Most SERVICE ADVISOR training programs focus on scripts, sales tactics, and word tracks.

But the best training usually comes from something else entirely:
real experience.

In Service Drive Revolution #360, Chris Collins shared the story behind how his SERVICE ADVISOR training was originally created—not from a classroom, but from years of working inside dealerships, watching customers struggle, and learning firsthand what actually works in the service drive.

And for today’s SERVICE ADVISORS and SERVICE MANAGERS, the lesson is important:

The best systems are usually built by people who lived through the problems themselves.

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The Service Drive Reveals Everything

Early in his dealership career, Chris started as a porter washing cars and moving vehicles around the lot.

That position gave him a unique perspective most people overlook.

He wasn’t sitting behind a desk.
He was directly interacting with customers every day.

And what he noticed immediately was frustration.

Customers constantly felt:

• Confused
• Ignored
• Uninformed
• Disconnected from the process

Many weren’t upset about the repair itself—they were upset about communication.

That realization became one of the foundations of the training philosophy later developed for SERVICE ADVISORS..

Because in the service drive, trust and communication matter just as much as technical knowledge.

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Most Advisor Problems Aren’t Really Advisor Problems

One of the biggest insights from SDR #360 was this:

Many struggling SERVICE ADVISORS are actually working inside broken systems.

High turnover.
Poor communication.
Lack of process.
Weak leadership.

Those issues eventually create inconsistent customer experiences.

In strong Fixed Ops departments, leadership understands that advisor performance is heavily influenced by the environment around them.

You can’t expect advisors to consistently succeed inside chaotic systems without proper support and training.

Real Training Comes From Real Experience

Chris explained that his training evolved through observation, experimentation, and daily dealership experience—not generic sales theory.

That matters because the service drive operates differently than traditional sales environments.

Customers don’t want pressure.

They want:

• Transparency
• Speed
• Confidence
• Clear communication
• Genuine trust

That’s why many traditional “hard close” sales tactics fail in service advising.

The trust line is too delicate.

Instead, successful advisors focus on building connection quickly and making the experience easier for customers.

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Leadership Changes Everything

Another major part of the episode focused on leadership responsibility.

As Chris moved into leadership roles inside the dealership, he realized something difficult:

Managing people changes relationships.

Holding people accountable, building consistency, and creating standards requires a completely different mindset than simply being part of the team.

That’s a challenge many new managers struggle with today.

Strong SERVICE MANAGER leaders understand that culture, expectations, and accountability directly affect customer experience and advisor performance.

Without leadership consistency, even talented advisors eventually struggle.

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Training Should Improve Confidence—Not Just Numbers

One of the biggest mistakes dealerships make is treating training as only a numbers exercise.

But the best training also improves:

• Confidence
• Communication skills
• Problem-solving ability
• Customer interactions
• Emotional intelligence

When advisors become more confident in how they communicate, customers naturally trust them more.

And that trust drives:

• Better retention
• Higher customer satisfaction
• More approved recommendations
• Stronger long-term relationships

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The Best Systems Keep Evolving

Another takeaway from SDR #360 was the importance of continuous improvement.

The training wasn’t built overnight.

It evolved over time through:

• Feedback
• Real dealership experience
• Trial and error
• Coaching conversations
• Watching what actually worked

That mindset matters for every dealership today.

The strongest service departments never stop refining:

• Their communication
• Their processes
• Their leadership approach
• Their customer experience

Because the service drive is constantly changing.

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The Bottom Line

Great SERVICE ADVISOR training doesn’t come from memorizing scripts.

It comes from understanding people.

The advisors who succeed long term are usually the ones who:

• Build trust quickly
• Communicate clearly
• Stay adaptable
• Create confidence for customers
• Focus on relationships—not pressure

And the dealerships that consistently perform at a high level understand something important:

Better systems create better experiences.

For customers.
For advisors.
And for the entire service department.

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🔗 Related Resources

• How Service Managers Should Handle Difficult Customers in Fixed Ops
• Fixed Ops Leadership Lessons Service Managers Can Use in 2026
• Why Fixed Ops Systems Matter More Than People in Dealership Service

Feel free to explore the linked articles above for deeper insights into each strategy. If you have any further questions or need additional resources, don’t hesitate to ask!

