In this episode Simon, Darren Bedford and Colin McAllister look at the service department and strategies for the ‘Golden Hour’.
With current financial pressures, customers are delaying servicing their vehicles. Then when the cars eventually come in to the dealership, more work needs to be done due to the delay.
Also, as previously discussed, finding Technicians is becoming increasingly difficult, and we need to be more inventive in our recruitment processes.
These circumstances and others put pressure on the ‘Golden Hour’ and we then loose efficiencies once a vehicle is off the ramp. How do we make sure this doesn’t happen?
Here are the highlights:
{02:35} Service Plans and VHC’s
{05:22} Communication after diagnostics
{11:08} Tech recruitment
{15:23} Mix of work to skill levels
{17:38} Time Targets for the ‘Golden Hour’
{20:07} Get in life, what you focus on
About Symco Training:
Symco Training was founded in 2000 by Simon Bowkett and it was his belief that the business had to offer its clients something different. That difference was clear to Simon from his days in the dealership when he experienced many sales trainers who had all the answers, but were unable, unwilling or both to actually show the delegate how they could be implemented. It remains the ethos of the business today. You see, Symco only employ trainers that are committed to delivering not only in spiring and insightful training, but are equally as happy to demonstrate these skills and techniques with real customers in your own showroom. We believe in order for sales training to be effective and in Simon’s words ‘real world’, it needs to be tried and tested in the only place it matters the showroom floor. There is no room for theory when your goals are for your team to sell more cars, hours or parts and retain more profit. In dealerships around the world the focus applied by many of the sales executives is to try and sell a deal. Symco specialise in getting your teams to focus on selling themselves, the product and then supporting this with the deal.
To find out more visit
www.symcotraining.co.uk
Welcome to the Selling and the Motor Trade Podcast, an association with Symco Training. This is the weekly podcast where we share best practice tips and ideas on how to sell more cards, improve your service department and generally put more profit into your dealership or dealer group. I'm your host, Simon Bowkett. As some of you probably already know me as skipping, I will start with saying thank you for taking the time to listen to this podcast. Hi and welcome to another episode of Selling and the Motor Trade. Today's my pleasure to welcome Colin McAllister, the group Training and Development Manager for John Clark Motor Group and Darren Bedford, the sales director for Symco Training. The reason why we're having three of us on this, Colin and myself, we did a podcast for the people who listened to the show, I think about six months ago, which was ideas in the sales process, tips and ideas, and it just went down really, really well. And we've had lots of people saying, hey, can you do the same thing in the after sales department, the service and the parts department. So this podcast is one that you're going to want to share with your service advisors, your service managers, people in the dealer group. So firstly, it leaves me to say welcome back Colin. Hi Simon, how are you doing? Good. And welcome back again Darren. Hi Simon, hi Colin, good to see you. Good to see you guys. So Colin, I want to start off with, sir. After the pandemic, we know that people are coming back into service departments now on droves, okay? We can't get technicians, service departments seem to be so busy at the moment. Can I ask you, in the John Clark Motor Group, what are you focusing on in the after sales department? I think the challenge in after sales just now is when the financial squeeze people delay in their services. So they're putting their services off and they're only really coming in if they need diagnostics or they've got a fall or they've got a light on. So the manufacturers that are clever and have a light on that says you need our service and we get that business in. But we're really having to fight and put our case forward to get people in. So we got things like service plans, pushing the service plans, building that retention is really important to us because that customer's already paid for service. So the financial squeeze is not an issue and that price protected. So if there's any prices going up, then they're getting them in the previous price agreement they signed up for the service plan. So there's a lot of service plans working on retention and then we're also working a lot on our VHC process. So when the vehicles in, because people have been putting off their service and there's a wee bit more than even done to that car to keep it going while they're safe and legal, they also want to have their recommend. They're making sure that we communicate to a customer in a way that they understand they need it and they accept it. So the technicians and the service advisors are using the same language, the technicians and the video and the service advisor in the call. So the customer's getting that same consistent message. Yeah, something there that I just want to run past down. And I noticed that there's more and more people are just doing diagnosis work and damage to the vehicles and all of that there. Maybe not the service work. In fact, I was in the dealership last week and the lead times two weeks. Okay, that's good use, isn't it? Or? No, not really. I