Top 5 Qualities of a Genuine Service Advisor [RR 1106]

0:00This is the Automotive Repair Podcast Network. Hey, how you doing, man? Good to see you or hear you, or have you listened to me? It's Carm Capriato, Remarkable Results Radio. I have Levi Linesman with me, performance coach at autoflow.com. We are going to talk about the genuine service advisor. There has never been more articles, podcasts done on the key value of that most critical job.

0:32And we're gonna call it a genuine service advisor in this thing. Hey, I wanna let you know, we've got this fabulous app that's out there. It's arpn.app. It's for your smartphone. It's the ultimate professional automotive repair playlist. And I wanna tell you something, there's a new version coming out real soon. And I hope by the time this episode hits the airwaves, the new version's out.

0:56We have done some phenomenal things with this app that you are going to fall in love with. All right, great, great partners here on the podcast, NAPA Autocare and NAPA Trax. Are you looking to take your shop to the next level? With NAPA Autocare, you can deliver unbeatable customer confidence through the Peace of Mind Warranty. Learn how to upgrade your service and grow your business.

1:22Connect with your local Napa rep today. Hey, for over 30 years, Napa Tracks has made selecting the right shop management system easy by offering the best, most comprehensive SMS in the industry. We'll prove to you that Tracks is the single best shop management system in the business. Find Napa Tracks on the web at napatracs.com. Hey, welcome! It's Levi Linsman, performance coach at AutoFlow.com.

1:52Hello, Levi. Hi, Carm. How you doing today? I'm good, man. You're in our Remarkable Results Toastmasters group. I am. Yeah. I've been a Toastmaster with the group for about a year now, about a year and a month. And it's been really helpful in building my confidence. It really has. When I first came in and I was like, oh, I got to speak publicly for people.

2:15I've been in the industry for a long time, but To be in front of a group and have people looking at you is a lot different, but it's been very helpful. Now remember, please listen intently to what Levi and I are gonna speak about being a genuine service advisor. Write down something, take, have a major takeaway, and then please implement it. It's just been our quote here.

2:38Listen to learn just one thing and implement it. I wanna know about what performance coaching means inside of AutoFlow. And what I know about Levi is he's the guy who helps people listen, Tab A, Slot B, hit the Enter key. And I'm being a little facetious here. However, so much software today is so heavy, so encumbered with features. There's more switches and yeses and nos and buttons you got to push left or right if you want this stuff to work.

3:11And to have somebody like you be involved with a new client so that the software starts working at optimum is fantastic. It is great to be a part of this team with AutoFlow. Yeah, they sign up for a subscription and it's a monthly service, but we throw in the training absolutely free on top of that. So it's the training, the processes, every shop has a different process of how they operate and I get to work closely with the administrators, the service advisors, and the technicians who understand that, and then coach and work side by side to help the software build transparency and trust.

3:51It is the show and sell every time by sending a digital vehicle inspection to the client without having them in the shop. I love it. Were you born to do this? I don't know. That's a good question. I've grown a lot. Let's just say that in my career in the auto industry, I've grown personally and professionally and auto industry's helped me in a lot of ways.

4:17It's been pretty remarkable, to be honest. Remarkable results. Wow. Interesting. Yeah. I wanted to use that. Oh my God. All right. I'll send you $10. All right. Here's the deal. When I heard what you just said, about the genuinity of you wanting to help people be at the, the top of their craft and use this piece of software that they're paying for, they got, they committed to, to help them run a better business.

4:45Your background is so interesting because this man was a tire specialist for 10 years. Wow. I'm sorry. Uh, that was a long, long time. It was a long time and I didn't know where I wanted to go with my career and That was okay. I learned a lot in the tire bays and we did general service work and I ran a crew there for a while, for many years really in the back.

5:10And then the opportunity to become a service advisor opened up at the shop that I was working at. This is a shop that's been open for 50 years in a small town in Michigan here. And I wanted to be a part of that. And I knew right away when the opportunity came, yeah, money's nice. And I wanted the money. There was a significant pay increase.