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FULL VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Introduction and Upcoming Live Series

Welcome everybody to the big show. I’m Chris Collins. Hogi’s here. Adam’s here. Today we’re going to talk about how I created the best service advisor training ever. And it’s an interesting story with lots of twists and turns, death and love, redemption. And Thomas, if you hear this, no. Yeah, I hate you, Thomas. That and much much more coming up right now on Service Drive Evolution.

If you haven’t heard, at the beginning of June, we are starting a live series, Service Driver Revolution Live, where we are going to teach how to be an irreplaceable service manager, parts manager. I mean, really, you could be in any business and learn pricing strategies, how the financials work, marketing, all of it. Yeah. Yeah. One thing too we’re going to talk a lot about is marketing, which is something that most people don’t don’t understand, but it’s it’s going to be fun. It’s going to be a community.

We’re going to do it live together and sign up for our on demand. You can go to chriscllinsc.com and just sign up for that and that will be the part of it. But it’s coming quicker than you think and we’ll figure out something special for the people that are early adopters. Yeah, those are always the best people. Yeah, usually drive for quickest results.

The Seattle Music Ambition and the Cage in Gorst

Back to the story, the one thing that I kind of always had going for me like early on is that I knew I could outwork anybody. Like I would work like I would work hard. And so I decided that music was the path. Interestingly enough, my timing was pretty good because Seattle was blowing up. The music scene in Seattle was becoming something. Now, I didn’t know this yet when I was 17 and 18, but as soon as the whole high school experience was over, I was trying to figure out how to get to Seattle. And I joined a band. We would practice in Tacoma. So, I worked at a gas station video store.

Imagine that for a second. In Gorst, Washington, there was a convenience store next door, or it wasn’t part of the gas station. I’m in this cage. It was literally a cage and there was a video store that you walk down these stairs and you would check out videos and then you would do the gas and people had to prepay for the gas. Can’t trust people. I think when I first started it wasn’t prepay, it was just Gorst is in between Bremerton and Port Orchard on this highway. And so people were gone. I would work the graveyard shift. So, I would have band practice from like 5 until 7 or something and then I would show up for work at 9:00.

Balancing the Graveyard Shift and Playing the Bar Circuit

I would sleep all day. On the weekends, it was kind of off, but I worked Sunday through Thursday. So Friday and Saturday I could play. So my band would, we would go play anywhere we could play Tacoma. We ended up playing in Seattle and eventually we would practice in Tacoma which was about a 30 minute drive for me. Seattle was like a little over an hour from where I was. We played a couple shows, somebody saw us and we got a manager and then we got some better shows and back then

I would play and you would get a wristband and they would write a big M on your hand to say you were a minor so you couldn’t drink but you could play, you just had to go in and play and leave, you weren’t allowed to hang out in the bar and I mean we would play the worst show like you had to work your way up, but we were always playing, we were always flying, always practicing.

Moving to NAF and Climbing the Seattle Scene

Then this guy who owned this practice facility in West Seattle which was called NAF and his name was Mark Nafsy. That was where Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, and like a lot of the big bands practiced and we got invited to practice there which was a big deal. Now looking back, Naf was just trying to fill his place, but to us it was like, “Oh, we’re good enough to be invited to practice at this place.” So, we had a band meeting about it because we had to figure out, we were paying $200 a month for our band room and this was like $500 a month for the band room at NAF and it was in Seattle. And so we were like, we got to do it.

Like, we have to figure it out. We have to do it. So everybody was responsible for their hundred bucks and then you had to get there and instantly when we started practicing there, we started getting better shows because like the bands in there would be like we’d make friends and they’d be like, “Hey, you want to play with us at this upcoming show?” And so we were playing better shows.

Tragedy in the City and the Breaking Point

And this is when now at the beginning of this, Mother Love Bone signs kind of the biggest record deal that had ever been signed at the time. They record their debut album and two weeks before it comes out, the singer Andrew Wood dies of a heroin overdose and the city just like shut down. Like it was devastating cuz they were the darlings. You had Soundgarden. Soundgarden had been nominated for a Grammy for their album before Loud Love and they’d come out with their album Loud Love.