mean, remember the good old days when we had three hours on a service, then probably it was good days where we had seven week lead times and things. You just need to be really careful. The way I look at it now is that the modern dealership is always going to get the problem cost. You know, if you've got a customer with an issue, it's going to come back to you. If the dealership down the road sold one of your vehicles and they've got a problem, it's going to come back to you. If you know, car supermarkets sold one of your cars, it's going to come back to you because this is where the expertise lies. Now, the issue with that is that work is always going to take your most experienced guy. It's also going to take him a long time potentially to find the issue. Sometimes that's covered by warranty, which probably means he's going to get a lot less in terms of a labor rate. So you have this weird sort of scenario where your most experienced guy is actually likely to be bringing you in smaller amounts of hours in the lowest income. Now, we can offer that by balancing it up, by doing the service work, where we can be quick and we can have the efficiencies. You know, as Colin was alluding to there with a vehicle health check. But if you don't have that, if you just dealt only with the issues that came in, your labor rate would have to be sky high to cope with the cost of the infrastructure that we have. So the real danger here when your lead time starts to go up is the people that will disappear are the people who need a service. Because if you can't do the service for me within my window or my timescale, there's somebody out there that will. That's really the issue about it. You're going to keep getting that diagnostic work because that's driven by customer issues. So again, Colin, you're saying that people are putting off the servicing. Is it like call centers calling chasing people in, getting them in, are you focusing your teams on getting the service work? Yeah, so we've got our contacts entered. Don't get it baby. We have 21 people there who are doing the service and able to your attention work. So they're phoning, but they're coming up against lead times as Dan's describing. You know, one of the challenges on diagnostic work, if I can just add to what Dan was saying, is frequently we don't communicate what we've done very well when it comes to diagnostic work. So we give that customer a no fault found. Absolute hate, hey, am I? What we don't tell the customer is, listen, we've eliminated these possibilities for the process. We've checked this, we've updated this software, we've renewed this piece, we've started this, we've had a contribution from the manufacturer, we've done this. The fault seems to be of itself. It's a bit like we put the computer up. But would you do me a favor and keep an eye on that for the next couple of weeks? If you communicate that way, then the customer's not big grudging. You know, oh, I've done now and they couldn't find the fault. I'm totally useless. It's strange. I've got a funny story for you. I was in our Volkswagen business in Aberdeen and customers at the coffee machine. And as I frequently do, I've got a coffee machine in them there. I always say to the customers, what's the amount of coffee machines in? They want a coffee while I'm here. And the guy said, if you can get a coffee machine, he walks on. I'll have a coffee machine. I'll get into what don't you worry. So I looked at this waste container full, right? So it takes a pot and tray off and I pulls it, the container and empties the coffee in and it then puts everything back together. And says, that's the machine working. Would you like a coffee? And this is all a lot of lattice. You know how it affects the machine? I said, Dan, do you know how it affects this machine? Do you know how much it is for a service plan? For this, for two years, there's one for this coffee machine, 625 quid. If I had to call the guy out from Falkirk to Aberdeen to get here, it's 185 quid, call out fee just for me to come and look at my machine. And the guy went, right? He went, oh, I can't go without getting over there on my apology. That's just why is that? This is, well, they've just charged me a £99 diagnostic fee and I went a bit crazy about it. So now this dealership, we've got, it's a glass partition between the workshop and the customer waiting area. So I looked through and I said, is that your car there on the second round? He says, yes, he says, oh, I says, let me tell you, the guy who's working on that is a guy called Gary Arthur. And he holds the Volkswagen gold pin. There's only five of them in Europe. You know, this guy's the most talented Volkswagen technician there is. And that's the guy who's looking after your vehicle. Your dad, the guy that did the coffee machine hasn't had any of the other men are training the guy. He said, yeah, isn't it so true? He goes, don't give the credibility to our technicians, do we? Yeah. I absolutely love it. Colin was on the down on Colin. One of you guys, I heard the story, I stole the story from the FedEx story. Yeah, the FedEx story. I think he stole it from Dan because I stole it from you. I love it. So anyway, I love this story about FedEx. The man called, one of you guys will tell me his name, I think it was John, whoever started FedEx. It'll come to us in a second. And also, I wonder how these stories have been embellished in time and changed. But the legend has it. The guy that started Federal Express, he was in the Korean of Vietnam War, something like that, is in logistics. And he decided