At the completion of the write-up process, ask your customer this question…
Increasing sales of parts and labor while the customer is in your shop is both efficient for your customer and profitable for you. In my experience, a shop’s lack of a standardized sales procedure, or lack of Service Advisor training, leads to lost opportunity at the counter, and inconvenience for the customer. Asking your customer one simple question during the write-up process, can yield a vast amount of service and maintenance opportunity, and at the same time increase your technician’s productivity and efficiency.
At the completion of the write-up process, ask your customer this question. “Is there anything else you haven’t thought of, that your vehicle is doing, that you would like us to look at today?”
The premise behind this question is this; usually one or two things have brought them in for today’s service, yet in many cases there are other items that may have slipped their mind. This is why the customer failed to mention them, but they still need to be tended to. You just need to ask!
At my shop, I found that asking this one simple question added a lot of additional work to our schedule. Before I added this to our write-up procedure, I would often be shuttling the customer to work or back home when I asked the question. Unfortunately, poor planning often led to the palm of my hand becoming the writing surface. Some customers would mention so many things that I not only wrote on my palm but the back of my hand too!
Your customers go through a significant amount of planning and effort to bring their vehicle into your shop for service. You owe it to your customer to give them every opportunity to take care of all their vehicle’s needs in one visit.
Even if they don’t approve all the work found on that visit you’ll be able to create a plan for future service visits. Most importantly, your customer will know their car is safe and reliable.
Are you looking for additional ways to increase your sales? Email me at vic@shopownercoach.com and I’ll send you our free article, “5 Tips for Selling Preventive Maintenance”.
