You have to love service writers...

TAParker wrote: On a repair order today in our shop.... Customer states car jakes, then stops, then makes a piddling sound. Turn it off for 5 minutes and it goes away. Has CEL on..... Check and advise.......... Seriously?...............

My conversation would probably go something like this:

Me: I checked it out. WTF did you just write?
SA: Just what the customer said.
Me: Where's the customer? I need to find out what the problem really is that you can't communicate properly.

I know every damn SA "desk" has post-it notes on it. I also know some of the dealership software only allows so many characters for you to write down the complaint. How about we use BOTH of these tools to get to the root of the problem? Don't filter the customer's words. How would you like an order of "Customers complains of adominal pain. Check and advise." Sure there are plenty of institutional protocols for this complaint, but it sure would be nice to find out that the patient hasn't pooped for a week, which isn't normal, before doing anything else.

Three good ones today:
"Customer thinks she lost 3 $20 bills under seat. please try to find"

ummmmmmmmm if you can't reach under the seat to find $60, you A) don't need it and B) don't deserve it.

"pls turn on auto headlights"
really? just like every other car with an auto headlight setting, it's included in the switch. why can't the customer figure that one out?

"customer states paint on front end doesn't match. Please check and advise"
wtf? what are we supposed to check? yes, the paint does not match. advise repaint?

We were talking about female customers a page back, sometimes they can be the absolute worst to deal with. Had a Buick customer come in, high powered real estate agent whose face was on billboards all over town. One of her complaints was an intermittent buzzing in the seat. Checked it over from every angle, could not find anything wrong. She pitched a fit, on her survey she ranted about how we could not fix her car.

Fast forward ~1 month, car's back in the shop. Tech feels a buzz, digs in the seat and finds... a beeper, set to 'vibrate'. Mystery solved! Is she happy? Hell, no. She's mad because we didn't find it earlier, on the survey says we don't think her time is valuable.

Moral of the story: service advisors are definitely idiots but it ain't always their doings.

Curmudgeon wrote: Moral of the story: service advisors are definitely idiots but it ain't always their doings.

I've made it a point to tell my advisor that I sure as hell couldn't do his job. The BS he has to deal with is outrageous. SOMETIMES it's their fault, but most of the time they're just writing down what the customer says because the customer is an unreasonable shiny happy person who doesn't know the first thing about their problem but DEFINITELY knows that it should be able to be fixed with $10 in parts and $20 in labor.

The problem I'm having now is this, we have 1 diesel/heavy line tech. We live in rural Texas, EVERYONE drives F250-F350-F450 trucks. If I get 4 in, he's down for at least 2 days diagnosing and repairing. We had 6 in here, 2 engine replacements, 2 headgasket jobs on 6.0's and 2 relatively easy parts replacements. We were down for weeks as there are 4 20+ hr jobs back there. So, we have our main tech full, our suspension/transmission guy full, oil change guys slammed every day, but my electronics/interior guy twiddling his thumbs. Then I have customers calling, we have to tell them we're weeks out before looking at their vehicles, then they call the GM, he yells at us because we're obviously not moving fast enough, techs yell at us because we're bringing in too much or not enough, customers yelling at us because the stuff back there isn't getting finished because we have to bring in new stuff, management yelling at us because customers are pissed and raising hell.

It's been getting HORRIBLE the past couple months. I don't know what the hell is going on. UGH!! On top of all that, because he's being slammed, my diesel guy has been getting comebacks like CRAZY! Then the yelling tripples!!

Hey, at least I have a job, right?

Conquest351 wrote: Hey, at least I have a job, right?

Hold on and let me get this straight:

You get yelled at for telling customers reasonable timelines for getting things done due to being backed up... and then the customers go higher up to your boss?

Jesus H., I've worked service industry up here, never had to deal with anything like that. I've also never worked with a boss that knows were swamped and tells us we should be able to do things as if we weren't swamped, so YMMV. That'd be a terrible work environment

HiTempguy wrote:

Conquest351 wrote: Hey, at least I have a job, right?

Hold on and let me get this straight: You get yelled at for telling customers reasonable timelines for getting things done due to being backed up... and then the customers go higher up to your boss? Jesus H., I've worked service industry up here, never had to deal with anything like that. I've also never worked with a boss that knows were swamped and tells us we should be able to do things as if we weren't swamped, so YMMV. That'd be a terrible work environment

Oh, that's not all...

