By Bob Cooper. When your service advisors recommend additional services that are outside of the customer’s original concern, and the customer initially declines those additional services, in most cases, your advisors should call the customer back at the appropriate time to re-offer the services. For example, ask your service advisors to follow up and say something along the lines of, “Hi, Jim? This is Bob at Elite Auto Service. Do you have just a moment? The reason I’m calling is because my tech just told me that he’s just about wrapped up your brake job, so I wanted to touch base with you to let you know that we’re on schedule to have you wrapped up by 4:00 p.m. By the way, Jim, I’m not sure if you’ve given any further thought to that flush my tech recommended, but if you’d like us to go ahead and do that service while your vehicle is still here, I can still have you back on the road by 4:00 p.m., and you’ll have one less thing to worry about doing later.”
Try this for just 30 days and you’ll be amazed at how often your customers will tell you it’s funny that you asked, because on their way back from your shop they had already told themselves they should have authorized those additional services. Even if just one customer out of ten says yes, you’ll still be increasing your auto service sales, as that’s one more sale that you wouldn’t have had otherwise.
