From the Magazine: The 2023 Training Report

Much has changed in the way automotive aftermarket service and repair shops are run. From the way shop owners should be running their day-to-day operations to the way they manage staff, it’s different from even just a few days ago.

But the amount of adaptation doesn’t stop with the owner. The way service advisors work the front of the shop and the way they work with customers and ensure the smooth flow of everything behind them has changed.

And for technicians, the skills they need to be successful in the bays call for attention in areas they may have never given a moment’s consideration.

Expectations have changed as well for those working in shops. Employees, including technicians and service advisors, want more out of their careers and their time in the shop. They are turning to their shop owner to help provide those missing links.

Shop coaches, industry leaders, observers and experts have shared their thoughts on how everyone under the roof of the shop can be successful. Their thoughts have been collected and are presented here…

Shop owner

For Rick White, founder and president of shop management consultancy 180Biz, everything in a shop starts with trust.

Shop owners need to trust their employees. Employees need to trust their boss. And everyone needs to trust each other.

“If you don’t have trust, you don’t make sales. If you don’t have trust, you don’t have a team. So it makes it harder to work with people,” White said during the Midwest Auto Care Alliance’s Vision Hi-Tech Training & Expo 2023.

There are two types of trust: Practical and emotional. The former is relatively straightforward — it’s earned by doing what you say you’re going to do and being dependable, competent and consistent while exceeding expectations.

Emotional trust, on the other hand, is more difficult to achieve. It’s more personal. You treat those around you with dignity and respect.

The biggest difference between practical and emotional trust is that the former is the feeling of being safe. “Emotional trust is safe,” according to White. “Your goal is emotional trust. It’s also the hardest trust to build.”

He also urged shop owners to shy away from phrases like, “Just trust me.” That’s demanding the trust of someone. It can’t be demanded and staff won’t give it to you. Unfortunately, many have had bosses and owners lie to them or fail to come through when giving them their trust.

“We sit down to talk with somebody and we expect trust,” he said. “But we don’t understand the experiences they’ve gone through. And we don’t understand why they’re skeptical. It also isn’t something you earn.”

Remember: Trust isn’t affirmation. It’s not about developing a yes-man culture. You want to develop an environment where people feel comfortable holding you accountable. That’s your goal, White said.

“The reality is there’s going to be crap going on in your day. Make room for it.”

Accountability

Accountability is crucial for a shop owner. Just as a shop owner would expect their technicians and service advisor to hold up to their promises, staff are expecting the same of the owner. The owner needs to hold themselves accountable.

But what will often happen is that the shop owner will rationalize and excuse their mistake, saying they got distracted to help up by other things, White pointed out.

“How many have done that? We all have,” White said. “So what I want you to start to do is hold yourself to the same standard as you do other people.”

And the more you miss your promises, the more that’s withdrawn from your staff’s trust account. Do it often enough and there’s nothing left, leaving your staff unable to trust you for anything.

Here’s a tip from White: Promise less. If you’re saying yes to something, make sure you mean it and can back it up. If not, don’t.

He’s seen shop owners come up with a huge list of their plans. They say they’re going to get so much done. But at the end of the day, they hang their head because they got nothing off that list done or barely made a dent.

“The reality is there’s going to be crap going on in your day. Make room for it,” White said.

He doesn’t make more than three commitments a day. Those commitments centre around deliverables, like ensuring a document is completed, not meeting with clients.

“I can’t do everything my mind thinks I can. It doesn’t work that way,” White said.

Arm around the shoulder

Technicians and service advisors are feeling the pinch these days. With the typical shop short-staffed — the auto repair industry is 3,000 technicians short these days, double from a few years ago. So more work is falling on fewer hands.

So when a technician makes a mistake, say forgetting to put oil in the vehicle and the engine blows shortly after the customer leaves the shop, owners need to resist the urge to march out in the bays and yell at them.

But that’s different from what you should do. Take a step back. Consider how the tech is feeling, knowing his blunder just cost a customer their vehicle and the shop a wad of cash.

“He’s feeling horrible, would you agree? I mean, he’s going to look up to see the top of the curb,” White said.

A strong reaction — the wrong kind — will only bring conflict. Only the owner will feel good after reading him the Riot Act. Not only is the tech feeling terrible but now he’s been pushed away and is less engaged with the business than before.

So think about your approach before you go out there, White advised.

“The first thing I’m going to do is get him to understand that he’s a good tech,” he said. “We’re not going to let one event define how he sees himself. We are all bigger than one event.”

What caused the issue? Was he interrupted and that’s why he forgot? That could be a teachable moment for the team to not interrupt someone while doing critical tasks.

“Confronting behaviour is something you want to do immediately and without reserve,” White added.

Service advisor

Customers these days are different. They are expecting a distinct experience when they call or walk into an auto repair shop than they did before. And if the service advisor — the first line of customer service — can’t deliver what they expect, then that customer is out the door.

“If you treat people like they’re human beings, if you actually care for them, they can feel it,” Darrin Barney, president of Elite Worldwide, a training company for the automotive aftermarket.

