5 areas of service training that often get overlooked

Within your service department, you have multiple positions working together to create the seamless experience your customers encounter. To ensure maximum satisfaction, every part of the team must work at optimal levels, which requires constant service training. While it’s common to show employees how to write repair orders, manage time, and schedule appointments, there are five areas of service training that are consistently overlooked.

Whether you are training a service advisor, service technician, or service manager, there’s always room for improvement. In this guide, we cover some topics that need more attention.

1. Safety

In 2019, 60 automotive technicians suffered fatal accidents on the job. You don’t want to be a part of this statistic, so regular safety training is necessary. For starters, safety should become a part of the dealership culture. It should constantly be discussed to ensure it’s on everyone’s mind.

Additionally, it would be best to teach your employees to immediately report any instances and clean up anything hazardous. You also want the team to wear appropriate clothing for working on cars. With that in mind, no one should be in the service area that isn’t authorized. As with all protocols, everyone must fall in line to ensure maximum compliance. 

2. Communication

When every member of the service department communicates well with one another, the process is smooth and streamlined. The jobs are performed more efficiently, and customers can see how well the operation runs. 

Have regular service training sessions with your entire team on communicating with one another. You can implement policies on handling grievances and how requests are passed down the line. Remember to follow up with the team to see how the new guidelines are going and listen to the feedback from your employees. 

3. Customer service

With such a heavy focus on getting the customers’ problems dealt with quickly, dealerships can often forget how to be friendly and respectful to the clients. The sales department can help with this area. Bring in some salespeople to discuss best practices when working with a customer.

While you aren’t trying to sell them a new car, it’s still important to listen to their needs and address them promptly. Showing how much you care ensures future business when trouble arises. 

4. Customer follow-up

Customer follow-up is another area that’s not focused on enough. Whether you have the service advisor follow-up to check on how things are going or training the service manager to handle this aspect, it’s essential to work out a checklist that they can follow so everything remains uniform.

You can also work on following up through multiple avenues. Train your team to communicate through phone calls, text messages, and emails for complete versatility. 

5. Upselling

While your primary goal isn’t to make additional sales during the service appointment, you should always be open to opportunities. The entire team should get involved in roundtable discussions on increasing upsells. Your technicians can offer much insight into the services that work well together. Quite possibly, you could even bundle some services at a discount to promote to customers.

Final thoughts

Whatever service training you decide to undertake with your team, it’s essential to follow up, to see how it’s going. You can’t just shout out rules and guidelines for your group to follow. You also want to be open to suggestions and feedback if some of the training needs to be tweaked.

Further Reading

5 tips to make service more convenient for your customers

5 simple ways to improve customer retention and satisfaction

Everything you need to know about the technician skills gap for EVs