Job Overview:
A Service Advisor in most shops does multiple jobs such as reception, parts ordering, scheduling, and acting as a liaison between customers and technicians. The primary function of the Service Advisor, however, is SALES.
Attributes:
The essential attributes of a good Service Advisor are:
- Good communication skills – written and verbal
- Excellent customer service skills
- Sales experience
- Self-motivated
- Detail-oriented
- Good with technology and can pick up new software quickly
- Mechanical knowledge not necessary
Duties:
- Greets customers and handles customer inquiries in a friendly and professional manner, both in person and over the phone or text/email.
- Listens to, understands, and acknowledges customer and their concerns.
- Clearly communicates in writing the customer's concerns to the technicians so the technicians can formulate a plan of action to address the problems with the vehicle.
- Sees that the technician performs a complete courtesy inspection of the vehicle.
- Advises the customer as to the correct course of action based on the technician's recommendations, communicates and gets approval from the customer for each step in the repair process, from scheduling a diagnostic, to preliminary recommendations, to additional issues/repairs that may come up once work is underway.
- Creates estimates and sells the needed repair or services profitably to the satisfaction of the shop.
- Orders and receives parts according to shop policy.
- Sees that the shop's workflow system is followed.
- Does final QC on the vehicle or sees that it is done.
- When the work is completed, go over the repair with the customer and any warranties.
- Schedules their next service or any undone recommended repairs.
- Does follow-up calls to customers
- Uses Shop Management Software features to follow up on customers, i.e. send "Thank You" cards, send review reminders, send out seasonal special advertisements, etc.
- If there isn't enough work, the Service Advisor gets very busy contacting customers by phone, text, and email to get vehicles into the shop.
