Leadership Decisions

"Stop blowing holes in my ship!" ~capt. Jack Sparrow Oftentimes Service Advisors find themselves in a position where they need to make decisions when the owner or manager is not present. In all actuality, these decisions are being made even when a manager or owner is present, and that’s a good thing!
Aug 23 / Guy Roberts
You must be able to think on your feet in this job. You have to be able to make a good decision without having to ask the owner or manager what you should do. Some of these decisions you are already making without thinking about them. Then there are some decisions that you ALWAYS go to the owner or manager with.

For example, you get a walk-in customer for an oil change and the schedule is full. Most advisors will automatically either tell the customer now is not a good time, or, the good ones will make it happen and find a way to squeeze it in. Some advisors are always asking the manager or owner what to do in this situation. You know what to do!

How about when a technician gives you an inspection with barely anything on it? You know the car needs a lot, it has 100K miles on it and all he put on the ticket was the oil change and a brake flush. You make the decision to be an order taker and just sell what he gave you...or you hand it right back to the tech and say “that’s not enough, I need a full inspection to sell you hours”.

There are tons of little decisions like that you make every day. Those are the ones that add up to big months for you and your shop when you think about the sales impact that occurs when the right decision is made. But what about the bigger decisions?

Your techs are backed up with production, but the owner’s marketing is bringing in customers. Most advisors push off new customers from days to weeks out because the techs are so busy. The advisor may go to the manager or owner and ask what they would like them to do. I would challenge you to think about the overall purpose of what your shop is trying to accomplish.

We market to get more customers, but customers rarely come in at a comfortable pace. Our industry is ups and downs, with busy days and slow days. Rarely is it a comfortable steady flow of work. And customers are not concerned with whether or not you are backed up. They are looking to get their oil change done or the light on their dash addressed. If you can’t look at it now, another shop will, and those marketing dollars spent are wasted.

So your decisions at the helm of the ship matter a great deal. That’s right advisor, you’re steering this sucker!

So how do you accomplish the overall goal, to take care of the customers trying to get in the door? In the situation above, you have to give the techs time to do production, but also, they need work tomorrow and the next day. They need to inspect the cars coming in the door. So you make the decision to split the day in half. You talk to your foreman or if no foreman exists, the team in the back and you tell them the situation; that we need to take care of the customers coming in but also the ones already here. You want to focus on inspections in the morning and production in the afternoon. You will in turn have customers drop off for an inspection the next morning, or set up an appointment for them the next morning. This way the afternoons are free for the techs to produce what was sold. There are more details to doing this but I won’t go into it here…

The point is, a good leadership decision has to be made by you, the advisor. One that produces maximum results (by results I mean profitability) for your shop, for your techs, and for you! You make decisions like this every day. Whether or not they are good leadership decisions is up to you. How do you view your role in the shop? You are a manager, whether you like it or not. A manager of the workflow. Your people skills play into this in a big way as you deal with your external customers (general public) and your internal customers (the technicians and front staff). If you are looking to move up in your shop then these are the skills needed to accomplish this. The owner needs to be working on the business more than in the business. They are looking for their #2. Make your decisions based on what’s best for the customer and the shop. The owner will notice your leadership skills. They need someone like you to steer the ship, not blow holes in it.

Now is your time to shine!