Who is Responsible For Training the Service Advisor?

If there has been a growing trend in the Automotive online business lately I would say it has been a game of "Who is responsible?"

Maybe it will need to be extra particular, don't you believe? Ok.

"Who is responsible for training?" Training whom?

"Who is responsible for training the Service Advisor?" Ahhh, now we are finding there.

Who is responsible for making certain that Sally and Sam Advisor are trained? The answer of course, is the Service Manager. But he or she is not the only one. There are other folks as well.

How about the GM? The Dealer Principal? Do they have as much a stake in producing positive that Sally and Sam are trained to manage their most valuable asset? The Customer?

The answer is, of course they are.

And, if there were a convention of Service Managers, GMs and DPs, and I asked the question "Who here in this room would say that their Service Advisors are completely trained?" what percentage of the room would hold their hands up?

I would say based on what we see in the field everyday that almost half the room or greater would keep their hands in their pockets.

The reason.

Everybody ASSUMES that Someone ELSE is RESPONSIBLE for TRAINING!

If you want to validate that statement, all you have to do is ask the Service Manager if he has a Training Budget. The answer will be "No".

Then ask the GM "What percentage of Gross Profit do you set aside to supply for Training each year?" and the answer would be "None."

Then ask the Dealer Principal "What quantity of Gross Profit would you say is an acceptable quantity for a Training Spending budget on a yearly basis?" and the answer would be "As we will need it" which, when translated means "I'll let you know when you reach the limit." If you are the Service Manager the key is to ask for a Training Spending budget.

You could do an awful lot of Training at a 2 or three% of Gross Profit (Annualized) Budget Request.

On a Service Department that has 2 Advisors that write an average of 200 ROs every making use of $85.00 per CP hour you can anticipate yearly sales of about $550,000.00. At 2% of yearly Gross Labor and Parts Sales, you would have a budget of approximately $11000.00. You can get a lot of training accomplished with a budget like that.

If you are the Service Manager in your store and you want to make certain that Advisors are Trained on a yearly basis, then program for and ask for a Spending budget for Training based on a percentage of Gross Profit.

Then, when somebody asks, "Are your Service Advisor(s) fully trained to manage your most useful asset?" you can answer "YES THEY ARE!"