They're talking about changing our pay plan. Also, if you call and get a customers authorization on repairs, then we finish it and they come in to get the car, if they bitch and complain about how expensive it is, the GM and Service Manager knock the price down to what the customer thinks is fair.

I got your authorization to perform repairs at this price, you said, "OK" we finish it and now you want to knock it down? This KILLS my ELR which I get paid on. Fun... Seriously, we have bred our customers to know that if they don't want to pay for something, if they complain enough, they won't have to.

I have customers who refuse to pay shop charges/disposal fees for work performed. "I don't pay for that, ya'll make enough money to take care of that."

I had a customer tell me he was not paying for the tow on his vehicle. I don't have a tow truck, we have a local company do our towing. I told him that I was charged for towing and he would be too. He said, "Well I'm paying for $2500 worth of work on my truck, you can eat the $150 tow bill." "No, no I can't. If you don't want to pay it, I'll let you call the owner of the tow company and tell him that." Then this same customer said his checkbook was out in the truck, went out there, and took off without paying. Lawsuit pending...

HiTempguy wrote:

Conquest351 wrote: Hey, at least I have a job, right?

Hold on and let me get this straight: You get yelled at for telling customers reasonable timelines for getting things done due to being backed up... and then the customers go higher up to your boss? Jesus H., I've worked service industry up here, never had to deal with anything like that. I've also never worked with a boss that knows were swamped and tells us we should be able to do things as if we weren't swamped, so YMMV. That'd be a terrible work environment

I've never really had a job in which this DIDN'T occur.

At least right now, it's not my DIRECT boss that does this, but instead everyone above her.

HiTempguy wrote:

Conquest351 wrote: Hey, at least I have a job, right?

Hold on and let me get this straight: You get yelled at for telling customers reasonable timelines for getting things done due to being backed up... and then the customers go higher up to your boss? Jesus H., I've worked service industry up here, never had to deal with anything like that. I've also never worked with a boss that knows were swamped and tells us we should be able to do things as if we weren't swamped, so YMMV. That'd be a terrible work environment

Try being the tech that is getting yelled at from the SA from being yelled at from the SM or GM. I was always told to "work faster". I not so politely told them, "I can work faster, but nothing will ever get fixed properly. Your choice."

The problem I have is the "Just come right on in." BS over-the-phone line. Before I left the last dealership, I averaged 4-6 open tickets PER day. I could normally hump out 2-3 repairs daily, on top of answering all the stupid questions from either other techs or the SA. I always heard the "Can we fix that today?" line from the SA... Nevermind, if you look at the stack of RO's I have they can clearly see the answer is no because they have a list of those same RO's too. I was once in deep fixing a Cummins: 6 injectors, injection pump, fuel pump changeover, drain the tank, etc for 12 book hours, to hear "Hey can you come look at this car for a broken window switch (or some other silly INTERIOR part or maybe it was a vibration and needing a test drive. Just something equally silly.)" Nevermind, that I reek of diesel and have dirty nasty used diesel oil up to my elbows. I mean really? Is there not someone else that can look at it? You have 4 GM techs standing around and me as the only Chrysler tech with another tech being a catchall/oil change/customer transporter guy and a used car tech.

ARGH.....

Ranger50 wrote:

HiTempguy wrote:

Conquest351 wrote: Hey, at least I have a job, right?

Hold on and let me get this straight: You get yelled at for telling customers reasonable timelines for getting things done due to being backed up... and then the customers go higher up to your boss? Jesus H., I've worked service industry up here, never had to deal with anything like that. I've also never worked with a boss that knows were swamped and tells us we should be able to do things as if we weren't swamped, so YMMV. That'd be a terrible work environment

