By Bob Cooper

If you want to increase your shop's sales and customer satisfaction, these 5 service writer training tips are the most important for you to consider...

#1. In order for people to buy from your service writers, three things need to occur: they need to like your service writers, trust them, and view them as credible experts. Accordingly, the first thing your service writers need to sell to your customers on is themselves. Not your shop, or any repair. The best way to accomplish this goal is by training your service writers to smile, greet the customer with a salutation, provide the customer with their name, then ask a question that invites a response.

#2. Remember, your service writer's tonality is critical to your success. A study performed at UCLA (University of California Los Angeles), concluded that when it comes to what influences people during a sale, 55% is what the customer sees, 38% is the tonality of the salesperson, and the words used by the salesperson account for only 7% of the sale. Since your customers calling in can't see your service writers, tonality becomes even more important with callers. Regardless of whether the customer is walking in or calling in, your service writers need to slow down, smile, and speak with genuine interest and compassion.

#3. Your service writers should always take notes, then repeat back the information the customer provides them with. This not only helps your service writers start a relationship with your customer, but it shows the customer that your service writer listening to them, it keeps them engaged, and it causes them to actively listen, rather than formulating more questions. This is one of the best-kept secrets to controlling the conversation with customers.

#4. As soon as comfortably possible, your service writers need to get on a first-name basis with the customer. By doing so, they will be taking the relationship from one between customer and service writer to one between Bob (service writer) and Mike (customer). It can be trickier to obtain the customer's name if they are calling in, but your service writers should still typically be able to get on a first-name basis after the first two exchanges. An easy way to do so is by providing their name first: “By the way, my name is Bob. May I ask who I am speaking with?"

#5. Your service writer training should emphasize that your team needs to let go of the age-old belief that your customers, and especially callers, are only interested in price. The reason most people ask for a price is because they don't know the questions they should be asking (how long the shop has been in business, whether or not you employ certified technicians, if you are approved by AAA, etc.). Accordingly, most customers calling in ask for a price to get the conversation started, and customers in your shop stay focused on price because they don't know where else their focus should be.

Apply these 5 tips to your service writer training, and watch your sales and customer satisfaction soar!

For help creating more confident and consistent advisors that generate higher sales and happier customers, learn more about Elite’s industry acclaimed Masters Service Advisor Training Program.