Good Service Advisor or Great Service Advisor?

Good Service Advisor or Great Service Advisor?

by Mike Olson, Director of Business Development, WORLDPAC Training Institute (WTI)

What’s the difference between a good service advisor and a great service advisor? It could be a 15-25% increase in annual revenues.

The Difference Between Good Service Advisors and Great Service Advisors

It wasn’t long ago when shop owners were happy with a service advisor who could build a decent estimate, write a decent repair order and be fairly nice to customers. These are characteristics of a “good” service advisor. However, just as yesterdays “good” vehicles have developed into the “great” vehicles of today, the skills of service advisors also need to evolve.

In addition to performing standard tasks, great service advisors possess the selling skills necessary to increase hours sold per repair order, keep customers coming back through trust, loyalty, and confidence, adapt to different types of customer personalities and have a high conversion rate of estimates to sold repairs and services.

Roles of Great Service Advisors

The four main roles of great service advisors are:

• Administration


• Selling


• Customer service


• Technical knowledge

Of these main roles, many shop owners hire service advisors based on technical knowledge alone. This is the wrong approach. Technicians repair vehicles, not service advisors. The technical knowledge needed to be a service advisor can be taught and will be learned over time.

A better strategy is to hire a service advisor who has the personality to make your customers comfortable. Candidates who are organized (administration skills) and have the ability to confidently sell all necessary services and repairs (selling skills) while making customers feel such a sense of loyalty that they won’t want to go anywhere else (customer service skills) will increase revenue. Even if your shop has the very best trained technicians, without a “great” service advisor to communicate their skills it will do you no good.

Prepare Your Service Advisors to Get the Extra 15-25%

The WORLDPAC Training Institute (WTI) is offering a 3-day Service Advisor Training Workshop to advance the skills of your service advisors:

Improving Service and Increasing Sales
3-Day Event at WORLDPAC Corporate Headquarters
Tue. March 4th, Wed. March 5th & Thu. March 6th, 2008
Newark, CA
Instructor: Kelly Bennett

Visit WTI Business Training to register for the workshop or email Mike Olson (mike_olson@worldpac.com) for more information.

Visit the WORLDPAC Training Institute to learn more about additional training opportunities.

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