Balancing Talent and Technology

The recipe for success in any service department is maintaining a proper balance of employees, technology and processes. Balancing the ever-changing business of servicing customers with the rising costs and complexity of technology and retaining talent requires strong management skills.

In working with dealerships, I commonly see a revolving-door phenomenon. Dealerships are regularly replacing employees, replacing computers and revamping processes without focusing on what may be needed for long-term success. The answer could be as simple as defining your goals for each area and measuring the success.

Many of us have probably had the sentiment, “If I just had better people or if only I had that new computer system, the world be in harmony.” As technology improves, it becomes tempting to replace processes and communications with new and improved technology. While keeping up with new technology is important, it’s critical that we balance all of the assets in the dealership

Building a high-performing service department goes beyond having the latest technology or the most talented advisors. There are a few steps you can take to improve advisors’ performance.

First, set goals for your service advisors to meet. Identify what you want them to achieve or to improve upon. You’ll need to define how you will measure their performance against expectations. The best way to start this process is to talk to your advisors.

Make sure your advisors don’t have conflicting motivations, which will cause them to sacrifice excellent customer service. It’s very easy to say, “I want every customer greeted and written up within x minutes” or “Service menus should be presented to every customer without exception.” The real challenge is in the follow through.

While most processes are implemented with the greatest of intentions, it’s important to realize when it can’t be done with the tools at hand. In order to understand why advisors don’t stick with a new process or embrace new technology, you must identify what they believe are their primary goals. Take some time with each advisor and look at the business through their eyes. If their outlook lines up with the goals set for the dealership, then you are OK. Often, however, you’ll find they may not understand the big picture or there might be conflicts in pay plans or duties which cause good advisors to jump ship on the process, or even worse, the dealership.

Building a team attitude

With your advisors, you need to know where they stand on a few things. The first is attitude. Take the temperature of your advisors’ attitudes by gauging how well they interact with the other departments of the dealership. How well they interact with other employees is a good indication of how far they will go to service customers. If there doesn’t seem to be much teamwork, I’ve found it beneficial to give employees a chance to understand other job roles in the dealership. For example, a quarterback doesn’t need to perform the job of the center, but he does need to understand what challenges the center faces in a game. The same thing holds true for employees of different departments. Make it a point to allow employees to spend time working in a cross-training environment. While I don’t think a complete job swap is needed, some quality time spent observing and helping out in each department can go a long way into developing a team attitude.

Reviewing job skills

The second thing you need to look at is raw talent. Do your advisors have the sufficient knowledge and skills to earn customers’ confidence? Are they current on product knowledge? If not, have your advisors work with the sales staff in a “roundtable format” on product knowledge. Encouraging group discussions will improve both groups of employees and build teamwor

Now, customer communication skills can present a bigger challenge. Too often we tell advisors to work harder or sell more, but we never let them know what areas to improve in a way that helps them.

Take time to document what the “perfect” customer write up and experience looks like. Have your advisors do this in a meeting so the ideas come from them. They will begin to see what they might be missing. Once the elements of a perfect customer write up are on paper, have the team analyze each component of the customer experience and make notes of the good and the bad.

Next, finalize your agreed upon write-up process by creating an official step-by-step checklist. Then watch how your advisors handle each piece of the write up. Once you have observed 5 to 10 customer interactions for each advisor, you will be ready to provide an assessment of their performance.

Don’t rush into the actual review; take time to really look at each advisor’s performance and how he or she handles all elements of your processes. Also, don’t be tempted to fix everything at once. Instead, when you sit down with each advisor, recognize where each is excelling and pick only one or two items to coach on. When you spend time with them, be a coach. Use a “You do, I do, and you do” method. Have them handle one customer interaction, then you handle the next, so they can see what you mean. Each week, work in a few new items. By the end of the month you will have a whole new look and feel on the service drive. You will also have gained the respect of your advisors as someone who is interested in their career and success.

Assessing technology and processes

Much of the same principles I’ve discussed above can apply to technology. Take a look at the perfect customer experience again, but from a technology standpoint. How are appointments set? Is the write up convenient and quick for the customer? Take a hard look at the tools in the system and how well your staff is using them.

Most systems offer various features for scheduling, documenting appointments, pricing work and following up with customers. Take inventory of what your system has to offer. Remember to look at what it offers, not if it is being used or working correctly

Now look at how the system and its features fit into the perfect customer experience. Using the same method of identifying how technology could enhance the customer experience, create a checklist to evaluate your system and measure capability and utilization. Are there any components missing? Is it fast enough? Do you need more applications to cover the experience? Do your advisors need training to increase utilization? Do you need help with settings or specifications?

Again, focus on one or two things to work on. Try to move in the same order as the customer experience. This means starting with the appointment process and walking through the steps to prioritize what to work on and how to engage your staff. If specifications are incorrect and the system is not behaving as you want it to, fix the specs first.

As you work through the technology and the people, you will have created a documented process along the way. It is critical that you periodically visit your goals and adjust your processes as needed to meet those goals.

In the end, always identify the key items to work on and use a systematic approach for each area. As you do, you will begin to blend the needs of customers with the actions of employees. You will also blend how they use technology to improve the customer experience. Maximizing the talents of your staff, as well as the speed and efficiency of technology, will pay off in ease of doing business, both for customers and for employees.