5:31But also I wanted to prove to myself that I'm not scared of dealing with the public. And even though I felt very nervous in the beginning, I mean, for probably longer than I can admit, but that's okay. How long were you a service advisor? I've been a service advisor formally for 15 years. Here's how it started. So Levi, service advisor, what's a top trait?

5:54And when he told me the top trait, I just said, can you come on the podcast and talk about it? Because I'm not necessarily sure 100% of the people get this whole genuinity, which you say is the core quality. And I don't know if genuinity is an innate trait that you were born with, or is it something you can learn? I think you can learn anything that you put your mind to with proper training and a hard drive.

6:22I feel like you can master anything. You gotta have confidence. You gotta have communication skills. You have to have empathy. You gotta be able to look someone in the eye and feel their pain and want to help solve it. Does that build trust and relationship? Absolutely. I mean, as soon as a customer comes in, they can sense the presence. At least that's what I feel of, are you having a bad day?

6:46What does your tone sound like when you greet them? Did you look them in the eye? Did you smile at them? Did you shake their hand? Some of these basic human elements of when you meet somebody new, not just sitting behind the desk with your head down like, why are you here to bother me? I can't stand when I walk in and I see that, and I have to deal with that personally now when I go to a shop because I no longer work in the shop.

7:10Those are basic things. Just tell me that you care about my problem and we will get through this together. Every situation is different. Every financial situation, everybody's got a different story to tell. And I feel like we as advisors can listen maybe just a little bit better. You're going to get some really great words coming out of this episode with Levi. We started to talk about genuineness or genuineness is a core quality, core value.

7:42But I love some of these other words. We had a pre-call before we started because I really wanted to get what was in Levi's heart. And one of the words you said, I'm big into words. Everyone knows I'm on this major language shift in the industry to help sophisticated professionalism in our industry. But you said the word pureness. God, that just reeled me.

8:05Yeah. I mean, if you're pure in, let's see if I can put this to thought here properly, but if you generally want to help somebody, The money's always gonna be there. I think that's what we were talking about was something along those lines. And people that are pure, you can almost see that they have a very large heart. They want to take care of people.

8:27They're, you know what I'm saying? Yep, exactly. And their ethics are big and they want you to trust them. And ultimately they're gonna do everything for you to earn that trust. And that's what it is too. This is a trust-based relationships and you're not just dealing with the mom or the dad or the daughter. You're dealing with the whole family. There's always an opportunity to grow that client into a whole family.

8:49Recommendations. This is still a word-of-mouth industry. No matter how many Google reviews are out there, there's still people relying on the trust that you establish with them. You know, when I think about the challenges that are going on inside of our counters, we've recently done an episode on AI answering the phones. There's so much going on with technology. With setting appointments with AI phone and AI phone answering is getting so sophisticated today.

9:22I mean, it's sensing your mood, your feeling, your tone of voice, and it's responding back almost into the situation. I've been playing with some of this software and I'm really impressed with it. But the big challenge that I have, and we're talking about the genuinity of a service advisor, Can we find genuinity in an AI voice? Maybe we can, and maybe they can work toward that.

9:45I don't know. But that's a challenge for the industry. That's where I can't even imagine that AI would replace a service advisor at our counter. I can't even imagine because ultimately you've gotta come in and someone's gotta dig deep, write up the ticket, talk to you, look you in the eye, put their arm around you, if you will. In an emotional way to help you through the crisis that you're going through if there's a problem with the vehicle.

10:13True. And there's mistakes that happen and all the time people need that human in the loop. As Craig O'Neill would talk about, that human in the loop is gonna be very, it's vital for the service industry, no matter what service industry we're in, but we're talking about automotive right now. And I feel like a good service representative is always gonna be wanted.

10:35No matter how good AI gets, because no matter how you feel about it, you're still talking to a robot that might not know, or a language model that might not know your situation and not have that genuine empathy or care that a human can provide. Human in the loop. Yep. Human in the loop. We talk about that every week and human in the loop is an awesome term.

11:01That is just so powerful. Well, you're replacing me, boss, with an AI phone thing. No, I'm sorry. You are the human in the loop. And there's going to be a lot of good use of AI. Let's not lie about this and let's embrace the AI. It is going to be helpful, but it's another tool that we have in our toolbox to help with the process of writing the customer, getting the customer out of the shop, and have that vehicle safe and reliable.