Nirvana had done Bleach and they weren’t Nirvana like we know them today, but they they were popular, but you had a bunch of other bands that were really popular and the scene was just really kind of popping off. Now, Mother Love Bone ends up becoming Pearl Jam a little bit later, but we were So, the thing was is I’m working this graveyard shift job an hour away and then I have band practice in Seattle. Didn’t, I couldn’t make it anymore. I needed to move to Seattle.

Moving to Seattle and Survival Mode

And it was kind of like this thing like we’re committed to this music thing. We’re a band. We’re a gang. We got to do this. So, we decided that we would get an apartment, but we all needed jobs. And there was this girl that our singer was dating that worked at a car dealership, and she said she could get us a job. So, my singer was looking for a job also. He lasted like a week. He, he quit, but she got me a job working from noon to 5 as a porter.

I was a part-time lot attendant at this dealership. I quit my gas station job and I didn’t, I still, we still didn’t have an apartment or anywhere to live because we didn’t have enough money. So I would sleep on our manager’s floor of her office in like Federal Way which is like a little out of Seattle or sometimes I would sleep in the car. Most of the time though I’d drive back to my mom’s. Right.

But I don’t know. I’m, I wasn’t, I don’t think I was working at the dealership more than a month and they made me full-time and then I had enough to pay my part of both rents and it was tight. But we were playing better shows so we’d make a little, the band, the band was making enough money to pay for our band rent and drumsticks and stuff like that, pretty quick, and we’d sell t-shirts and hats and that sort of stuff.

The Key Board and the Wash Rack

And so the dealership thing was kind of an interesting world for me cuz I just started off part-time. My job mostly was bringing up cars. So what would happen is we had this keyboard with 0, one, two, three, four, nine. And that was the last number of the tag is the hook you put it on. And there’d be like five keys on a hook and you’d have to go find it. But they would just call over the PA, please bring up 7258. You would run to the keyboard to 8, you would find 7258, you would go out and so they would write the number of the stall it was in. Okay? And then you would go get the car, pull it up for the customers, and they, sometimes they were washed, sometimes they weren’t.

The full-time porters were the kind of the ones washing mostly when I came in, people were starting to pick up their car. So, I didn’t spend a ton of time in the wash rack in the beginning, but then when I was full-time, I was in the wash rack. This is Seattle, Washington. You’re always wet. You’re always cold. And like we, we had a steam cleaner, so we would put hot water in the bucket with the soap, but you’re freezing. Like it’s just there’s no way around it. You’re always, you’re always cold.

Vacuum Change and Early Starbucks Days

The way that we would warm up is we would go to the vacuum cleaner and get the change that would get vacuumed up in cars. And you could come up with enough money for coffee and go to Starbucks, which was a new thing, but there was a Starbucks there in the University District and you’d get, I mean, Starbucks only had two sizes back then. It was a short and a tall and they didn’t even have grande yet. So they were little like this. This was a tall. So a short was like a buck and a tall was like a buck 35. So you could get a tall and it would just save your life, like you would just put your hands on that thing on the fire. It was the best.

Miserable Customers and the Layout of the Shops

It was just such an interesting world. Like I noticed right away that the customers were miserable cuz you would bring the car up and then the customer would be like, “Hey, wait, hold on. Come, come, come back.” And you go back and they’d be like, “They didn’t fix the thing I brought it in for. I would be like, “Okay, let me get you a service advisor.” And then they were busy or gone, and you could never get anybody to help him. And that was just constant, like it was just a constant thing. I remember thinking, man, like these service advisors don’t know what they’re doing. Like they really don’t know what they’re doing. Ends up it was the dealership, not the service advisors. Like they, but they had constant turnover in service advisors.

The techs were a pretty tightknit group. So you had Audi, Subaru, and Volkswagen. And they all were in a different shop. So the Audi guys were in the main building and the Subaru guys were in the same building just a step down and then the Volkswagen guys were across the alley in like this kind of barn thing. There were more Volkswagen techs than anything and that shop was the bigger shop. So maybe there were like I’m guessing there were 12 stalls in there.