that hub and spoke distribution was so much more efficient than straight line distribution. So the legend has it. He goes and spills in Memphis. There's all singing, all dancing, distribution, hardware. The packages come in. It's overnight deliveries. It goes brilliantly. But the way that I heard, definitely from one of you guys, he didn't buy a service plan because he just started. Okay. It all goes wrong, three o'clock in the middle of the night. Okay. He's in there. Fred Smith, that's the man's name. He's a new one. Yeah, yeah. And he's kicking off. He's got his local engineer saying, what's wrong, what's here? All that. Three o'clock in the morning, the legend has it. He calls the engineer that installed it. Okay. The engineer asks if you qualify questions. He pulls out a flat-bladed screwdriver. He walks over to a control panel, tightens up a screw, three quarters of a turn tighter, and the whole lot works. And Fred Smith says, really? You saved a bomb? That's sensational. Give me your invoice. I'll get your page straight away. So, of course, the legend is, he said, yeah, there you go. There's an invoice for $10,000. Yeah, again, Fred Smith, he's a smartcaggle. He doesn't kick off. He said, oh, can you itemize that for me? I love that. So, yeah, sure, I can do that. Scribbles on the invoice and hands it back to him. Fred Smith says, yeah, you know what? You're right. Of course, what do you write on the invoice? To turning one screw, $1, for nine which screw to turn, $9,999. And I just love that story. I almost certainly stole that from Colin, but it's our technicians. Our technicians are, you're not selling them for an hour. I hear that service advice all the time out, do you know what our labor rate is? It's extortionate. It's like, no, do you know? Well, your technician at Volkswagen dealership, Colin, five technicians at his level, how many years have it taken to get there? To be that master tech and plus? He's over 20 years working on vehicles. You know, I'm taking on 36 apprentices, 31st of July, to get those apprentices from the 31st of July to qualify level three, live vehicle technicians. So just a service tech. Spot again. That's exactly right, Colin. All of that investment in the individuals, but that doesn't take into consideration the investment in the specialist tools, the equipment, all that stuff that we do. One of the things I often use is your mobile phone. How many times you wake up in the morning and you've got software updates to take during the course of a year if you added that lot up? That's effectively the package that your customer gets when they come in and we run those software updates, we check it's running the most up-to-date software. And even that point on its own is probably one of the most important because nobody else can offer that same level of service for your vehicle other than your manufacturer or proof site. OK, this is for both of you then. The service manager, sitting there listening to say, yes, all right for you guys, sitting there at lovely studio there, but I can't get technicians. Technicians seem so hard to get. I'm hearing people that are going to Spain to try and get technicians there. What advice do you have to them? Where do we find techs? Can we actually get the service working? Can we look at the upsell work if we can't get the techs to do it? So I don't know who's going to take that one, but where are we getting techs from guys? We are struggling to get techs without any doubt whatsoever. We've done sign-on bonuses, so we're two and a half ago and sign-on bonus. We've always given all of our colleagues a thousand pounds for finding their technicians at the end of the first month, 500 pound at the end of the probationary period. We find that those are the ones that stick because you're not, you know, your tech machine isn't going to put Mad Mulkey Fraser who could have put a knot in a monkey's mouth and has workshop with him. He's going to want a really good, so-and-so-word tech that he could trust that he knows the quality of his work and we'll have money as workforce. But the future's got to be investing in apprentices and keeping that in apprenticeships going. I've got 113 currently, 22 just about to graduate and then also we get 36 coming in. And I don't think that's enough. I think we should have been near 55 because we need these technicians of the future and working on different systems, working with Lydar and Rhaedar and we're not going to be working with oils and things. That's what they're going to be working with. The average technician population through the industry is 52 years of age. Wow, 52. 52 years. So we need to get that down and the only way to do it is to invest. We've tried, and I don't know if any other of the podcasts, last night I was up, I've tried this. We've tried to go through, you know, find X military people. We've had, you know, we've found guys that are actually, me for example, they've been really good. But it's finding a volume of that. We're not, we're not finding enough of those servers, Levots, to fill the gap. And, you know, there's a training plan that we need to put to pull base in. It's about 12 to 50 months to get them to level three. But I've got a lot of the core basic skills and that's been terrific. We have another fast-track program we've been doing for people that are car enthusiasts and put them through level three, working with Bosch. But again, it's a slow balance. It's a 18-month to two-year programme. It's like an adult apprenticeship, although there's no funding in Scotland for that. But it gets