HCC: Customer Service Teleselling (ENG)

A new reality is approaching.  By now, everyone has been affected by “telemarketing.” Customers and consumers are starting to resist it. That is clear from the laws that are being presented and passed.  Customers want service, and they want customer service calls.  As a result, the rules that are set forth for your telemarketing program should emphasize your wish to have an effective telemarketing program to provide your customer base with high quality customer service. It can be as simple as a word. That word is tele-selling.

Each person has an aura, a reputation in the company or in the market.  This presence is a function of many things: knowledge, personality, the quality of voice, the intangibles of attitude.  It is the feeling of trust that the customer has in the person on the other end of the telephone.  This is a condition that is earned and achieved.  It is not something that can be mandated.

In telephone selling the customer either has called with the need or you are calling to see if there is a need. Yet now we confront the dilemma. Rarely, if ever, has anybody provided training on tele-selling.  This program will provide you with an outline – an approach – to use when selling on the telephone.  This class will provide you with a plan and a structure, and with this structure your tele-selling future can get off to a successful start.

HCC: Customer Service Flat Rate Standard Times (ENG)

Customers want to know how much the repair work will cost before they approve the job you will perform. We have to provide this important information. In order to do this, we must manage our repairs with job codes. We must determine standard jobs, and then track them every time we perform them. In this way, we can develop a “standard time” which is different than average time. You will learn the secrets of flat rating in this very detailed program.

The job code structure is where this begins. The manufacturers provide a job code for use with warranty jobs. This is the same logic that dealers must use to manage the repair and maintenance jobs. The code needs to be easy to understand and search out in a file or on a system. Once we have the job codes, then the inspections and job structures need to follow the same logic. How to develop the job codes and then utilize them to develop and manage history is a critical element of this program.

The determination of the standard time is also misunderstood by most. It is NOT about the average time to perform the job. Learn the perils of assuming all the risk on jobs, and how to provide for those risks with standard times. This program will be of value to anyone in management who wants to move away from a job shop structure.

HCC: Customer Service Pricing (ENG)

Too often, dealerships call around to the neighboring dealers and ask for their service pricing. While it is understandable to want to know what the pricing is in your territory, it is more important to develop the price structure that is required to attract the business and also produce the profit necessary to operate a dealership.

We will expose the “peanut butter” labor pricing for what it is – an over-simplified, unrealistic pricing mechanism – and provide an alternative to consider. It all starts from the skills of the men, as well as the degree of difficulty of the work involved. This requires that we know the skills of the men we employ, and then use their skills on jobs that match that skill. Consider that the wage that is paid to the men is a direct reflection of the skills that the men have, and we have a starting point to determine labor rates. It is called a “wage multiple.”

This methodology has been in use for a long time, but not by sufficiently large numbers of dealerships.  Currently, most of us over-price low skill work and underprice the high skill work. We will define and describe the wage multiple so that, upon the completion of this class, the participants will be able to return to work and recalculate their labor rates with this new method and evaluate whether or not they should apply it in their Service Department.

HCC: Customer Service Instore Merchandising (ENG)

The days of your customers walking into your business have long since passed. This is truly a shame. Some thirty to forty years ago, we taught our customers that our inventory management meant that those parts that the customer wanted would not all be available when they came to our store. So they started to use the telephone and we didn’t see the customer in our store very much at all.

Yet it still continues to be true that you have an opportunity to create an interesting and successful retail store. This is the first step in becoming a retail operation. From Harley-Davidson to Ski-doo to Artic Cat, there are specialty suppliers that have made merchandising an art form. We will look into the successes in other Industries and how we can learn from them. The layout of your merchandising area, as well as the methods to keep it fresh and appealing, will go a long way to determining your success. All of this and much more will be covered in this content rich class.

Others dealerships and other Industries have turned this into a customer convenience and money making proposition. This is much more than just setting up shelves and displays. They have made the store a pleasing environment for both employees and customers. Learn the ins and outs of successful In-Store Merchandising with this comprehensive program.

HCC: Customer Service Labor Efficiency (ENG)

Labor efficiency and labor quality are the two most important performance measures for supervision of a service department. The way in which you measure labor efficiency leads you to be able to manage labor efficiency.  Detailed definitions and calculations, as well as tried and true methods to achieve high labor efficiency are the hallmarks of this program.

When employees are given specific direction the results are impressive. Without it, the results can be disastrous.  Billing efficiency, or the amount of time that can be billed versus paid, is not the same as labor efficiency. Labor efficiency is owned by the technician, but is directly influenced by the methods used to schedule work by the first level supervisor. This brings together inspections, job segmentation, standard jobs coding, and standard job times. Fundamentals of scheduling then can be applied and allow the performance of the work by a service department to become predictable.

Finally, the elements that interfere with good labor efficiency are exposed and suggestions developed for each so that they can be overcome. The customer will benefit greatly from predictable completion dates which will be the “intended” consequence of this program for all service management and supervision.