11:29Does an individual at our counter have to have the ability to be coached? A lot of times we hire people for personality. We're going to teach them the skills that it matters. How do we find a person who is coachable? Yeah. I think everybody should be coachable. I feel like life is a learning process. If we act like we know everything, then what do we have to learn?

11:53I mean, that we talk about that a lot and And it doesn't have to be that every day, but if I come in with that mindset, then I have something to learn and I can tweak what I'm doing just a little bit better. Everybody needs training. Everybody can benefit from it. When you think about you moving from being a tire specialist up to 15 years on the counter, when you looked at other people that have worked with you in the past, do you have any hiring strategies for what to look for?

12:24Mm, that's a good question. Hiring strategies. It's some of the hiring I did was more for the tire bays, I guess, but not at the counter or anything. But we can train for certain skills, but that whole genuineness, how do we look for genuineness? Do you think you can notice it right away when you're talking to somebody, if they're looking you in the eye or?

12:47Yeah. I mean, isn't eye contact, isn't A certain level of truth and confidence you're hearing in an interview, the way that you present yourself. You know, people always say today, you know, in your first interview, hire 'em 'cause they may ghost you or they may have other offers. And to me, a second interview even, or a third interview for me was always important because I'm a thinker.

13:10I would take a situation and an individual in front of me, and I'd listen to that individual. I'd take a lot of notes back in the day. That we weren't recording an episode and having somebody do a transcript for me if they're allowing you to record it. And a lot of times for me, you got to make a good pot of sauce and it needs to sit on the stove for a while and you need to think through what this discussion was like.

13:35You know, my God, I remember their body posture and how they were looking at me and how are they going to look at my customers? There's so many dynamics. It almost lends me to believe that I need to get to one of these HR professionals and ask them, tell me what we're really looking for in depth to hire a top service advisor, even if they don't know the automotive.

13:55Well, yeah. And a good point here is let's say we have interview number 1 and you ask them, are you coachable? And they're like, I've done this for 15 years. I have nothing to learn. How would that make you feel as a hiring coach? Not really. Well, it gets me to think this, Levi. I have nothing to learn. Well, what they don't understand is we're changing some new software in the next 3 weeks and we're all going to have to learn what that is.

14:24And when you're closed-minded to change, not things to learn, but change is learning curves. Yep. And for me personally, I'll never pretend like I know everything. Even when I'm with the client that's been on with us for a long, let's say, 10, since the beginning, I'll always act. If I don't know the question or the answer to the question, I'll find it and I'll tell them.

14:50And that's a genuine thing. And people love that. And don't BS them about it. Just say, I don't know, and get the answer and move on. People love that. Teach me, show me. And if your intuition is strong like mine is, there's this little patch in the back left part of my brain that's observing all the time. It's not for a negative reason.

15:14It's all for what can I learn from this experience that I'm going through? And this individual who is teaching me, are they at the top of their craft or are they just taught me the little that they know and now I've got to go deeper? True. Yep. Do you see a lot of your clients taking their service advisors to coaching, to call reviews, to seminars?

15:39I see it about 50/50. There is a, in my opinion, the industry at a whole needs a lot of training and that's a good thing. I mean, that's, we can identify that and then we can get through it. I did a training with SalesFix. After 10 years of service advising, and it was really nice to go in there and do that and learn something new.

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18:55That's napatracks.com. There are a lot of guys like you in different positions in the industry that spend time in shops. And I don't want to put you on the spot here, man, but you're there, you're on the counter, you're— there's— it's a busy place going on. You're watching to see if they've learned what you taught them yesterday and Watching the software work and you're in a fingers on the chalkboard moment when you see something not good happen in a relationship, the genuineness that's necessary, the relationship build.

19:34Do you see that a little bit and what does it do to you? Yeah, in the shops is one thing, but I went to a shop last year and the manager was kind of hunched over his chair on a cell phone. Not engaged in what was going on. And I'm out in the shop and there is, it's dirty. There's parts everywhere. There's a guy sitting on a chair in the middle of the shop.

