In automotive repair the service advisor has many interdependent relationships. The shop requires sales volume and profit margins and pricing can affect the service advisors ability to achieve goals in these areas. Effectively scheduled appointments can seriously affect customer service and allocation of customer transportation can be equally as important. Timeliness and completeness of diagnosis and inspection results affect efficiency and sales for the service advisor. And quality workmanship affects sales, customer retention and productivity for the technician as well as supporting personnel. Following are areas of interdependence that affect service advisor performance:
- Competitive Pricing – The service advisor is responsible for selling work for technicians and the technicians are dependent on that work. The shop must balance competitive pay for technicians and favorable part costs with market competitive pricing in order to generate a reasonable profit for the business.
- Scheduled Appointments – The service advisor depends on enough pre-scheduled customer visits to fill the shop with work. And the customer depends on the ability to drop their car off and get to their destination in a timely fashion. Overloading a service advisor with too many simultaneous customer appointments creates a bottleneck and can result in unhappy customers. Also, a scheduled appointment during the day that takes place when a service advisor needs to be building recommended services or performing some other duty can result in a conflict.
- Customer Transportation – If the shop provides customer transportation such as shuttle or loaner cars, the service advisor is dependent on availability and proper allocation of these resources. Overcommitting or conflicts in this area can negatively impact customer service.
- Inspection and Diagnosis Results – The service advisor relies on recommended services that result from inspections and diagnoses. If they’re complete, comprehensive and timely – upselling to the customer will be effective. If not upselling will be less efficient and successful.
- Quality Workmanship – Technicians depend on service advisors to sell work for them and service advisors depend on technicians to produce quality work in a timely manner. This interdependency has a heavy impact on the service advisor’s ability to sell services and shop success overall.
