“If you were to recommend three courses for a service department, what would you suggest?” This recent question popped up in one of the MRAA internal Slack conversations asking our entire team for their suggestions.
We get regular questions about top courses from our our dealer members and MRAA staff for a couple of reasons. First, MRAATraining.com, has more than 240 courses, so there are plenty of available options to sort through. Second, we understand that dealers have limited time and need some guidance – quick and easy shortcuts – from our team to help steer them in the right direction and stay focused on addressing current obstacles they are facing at their business.
That’s why we’ve established some programs like MRAA’s monthly Spotlight pages, the Training ‘N’ Tactics (TNT) series and course packages on MRAATraining.com to highlight valuable courses to match timely topics and some of the current pain points you’re facing at your dealership. To gauge your needs and market concerns, the MRAA team also attends dealer meetings and sends a monthly MRAA Pulse Report and additional surveys.
On top of that, we have weekly conversations with the dealer body to learn more about obstacles with hiring, inventory management and sales and service efficiency, to name only a few.
Now, let’s address that question.
We have a custom 7-part training course for dealership service advisors called “Take Your Service Writing Skills to the Next Level.” It features several videos and subject matter experts who help service writers improve their skills and abilities to excel at your dealership, boost customer loyalty, grow revenue and help enhance the dealership’s performance and stability.
The Service Writing package includes three popular sessions from proven industry educators as well as four courses from service guru Valerie Ziebron of VRZ Consulting. They are:
- “Increase the Profit of What’s Already on Your Lift Package” with Jordon Schoolmeester, Garage Composites
- “Service CSI & Upselling: Not an Either/Or Proposition” with Ziebron
- “3 Ways to Earn Your Service Customer’s Trust” with Chris Collins
- “Turn Upset Customers Into Loyal Ones” with Ziebron
- “Master the Write-Up” with Ziebron
- “3 Tactics to Turn Your Shop into a Customer Loyalty Machine” with Bob Clements
- “Fix It Right: Then and Now” with Ziebron
We also believe in providing you with implementable solutions to improve your dealership. This Service Writing package is loaded with tactics and resources to take your performance as a Service Writer to the next level, but here’s a baker’s dozen in tasty takeaways.
13 key learnings you’ll get:
- Implementable sales processes to improve service sales and profits
- Top strategies to improve upselling and customer satisfaction
- Critical elements within your control to ensure your customers keep on loving you with each service and parts experience.
- Ten things required on every work order
- Advice to overcome common service objections
- Focus on one write-up at a time to identify needs, make recommendations, address concerns, build rapport and reach an agreement with your customers.
- Role-playing tactics to improve relationships with customers
- Avenues to collect, share and leverage customer info
- How to turn upset customers into loyal ones
- Ideal questions to ask during the customer drop-off
- Examine and improve your processes for scheduling, write-up, repair, quality control and delivery to fix it right the first time.
- Steps to create a high-capacity day in your service department
- How and when to implement triage to improve efficiency and the customer experience
As an MRAA Silver and Gold Member, you have access to MRAATraining and this course package listed here, as well as more than 200 others helping your team improve, grow and find more success.
Prefer In-Person Learning?
You also have the opportunity to learn how to improve your service department’s abilities and performance by attending MRAA’s Dealer Week 2023, Dec. 4-7, in Tampa, Fla. The annual conference and expo — boating’s only event focused on dealer growth — will again include a Service & Parts Pathway with five educational sessions. The topics include updated communication tactics, parts obsolescence, solving customers’ problems, incorporating action leadership and best service practices to be an “A-list” dealership.
Need recommended courses to help your team improve in areas other than service? Reach out to me at jerrod@mraa.com. The MRAA is here to help. When you are more successful, the marine industry is more successful.