19:57And I'm like, oh, if you got time to lean, you got time to clean. That's just something like I, that I grew up hearing back when I first started working. And if you got a job to do, do it. And those are all things that have been ingrained in me. And I, when I was seeing that, it was hard to witness and not try to interject because they're on a friendly relationship and it can be a challenge.

20:23But then I go to other shops and everybody's so dialed in and it's a complete opposite. And to see that, it just makes me feel so good to know that good training works. So you sent me the top 5 genuine qualities of a top service advisor first one was eye contact. Yeah. When I come into a place, I would like somebody to, if they're sitting down, I would like them to get up and look me directly in the eye and ask questions.

20:56I experienced this at a shop where the guy was sitting behind the counter, hunched over, kind of looking at me like I was bothering him. And I had a genuine problem with my vehicle and I've been in the industry in a shop for 25 years. I've never had to go outside of it to get a car repaired in those 25 years. So when I walked in and he could barely look at me, I should have turned around and walked out of there right away, but I didn't because I was like, eh, everybody has bad days and I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.

21:26Well, I should have trusted my judgment, but eye contact is important. No matter what we do and no matter what we're dealing with as advisors, And eye contact and smile go a long way. Eye contact and smile. I do know that I was at the Disney Institute a bunch of years ago when I worked for corporate America as we were working on some really cool value sets, purposes, vision, mission, values.

21:53And Disney people got up and says, we'll tell you what our customer service creed is, everyone. And they explained that they spent 3 days in a room locked in, doing more 3M big Post-it notes on the wall for 3 days. And they came away with, look them in the eye and smile. And that is exactly how every person in Disney should treat one of their— what do they call— they're not clients.

22:18Maybe they're clients, customers. Eye contact and smile are your top 2. Your 3rd is warmth. I love that. Yeah, my 3rd is warmth. And that comes from genuine. I feel like that goes hand in hand. Warmth. Let them know that you actually care, which is on my list too. Uh, that warmth and just that you are a friend here. And that's what was good about working for my company.

22:45It was called Tire Warehouse in Lake Orion, Michigan. What was good about them is we had, it wasn't customers. They were friendships that were built and established from decades. And when I came in, I was like, I want to do that. I want to shake their hands and I want to like, not schmooze them, but like I watched the guys, they would talk to them like they were the best friends.

23:05And then all their family would come in. They throw their keys at you. Just tell me when it's done. That's how it was there. We had hundreds and hundreds of clients like that. I mean, it was incredible to be a part of. Key tossers are so cool, aren't they? They really are. Yeah. When I left there and I went to a different place, I didn't realize how important that was because it was 10 years of relationships that I walked away from at that point.

23:31And that's a long time when you're dealing with all of those clients, 10 years. We put the hard work in to establish that trust, to get those keys tossed. And then when you go somewhere else, you have to redo that all over again, almost. And your 5th and final, what you would call genuine qualities of a service advisor is humility. To admit you made a mistake.

23:55Wow. Yeah, I think that's good. I mean, people can sense the BS and there are times where we make mistakes and, oh, I know it's mechanics never make mistakes, right? It happens and it's a human element. This is a hard profession and I'm not discounting the mistake. Like I'm not discounting that it is hard, especially in an independent shop where you're working on 20 different makes and models in a given week or a day, for instance, it's hard to know every system.

24:28You're not going to be right all the time. I'm not going to be right with things. Maybe I chose a wrong part from a vendor that was inferior to what should have been put on there. But if I can admit to them I made a mistake and we're going to make it right, win a customer for life that way. Yeah. You know, service advisor has so much to do with the ultimate client experience from minute 1 to minute 10 when the car's finally delivered.

24:57And there can be promised time issues, lots of stuff that goes on. And the clarity of, oh, I dropped my car off right now and you didn't start working on it immediately. People have to understand that you bring it in, we have to do an assessment, we have to get it in the proper order with the proper individual to solve the issue with the vehicles.

25:17And I think to your point about having warmth and caring, we gotta explain it the best we can. Now, if something falls off the rails during that time, almost be proactive and say, hey, we made a goof here. We wanna let you know, Mrs. Smith, we told you 2 o'clock, but it's gonna be 4. We're really sorry about that. Is there anything we could do?

