Some time ago, I had to take my car in for repairs – twice. As the shop is clear across town, I always wait around, instead of imposing on someone to give me a ride back and forth. Besides, when they see me lurking around the customer lounge, the service advisors are much more motivated to get me in and out.
Service advisors get a large part of their income on commission. They are essentially quarterbacks that book the appointments, do the upselling, and communicate with the mechanics without actually doing the work on the vehicle themselves.
During my first trip, I was helped by a Gold service advisor. His stress level was already quite high by lunch time when I arrived for my appointment. From what I could observe, he had been telling his customers how long their repairs would take, and made sure they understood the shop was running about an hour behind.
But a service advisor has no actual control over the mechanics, or the work that needs to be done. When customers arrived to pick up their vehicle, some of them weren’t ready. You could literally tell from the tone of his voice and his demeanor that he believed this was on him, and somehow his fault. After all, he had given his word, but had to rely on others to see it through. One of the most stressful situations is when Golds have given their word but couldn’t keept through no fault of their own.
My return trip was with an Orange service advisor in the same shop. Needless to say, with some humor, I quizzed him a bit as to whether he was any good at his job. It didn’t take much for this (or any) high Orange to let me know he was VERY good and volunteered that he was the highest producer three months running! It was also my small way of checking if he was Orange. Again, it was a day when the shop was obviously running behind, but this Orange was not going to lose any business. “I’ll get it in the shop right now,” was his only comment, as he proceeded to take my car and drive off.
Hmmm…way behind, yet he was getting mine in immediately? Nice try… So, when I walked around to the back of the service department, my car was sitting outside the entrance. No, it was not going into the shop right away. But his Orange logic was to grab my keys, take the car away, and move it out of sight. Who would really know that it wasn’t being worked on? At least he had control over a customer, and was guaranteed to keep the repair job without me walking out or becoming discouraged because of the delay.