Try being the tech that is getting yelled at from the SA from being yelled at from the SM or GM. I was always told to "work faster". I not so politely told them, "I can work faster, but nothing will ever get fixed properly. Your choice." The problem I have is the "Just come right on in." BS over-the-phone line. Before I left the last dealership, I averaged 4-6 open tickets PER day. I could normally hump out 2-3 repairs daily, on top of answering all the stupid questions from either other techs or the SA. I always heard the "Can we fix that today?" line from the SA... Nevermind, if you look at the stack of RO's I have they can clearly see the answer is no because they have a list of those same RO's too. I was once in deep fixing a Cummins: 6 injectors, injection pump, fuel pump changeover, drain the tank, etc for 12 book hours, to hear "Hey can you come look at this car for a broken window switch (or some other silly INTERIOR part or maybe it was a vibration and needing a test drive. Just something equally silly.)" Nevermind, that I reek of diesel and have dirty nasty used diesel oil up to my elbows. I mean really? Is there not someone else that can look at it? You have 4 GM techs standing around and me as the only Chrysler tech with another tech being a catchall/oil change/customer transporter guy and a used car tech. ARGH.....

I feel ya brother. I try not to pull that crap on my guys, but sometimes if it's a quick fix and they're waiting on parts for another big job, they can get it in and get the extra 1-3 gravy hours. I have NO problem telling a customer to bring it back or leave it with us. I'm not getting my ass in a pinch for time requirements/promises.

Coming from the flipside of it- I tend to dislike SA's that tell me stuff is wrong with my car. "Your CEL is on". No E36 M3. It's probably on because there's a giant chunk of 3" stainless tube where the catalytic converters used to be. Granted I may come off as the "know it all" type, but my cars go to the shop under two conditions. A- It's the MINI and I refuse to work on it (though I may have to rescind that declaration after the last fiasco) or B- it's the MS3 and I'm bringing it to you because what's being fixed is covered under a factory TSB. I know what the problem is, I've diagnosed it myself...because that's what I do, and this is what I'd like repaired. I tend to be as descriptive as possible as well, to make sure they understand my rationale.

corytate wrote: Stupid ticket story: We got a ticket that said "customer ran over bird. please extract from skid plate" at least they had the sense to give it to us hourly techs.

I had to extract a partridge from some one of the bigger gaps in thr front end of our bird-killer Pontiac. It was jammed in there pretty darn good. At least the neighbor's cat ate well that night.

That car under various drivers and owners has killed at least

1 partridge (no pear tree through)

2 pheasants

3-4 wild turkeys

1 turkey buzzard

and some very large # of generic smaller birds (hard to be more specific at speed). Probably in the 200+ range.

Also had a bald eagle fly into the front end after I stopped to not hit it while it was dining in the road. It just shot me a look and flew off though, seemed more ashamed than hurt.

It's like an avian black hole, they get sucked right into it.

WE S/A's HAVE to note things like CEL on etc. Believe me, there's plenty of jerkoffs out there who will come back claiming that the light was not on before we replaced the brake light bulb. I got caught in that trap exactly once: the sonofabitch was lying through his teeth and knew I could not do E36 M3 about it.

So if you come in, want your brake light bulb replaced, I mention your CEL is on, you don't want it diagnosed, well you'll see that IN WRITING on your RO. That way I don't have to sit in the office with the service and general managers and listen to someone lie through their farkin' teeth so they can get something for nothing.

I have said it before, Customer service is that warm squishy thing between the rock and the hard place.

It can be a pretty decent job, there can be a lot of satisfaction as long as the person doing it is proactive and has a thick skin. You learn a lot about people, some of it's pretty good but unfortunately you learn just how slimy and underhanded people can also be.

You also learn QUICK you cannot judge people by their outward appearance or dress, the worst attempted shaftings I have experience with involved pretty young girls (True story: to get out of paying her bill, one girl claimed I made sexual advances. ) or the well dressed and groomed three piece suit high powered lawyer/banker types.

I hope whoever coined the phrase "The customer is always right" was smothered to death under a mountain of customer complaint forms.

Once, when I took the car to a shop to get fixed, I asked, very politely, for the tech to come on a test drive with me because the problem I was having was a misfire that only happened under load near redline, and I would prefer to be the one driving the car under those conditions. They refused. Honestly, I couldn't blame them too much.

Now, I take my cars to an independent shop run by some people in my car club, where the service writer, cashier, parts guy and tech are the same person.

Customer reports the purse hanger makes the car run rough.

Service advisor noted that the choke works great.

HiTempguy wrote:

Conquest351 wrote: Hey, at least I have a job, right?

Hold on and let me get this straight: You get yelled at for telling customers reasonable timelines for getting things done due to being backed up... and then the customers go higher up to your boss?