a technician there that wants to be somebody in their life that says, you know what, I've always wanted to walk with cars. So they've got the mindset and the attitude they want to walk with there. And we can treat them with skills and we can get the qualifications and we can give them a career. Which way is they enjoying it? I've got five guys just now on those programs. This brings me on to then something. I was in a service, a service advisor I was speaking to maybe a month ago. I said, Simon, you're talking about red enamel work. You're talking about the vehicle health checks and all the things we need to do. But the downside is we can't do it. The workshops are am because there's not like the missions out there. We just can't do it. Dan, I want to get your view on that. Are we not just too busy for any of this red enamel work? Any of the upsell work there? It's a good question because we can be. If we're not booking to the skill level that we have, the availability of those technicians that we have, the time periods that the vehicles are coming into us, there's still a lot of dealerships that will take a vehicle in the morning and give it back in the afternoon. There's a lot of dealerships now that have progressed to more of an appointment-based system, which the discipline about an appointment-based system is you have to account for the total hours that are required on that job. You have to be a lot more precise about how long that job is going to be with you. It puts in some pretty good disciplines in pace. All of the DMS systems now have the facility to load in that way, but it's still moving that needle and getting people to move in that needle. It's not just booking work. It's booking the level of work that you need to sustain that dealership. That red watt, MECS-Dan, that's the key thing. It's the mix between diagnostic, between retail and that that's getting that mixed to the skill level. It means that the right person, what kind of other vehicle? That's when we have the time to get in the additional recommended work that we're going to talk to the customer about. I think we'll do that when not loading it at the skill level. That would be as easy as it goes. Sorry, the other thing I was going to say there, cutting across you a little bit there, Colin, but when somebody rebooks that work, they don't necessarily take into consideration the impact that's there. Colin alluded to it earlier with the gold now. The importance of a gold now of getting that vehicle on the ramps and getting the work identified is the efficiencies go through the roof of your team members. If you lose that efficiency, you're wasting that time of that technician reworking that car. He's doing his service. He doesn't get any of the upsell work, but he notifies. But the authority for that notification comes through two or three hours later. Well, that car's boxed up and back outside. The only option is open. Does he bring it back in again today? Might be an option. Or do we rebook it? If we rebook it, it's a much smaller job down the track where it's not going to have any more work to do on it when it comes back in. So again, we're handling so many cars in a day. The function becomes handling those cars rather than actually controlling the process by a smooth plan. I don't know how Colin might have an angle on this, but I believe preconditioning of the job card. So somebody sitting there with an experienced eye who looks over those job cards before they come in and looks for the opportunities, the potential things like air conditioning, brake fluid changes, all those items that could do two things really make you more efficient, but also keep the vehicle on the ramps that bit longer as well, which helps with the golden hour angle. So again, that's a key area where I would look with most of these things. It comes down to planning your day rather than the day taking control of you. Yeah, that golden hour Colin. I just got to get you views on this because too often you see any sort of VHC. If dealt with far too late, they can't get through to the customer for an hour or two days. How often have both of you heard that at three o'clock in the afternoon? The customer says, yeah, great. I'll get the tyres done and get the brake fluid done, get the air conditioning sorted. I'll be there in an hour or half an hour. How do you deal with that Colin? So the golden hour, the way we work it is everyone's got 15 minutes. So the vehicle comes in to the workshop. You've got 15 minutes for the technician to produce the VHC. That thing goes to parts. They've got 15 minutes to price it and value it and get it through to the team on the front. So the front, they're going to get that VHC video out to the customer with the pricing. We've got auto authorization on our VHC process as well. So the customer can auto authorize. We tell them at a point in the booking, they tell them that at the point in the drop off. So we really want to push that auto authorization. The technicians were trying our best to get the technicians to mention that in the video as well. That's been a relatively new thing. So we've just finished training on that. So they're trying to get that. You can actually auto authorize from this video. So we went that out within 15 minutes. So within 45 minutes, the customer's got a price. Hopefully for the additional work. They've got a video which clearly displays the reasons they need that additional work. Or the fact that there's a time-mined out manufacturer being recommended repair or replacement on there. So that's what we get. Hello, you're