In many dealership service departments, leaders struggle with the same frustrations year after year. Advisors skip walk-arounds. Appointments pile up late in the day. Customers approve diagnosis but can’t afford repairs.
At first glance, these look like people problems. In reality, they are SERVICE ADVISOR process problems.In Service Drive Revolution #340, the discussion focuses on why these breakdowns happen and how clear systems, non-negotiable standards, and intentional scheduling dramatically improve Fixed Ops performance. The insights apply directly to SERVICE ADVISORS, SERVICE MANAGERS, and dealership leaders who want consistency instead of chaos.
Why SERVICE ADVISORS Resist the Walk-Around
One of the most common questions leaders ask is simple:
Why do SERVICE ADVISORS fight the walk-around?
The answer is uncomfortable but clear. When behaviors become negotiable, inconsistency follows. In high-performing dealerships, the walk-around is not optional. It is part of the system.
When advisors are allowed to freelance:
- Processes erode
- Customer experience suffers
- Missed opportunities increase
Strong SERVICE ADVISOR process design removes choice. Advisors move to the next step only after completing the previous one. This structure eliminates friction and improves accountability.
Systems First, People Second
A core theme of the episode is that bad systems ruin good people, while strong systems elevate average performers.
In many stores, customers enter the service drive unsure of where to go. Advisors remain behind the desk. Walk-arounds become inconvenient instead of automatic.
High-performing Fixed Ops departments reverse this flow:
- Customers stay with their vehicle
- Advisors come to the customer
- Walk-arounds are built into the process
When the system forces the right behavior, compliance becomes natural.
For more on how poor systems impact profitability, read
Unapplied Labor in Fixed Ops: What Service Managers Must Fix Now
The Real Reason Scheduling Breaks Down
Another common challenge discussed is late-day scheduling. Many advisors resist booking appointments in the final hour out of fear they will uncover additional work they cannot complete.
While the concern is understandable, the solution lies in intentional shop loading, not avoidance.
Effective scheduling strategies include:
- Starting advisors before technicians
- Loading the shop early in the day
- Limiting waiters per hour
- Cutting off routine appointments by late morning
- Reserving afternoons for diagnosis, follow-up, and production
This approach keeps technicians productive, advisors focused, and customers informed. It also reduces stress and improves repair flow.
Why Repair Authorization Must Happen Up Front
One of the most costly SERVICE ADVISOR process failures occurs during diagnosis. Too often, departments perform diagnostic work only to discover the customer cannot afford the repair.
This creates a no-win situation.
Clear repair authorization solves this problem. Advisors set realistic expectations before the vehicle enters the shop. They explain the likely cost range and confirm the customer’s comfort level.
This approach:
- Protects shop time
- Respects the customer’s budget
- Prevents wasted diagnosis
- Improves trust and transparency
Strong advisors lead with honesty, not surprises.
Leadership Sets the Standard
Every issue discussed in SDR #341 ties back to leadership. When leaders allow inconsistency, inconsistency becomes culture.
High-performing departments share common traits:
- Clear expectations
- Non-negotiable processes
- Consistent inspection
- Accountability without emotion
SERVICE MANAGERS who want better results must stop allowing optional behavior.
For more insight on building leadership discipline through structure, read
Intentional Goal Setting for Service Managers in Fixed Ops
Final Thoughts: Process Creates Performance
The takeaway from Service Drive Revolution #341 is simple:
Strong Fixed Ops performance comes from strong SERVICE ADVISOR process design.
When systems are clear:
- Advisors perform better
- Customers trust more
- Technicians stay productive
- Managers regain control
Leadership is not about fixing people. It is about building systems that make the right behavior unavoidable.
Fix the process — and the results will follow.
FULL VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Welcome and Gratitude for Gifts
Welcome to the big show. Today I am going to answer your questions. We had some questions in the vault about scheduling, how to get advisors to do walk-arounds, about what you do when the customers can’t afford a repair diagnostic, and then just a couple of housekeeping things that we are going to go over. That and much more coming right up in Service Drive Revolution! Everyone who sent me tequila or vinyl records or cigars, I really appreciate it. I feel like back in those days when I was an advisor writing service for Cadillac, where I would come home with a box of Crown Royal, a box of tons of Crown Royal, because for some reason that was the Cadillac customer. They would give you a bottle of Crown Royal at Christmas, which was fun. But I feel that way with tequila this year. Thank you everybody who sent gifts for Christmas. We really appreciate that, and you are thinking of us; very, very sweet.
