7 habits that I’ll reveal to help you be a good and ultra-high performer Service advisor neatly summarized by the acronym ADVISOR. Reason behind Acronyms, it hooks into your mind like a catchy pop song. So you will never forget them. These 7 letters stand for the elusive algorithm of leadership at this level. Work and live by this little-well known code that distills what a world class Service advisor is all about and you’re guaranteed breath taking results.

Action Plan
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A in ADVISOR will remind you about the importance of Action Plan. As Dale Carnegie said,” an hour of planning can save your 10 hours of doing.” Daily Action Plan that allows service advisors to focus on what’s important, and most importantly provides them that feelings of everything under control necessary to suffocate any sign of anxiety or stress. A Daily Action Plan for Service advisor is not only a guide designed to eliminate the stress of uncertainty but also to motivate them to carry out a set of actions that they have formulated as fully feasible. Service advisors must review customer’s history, recalls, Special order parts, maintenance needs and make notes with each appointment the day before the customers arrive at dealership for services.

The daily action plan allows service advisors to be prepare for each customer and have the following key benefits:

· Less Stress for Service Advisor

· More time to build strong relationships with each customer.

· Personalized services to customers using CIM(Customer Information Management)

· Heart Touching Experience ultimately leads to customer delight and higher customer retention.

Here’s a list of what’s in Service Advisor’s Daily Action Plan:

Appointment list
Customer History
Maintenance Package Detail
Special Service Campaign, if any
Dealership on going campaigns
Demonstrate Courtesy: Meet & Greet

Demonstrate Courtesy: Meet & Greet

D in the ADVISOR stand for demonstrate courtesy while you meet and greet the customers. You will see why effective setting up Daily action plan is so important. Could you imagine your doctor walking into the room to visit you and he/she hasn’t reviewed your file or even know your name. same goes for the service customers who shows up for their appointment and you ask the customer what’s your name or better yet let me check your VIN number and I will be back. This practice is happening in 90% or more of the dealers.

A great customer experience starts from the dealership’s door. All customers to be greeted warmly and professionally. Service Advisors and Service Reception staff is held to the highest standard of professional appearance and personal etiquette. Greeting the customers at their vehicle, fully prepared with “Perfect Greetings” provide your service advisor confidence and your customers “Great First Impression” of your service operations. Following is “4G” greeting formula for service advisors:

Good Eye Contact
Good Body Gesture
Great Energy
Great Smile

V in the advisor stands for Vivid Walk around. This is the process where can we engage the customers and develop good rapport with them. This” Walk around” will start from left front door, then make our way to rear looking for any body or wheel damage engaging the customer in casual conversation as we proceed. If you find something damage at them time in a positive manners of awareness to the customers. If no damage is noticed, no further words need to be said.

5C’s for Walk around.

1. Condition of Windscreen

2. Condition of wiper blades & mechanism:

3. Condition of tyres

4. Condition of body

5. Condition of all lights

I in ADVISOR stands for Interaction with Candor. Customers in the business right now want to surround themselves with the people who tell it like it is. Who are candid. Who are fortified. Who are spectacularly honest. Your customer know that they will get straight talk from you. This is the stage where service advisor review and communicate the job detail with customers you are going to do, promised delivery time and how much it cost. Don’t forget to have the customer review the pre work repair order to make sure all contact information, vehicle information and job detail is correct. Main important thing a customer is waiting to hear is when the vehicle’s repair will be completed. If you forget to update the customer throughout the work, he will call to ask what’s up with my vehicle? At this point, the customer trust factor is in trouble. This is the point when vehicle is not delivered as per promised delivery time, it will effect your dealership CSI (customer satisfaction index). Remember If any additional job comes, communicate the same and revised delivery time to customer and get his/her approval. Last but not least, Service advisor must explain to customers on actual work performed, charges and also about future maintenance at the time of delivery.

S in Advisor stands for SUPER Listener. Service advisors must be trained to be a SUPER listener, to read body language and to be effective communicator. S in SUPER stands for SUMMARIZE, summarize and take key notes of what customer is saying. I recommend the advisors to summarize the VOC(voice of customers) in customer’s own word. U stands for UNDERSTAND. Listen to the customer to understand what he is saying. P stands for PROVIDE INTERRUPTED SPACE TO TALK. Don’t interrupt the customers while he/she is talking. Listen more than you talk. E stands for EYE CONTACT. Build a complete eye contact with customers to feel them that you completely engage with them. R stands for REFLECT BACK. Reflect back to customers while he is talking to you and confirm the key points of their talk. They must also be able to ask qualifying questions that begin with “Who,” “What,” “Where,” “Why,” “How,” “When” or “Tell me about.” Doing so will allow the service advisor to accurately qualify their customers’ needs, write a proper repair order (RO) that effectively communicates to the technician what work is needed, and confirms to the customer that you understand their needs. This step becomes part of the customer’s vehicle walk-around.

Once you learn and practice this habit, you can clearly see how u can create “wow experience” every time your customer visit. Please remember that satisfied customer can go anywhere to get service but a wow customer will always return.

This is the process where advisor to review the prime items, maintenance needs based on time or mileage and offer best maintenance solutions. Advisor must think of the customer instead think for the customers. Offer maintenance packages to customers according to vehicle mileages. This is the point where service advisor can up sell other stuff to service customers. It’s very important to note here that complaints are normally generated at this stage like attempted upselling, lack of transparency about labor and parts prices. It directly hit the dealership CSI(Customer Satisfaction Index) score and customer never came back to the dealership for services.

Your customers are the key to success and their opinion are vital to sustaining growth. Real purpose of service advisors to helping customers and resolving their problems. Customer don’t need lowest prices, but they need best prices and a good service experience. Bad experience can quickly alter your dealership’s image and detract new customers before they even walk through your dealership door. Service advisors are supposed to know and resolve all concern’s as per customer’s VOC (voice of customer). Service advisor must record complete customer’s VOC including all concerns in repair order and duly reconfirm from the customers. Before notifying to customers after repair, he/she himself recheck that customer’s problems are 100% rectified and non is pending. If any issue is pending are not fixed, it will reflect negative impact of your service quality on customers. Capturing customer’s VOC has direct link with CSI.