I grew up in the car business. (303) 421-0100 is the most constant phone
number of my entire life. Over the
years, whether I was crashing the receptionist’s desk as a small child, filing
and working the reception in high school, or visiting when back from college
while proving to myself I could find my own jobs elsewhere; I knew I could
count on seeing a good handful of the same faces.
In the dealership world a little bit of turn has always been
the norm on the variable side. It’s not surprising for a person to have
circuitously made his or her way into car sales after first selling shoes or
installing siding on houses, only to eventually move on to pursue a life-long
ambition of training large marine mammals or just working at the competitor’s
dealership.
Parts and Service on the other hand has historically enjoyed
a more stable track record. The parts back counterman practically came with the
building. The service manager probably started working at the dealership as a
porter when he was 17. Your technicians might have 100 years of combined experience
at your dealership alone. Heck, I know some of our service and parts staff
better than I know my own uncles.
As our industry spends so much time talking about the
changes occurring and how to get ahead of them we’re usually referring to the
variable operation. It could be changes in the digital space,
dealer-manufacturer relations, controversial facility upgrades, or the CFPD.
I don’t think this apparent lack of attention on parts and
service is intentional. There is quite a bit going on in a dealership and never
enough hours in the day. Most dealer principles and general managers have more
of a variable orientation because they came up through the ranks from the sales
floor themselves. It is true that “nothing happens until we sell a car,” but
unless we also service that car we won’t be able to pay our fixed expenses
especially with the virtually non-existent margins on new cars anymore, and the
chances of those clients returning to purchase another car in the future are
greatly reduced. Plus in the past you
could count on consistency of both staff and business model in parts and
service. Like the quite sibling that still does cool stuff but doesn’t always
get noticed, fixed operations has largely been left to it’s own devices,
provided the doc is in order.
Now the winds of change are blowin’ in the “back of the
house” as well. The job descriptions themselves are changing and the applicant
pool for some positions is dwindling. Veteran managers and service advisors are
spinning their wheels at break-neck speeds to keep their heads above water but
are running out of stamina and ideas. It’s
in all of our best interest—dealer, manufacturer, and even high school
educators and economic development councils—to do some serious draft control.
Over the course of a series of posts I will shed light on
and investigate some of the changes and opportunities I see in the Fixed
Operations both at my own dealerships and what I’ve noticed industry wide
through discussion with peers and observation.
