At one time or another, every service manager has to deal with a technician wanting more money. The service manager is faced with a difficult situation when senior management resists. When I was a service manager in California, the dealer I worked for would let a technician leave when a $.10 per hour raise would have kept them with the company. As a service manager, it was very frustrating, and to combat that, I sat down and worked at computing what it costs to hire and train a technician. Every service manager should work through this exercise.

Cost of Hiring

Recruiting Cost

The first cost associated with hiring a replacement is the cost of recruiting. This would include the cost of advertising, using an outside recruiter, and the cost of the manager’s time to review resumes and interview applicants. Research shows that this cost can run from $2,000 to $5,000 dollars or more. To be conservative, we will use a cost of $2,500.

Onboarding Cost

After selecting a candidate, the...

In the last article, we discussed the cost of replacing technicians. Part of the cost we included was the cost of “bad hires.” The term bad hire would apply to any technicians that leave the company for any reason before they have generated enough profit to pay for the cost of hiring them. In the last article, we estimated it costs $40,900 to hire and train a technician. Let us discuss ways to improve the quality and probability of success in your hiring process.

Pre-Recruiting Process

One of the first questions to ask is, what kind of candidate are you looking for? Do you want to hire someone experienced? Or do you want to start from scratch? Another option is to promote from within. Each of these strategies has advantages and disadvantages. Depending on how urgently you need to fill the vacancy, the type of candidate you want will vary.

Starting from Scratch

The advantage of starting from scratch is that you can train the new technician to do the job according to your...

When someone gets promoted to a supervisory or managerial role, they might think they automatically become a leader.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  They may have become the boss, but that doesn't make them a leader, and acting like a boss can damage team morale.

What does it take to be a leader?

Definition of leadership

Leadership is a process of social influence, which maximizes the efforts of others towards the achievement of a goal.  We will consider three separate points in that statement.

First, leadership is a process of social influence.  Leadership does not relate to a title or position.  A leader can be anyone that can influence others.

Second, a leader maximizes the efforts of others.  Because they have influence, other individuals are willing to be led by them, and they listen to them.

Third, a leader is heading toward some goal.  People won't follow someone who is wandering around and not going to a specific place or goal.

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At some point in almost every service manager’s career, the need to promote someone to the position of service supervisor arises. By the time we need to promote someone, we are normally so busy that we don’t have much time to invest in the process.

What happens many times is we find our best technician, and we tell them that they are going to be the supervisor. We then wish them the best as we walk away. Too many times, that is where the process ends. This often results in an unqualified supervisor who has been set up to fail, and we may have ruined—or lost—our best technician.

There are a number of reasons this is not an optimal approach. First, just because someone is the best technician, it doesn’t mean he or she has the needed qualifications to succeed as a supervisor. The individual may not even desire to be a supervisor but may take the position expecting the training and support that will lead to success. Without that training, the tech is now in...

One thing I’ve noticed while teaching a BTA service management course is that many service managers are not active on social media, either professionally or for their companies. Many don’t have a profile on LinkedIn, and any other social media they have is strictly personal. Among the technicians, there is a wide range of involvement as well.

It is important that company employees have an active role in social media, especially managers. Let’s discuss some of the reasons for this.

Why Social Media Matters in Sales

In general, buyers use online resources more than ever. They complete much of their research and decision making before the sales representatives even know there might be an opportunity.

Among the information that buyers consider is the public persona of the company. They look at the company’s website, Facebook page, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts, and also look at what the employees post.

Buyers look for independent reviews of the company and the...