There were six Audi stalls and maybe like 10 Subaru stalls and the dealership had previously had Porsche and they had sold Porsche. So, it was Audi, Volkswagen, Subaru. There’s an alley going through the the middle of the dealership, washing cars, pulling cars up. I could have cared less about anything else because I was in a band. Like my, my goal was to make it in music, not to be an employee at a car dealership. I wasn’t super connected to whatever was going on.

Getting a Raise, Radio Play, and Having Big Hair

But over time, you know, you get called in and you’re like, “Hey, Chris, you’re doing a good job. We’re going to give you a raise.” And now you’re making $8 an hour, whatever. And you, you know, you start to make friends. You get to know the service advisors. And, you know, I was kind of popular in the sense that I was in a pretty happening band. So, people wanted to come to our shows. They wanted to be on the guest list. They would support us and buy our t-shirts and you know they would hear us on the radio because they would play us on the radio and people like, “Oh, you were on the radio last night,” or I would tell everybody like, “Hey, listen tonight to KISW, we’re going to be on local heroes,” or whatever it is.

And so, you know, it was a, and I had huge hair by the way, you guys have seen pictures of me with long hair, right? Like I, so I put my hair in, I would put my hair in a ponytail but yeah I, I had big hair. No man bun though. You didn’t, that was, no, I never even thought about a man bun. That would even today, like that seems weird to me. Why would, I didn’t want to have it in a ponytail. It just would, you know, just got in the way.

Becoming Lot Manager and Dealing with Lost Keys

So, eventually what happens is the lady who hired me quits and I am offered to be in charge of the lot attendants and I’m 19, I think. Yeah, probably 19. And, that was a, that was an eyeopening experience all of a sudden being in charge. Yeah. I mean, there’s so many things that go through my head with that that, you know, you’re friends with these guys and we, we used to call ourselves the lot lizards and, you know, we were the lowest on the totem pole and we knew it and it was what it was. But now I was in charge of these guys and the relationship changed. Yeah. Because I needed them to work and I needed them to show up on time and be there and not call in sick and whatever, you know, bring up cars, not lose keys.

Like that was the thing. Like my whole life at that dealership revolved around a technician went home with the keys in their pocket and you can’t find the keys and the customer’s here to pick up the car. That would happen every day. They, like, when I, what happened is when I was in charge of the porters whenever there were lost keys I was the one that had to deal with it. So that basically felt like that was my job, but I, I was in charge of hiring. So I would interview and hire, I hired all my friends, guys from other bands that needed jobs, that sort of thing.

The Stoner Manager and the Tackle Box

And then one day my boss, the service manager, so let me try to, in the book I changed his name to Dick because I just thought it was funny, but that’s not his real name. But, when I was a porter, everybody would talk about how he was a stoner. And when you would vacuum his demo, like there was weed, he’d blow, like he was, he would show up like at 10:00 and leave at 3:00 cuz he lived like 2 hours away.

He was the, you know, the understanding to us dumb lot lizards was he was really good friends with the owner and that’s why he was there because he wasn’t much of a manager. And he was high all the time which is so funny. He, he calls me into his office and he goes, “I bought you something.” And I was like, “Okay.” It’s this tackle box.

I was like, “Oh, are we going fishing?” Like he bought me a tackle box. And he opens it up and it’s a window repair kit he had bought at NADA. And he basically says, “I bought this for you. I’m going to let you do it. What I want you to do is I want you to go around and write down all the cars in the lot that have window dings. Give them to the advisors. Have them sell them. You know, I want you to sell them for $29.95 and every time you sell one, I’ll give you five bucks and you got to do it or whatever, right?”

Breaking Windshields and Learning the Right Way

And this first windowing machine literally was like this ashtray. It had three, you would put that thing on the window and it would break it. I was going to say, isn’t that the apparatus that would break the windows? Yeah, it was the worst. It sells itself. So, of course, I break a couple windshields just by putting the suction cups on, the thing splits.

And I remember the, the body shop manager, his name was Andrew, I think he was a really good guy. I was telling him like the, this whatever keeps breaking. And he had a friend who did mobile window repair and the guy came in, he goes, “No, you don’t want that machine.” He goes, “You want this one.” And it was just a little like almost like a metal vial with one suction cup. And he showed me how to do it. Like you heat up the inside with a lighter. And so those things were like a hundred bucks. I don’t know.