25:40Do we have to get you an Uber? What do we have to do here? And in many cases, when you're that proactive and you're at this empathetic, caring mode, hey, don't worry about it, Levi. No problem. Piece of cake. I don't know how many times we've gone through that. You've exactly what you just talked about. We told you to be done at 2, or we told you to be done.

26:01Yeah, it's important to follow through with them and tell them that you care about their time. Don't just leave them hanging out there and then call them at 4. Give them a call. Admit. That mistake, or maybe it's not a mistake. It could be a broken bolt or a part didn't get delivered. There's so many things that we deal with as advisors, so many stresses.

26:21We get hit from so many angles. And, but it's about that follow-through, just like you said. Yeah. I mean, it is, if we could pick them up or get an Uber for them, it is fine. And that it's fine about 90% of the time. There hasn't been too many situations that I've had to that I couldn't get out of. Let's just say that.

26:41Well, Levi, that's why I come here. You're always straight and upfront with me. Exactly. That's the way it is. I mean, and that proper training of the customer right from the start, right from the time that they drop their keys off, let them know that this, you're going to be looking at it at this time or throughout the day, maybe not even set up a timeline for them because you might only have one technician that's qualified to look at the car.

27:06If we can still look at it on the day they dropped off, it doesn't feel like a waste of time to the client at that point because they did set up an appointment. Setting the times is so hard in this industry because things change. And we all know this, they change rapidly throughout the day. You know that I've been hearing so much about some really great quality tactics, been in the shops, watched this happen where they're basically explaining in detail to a brand new customer where they should park.

27:34You're looking at the building. There's a spot on the left. You'll see, you know, that there's an orange thing over here. They feel so much more comfortable not pulling up saying, where do I park? Where do I go? Do I go on the street? And right away there's a warmth in— you haven't even been in the building as a new client before.

27:50You found us online for all the right reasons. You called, we've got an appointment. You're taking so much unknown pressure off of me just by getting me in the door. Yeah, that's a good point. And those setting those appointments up are so critical. And that is, they're almost interviewing us at that stage of the process. I feel like we're always being with new clients that we're always being interviewed the whole step.

28:16How did they take the appointment? Were they on time? Did they follow through with what they were going to say? Was there a warmth there? Did they care? I mean, that is what I feel. That was successful for me. Look, I think my friend Chris Cloutier picked a good person to be their performance coach because you've been there and done that. Yeah, I really like working for Chris and Craig.

28:40Those guys are awesome. They're just really good people and it's good to be a part of and to sit here at this stage of my career and still every day it's like I have something new to learn and that is exactly why I wanted to join with this team was to push and to, to grow. Well, I'm so glad you were here, Levi Linsman, the genuine service advisor with his 15 years of experience and where he came from, the bays and, and upfront and all that you've learned.

29:11And now you're out there implementing software, your software for clients that will make them even better at what they do as service advisors. Yeah, our software is awesome. I've used it at the shops for 7 years before I started working for AutoFlow. And we get a chance to do the show and sell every time without having that client there. I think I've mentioned that before and I'll mention it again.

29:37It is a direct report. And when people get that from a small shop in the middle of Michigan or wherever, they are super impressed with the technology that comes over. They're like, they just don't expect it. Well, thanks for being here. And I'm going to leave the audience with 2 words. This is just been flowing out of my mouth in the last couple of weeks, Levi.

29:58Sophisticated professionalism. I really like that. I know, me too. I mean, I've been heavy on professionalism, but adding the word sophisticated in front is not a cocky attitude. It's sharp on all the edges that you can be. Be sophisticated and be bigger and more than you currently are because I believe the client wants that from you. Absolutely. They do. Hey, it was fun.

30:25I learned a lot. Hopefully the audience did. Remember, listen to learn just one thing, take something away, implement it. Thanks, Levi. Thanks for being on board to listen and learn from the premier automotive repair business podcast, Remarkable Results Radio. Get your episodic education on the ARPN listening app at automotiverepairpodcastnetwork.com. Also enjoy the podcast on our Carm Capriato YouTube channel. CARM is all for advancing the professional automotive service industry.

30:54Until next time!