Service advisors are an important part of your front office. Your service advisor is on your front lines, looking after your customers. They understand customer needs, and have the skill and knowledge to advise them on service or repairs, are detail-oriented, provide reasonable expectations on costs, and accurately set timelines.
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In other words, your service advisor is a part of your brand. You have to be confident this individual can develop and maintain a healthy relationship with your customers, techs, and anyone else you work with. A service advisor needs to wear multiple hats in a day, including managing your automotive shop management software to plan technicians’ tasks. The image below summarizes what a service advisor’s responsibilities look like:
What makes a good service advisor?
You already know the things to consider while hiring the best mechanic for your auto repair shop. Next, you need the best service advisor who’ll take your shop to the top.
Here are some traits of a good service advisor:
1. An empathetic ear and sharp business skills
For starters, customers will appreciate an empathetic service advisor who is also a great listener. Can they put themselves in the customers’ shoes, understand what’s going on in someone else’s life, and know the other options available?
Your shop needs a service advisor who can multi-task, maintain your shop’s integrity, smile through stressful situations, and remain enthusiastic about their job. In addition to these soft skills, they need to understand key performance indicators (KPIs)—how the margin on each repair can impact the profitability of your shop, know the cost of parts (including markup, the correlation between labor time and rates, and overhead).Â
2. Extraordinary people skills
Often, a shop owner is a technician first, with a knack for the business of vehicle repairs and service. That’s where they should be spending their valuable time while a service advisor takes care of the customers.
Service advisors are the face of your shop and need to have the ability to work well with people. Have to deal with unhappy customers at your auto repair shop? Put your service advisor forward to deal with them in a friendly manner.
The image below summarizes what service advisors can help your business achieve:
How can this happen? What type of ratio works best? It all depends on the size of your shop, the number of bays, and your stage of business development. Generally, having two to four technicians per service advisor works well; however, you should consider variables like the number of vehicles coming into the shop daily.
3. Good communication skills
Service advisors bridge the communication gap between suppliers, techs, and customers. This means that communication is key for this role. Here are a few skills service advisors should have to be successful:
- Stay calm: There will be times when communication gaps get frustrating. Service advisors must keep their cool since their behavior reflects your shop’s image.
- Be transparent: If there are delays while working on a customer’s car, a service advisor should promptly inform them. Keeping customers informed has become increasingly important with the auto parts shortage and other supply chain constraints. Car owners will appreciate getting a heads-up about delays to make other transportation arrangements while their cars are in the shop.
- Effectively communicate things: A service advisor has to coordinate with multiple people every day. If they’re unable to communicate effectively, it’ll increase the back-and-forth and hamper the overall productivity.
4. Ability to go the extra mile
Service advisors have to go above and beyond to ensure things run smoothly. They essentially plan the day for the technicians, so it can affect the whole business if service advisors slip up.
A great service advisor will bend over backward to exceed expectations for the day, get ready for the next day, check schedules, make a plan, and be all set to go.
How wide should you cast your net when recruiting?
While it’s ideal to find a service advisor with experience in the industry, you’ll find restaurant employees and servers also make great candidates. They’re accustomed to dealing with the public and juggling multiple tasks.
If your recruit is from outside the industry, you can get them started with Automotive Service Excellence (ASE) training. You can then invest in further training with groups like Elite or the Automotive Training Institute (ATI).Â
Concluding thoughts
With the right service advisors in place, your shop can thrive in boom times and during the auto repair slow season. They’re important players in your team who can help sell your services and keep customers, techs, and suppliers satisfied.Â
With the right service advisor taking care of your customers, you’ll have more time to focus on growing your auto repair shop.Â