going to ask me. How many people actually auto authorize? You're going to ask them questions. Yeah. And that varies from brand, but the average across the group is 7%. And weirdly, Volvo is the highest auto authorization rate. They're 17%. Can I ask a question there with 7%? Is that 7% that respond within a suitable time to be able to be considered within that golden hour? Or is that 7% in total? It's 7% in total. But we have, so the figures, and I've got them over there, so I can quote them exactly. So I'm not giving you any rubbish. So within 10 minutes of receiving the video, just under 45% are authorized. The 10 to 30 minutes is under 25%. So 70% are within that period of 20 minutes from receipt. So it's within that, just within that golden hour. So I don't have five if you want to be a penalty. That really is. So on the ramp, and we've not boxed that up and put it outside. So it's still a profitable job to do those great plans. We're going to bring them in and start on the L&3, £50 and have them wash their car the second time. And another opportunity where that car may get damaged whilst on a seat. I think I'd have to say that's testimony. So you get a life what you focus on, because that would far outstrip the normal statistics that are out there for work approved, work accepted in the first place. And then also accepted within the period that it could actually influence, and the efficiencies we're talking about that golden hour. In an average dealership, that's miniscule. And that's really, you know, it depends, if you focus on that and your system works around it, then that's great. But what's happened, I've found quite a lot with dealerships, is where the service advisor is almost going, oh, I can see if they've watched that video. So let me send it. Let me wait 10 or 15 minutes and see if they have a look at it. And if they don't have a look at it, maybe pick up the phone. Well, that 10 or 15 minutes is more time that's eating in. You know, I look at it this way in the golden hour. If your tech jumps on that vehicle and does the initial walk around of the vehicle health check and gets that back through to you within 15 minutes, he's doing a pretty good job. Okay. If it goes to the parts department and they price that job and they get that completed within 15 minutes, that's a pretty good job as well. And then if it lands on the service advisor's desk and he gets back to them, or she gets back to them within 15 minutes, they're doing a pretty good job. But that's 45 minutes of your hour when we're talking about the golden hour there. And that's one car. You multiply that by the 30 or 40 that you may have in in a day. It now becomes slightly harder to manage. There was one that came out there that just reminded me of how things have changed as well in terms of just a real good top tip that sort of sprung to mind. Years ago, and I still see this go on, people used to say, we've got your email address as this. We've got your phone number as this. Simon will be in touch. We'll give you a call. What they didn't, what we're sort of pushing to do now is actually rather than confirm the details that you hold on file, is actually to say, I need to get hold of you today. What's the best method to contact you? Because I might have got you on your mobile last time, but it doesn't mean to say today I'm going to be able to get you on your mobile. It might be a text. It might be somebody else that authorizes the work. But it's that single vision that morning drop off of I need to get hold of you. How do I do it? Even that will actually push the ability for you to get to more people within that golden period of time. Absolutely. And the method always you're going to go, so you can offer the customer that you can listen. I can text you and you can text me back if that's convenient. We split the contact up as well down there. I think you train us too. What's the best number or method? I can get hold of you. And what's the best email that the technician can send you that vehicle health check video to? So they notice a technician that's going to send a video through on there and it just adds value to the whole experience. I hate it when they say the service advisor says, yeah, I'll get one of the boys to look at it. What's nice? I don't have quite any scar boys. Look at my car for nothing. It's a lot of people. I'm looking 180-6. I know I'm not a good guy. I'm a boy to look at my car. So that's separating. What's the best email address that the technician can send you a video to? Keep an eye out for that. And texting the customer once the vehicle's on the ramp. That's your vehicle on the ramp. It's been worked on the heading. Keeping on your email for his video. And so that's just a wee update to the customer. They're going to offer it. It's a bit like the Amazon, your gloves are tick-ticks, stops away. So you're then going, oh, I'm going to track where my gloves are. It's the same kind of idea. This is a trained gender. Amazon experience, I think, is the best. Yeah, listen, thanks a lot. There's obviously so much we need to talk about. So next week, let's just talk about how someone can go back and put this into their dealership. That just leaves me to say that all details of this episode and other episodes on the selling in the Motor Trade can be found on our website, simcotraining.co.uk. Go there to get a copy of our book, Words That Sell Cars. Go there to sign up to a free trial of our sales fitness online sales training program. Easiest way to get hold of me is Simon Bowkett, food link to him. Thank you.