He paid like three grand for that stupid thing. And these things like I bought a bunch of them. The same resin worked. But it, you know, it just had a little O-ring and it didn’t put a lot of pressure on the window, but you could get the fluid in there. So, if you heated it up, put the fluid in there, and put some pressure, as it cooled down, it would, it would pull in the resin and it would fix it.

Transitioning into Writing Repair Orders

I got pretty good at fixing them. And I don’t know, I started off, I would do two a day, and then I was doing five a day. Then Andrew, that same body shop manager, goes, “I did, I did you a favor.” I’m like, “What did you do, Andrew?” And he goes, “I got you on the insurance list.” He made me a DRP for window repair. So all of a sudden what starts happening is there’s a Toyota in the drive and the advisors, none of them wanted to touch a Toyota cuz it wasn’t a Subaru or whatever, right? It was like leprosy for them. But they’d be like, “My insurance company told me to come here and you’ll fix my window.”

And so I, that was kind of when I had to start writing my own repair orders because nobody wanted to write it. So I remember I got an, an advisor number and I, there was this advisor there. Her name was Dawn Sly. She was the best, she taught me how to write repair orders, she just like would help me with anything. I remember when I was trying to learn and be a backup advisor, she would let me write her internals and then she would check them and make sure, you know, cuz there’s one thing to write them, but then you had to know how to close them. And this is Reynolds and Reynolds back when it would crash once a month and you’d go back to handwrites. Like it was, you know, the, the wild wild west.

But I start doing these window dings and now all of a sudden maybe I’m making $12 an hour being the lot manager and I’m making another $20 an hour doing these window dings. Like because we went from 29 to $49.95 cuz the insurance companies paid $49.95. So why aren’t we charging that to everybody? And I’m doing like 10 or 12 of these a day. I had my own stall in the shop. Like I was, I was doing them and then what would happen is I would write the internals, that sort of thing. I was still in charge of the porters and when an advisor would go on vacation or call in sick I would get to be the backup advisor and so I would, you know, write four or five tickets.

It wasn’t a lot but I’d write, you know, write a few and follow them through and then I would get paid on that too. So, like I, I remember I get this check and it’s like I don’t know, an extra $300 or something for these ROs that I wrote for a week covering for this guy that was out. And I was like, “Wow, like this is great.” Like I’m, you know, I’m, also I got overtime so I’d work like every once in a while they’d call me in and they’d be like, “Hey, you got to cut back on the overtime.” I was like, “Okay.” Like and then that would last like a couple months and then they would need me and I would have to, you know, work overtime.

Getting the Promotion and Cracking the Metrics

So, then I throw my hat in the ring to be a service advisor because I found out how much they make and I get passed over. I, I think I counted I got passed over seven times. The last time I got passed over was when the dealer’s friend from his 20 group son moved to Washington for a girl or something. I don’t know. He was this mid 20-year-old dealer kid. I remember he had a Rolex which was nuts. Like an advisor with a Rolex. And he, he was the worst service advisor ever. Like and I went into my boss and I was like, “Hey, are you going to keep, like why do you keep passing me over?

Like you got to, you got to let me do this or whatever.” And so he goes, “Okay, I’m going to make you a service advisor, but if you drop below 2.5 hours per, you’re fired.” I’m like, “Deal.” And I walk out to Dawn’s. I go, “What are hours per?” She’s like, “I don’t know.” Like, nobody knew what hours per RO were. She’s like, “It’s the average you sell on each ticket.” I was like, and meanwhile, this, this terrible boss that I had, he didn’t let us run the advisor report.

So, Dawn and I eventually had his login and password to the DMS, and when he would leave, we would run the advisor report so we could see where we were at, but he would never let us know where we were at until the end of the month. And even then, like nothing ever made any sense, you know, but I, I become an advisor and then my, my friend takes over my position with the window dings and he’s in charge of the, the porters and I’m now a full-time advisor.

Surviving a Chaotic Service Drive

And it’s just super funny because when the, when those customers come up and they’re like, “You didn’t fix the thing.” Now I’m the one going out there and the, the, the shop was a mess. Like the dispatcher at that point was this guy that was just a drunk, like literally one time he threw my repair orders in the alley. Just took them and hucked them in the alley because like I, I’m trying to get these car, cars done for customers.

