Everyone hates thorns! When you get
pricked by them, they can be extremely
painful and make you bleed. We want to
avoid thorns at all costs. On the contrary,
a rose is something that looks beautiful
and desirable. My hope is that your service
department is the latter rather than the
former, but if it is "thorny," this article is
for you.
Your goal should be to make your
service department the centerpiece of your
business — just like the rose is used as the
centerpiece in a floral arrangement. I tell
many owners that I would like to see them
be so proud of their service department
that they would put a floor-to-ceiling
window in their showroom so that
customers could actually see what is going
on back there and watch their equipment
being serviced. If you could ever get your
service department to look that good, you
would be in the top 1 percent of all OPE
dealers. Now that is a goal that would take
your business in unparalleled directions.
Here are my recommendations on how
to proceed and create a service department
that can make you proud.
#1 GOOD TECHNICIANS =
GOOD COMPENSATION
The biggest complaint by most owners is
they can't find good technicians. I agree 100
percent that this is true. There are many
reasons for this, but I think compensation
is the biggest key in both attracting and
keeping good technicians. How are you
going to attract great service technicians
by paying them only $12 an hour? The
odds of finding someone that can help
you build a good service department with
that pay rate is about .0000001 percent.
You need to be prepared to pay up to
30 percent of your labor rate, as long as
the technician is efficient. It also means
you must set up efficiency standards as
to what is and isn't acceptable regarding
20 JANUARY 2016 OUTDOOR POWER EQUIPMENT www.outdoorpowerequipment.com
FEATURE STORY | Best Practices
IMAGE
©ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/KONRADOST
■ BY JEFF SHEETS
Creating a service department
to be a rose — not a thorn
Your goal should be
to make your service
department the centerpiece
of your business — just
like a rose is used as the
centerpiece in a floral
arrangement.
