DealersEdge Professional Forums

As a service writer in a large store.
I find that my manager is playing everyone against each other in a very subtle manner.
He has the GM thinking that every problem in service is writer related.
Writers don't control the techs arrival time or their lack of pride in doing a great job. We have a tremendous turnover rate of nearly one writer per week and instead of taking charge, our manager hides out in the comptrollers office whining about how tough he has it. When he has the GM snowed, what options can anyone recommend short of leaving?

Given that there seems to be an issue with the manager and the GM, it would seem tough to make it through without leaving. But if you have a talking relationship with the GM then that's where I'd go to try to get it resolved. I'd just tell him that you'd like to talk about the lack of production or sales or whatever is the complaint of the day and try to explain what you can from your observations. If you're shouldering the blame for sales, when there aren't techs to do the work then that's what I'd present (i.e, you sold 100% of "available" tech time, etc.)

My other suggestion is to exactly quantify the turnover situation. For writers we'd expect to see an average job expectancy of 18 months (with some wide varations in upper and lower there). In a normal busy shop I would think it is unusual if the service manager remained the same to have more 1.25 replacements a year. So if you have 8 writers at the beginning of the year, I might expect that by the end of the year there have be ten replacements (that's 18 employees total rotating in those eight positions). Anything much higher than that obviously points that the employees aren't happy or can't get their needs met by the organization. i would think that is a warning sign to the GM.

By the way, how's the store's CSI?? And is there a similar turnover in sales and other dealership positions?




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** Rob, Editor WD&S **
Help is only a message post away!
robc@dealersedge.com

Sometimes nothing gets words expressed better than a good letter to the GM or owner. Be articulate, think it through, and proof read it very well. Don't blast anybody, and always, always, offer a solution to the problems you make mention of.

Any good GM would welcome such input. If he does not, a change would be appropriate I would say.

The GM is the owners relative and the csi has been fine. Although a lot of recent customers have been highly agitated by the director and by the lack of familiar faces.

That seems alot like the situation I just left.

Advisors have a really tough job. there are lots of things they do not have control over. However, they have customer influence on almost everything. Car will not be done on time?? the Advisor can handle this in a way that will accomidate the customer. I think 80% of all dealership probelms, can be improved in the customer's eyes by a good advisor showing empathy, understanding, and communication with the customer. It is hard to understand with all the complaints listed, the store's CSI is OK.

It would seem to me a good GM/Owner would put two and two together. Who runs the service dept,the advisors ? If the service advisors are at fault for all the so called things wrong in the service dept and the manager is in charge of the advisors then that makes the service manager ultimatly responsible. If you can't reason this with your gm/owner then it's time to look for another place to work !!