What would you think if your service manager walked up to a newly hired technician who had never worked on equipment of any kind, and gave them a toolkit, and sent them on a service call?  You would probably be appalled and question their judgment.

No doubt you would tell the service manager that technicians need the training to learn how to use the tools, and how to service different brands of equipment.  Then you would spend a significant amount of money to make sure the technician has the skills they need to do their job. 

Why then do dealers often walk up to their best technician and promote to a management position, and then just turn around and leave them on their own.  I have seen this happen over and over again.  In the service management classes I teach, often there are managers with decades of experience that are just now receiving training on how to be effective as a manager.

The service manager in most dealerships is responsible for the...

It is important to provide regular customer service training to your technicians. They are the face of your company. In most cases, your customers will see your technicians regularly and respect their opinions. If a positive relationship is maintained and the conversations properly filtered, the results will help your company grow.

Examples

Recently, I was helping a client with a major install and he related a conversation he’d had with the previous vendor. It was an example of a conversation that shouldn’t have happened. It was so bad, in fact, that it might have cost the previous vendor the account.

It seems that the technician for the previous vendor was constantly highlighting internal problems. For instance, he told the client that his company could not get the machine fixed because he had no assistance in troubleshooting the issue. He also stated that he could not order the parts that he needed because they were too expensive.

This client’s experience...

Sharpen the Saw

Once upon a time, there was a young woodcutter, and he was sure he could cut more wood than any other woodcutter.  He came into a logging camp and asked, "who is the best woodcutter here?" Everyone agreed that a particular older gentleman was the best. 

The young woodcutter said, "I can cut more wood than he can; I want his job." The foreman said, "Sure if, you can cut more than he does, you deserve the job."

So the older gentleman agreed to the challenge, and they decided they would each go into the forest and cut down trees, and when the day ended, everyone could see who cut the most.

They both went out into the woods, and you could hear the saws cutting.  But pretty soon, the older woodcutter stopped for a while, and when the younger one noticed that, he thought, "I have this won. I don't need a break." That pattern repeated several times during the day, and by the end of the day, the younger woodcutter was sure he won.

Yet, when they measured the...

If we're meeting for the first time, my name is Ken Edmonds. And on this blog, I share information to help managers get better at managing people, growing their profit, and achieving success in every area in their department.

In my experience working in the copier business, something I saw happens way too often was an owner would walk up to his best technician and tell him, “Congratulations! You're our new manager!” Then they turn around and walk away. And that was the end of their training.

Here is one experience where that happened. A technician who was probably one of the better technicians I met in my career was very good at fixing equipment. So the company wanted him to step up and be a supervisor and promoted him to the position of supervisor, but they didn't give him any training.

It was interesting because I got to see him struggle and try to succeed in leading his team. But he failed at that. The result was he quit working for the dealer and went to work...