Where I work, it's similar. We do general repair and service as well as high performance work, but the rule is that high performance work has to take a back seat to the general repair work. We can't tell someone that we can't fix the car that gets him to work because we need to work on some guy's toy.

The problem is that, upfront, if there's nothing on the schedule, therefore we have nothing to do, even if there are 60 labor hours sitting in the parking lot and we have two or three project cars that we have to push out of the building every morning and back in every night, or even daily driver stuff that we were waiting for parts. So she starts cold-calling and telling people to come right in, we're not doing anything.

In reply to Curmudgeon:

EXACTLY!!! You have to document EVERYTHING!

Prime example...

Customer brought in a brand new truck purchased at another dealership. I walked out and talked to them about their problem. Got it back, diagnosed, ordered parts and had it fixed the next day. About 3 hours after they picked it up, they came in and said that there was a scratch up on the top of the tailgate. The truck was lifted probably 6" so there's no way in hell anything touched it. My new Service Manager asked if I did a walkaround and marked it, I said, "I didn't look there, it's way up high". "Well, then you're going to pay for it, not me. If you'd do your damn job, then we wouldn't have problems like this."

Had them come back and had my touchup guy do me a solid and not charge me to fix it.

Hi there! I happened to stumble upon this thread after an exhausting day at the shop. I am a Svc Advisor/Writer/Salesman/babysitter and supplier of crying towels to a shop full of grown men. I've been in HD trucks for 20 years, I know my way around trucks of all makes and models. I just recently moved from a dealership in a large city to a dealer in a small/med size city. Oh boy what a difference! As you can guess by my screen name, I am a woman, and kind of a girly-girl, that has been a huge obstacle in my career. It has made me work 5 times harder than most of the men I have known in my position. I make sure I know my stuff when dealing with customers, it's the only way to gain respect from them.

Seeing some of the trash talk from the techs about the SAs is just a little irritating. I wish techs could really experience what we go through in a day. I understand that there are some crappy SA's out there, but there are also a lot of crappy techs out there.

The shop that I am at is not a flat rate shop. All of the guys are hourly, and high rates at that. Doesn't make a difference if book time is 5 hours, and they have 10 in it, the only person that takes the hit is me and the other SA's. We get paid on the 1% of GP (sold hours - tech wages and comebacks = my pay). It definately puts me in a difficult position when I see them outside on the phone for 45 mins, smoking 5 cigs, or B.S.ing at the back parts counter. They aren't losing a dime, I am losing half my car payment! If a guy messes up and causes a major engine failure, which does happen to the tune of 10-20 grand, that comes right out of the pot that my pay is figured on, he gets a "try not to do that again" talk. Anyone else in this type of pay situation? It was definately not the original pay plan I signed up for, but have to deal with it until something else comes along.

Like I said, had a crappy day today, just needed to vent. None of my friends or family are in this type of industry so it's hard for them to understand.

Welcome to the forum DieselGirl!

I think you'll fit in just fine here, DieselGirl.

Curmudgeon wrote: You also learn QUICK you cannot judge people by their outward appearance or dress, the worst attempted shaftings I have experience with involved pretty young girls (True story: to get out of paying her bill, one girl claimed I made sexual advances. ) or the well dressed and groomed three piece suit high powered lawyer/banker types.

See, I would expect people like that to be the shiftiest. They are used to having everything go their way with minimum effort and are masters at manipulating people in order to make it happen.

I would expect the easiest to deal with people are the ones who are reasonably clean, groomed, and talk educated but dressed in simple, functional work-a-day attire. Not wealthy, but used to handling their E36 M3.

DieselGirl wrote: We get paid on the 1% of GP (sold hours - tech wages and comebacks = my pay). It was definately not the original pay plan I signed up for, but have to deal with it until something else comes along. None of my friends or family are in this type of industry so it's hard for them to understand.

My sales job just went from a % of gross sales to a higher % of GP. Many of us complained, partly out of knowledge the service guy's screw-ups and resulting warranty charges come out of our pocket, even though we had no say in the matter. Not fair, indeed. Company's line was that if they lose money, we commissioned sales people should lose some too. Yeah, okay, but what about the guys who screwed up. "Oh, we'll have to talk to them about it". bs