Use Technician Comebacks and Customer Service Issues to Learn and Improve

Let’s face it, a week can’t go by without a technician comeback or a customer service issue. Mistakes will happen, there’s no avoiding them. Obviously, you need to put systems and procedures in place to reduce the chances of mistakes occurring, but the truth is everyone at one time or another will drop the ball.

The key thing to remember when a mistake happens is to keep the lines of communication open. With every mistake, there is a learning experience that everyone in the shop can benefit from.

Discuss the issue with your tech or service advisor. Get all the facts. Don’t assign blame; the person who committed the mistake already knows he or she dropped the ball. Draw out of the person ways to improve and ask that person if it would ok to share the findings with the rest of the staff.

We all need to adopt a culture of continual improvement. We can sometimes learn more from mistakes than we can when things go smoothly.

One last note; I am not suggesting that you should ignore habitual mistakes or not recognize when someone refuses to improve or cannot do the job. In some cases, you may have to let someone go.

This article was contributed by Joe Marconi of Elite. Joe is one of the top shop owners in the country, and one of the 1-on-1 business coaches that helps shop owners through the Elite Coaching Program.