Taylor Swift’s Leadership Docuseries
I am on my own today, I do not have a sidekick, but we are going to have some fun. I also have gotten some feedback on the Taylor Swift docuseries on Disney Plus that I suggested on a previous episode. When I watched that, there were only two episodes up, and the docuseries is about The Eras Tour, the creation and fulfillment of the big tour she did. Now there are six episodes up, and I thought it was a great leadership study and example of something that we can all learn from. Now watching all six, it really is. Her ability to tell a story, her ability to create a culture and get people fired up and involved. Her ability to keep everybody on message and on the task at hand. Her ability to recruit the most talented people and then get those people to perform at a level that nobody has ever seen before. I know that tour broke all kinds of records. I am a fan of people that perform at a high level and do things that are special and different. So I would encourage everybody to watch that.
Watching from a Leadership Lens
I have had some really fun conversations about it since I talked about it. And I am hoping that there is more of that. Check it out on Disney Plus, Taylor Swift, Eras Tour, and binge it. I would keep some notes about the leadership lessons. Watch it from the context of leadership, not the context of entertainment or music, that sort of thing. Think about it from Taylor Swift and her leadership ability. When you watch it from that lens, you will see it in a completely different way. It is really fun, and I am pretty excited about 2026 and what is going on. We are going to do questions today, so we have some questions that were backlogged, and if you have a question that you want us to answer on the show, the phone number you can call is 8333 ASK SDR. That is 8333 ASK SDR. We check those periodically, and we will play them on the show and try to get you an answer to the thing that is keeping you from performing or you are just bugged about, whatever it is. We want to help. Let us do a couple of the questions that we had.
Advisor Resistance to Walk-Arounds
Caller Question: “Why do service advisors fight the walk-around at the point of write-up? I just don’t get it. I know very few service advisors that will do a walk-around. And for that matter, they also don’t quote direct prices when they walk in. They will say, ‘Hey, I won’t go over this much without talking to you.’ And finally, why don’t service advisors say, ‘Hey, is there anything else that we have been thinking about on your car?'” Thank you.
I think there are two answers to that question. The first answer is, when did it become negotiable for them not to do walk-arounds? I mean, I worked in one of the number one dealerships in the country for the brand, and I have worked with a lot of the dealerships that are not. Any sort of customer complaint is addressed very, very aggressively, to the point that if you are a service advisor and you have a couple customer complaints, you will be let go. It is not even negotiable. There is just a standard of what is acceptable versus what is not acceptable. The second answer to this would be the system.
Implementing Service Drive Judo
Developing a system that forces the behaviors that you want. We have this drive process that we have called Service Drive Judo. The thought behind calling it Service Drive Judo is that the art of Judo is often using the opponent’s momentum to your advantage. What we are doing with this process is we are using the customers’ wants and needs and momentum to our advantage, but we are organizing it and creating structure in chaos. In most service departments, customers pull in, they don’t quite know where to go. Maybe there is a greeter there with a board that directs them, but then they go into the advisor. The advisor then goes out to the car for them to do a walk-around with the customer. The customer would have to follow them back out, which usually doesn’t happen. Service Drive Judo is a process where the customer is teed up, the time between appointments, how many waiters we do an hour—everything is a part of that. We call that the people math. It is very thought out. The customers are directed to stay with their car because they are greeted up on the curb. They stay with their car. The advisor comes out to them, and the walk-around is just a part of the process that we have designed. It is not negotiable. You cannot get to the next step without doing it.
Systems First, People Second
I would say that it is two things. One, it is failure in leadership that those sort of things are negotiable, and we allow freelancing. The second one is that the system is failing. I am always preaching that it is systems first, people second. That doesn’t mean that people aren’t important, but it does mean that bad systems will ruin good people, and good systems will help average performers perform above average. Designing a system that forces the behaviors that you want with feedback and accountability and then not letting it be negotiable is the secret there. It is the same thing with the quoting, the callbacks, the communication, everything. It all falls into that same category. Great question.
Scheduling and Upselling Risk
Caller Question: “I have a service team that refuses to schedule in the last hour to half hour of the day simply because they don’t want to risk upselling a customer and not be able to complete the job. Just getting your opinion on this. I personally think we should fill the hour, maybe not at the very end, but I have tons of people that I respect that do it the other way. They are kind of the way you are describing that will take appointments up until the very end.”
