Thirty-five years later, critical challenges persist

Automotive service professionals must confront ongoing industry issues with all the passion and energy they can muster.

Critical challenges facing auto service providers have persisted for decades simply because solving these problems is difficult rather than easy. Consequently, I urge readers to treat topics such as sales, marketing, advertising and employee recruitment and retention more seriously.

Your business' future depends upon these matters.

What's more, I urge pros to work earnestly but patiently at upgrading these areas of their businesses because progress usually takes time. If improving an auto service business was so easy, everyone would have done it successfully by now.

History repeatedly reminds us that the tougher the challenge, the longer it takes to overcome the problem. Revisiting auto repair history should boost your respect for age-old issues that still affect the future of your tire dealership or service shop.

Although I have not seen everything or done everything, I have witnessed some industry history firsthand. For example, I started in an old-fashioned service station in 1967.

In 1976 — journalism degree in hand — I began reporting on auto service for professional trade journals. Crisscrossing the country exposed me to a wide array of facilities — everything from tire dealerships and auto repair shops to businesses specializing in import cars, automatic transmissions, auto-electric work and drivability diagnosis.

In the early 1980s, I sold automotive diagnostic equipment in eastern Pennsylvania and western New Jersey.

I began offering automotive troubleshooting classes for professionals in 1993. Eventually, I would hold seminars in 38 states and several major cities in Canada.

My first automotive service column appeared in Tire Business 35 years ago (Oct. 23, 1989). Although my collaboration with the magazine spans a generation, key industry issues largely have remained the same.

For your reference and review, I have included headlines and text excerpts from some of my earliest Tire Business columns. Throughout my travels, these issues have come up time and again.

Reportedly, Mark Twain said history may not necessarily repeat itself but it does rhyme. Whether you call my topics repeats or rhymes, I call them appropriate.

Never assume you already know sales, marketing, recruitment, etc., as well as you should. Take advantage of the wide range of automotive business classes and webinars available today.

You will be pleasantly surprised. Here are some excepts from previous columns that stand the test of time. The first below is from my inaugural column in TB.

If you ask service shop owners, managers and technicians what they do for a living, many automatically respond, "We fix cars for a living."

But is service all that you're selling? Not really. If you listen closely to your customers, they'll tell you in a variety of ways that you're also selling peace of mind. The majority of customers have experienced major car trouble at one time or another. Most have been stranded at an inopportune time and place. Those experiences are logged into permanent memory.

Deep down inside, what they really care about is that you've restored their cars to a safe, reliable condition.

• Prioritize the work necessary. From doctors to carpenters, other professionals prioritize all the time.
• Show the customer the problem(s) with his car while it's on the lift. A confident show-and-sell here will remove any apprehensions the customer has about your findings.
• Log findings on the work order. Many service people claim this step is tedious and time-consuming. However it's not only a convenient reminder of what needs to be done, it's also your protection and proof that you did notify the driver of the ailments you found on his car that day.

Charging for what you know is a vital but poorly understood element of true professionalism. Tire dealers who want to earn the spurs of a professional must learn to charge for what they know.

There are times and places for doing work gratis. But service personnel who haphazardly give away their talent only reinforce the image that "free" is all their knowledge is really worth.

When consumers balk at a basic (diagnostic) fee, owners and managers should simply tell it like it is: Today's vehicles are complicated, time consuming to diagnose and expensive to fix. Automotive diagnostic expertise is a valuable commodity.

Negative body language hurts employee relations, customer relations and can cost tire dealerships sales.

An effective salesman always gives prospects his undivided attention — even if it's five minutes before the store closes.

A savvy salesman knows that maintaining eye contact makes prospects feel more important and reinforces the sincerity and importance of his sales message. Human nature tends to make us distrust people who avoid looking us in the eye when they speak to us.

To make more sales, we should try to make our body language complement rather than contradict our message.

A follow-up call is a useful, cost-effective marketing and quality control tool that can provide more information about a business — and its customers — than most tire dealers realize.

First, follow–up calls are a pleasant surprise for many customers simply because they're still relatively rare. Most people recognize the call as a sincere gesture from a business that really cares about its customers.

Second, because a phone call is more personal than a questionnaire, it makes the customer feel more important.

Third, phoning customers adds urgency and importance to your message.

Take an objective look at the bays, the tool room and locker room. What kind of image do those areas project to prospective employees? Can you honestly say that the service area projects a positive image — an image you're proud of? If the answer is no, you have work to do.

The fact of the matter is that the service department has to attract prospective technicians as effectively as the rest of the facility attracts customers. When I was selling shop equipment, I visited hundreds of auto service businesses. If that experience taught me nothing else, it taught me the following:

• Cleaner, classier shops usually attract classier, higher-caliber technicians.
• The classier the shop, the less likely technicians are to job hop.
• The worse a service department looks, the more likely it is to attract the dregs of the trade.

The most successful shop owners I know agree with these conclusions. The trouble is, countless other owners still don't recognize or understand them.