Shops and their service advisors who can really get to know their customers will easily stand out. A good hairdresser, dentist, banking rep and so on knows their clients — it’s crucial to developing a trusting and long-lasting relationship.

It starts with knowing your customers’ names when they walk through the door.

“When they come in and you don’t you don’t know their first name and they’ve been coming to you for a couple years, you got an issue,” Barney said at the Expo. “Learn their names. Watch what happens when they walk in the door and you’re like, ‘Hey, Steve, how’s it going?’ All of a sudden, he’s beaming because you knew his name.”

Remember, said Tom Amero, Elite’s director of operations, the customer is buying from you, not the shop.

“So you have to realize the influence and the impact that you have and how you treat them has everything to do with that decision,” he said

Have a conversation while they’re on the phone or standing in front of you. Avoid any dead air. Have questions lined up. Amero loves Mondays, Fridays and holidays. It’s easy to get the conversation started based on what someone did over the weekend or what their holidays plans are.

“Then when they start sharing and answer those questions with some personal stuff, you capitalize on it,” Amero said.

You’re almost a detective. You want to be on the lookout for things to talk about.

“Your job is to be the credible expert to teach people and educate people of what’s going on and help them make the best decision that’s right.”

Staying upbeat

It’s critical to always have an upbeat demeanour when answering the phone — you never know what state of mind the person on the other end of the phone is in.

Part of the service advisor’s job is to sell themselves. The customer wants to know you have their back.

“Your job is to be the credible expert to teach people and educate people of what’s going on and help them make the best decision that’s right,” Amero said.

Furthermore, customers need to figure out a time to see you in between work and their kids’ dance recitals and soccer practice. They’re anxious before they even pick up the phone, Barney pointed out.

“Do you really think they want to be calling you? No. So we got to answer it nicely. We got to smile when we answer the phone,” he said.

Speeding up the process

Slow productivity will drive a shop owner crazy. If a service advisor can find ways to speed things up, the shop as a whole will benefit.

Find efficiencies, urged Bill Haas, president and Owner of Haas Performance Consulting. Techs can’t be waiting around on parts — so if a customer calls in advance to make an appointment for brake service, you generally know what parts are needed. Order them ahead of time so they’re ready to go.

“If a customer calls in complaining about a noise every time they hit the brakes, the shop should order everything they may need, from caliper to rotors. So when the tech gets the wheels off and finds the issue, they have everything that’s needed.

“I’ve got the parts there, I fix it, bang, it’s out the door,” Haas said.

Waiting for work authorization is another peeve for Haas. Learn how your customers prefer to communicate. Ask them how they want to be contacted.

“I can sit and call people all day long but if they’re in a meeting, they can’t answer the phone,” Hass explained. But they’ll probably take a look at their phone during their meeting and see a text or email come in from you.

“If somebody’s absolutely unavailable, why don’t you get a pre-authorization that says, ‘If I can fix your car today, for less than $800, will it be okay to just go ahead? Do I have your permission?’” Haas added.

“Get rid of the word ‘critical.’ Just think. We are a process-driven industry. We follow process, we have repair manuals that start at A and end at Z. We train everybody to follow that process.”

Technicians

There are whole new sets of skills technicians need going forward.

The hard, technical skills will always be there. But it’s the softer ones that will take technicians farther in their careers.

One is a positive attitude and willingness to embrace new technology. Pierre-Hugues Comiré, regional field technical manager at Hyundai Canada, can easily tell which technicians have embraced new technology and those who haven’t.

“If you embrace it, you’re going to read up about it, you’re going to watch [what’s coming]. There’s so much available information online,” he said, adding that information can be had just by asking for it.

“So what we need are critical thinking men and women with a passion for this work,” Comiré said during Centennial College’s Driving the Future 2.0 event.

Being able to work as a team is a critical skill for technicians. No one works in a shop alone, noted Chris Chinn, network operations manager at Consolidated Collision Services. Someone is taking in that customer, work is being built, someone is working on the car, the customer is being contacted and the vehicle is being returned to them.

“Everybody needs to communicate. So you need those skills of communication,” Chinn said.

He added problem-solving skills to the list. “There’s no one way to fix a car, other than properly and safely. But you need that problem-solving skill because every shop is different. You may not have all the same equipment; you may need to think outside of the box to be able to repair that vehicle.”

David Cochrane, regional sales manager at Delphi, pointed to critical thinking and reasoning skills.

He referenced an old adage that you need to be good with your hands to get involved in the trades and that simply being good with your hands was enough to move you forward. But now diagnosing skills are necessary.

That calls for technicians to be thinking more about what’s happening under the hood.

“So critical thinking and reasoning skills, knowing what’s in front of you, and knowing how to be able to take it to the next level, and to work your way through it are very important,” he said.

Rob Morrison, Canadian fixed operations manager at Phaff/Lithia, agreed but even urged technicians to just flat-out think.

“Get rid of the word ‘critical.’ Just think. We are a process-driven industry. We follow process, we have repair manuals that start at A and end at Z. We train everybody to follow that process,” he said.

To just “think” is “the ability to go, ‘Wait a minute, Step B doesn’t make sense. What’s another step that could go into it?” Morrison said.

This article originally appeared in the October issue of CARS magazine.