Shop Loading and Tech Momentum
The way I like to load the shop is I know how many customers each advisor can handle, depending on how many techs they have. Let us just say that an advisor can take 12 appointments. Then the way that I would book them is I would start them off. I would start the advisors a half an hour or an hour before the techs start because I want the techs to have work when they come in. If the techs come in and don’t have work, they go get breakfast burritos, and they never really quite get the momentum in the day that we want them to have. I think it is important when you are doing the schedule to have a gap between when the advisors start and when the tech starts. Let us say for example, we open at seven. I am booking advisor appointments every 20 minutes. They would have three appointments. I am limiting how many waiters they can do every hour. That goes hand in hand with how many lube techs per lateral support group that we have, but I am usually limiting them to one an hour. I am controlling the waiters.
Morning Intake and Afternoon Production
I am booking them strategically to load the shop early, get in as much work as I can, and most of the time I am cutting the advisors off by like 11:00 or 11:40, depending on the advisor and how many ROs I want them to write on a daily basis, and this can change depending on holdovers, etc. If I am setting up an appointment system, and most of the time that is at the BDC, I am stopping the appointments at 11:30. I would allow any customer that doesn’t work for. Let us say we have a customer and they are like, “The only time I can come in is 2:00,” we will make that exception for them. In my experience, that happens way less than we think it happens. But either way, we will put a customer where they want to be if that is the only way that it can work for them or they highly verbalize that. For the most part, 95% of our customers are coming in in the morning. We are getting all the work in. Then we are trying to touch those cars, diagnose them, see what they need, get the okay from the customer. In the afternoon, we are doing all that work in a sense.
Balancing Advisor Workload
Also, I want the advisors to have time to do estimates, to follow up, to call, that sort of thing. If they are writing customers all day, that is really hard for them to do. Same thing with if we have an appointment for the advisors every 10 minutes, or we will do just as many waiters as customers, or we just allow waiters to be every appointment in the morning. It is really hard to have an appointment. It is just a kind of guided discovery and very soft. My preference is the opposite of what you are saying, but you can schedule them to the end if that is how you want to do it. I have seen it work. It is just not my preference. My preference is to get it in early. I hope that answered your question.
Repair Authorization Strategy
Caller Question: “How am I supposed to repair work found in a diagnosis?”
Setting a Budget for Diagnosis
I am going to tell the customer, “Your check engine light is on. I am going to give myself $425 to work with. If it is more, I will give you a call. If it is less, it will be less.” Oftentimes this is the O2 sensor, and we want to do it, but we have got to diagnose it first and check it out. I am giving myself $425 to work with. If the customer at that point says, “I don’t have $425,” why would I then put the car in the shop and do diagnosis, unless the customer wanted just diagnosis? I really want to know before the car goes in the shop that the customer can afford to fix it. Let us say it is a coolant issue and I know that coolant issue could be a couple grand. I am telling them upfront, “I am giving myself a couple thousand dollars to work with. If it is more, I will give you a call. If it is less, it is less.” A lot of times this is a heater core, whatever it is. Then you know what you are working with.
Repair Authorization and The No-Win
I don’t want to take the customer’s money if they can’t fix the car. I also don’t necessarily want to be diagnosing it for somebody else. And I really just want to know what the customer can afford in a sense. I am telling the truth upfront of what that repair usually is, and we call that a Repair Authorization. I know people get confused about it. It seems like it is the gift that keeps on giving because this will cause a bunch of other questions, but to me, getting to the point where I have diagnosed it and then the customer tells me they can’t afford it, the only option then is to make some sort of plan where they can do it in the future or talk to them about trading in it. I wouldn’t want to get to that point. To me, that is a no-win situation, and if you are right there, you have already lost to me. So I would do a Repair Authorization upfront and not get in that situation. If somebody can’t afford something, I would rather know that before I spend a couple hundred dollars in diagnosis that they probably can’t afford that either. So Repair Authorization upfront is my technique for that.
Final Thoughts and Outro
Good question. Once again, the number is 8333 ASK SDR if you have any questions. I hope everybody is off to a great start for 2026, and I will see everybody again real soon next time on Service Drive Revolution.
Thanks so much for watching this episode of Service Drive 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 833-ASK-SDR, and we’ll answer your question on the show. That’s 833-ASK-SDR. For special deals on our books and training, head over to offers.chriscollinsinc.com. I’m Chris Collins, and I’ll see you in the next video.
đź”— Related Resources
- Service Department Culture Killers: The Hidden Factors Destroying Team Performance
- Low Hanging Fruit in Fixed Ops: The Fastest Wins Service Managers Can Grab Today
- How to Reset a Toxic Shop Culture and Get Your Technicians Back on Your Team
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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