Broski: Thanks. You Made My Day.

Driving out of a parking lot after a late lunch, I spotted a huge, black, shiny Mercedes Sprinter van, parked, pulling a small, rented trailer. I pulled up beside him. The guy was moving slowly, loading stuff in his van from the supermarket, as if he was headed on a long trip and stopped to stock up on groceries. I rolled down the passenger window and said, “Hey, what a great looking van. What year is it?”

He slowly looked up and responded, “2017.”

“Get out,” I said. “It looks brand new. Wow!”

After a little more small talk, I said, “Have a great rest of your day. Be safe.”

“Thanks,” he replied, before he perked up and said, “Thanks, you made my day.”

I had him for 30 seconds out of his 16 waking hours, yet I made his day.

There’s a lesson here for service advisors. While other shops are answering the phone from a script, fighting for their KPIs, and struggling to get a thousand reviews, I’m cheering customers up, making their day. They feel good and comfortable at our shop. They easily agree to the repair order, write great reviews, and refer people. They’re our friends. Friends who know we have to make a profit.

Are you so busy that you don’t have time for pleasantries with your customers? Is the customer repair interaction purely transactional? Is the repair interaction more a commodity than an experience? If so, you may be fighting a losing battle. What may be lost in all the shop activity is the customer. Does it boil down to only the technician and the car? Is there no Disneyland-like experience?

Are you an ordinary repair shop or a repair destination? You’re not going to be a Disneyland or vacation spot but at least make it fun and interesting for the customer and an experience besides just car repair. Are the advisor and owner in good spirits? Do they talk with customers about their vacations and their kids and their interests and movies and restaurants?

Six Hours to Say Hello 

Here’s a story that let me know we were doing something right. I got a call from a potential customer in San Francisco—six hours north of us. He asked if we work on Porsche 944s. I told him yes. His son lives near us and has his car, which had a hard starting problem when hot that nobody wanted to work on. We fixed that and over a nine-month period did a service and fixed a few other issues.

Shortly before Thanksgiving, a guy pulled up and parked off to the side. He walked up to the bay doors and said he was looking for Victor. I told him that was me.

He introduced himself as Tom from San Francisco and explained that we worked on his 944 Porsche. I got all excited and nearly shook his arm off. He was visiting his son for Thanksgiving and just wanted to stop by to meet the guys taking care of his car. Who the heck does that when they have limited time on vacation, six hours from home? As you can imagine, we had a great conversation.

Words That Leave a Lasting Impression

Are you making a real, heart-felt connection with your customers? Would they drive six hours to say hello?

So, how do you make your customer’s day? With warm, human, and feel-good missives that are easy to say and hard to forget:

• “It’s always good to see you.”
• “I’m glad you came in today.”
• “I really appreciate you.”
• “I enjoyed helping you with this.”
• “Thanks for being so easy to work with.” (customers love this one)

Here are some more relationship builders that are repeat-visit gold:

• “We’ve got your back on this.”
• “You’re always welcome here.”
• “I’m glad we get to take care of this for you.”
• “We’ll keep an eye on things for you.”

Use these phrases to be a shop that customers talk about instead of put up with. You’ll go from an ordinary shop into a legendary one.