
if you had a position like that, that, you know, part of their time might, is that proactive
communication with a customer? And, you know, when you look at it that way, even what you
mentioned about them having the ability to have that almost pre-call and try to get
everything lined up. And if some of those services that you're going to recommend anyway
are sold even before the car comes into the shop, you have a better idea for workflow for the day
because, hey, now instead of an hour, it's going to be here for three hours and it's not going
to disrupt the rest of our day because of recommended scheduled services. And, you know,
it just, oh man, you really got me thinking there because I think that's such an important piece.
And if you don't have the ability to add somebody like that, how can you automate
some of those pieces so that they are communicating without bugging the customer,
right? Like you're actually getting things that are helpful to that customer in a way that,
you know, just helps them, helps almost prevent them from making that phone call and making even
more work for you instead of just actually having those impactful phone calls. Well,
I think it's during the initial appointment, it's authorizing us to send a text message later.
So if you called my shop and made an appointment, or let's just say you made an
appointment online, I always call to confirm always. So I would call you and I would say,
hi, Jay, this is Rena, Rena's auto repair. I'm confirming that we have you scheduled for
Wednesday at 8am to drop off for an oil service. If it's okay, I'm going to send you a text message
later with some possible additional needs or just checking in to see if you need anything else.
You know, I think you can text people with their authorization. I also feel like so if I
am selling now, I'm not going to have to sell as much later. So I am just kind of shifting my
workload. I'm front loading a lot of the time upfront with the customer instead of in the
back end. And I did this really interesting study. I wanted to see like why our top shops
were our top shops. And top shop to me means not total sales, but like gross profit sales,
gross profit and sales and its reviews. So why are some of my shops have the highest average
ticket have great reviews? The number one pattern thing that I saw was that upfront we spent
more time with the customer. So our appointment calls are over five minutes. And look, like when
I was being trained by a coaching company, they said, if you're on the phone for more than two
minutes during the appointment call, you've gone too long. And I actually disagree with that
wholeheartedly because I am spending a lot of time upfront with the customer. I'm building
the relationship. I am adjusting their expectations. So if you call and make
an appointment for an oil change, and then you get there and I call you and there's like a huge
list of things that you need, your brain like you just weren't set up for that. And so you're
going to say, look, I can't do that stuff today. But if I have a phone call with you ahead of time
and talk about our digital inspection, I talk about the mileage that you're at, I am going
to be able to and you know, the thing is, is let's just say that you end up doing
none of that stuff. You don't do any of the factory maintenance because we end up finding
a safety issue. We found a coolant leak, but you were set up mentally to have your car there for the
day. I'm going to have a better chance of selling it. Yeah. And as somebody that was on the
receiving end of some of that advice of try to get off the phone as quick as possible,
I'm not good at that one. I like talking to people and I do think there's been so much value over the
course of my career in having those, you know, longer conversations or when you say long, like
five minutes can be long. And, you know, really truly gives you some time to build that relationship
a little bit if the customer is willing and maybe helps build some of that trust that, you
know, why are you doing this inspection? Why are you doing this stuff? Well,
we're doing it to protect you, right? Or we're doing it to make sure that your
family is safe and just more opportunity to build that trust for a long-term relationship
rather than just having everything be so transactional. I just love your take there on that.
Good. Yeah, me too. I see it working. You know, it's like it's math, right? So,
I'm going to spend more time with you up front. I'm going to sell more. My average
ticket's going to go up. I need to bring in less cars a day. I get to spend more time with each
person because I am bringing in less cars a day. Like it literally, it works out that way.
So, if your shop is the shop that is spending all of this time, money, and effort
implementing digital inspections and doing all these fancy, wonderful things for customers,
but then your customer is leaving after an hour or an hour and a half worth of work,
what is missing? There's something missing. The shop is putting in at least the technology,
but then why aren't we, because I promise with that stuff, you will sell more, right? When you
implement the inspections, customers love them. They love the proof. They love the proof is
in the pudding, right? Or the proof is in the pictures. So, people will buy more from you.
