In recent decades, much of the automotive aftermarket has chased an arbitrary target. We direct our focus to monthly dashboards, and worship at the altar of the Average Repair Order (ARO). We train service advisors to be absolute killers at the counter, armed with scripts to overcome objections to close the sale.

But let’s look in the mirror for a minute. Our focus on the transactional sale is precisely why our industry’s reputation is so lousy. With my apologies to Irina Dunn, an auto repair shop needs salesmen like a fish needs a bicycle. We do not need people who know how to sell fluid flushes. We absolutely need consumer advocates. We need an automotive equivalent of a financial fiduciary—a professional legally and morally bound to act strictly in the best interest of the client.

The Perverse Incentive

When we treat our front counter staff like ordinary salespeople, we introduce a toxic element in our shop known as the perverse incentive. If an advisor’s pay structure is tied directly to sales, their primary loyalty can easily shift away from helping the customer achieve their goals toward padding their paycheck. 

This is where Goodhart’s law comes into play. The law states that when a measure becomes a target, it stops being a good measure. If we tell our staff that success is measured by car count and increased ARO, they will work for those exact numbers. History shows that they will push unnecessary preventative maintenance, over-diagnose minor issues, and ignore the actual long-term needs of the vehicle owner. The metric wins and your numbers reflect that but, ultimately, your customer relationship is a casualty in the war of us vs. them. 

Trust Compounds

True shop health isn’t built on the back of high pressure, single visit spikes. It is built on trust, and trust behaves exactly like compound interest: It is slow to accrue at first, then picks up speed and value as time progresses. 

When a customer walks in and your advisor assumes the role of a fiduciary advocate, you might lose an immediate sale. However, you just deposited a massive incremental element of trust into your customer’s account. “I feed my family by fixing cars, right?” I would ask. “So if I tell you that based on your goals, this car isn’t worth fixing and deny myself that revenue, whose best interest do I have in mind, yours or mine?” 

That customer typically returns again and again. They bring their spouse’s vehicle in, and they tell their neighbors that they finally found a shop that won’t rip them off. The long-term value of that relationship exceeds the quick buck off a manipulated ARO. 

Change the Culture

It’s time to change the culture of the front counter. Stop hiring salesmen who view cars as mere profit-producing machines. Hire and train advocates who understand that by helping people define and achieve their goals, everyone wins. When we shift from a sales-centric model to a fiduciary mindset, we align our business goals with the human beings driving our success.