The way that they ran this service department was they did, for some reason they had this number in their head that there were, we were going to bring in 70 appointments. And so people would call in to make an appointment and there was this clipboard with 70 slots on it and you would just write people’s name and not even a time, you would just write their name in it. You could say like, “Hey, I’m Chris. Ask for me.” But it was an open floor.

Nobody unless they asked for you, that you know, and you know, most the advisors on the end of the counter were notorious for sneaking in the back when a new Subaru showed up or a new Volkswagen or you know, they knew it was an oil change and they didn’t want to hurt their hours per RO, that sort of thing. And so I’m in the, I’m next to Dawn Sly, so I’m the second spot in front of the door. So, she’s the, the front slot and then I’m second next to, next to her and yeah, you just like it’s like that thing like here you go, here’s your desk and your computer. Good luck. Like I’ve, I gained so much weight. I used to just leave that place and go drink. Like it was so stressful and so disorganized.

So that we would bring in 70 cars and then there’d be another 20 that would show up. I’d write like 25 customers and by 2:30 you could go back into dispatch and look and see and you would ask the dispatcher like what isn’t going to make it in and then start calling those customers. We were booked out a couple weeks. So, you would call the customer and be like, “Hey, Hogi, I’m sorry your car is not going to make it in the shop today.” And then you’d be like, “I made my appointment two weeks ago.” And you’re just like, “I know.” Like, believe me, I know. Like, what do you want?

The Dinosaur Dealership and the Arrival of CSI

And, by the way, this is, this is when CSI came out. Like when I became an advisor, I remember I got an award because I was number two in the country for Volkswagen CSI and I had no idea how that happened. No idea. I didn’t know how they were surveying. I just was called in and told by the factory rep like, “Hey, you’re number two in CSI.” And I was like, “What is that?” Like, “How does that But CSI was becoming a thing for manufacturers at that time.” And so you couldn’t, you couldn’t run things that way for much longer.

Like it was a dinosaur. That dealership was a dinosaur in the way that it was just throw it against the wall and see what sticks. Customers are going to take it or leave it. It is what it is. The, we’re about selling cars is basically what it was. It was a mess. An absolute mess. And I mean there’s just so many, so many stories of, yeah, just nuts.

Success, Backstabbing, and Taking Control of the Drive

So, a couple things happened to me when I was an advisor that I, that I think are, are pretty funny is the, the other advisors didn’t like it that I’m like 19, 20 and I’m, I’m, you know, doing the numbers that I’m doing and I’m number one in a lot of categories pretty quickly and I think Dawn Sly would still beat me in total dollars for a while but I was number one in hours per RO. I was number one and, you know, and I was making money. Like I couldn’t believe how much money I was making. Like I went and bought a new car. I bought a Nissan Pathfinder. You guys have no idea when you’re a drummer how nice it is to have your drums inside and not in the back of a pickup truck in the rain in Washington.

Like I could put my drums inside and keep them warm. Like it messes up drums. They warp. Like the, the whole thing brand, I went and bought leased like $399 a month brand new Pathfinder, I had my own apartment on Capitol Hill all to myself, had money left over like bought a new drum set, like things were pretty good like so that first year being an advisor I made like 60-something thousand which equivalent today has to be over like a hundred grand. Oh, way over, it was, it was, it was incredible.

So, the older advisors didn’t like that, you know, I was pointed out to be the one selling, the one doing all the stuff. So, what happens is the narrative is that I was avoiding oil changes. That was the narrative. And so, it was said to me that they were going to audit all the repair orders because I’m avoiding oil changes or whatever. And I’m thinking in my head like I don’t avoid anything. Like I’m the one writing them. You guys all disappear in the back, but whatever. So this is like a two, like two week thing or whatever.

Nothing happens. Nothing said. Like 3 weeks later, I go, I go to my boss. I’m like, “Hey, what happened with that audit?” And he goes, “Oh, whatever.” And I go, “No, like what, what happened?” “Oh, you’re fine.” And I go, “Well, I want to see like, you know, and it ends up I’d written more oil changes than anybody, like by a mile.” So that was, that was a funny little thing.