And so, I just, I found that that's our disconnect is it's the advisor isn't
connecting with the customer enough. And like you said, it's probably they don't have time,
right? Like they're too busy fighting fires everywhere. So, we have to slow the shop down
and get us to focus on each task with a little bit more care.
That is great advice. And believe it or not, we're getting close to being at the end of the podcast.
This has gone so fast. I feel like I'm just at the tip of the iceberg here in questions that I have.
But we do, we just introduced kind of a new fun part of the segment where I've got three
rapid fire questions for you that are very random, but also kind of related to things
that we're talking about. The first would be if you weren't doing this job, what would you be doing?
I would want to be a personal assistant. Really? Yes. Like I love organizing things. I love
like kind of, you know, like being the conduit, which I think that's kind of like an advisor,
right? They are like the personal assistant for the car while it's in. And so, I think
that I would, that's what I would want to do. That's a great answer. I absolutely love that.
You kind of answered this before, but what was your first job?
My first job actually was a barista. And so, for those that don't know what a barista is,
like I grew up in Seattle. And so, the barista is your coffee person. And so, that was my very
first job, which, by the way, is fantastic for customer service because I worked the
430 AM shift and I had to learn, does this person want to talk to me? Does this person
not want to talk to me? What did these people need from me? So, it was perfect customer service
training. One of my last trips to Seattle, I met somebody for coffee, kind of just an industry
friend of mine. And the coffee scene out there is very underrated. I went out and I'm like,
they drink a lot of coffee out here and there are so many spots to get good coffee. I had always
heard about it, but until you get into that environment, you don't know how much passion
goes into the coffee out there. It's true. Yeah. My last question is, what time do you get up in
the morning? Well, it fluctuates, but I would say probably 530, no later than 6.
No later than 6. That's a good thing. Good to get rolling right away in the morning. We talked about
your routine and maybe the power of an early workout and kind of just having that routine.
It's funny because I asked that question. I'm the same as you. It's a little bit
dependent if I'm traveling. I'm terrible when I'm traveling of a different sleep schedule altogether.
Sometimes you get a flight that doesn't come in until like 2 a.m. or something like that,
and I have to get probably six hours of sleep. So, it really kind of changes
based on if I'm traveling or not. But one of those things that I want to,
I think I say this every year, want to get better at a strict routine,
I'm not the best at it. I'm very routine. So, I can see that.
I definitely, and you know, when you juggle a lot, like I have two small businesses,
I have to be very routine with everything. I think my friends get annoyed with my routine
because part of my routine is like I eat dinner a lot of the time by 5 o'clock.
And so, when people want to go out to dinner with us and they're like,
oh, you want to meet at 6.30? I'm like, no, I don't. Do you want to meet me at 5?
Have a late lunch. Right. That would be my wife. She likes to have dinner
a lot earlier than I was accustomed to growing up. So, it's interesting. I always
love hearing about people's routines and schedules and kind of a little bit more of a
personal touch there in general. So, I said this earlier, but I feel like we were just
starting to dive into some of the really kind of good, good deep stuff. And I really hope
we're able to get you back on again because this has been such a pleasurable conversation.
And I've learned so much. And as we're talking over the course of the podcast,
you did have my brain going a million different directions. So,
just really, really appreciate you taking the time to join us today.
Yeah, absolutely. I'm so glad you reached out. Thank you.
That wraps up another episode of Beyond the Wrench. If you liked this episode,
please show your support by rating and following the podcast. You can also
watch the video interviews on Wrenchway's YouTube channel. Speaking of Wrenchway,
did you know Beyond the Wrench is managed and produced by the Wrenchway team?
Wrenchway is an online community dedicated to promoting and improving
automotive and diesel careers. We help technicians find the best shops to work at,
and we also help auto, diesel, and CTE instructors get more support from local industry.
You can learn more by visiting Wrenchway.com.
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