HCC: Customer Service Leadership (ENG)

The management and supervision in business is in many cases misunderstood. You manage process but you have to lead people. Often, we get consumed by our need to improve our processes. Since the 1980’s with the “Japanese” continuous improvement movement we have been obsessed with eliminating non-value added, tasks and processes. But what have we done to inspire management to improve their ability to lead their employees.?

Leadership is a complicated function. It involves compassion, courage, trust, integrity, commitment, loyalty, inspiration, and communication. A true leader will take people to places that they would not have gone to on their own. This program explores the true meaning of leadership and talks about differing leadership styles and their impact on performance.

Leadership has to ensure that the day to day operations are performing and at the same time they must focus on the future. They also have to understand and accept how important managing change is to improvement. They have to be able to look at their businesses with “fresh eyes” to ensure that they can identify and eliminate their “sacred cows.” This is a critical class for anyone in a leadership position.

HCC: Customer Service Leveraging Assets (ENG)

The service department is known to provide repairs, rebuilds, and maintenance services. We manage the labor function to have the highest possible labor efficiency and quality. High performance in a Service Department must maximize efficiency, maximize quality, and satisfy customers.  The first step to understanding and accepting what we have to do is to understand the assets at our disposal. From the technical skills of the mechanics, to the bays and vehicles we work from, and the specialized tooling there is a lot to consider. How to leverage these assets is the theme in this program.

Individual employees want to do a good job and they want to be able to provide the highest level of skill possible. We have a responsibility to maintain those skills with professional training programs. From the OEM’s, to specific training within the dealership we will explore all that training entails. It starts with the skills set inventory for each technician, and then a training plan for each person can be developed. We are expected to make money on our labor. What is less understood is that we are intended to be able to recover our costs on all of the tools and technology we use. In this program we uncover methods to be able to recover these department costs in a manner that is fair to customers and the company.

Each employee can show off their skills and knowledge especially well if we provide them with the comprehensive training and tools necessary to deliver world class service. We must provide leverage on these assets. This class is an important piece of their learning.

HCC: Customer Service Preparation (ENG)

Everyone everywhere sells. That is a truth that is little understood. We sell ideas at work and we sell manners at home. There are many things that we sell over the course of our lives. Sales personnel sell for a living, and the skills that they have as individuals are enhanced when they know the proper tools and methods involved in being a professional salesman.

All of the various steps in selling are discussed in this program which is the first of two parts. This part deals with the set-up of the selling process: the research, the objectives, and the questions that need to be asked. There is a lot of work that goes into being a professional salesman and it starts with research. This is not dramatic or exciting work, but it is necessary. What the research needs to cover is discussed in detail. With each and every customer there needs to be objectives. These goals and objectives will take on many forms: from calls to parts business, to service business, to profitability. Finally, in selling everyone knows about the “talking” aspect of selling but more important is the “listening” part of it. In order to get the customer talking, the professional salesman must know what type of question to ask and how to ask it.

Selling is much more a science than an art and this first part covers the first three elements necessary in becoming a professional salesman.

HCC: Customer Service Maintenance Programs (ENG)

Everyone knows about the repair and rebuild business. That is where the excitement is for technical people. In the product support business, we have two major goals: reduce the owning and operating costs for the machine owner, and protect the residual value of the machine. The first step to understanding how to reduce owning and operating costs is to understand the importance of the maintenance service recommended by the OEM. Most customers view maintenance as the necessary evil of changing fluids and filters. There is much more to it than that. How to develop a maintenance program to reduce those operating costs is the theme in this program.

There is a fundamental conflict that has to be dealt with in the labor management group. Maintenance is boring, anyone can do it. In fact the OEM dealer has less than 6.5% of the maintenance market. Nearly 90% of the maintenance is done by a customer mechanic. Yet survey data indicates that nearly 90% of the customers would give the maintenance business to the dealership if their price was less than what the customer currently pays.

This program will discuss the methods and processes to follow in order to be able to meet that price and performance need.

HCC: Customer Service Parts Pricing (ENG)

Your price is a marketing tool, but most of you don’t use it that way. How often have we heard that “your price is too high” or “I can get it down the street for less?” How well customer contact personnel respond to these and other comments about your prices is critically important to your success. The price points you use should be a product of your need to make money and the competitive nature of your marketplace.

Over the years dealers have applied a methodology called “matrix pricing.” This approach started in the 1970’s and it still continues today, well beyond its useful life. We will explain how it works and we will also expose the “new” realities in price theory for the parts business.  We will look into the new approach of applying an “array” of variables to develop a selling price: activity, price, competitiveness, and inventory risk. This four element array leads to several thousand mark ups designed to allow the dealer to attach a price that will be competitive, while at the same time produce an overall gross profit that allows the Company to maintain the profit required to sustain itself.

Learning the impact of a discount on your business is a critical aspect of defending your price. This class will teach you how to see the impact on gross profit and net profit. Learning how to respond to price objections and overcome them is a principle that is important to understand, and is discussed in this webinar. This program will be beneficial for anyone in the parts business that is touching customers with the responsibility for selling or customer service.