"Your Recent Service Experience" Emails.. Mad service advisor

The manufacture and/or dealer will email the surveys to you. Make sure your dealer has a current email address on file.

 

I am not sure the dealer sends them, the dealership that I bought my truck from would NOT have sent me a survey, but I did get one.

 

I say the dealer because some send out a separate survey for their own internal use. The dealership I'm at does not however, the manufacture relies on the customer information we input within the CRM.

 

A Taco owner turns a repair job into entertainment. Who'd a thunk it?

 

Corporate are required to do surveys to maintain their ISO quality rating. Nobody wants to do it but they have to at least offer it. They must compile the information received and seek to build a process to improve it. If anybody in the chain doesn't participate things can't get improved unless you at least measure it. Everyone wants shiny gold stars so they don't have to do anything.

As for the service writer they are just cannon fodder to keep the customer away from the service Tecs.

Service Tecs are good at their job for the most part or learning to be good at their job. They are mechanically minded and not people minded. They break a bolt, they fix a bolt. They get a broken person they can't and don't have the skills to fix them. You mix mechanics with crazy/ angry people mechanics quit. Trained skilled mechanics are very hard to come by and even harder to keep due to the company bullshit they have to work under.

Service writers are supposed to have people skills and the ability to transfer the customers problems into verbiage the mechanic can work with. Replacing service writers is easy. Go to any dealer and they are all over the place. Incoming skills required to be a new service writer is ability to tie a tie or clip one on, everything else is on the job training.

 

All I want to say is that there are incompetent people in every line of work, and every aspect of business.

There are also people that are never happy no matter how hard you try to do right by them.

No matter if you are dealing with a telemarketer, McDonald's employee, salesman, technician, or service advisor, we are all people, and sometimes having a little understanding, and being patient will work out much better for you.

We are all humans, and all humans make mistakes.

 

I completely disagree with you. Service writer people skills are nothing more than repeating the corporate fed lines they've been trained to memorize. They no longer have the mechanical skills to pre diagnose a car properly, they waste time and serve no purpose. Good mechanics are very skilled people who are always trying to learn something new. Their people skills are as good as any others, you act like their a bunch of cavemen. Every mom and pop shop operates this way and do very well, a dealer is doing it on a larger scale and is really no different.

 

So how does a survey do me any good? The last time I filled one out with poor comments I was told to bring my car in AGAIN, I did that and got the same response and they did not fix the problem. So I fill out another one and do it all over again. Now your trying to tell me this somehow is for my benefit? Really!!!!!!!!!!

 

Calm down there buddy. Don't mean to get you all wild up this evening. Lol.

We take our surveys seriously and would like to think that other dealers do to. We are in the customer service business and if we can't adapt to change, for the better, then they won't survive whether it be a high-turnover of personnel or they eventually close all together.

Now with that being said, having a little patience with the dealer will go along ways for you and them. I know it's tough but trust me. Explain to them your concern and give the the proper amount of time to correct the issue. If they can't seem to diagnose the issue in house then they should be reaching out to their FTM (Field Technical Manager) for assistance. People think that all issues are easy to repair, that's not the case. Vehicle's are becoming a lot more complex this days.

 

Service Advisors are not simply corporate card readers. I work for a family owned franchise. I was not given a script to follow but more so a process of how things are supposed to flow. Any company will have a process that we all follow. I'm a car enthusaiast at heart. Although I've just recently started getting into trail-riding, I have performed all the mods on all of my cars. It's something I enjoy as a hobby, much like yourself. The other advisors are enthusiasts themselves.

I will say this, when you start to work in the higher product line, these companies expect you to know their product and have technical knowledge. In fact, I just ended a 3-day Ambassador training program for work this week. They taught us how to deal with the different DiSC profiles, how to turn a negative situation into a positive, etc. They expect you to be the best of the best. So yes, there are manufactures out there that are willing to invest the proper tools you us to become a better advisor, sales and even our technicians.

My wife and baby are leaving town this evening to see her parents' side of the family. This evening, I drove past a Ford dealer and noticed they have a Avalanche colored Raptor out front so I pull in to check it out. The sales person came outside to say hello. I quickly noticed how little he knows about the product he sales. He's pointing out things on the Raptor like having after market shocks (the factory FOX suspension was present) and the bead-lock wheels (which are an option) are aftermarket upgraded wheels. The point I'm getting at is, you'll know a proper dealership from a bad one. If you, the customers' neglect to provide your feedback then change will not happen. If Toyota sees that a particular dealership continues to receive bad reviews, Toyota will say something to them. They don't take it likely.

 

It sounds like you guys are so caught up in the corporate world to the point you actually think it makes sense.

Its as simple as this, just do your job. I will agree that being a tech is a difficult job that needs constant continuing training to keep up with all the nonsense they put in our cars these days. These guys are the key to operating a decent shop and should be paid well assuming they're competent.

Surveys are silly, what happened to the days where we actually just talked to people.

 

I've been told to go to another dealer. Cracks me up. I'm not putting up with their lip service b/s. They don't like it when you start asking tech questions and you know what you're talking about

 

I think the problem is that these guys don't stay in their position long enough to actually learn it, they move around so much because the corporate world sucks ass in every way and treats employees like shit.

The other thing is this, the new norm is to keep bringing your car in for the same problem and we buy that BS because they tell us cars are so complicated these days and very difficult to repair. That is total BS, the problem is the techs do not have the skills needed to properly diagnose or troubleshoot a problem. Anyone can replace parts but to troubleshoot something takes skill and that person should be paid very well. For the most part all the dealers have anymore are part swappers working in the shop, they've ran out all the good techs/troubleshooters that are now working either on their own or in a mom and pop shop.

 

It's that massive list bro...the nozzles are still pointing at the stock location.

BTW, thanks again for pointing me to that inferno ORDCMT.

 

That's a very convenient statement. Obviously you have never had to make a living diagnosing and repairing modern cars under warranty.

You don't think Independent (mom and pop) shops have an advantage by not seeing this stuff until several years go by and cars are out of warranty? It's easier to diagnose problems when us dealer techs have already lost our asses figuring out this off the wall shit while the cars are still brand new.

A good percentage of the time i have a customer complaint, it's the first time I've ever dealt with that particular system, or at least the latest version of it. Technology changes rapidly and more and more functions are controlled entirely by modules (computers), and as a dealer tech you do not always have the necessary info to determine if you have a programming, electrical, or mechanical fault.

To say that modern cars aren't more difficult to diagnose is ridiculous, and ignorant.

 

I wouldn't lose sleep over it. You can't be like "hey so your problem didn't get solved, you're frustrated...but please rate service 10/10". What's the point of the surveys then in the first place? Low marks in surveys serve notice that improvements are needed.

 

True this. Cars have become so complicated, and people working in this industry (independent and dealers) where good solid sleuthing skills made for a great mechanic, now find themselves frustrated by the amount of computerized crap in a car made tougher by manufacturer specific programming and tools. Cars are no longer simple mechanical objects, they are finely tuned computers with wheels.

 

I can only imagine for something like a Mercedes S class O__o

 

Its not ignorant at all, your problem is your not giving enough time to properly trouble shoot a problem. Its not the cars that are so difficult, its the shitty corporate system your forced to use. Your job would be very hard if your expected to trouble shoot a problem in five minutes when in reality it may take you all day. Then they make it harder for you by basically in a round about way not pay you for what they consider wasted time trouble shooting a problem. If you read my posts I said its the techs that should be getting paid more, they're screwing you guys.