Selling Struts and Shocks

[TheOne]

From a consumer perspective I think you just nailed the confusion on the head! Is it really any wonder we are losing market share everyday????

[cantfind122]

The One,

As always your insight is insightful (laugh here). Besides the mispellings I am happy you understood my plight because I think it is a common persons conundrum. Just a little more to add. Because I turned a wrench or two in my life and because I HATE stripped drain plugs I have always changed my own oil. However, I am AARP material and storing oil to bring to the recycler has become a pain in the a*& so besides pulling out the ramps, finding the right filter strap/cup/hexodrozmic change tool, letting someone else do it is easier. So we are back to the same ol' same ol' (and keep in mind its me talking) questions which are....When I get my car back will there more wrong with it then when I brought it in? Am I being sold things I REALLY don't need? (refer to the original post) and is there a bar across the street while I wait? Now to the biggest crucible from inception of purchase.....They bilked me on the car why wouldn't they do the same in Service (not so much parts because they have a factory price guide there). Just some more thoughts.

[TheOne]

Cantfind122,

You really have done a good job of putting into words what I believe most customers feel when dealing with a service department!

I think that most of us in this business are really no different than anyone else out there on this planet. We tend to get defensive when people take issue with, oor find fault with how we do business. I know I sometimes do. It is so much easier to look at the complaining customer as a "problem" rather than looking at how our businesses actually work. These customers rarely help themselves as they heap on veiled insults, toss out competitors names, threaten to never come back, or look for that potential letdown and try to exploit it for cash or free services. My day today started with a guy telling me how slow we are, how much he wished a terminated dealer was still in business, and that this was our last chance to "earn his business". I met him at the cashier as he was finishing up and pointed out how "honored we were to have been selected to change his oil". I would like to tell you that there was no sarcasm in my voice as I said this, but that would be untruthful.

Service departments have largely operated as "personality" based businesses for as long as I can remember. What I mean by that is for the most part we look to hire Service Advisors that provide the warm and fuzzy that makes people want to like them so they will come back to us. This causes two distinct disadvantages. The first one is we tend to become hostage to these employees, If they leave how many of our customers are going to be upset? The second reason is they are almost never very good at sales. The net result of the two problems is we wind up paying too much money to poor performing Service Advisors, and our effective labor rate takes a dive as these Advisors over flag and under charge.

I much prefer to build fixed operations as a systems based business. As we build our business in this manner it makes it far easier to take those customers that we would rather not deal with and examine their complaints as useful tools to evaluate what we have built. It also allows us to draw from a wider selection of people to operate our service drive. Our customers come to expect the warm and fuzzy from everyone on the service drive regardless of the face attached to the smile.

I try to view the whole operation from a customers perspective, and let me tell you it is scary! My car is going to go into that dark cavern of a service department, I don't have any idea of when it is going to come out, or how much it is going to cost!!! They are always so busy I just feel like a number. They couldn't care less if I have to pick my kids up from soccer practice. They act like I have an endless supply of money, and why do they keep answering the phone when they are supposed to be talking to me? Why do I put myself through this coming here? there has to be an easier way to take care of my car so I can get on with my LIFE!

What we hear is I want it NOW, I want it FREE, and you OWE me something for disrupting my day! Think there might be a little disconnect somewhere?

If you wrap this little issue up with parts availability, RIM/ARO compliance, warranty compliance, inconsistent traffic patterns, problem vehicles, employee issues, etc, is it any wonder the aftermarket has taken away the better parts of our business? We are so distracted putting out fires that we spend very little time on the things that are truly important.

Dick Gillespe who was the architect of the turn around at IBM in the 80's, and wrote the book "Managing is everybodies business" and I were hired to fix a Lincoln Mercury store in the Seattle market back in the 90's. There was a very significant problem. We hated each other. Each of us believed the other had exactly the wrong approach to fixing the store. Consequently we were not getting it done. Our customer was not being served. Our customer rather than writing us off decided that we should spend a week in a conference room learning each others product until we could successfully come out and apply what we had learned together to the best advantage of the store rather than ourselves. Isn't that what our customers are really asking us to do?

One of the many valuable tools that I learned from Dick is that of the many things that we deal with during the day most of them can be labeled the "trivial many". Important that they get done, but trivial none the less. Most managers spend 80% of their time working on these things. Of what is remaining we tend to spend less than 20% of our time on what can be labeled the "vital few". These are the things that will alter our business and make it better. Dick taught me to reverse the investment. I spend 80% of my time working on the "vital few", and 20% of my time on the "trivial many". In Micheal Gerbers' book "The E-Myth revisited" he also proposes that we spend at least 50% of our time working ON our business rather than IN our business.

I've kind of taken the long approach to addressing the idea of building a business around delivering what the customer wants rather than what we want the customer to have. I believe when we truly do this we will as a group start taking back from the aftermarket what they have made their own, our customers. I also believe that in doing so our customers will be more than happy to pay us handsomely for doing so!

[cantfind122]

Amen Brother,

You touch on a point which I will now comment on and I am sure it will start some sort of row but Hey what the heck. I must add I have a strong opinion on this but I willingly listen to both sides. Okay here goes....At what point is customer service customer abuse? Personal story involving my sister. She purchased a brand new Celica (at the time) and was very excited. Within a month she told me she was needing a new R/F mud flap. I asked her what happened. She told me she went through a car wash and it broke. I inquired if the wash had signage posted regarding mudflaps, antenna's etc. Which they did. Regardless, in her eyes, it was the responsiblity of the dealer/Toyota. Guess what she got the mudflap. Two weeks later same deal with the L/F. Guess again she got another mud flap (open set of two... why not). Was this good customer service? I know my sister and she is a BB. Got it with her big mouth. Problem now is her expectation. Scream, cry, kick whine, threaten and you will get what you want. Not just in our business but everywhere. It is bleeding into how children are being raised and it is a problem at a societal level. Everybody can have everything any way they want it, when they want it and treat it how they want because someone else will take the responsiblity they should be owning. I know I am ranting but I can't see it as a good thing. Moreover, where is the line. Sorry just some more thoughts.

[Gerry Laughlin]

Cantfind,
Head on over to RipoffReports.com and you will discover we are all victims because some company did not protect us from our own stupidity.
Gerry