Another funny thing was I would come in on Sunday and write the night drops cuz I just couldn’t believe, I would talk to people. I’d be like, “Have you ever been commissioned before?” Like I didn’t understand commission. Like I, everybody in my family worked for an hourly wage. I could, like I would figure out how much I made an hour and I would be like, “Holy cow, like I’m making $50 an hour.” Like that is insane, right? Like think about, you know, technicians and they drive everything but they’re making $30 an hour and they got $10,000 worth of tools. I’m just some schmuck showing up in a ponytail and I’m, you know, I’m making that, that sort of money. So, they, the advisors like say, “Oh, the reason why he’s writing the number is cuz he’s stealing all the night drops or whatever.”

So, then a new rule comes out. And I remember for a little while they promoted this warranty administrator we had. Her name was Terry, I think. And she, she was kind of an odd duck, but she was the warranty administrator. Now, she was the assistant manager because our stoner manager dropped the ball a lot, let’s say. So, she was, she was the, you know, she was the one that was going to hold it all together. And I remember she was a big driver of this that I wasn’t gonna, you know, I couldn’t write the night drops.

So, what would happen is she would come in at 8:00 or whenever she would come in on Monday and she would get the night drops and then she would set them on the advisor’s desks randomly like, you know, trying to spread them out evenly. Customers would start calling during the rush at nine to check on their car. Nobody could find the keys or the car or anything. And then, you know, that, that charade lasted a couple weeks and they’re like, “Chris, you can come in on Sunday and write the night drops.” Cuz I would call the customers on Sunday and I’d be like, “Hey, I see your van again was towed in. Can you tell me what happened?”

And I would do the repair authorization. I’d be like, “Hey, I need some money to work with. Like, we got to diagnose it.” If it was out of warranty, I’d be like, “We got to diagnose it.” So you know, I need $500 or back then I was just kind of quoting diagnosis, I think. And, so the customer one knew that I had it. They knew that there was a plan. And I would kind of tell them like, “Hey, we’re pretty busy, but I, you know, we should be able to look at it by the end of the day or we won’t look at it today, but by tomorrow, whatever.”

I would tell them, and they were, they knew the plan and I would say like, “Don’t call me, I’ll call you.” Like, you know, and they, and it worked like, and I was commissioned. I was happy to come in on Sunday and write the night drops or get there at 4 in the morning and write the night drops, whatever it was.

Like the more, like the connection I made is the more ups, the more opportunity, the more I made. Like I would just luck into stuff like you would just luck into these huge jobs sometimes like, I remember when it, it snowed once and there was like all these puddles and there were these two Jettas that wouldn’t start or wouldn’t run that were night drops and I write them up and they’d hydrolocked. Oh, and they were engines. Like stuff like that would just happen, right? Like you just, you would get, you would get lucky. So, the, the dealership I don’t think the service department made money. I’m pretty sure it didn’t cuz it was a mess and everybody always talked about…

Staffing Challenges and Strategy Shifts

With CSI cuz he doesn’t like people. Yeah, put him in front. What are we doing? You know, make him an internal adviser. Yeah. Some something something parts. Put him at the counter. So fun. Well, that was that was fun. Yeah. We’ll see you guys next time. Next time we’re going to talk about how I learned financial statements, which I knew very early on was the secret to everything cuz nobody understood them. Nobody could explain anything. Nobody knew what anything meant, but everybody threw the numbers around.

Oh, your ELR. What is that? Well, I don’t know. But it’s 85. Well, how do I how do I fix it? Like, it’s so funny. So I I literally traded my services to learn how to read the financial which began began the path to understanding how to fix stuff. You can’t fix something if you don’t know what the numbers mean. So many people try to do that and you you just you end up doing a lot of work for not much. Yeah. So we’ll see you next time on Service Drive Revolution.

Thanks so much for watching this episode of Service Job Revolution. We’re uploading new stuff every day, so make sure you subscribe and click the bell icon so you don’t miss out. If you have a question you’d like us to answer on the show, call 8333 ask SDR and we’ll answer your question on the show. That’s 8333 ask SDR. For special deals on our books and training, head over to offers.challinc.com. Now that’s offers.colinsk.com. I’m Chris Collins and I’ll see you next time.

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