Define service standards, expectations so your team can shine

Through the Commitment to Training series we've discussed the importance of ensuring your team is prepared to provide the best levels of service to customers prior to them arriving at your door. We’ve shared best practices and focused on a few topics, including establishing a learning manager who is responsible and focused on your organization’s ongoing learning efforts. We’ve talked about commitment from a technician’s perspective and we’ve discussed the return on investment you can experience once your entire team commits to training. The common thread in each touch point is standards. Standards of performance, standards of customer service, standards of your business. So how do you start? What’s the best process for setting standards?

At automotive service facilities, the definition of service standards is easiest stated as defining the expectations for your team. You start the exercise of creating standards of service by recognizing the difference between customer-defined standards and company-defined standards. Standards should be based on the expectations of your customers and reflect the customer’s view of these expectations.

Draw from observations of what your customer expects and gather direct input from your customers with respect to their expectations the repair experience and your team. To begin, define the customer experience you seek to provide and create a blueprint for the processes that can deliver on that experience. Then, measure results. How to do that? Categorize your service standards in the context of customer expectations as either a Hard Standard or a Soft Standard – Hard Standards can be counted, measured or timed. These can include the amount of time it takes to complete an inspection or the time required to provide a customer with an answer. Other Hard Standards can include the amount of time it takes for your team to answer the phone or greet customers upon arrival. Soft Standards are more subjective or opinion-focused and can’t be quantifiable measured. These soft standards can be gathered by speaking to customers via a variety of tools including reviews, call backs or surveys.

The process then for setting service standards based on your customers’ expectations then becomes well documented. For a step-by-step guide, here is one example based on a process used by McGraw-Hill I have leaned on in past situations:

1. Determine who you want to be to your customers and community, then determine what those customers want from you
   1. This is abstract but an example could be “I want to provide a level of concierge service to affluent customers” or “I want to be a low cost service provider for my local community.” Now, determine what your chosen customer group wants from you
2. Convert customer expectations into behaviors and actions
   1. You might begin with “I will communicate with my customer keeping them well informed of our progress”
   2. Now, drill down to more a greater level of detail: “I will notify my customer of every step in our service process”
   3. Continue to drill down until you identify all the actions and behaviors you want to use to meet the customers’ expectations. E.g., “I will notify my customer via push notification or text when we complete our inspection, when I have their service offer ready, when we have parts on order, when their vehicle is being serviced, when their vehicle is ready for pickup and when their vehicle has been delivered”
3. Create the standards for each action
   1. This is a clearly defined set of steps or processes used by your team to ensure you meet the expectation of the customer
4. Develop measurements for each standard
   1. This could entail creating reports from your shop management system or creating an audit sheet that a manager uses to audit the team’s execution of standards
5. Establish target metrics for each standard
   1. For example, if you set a standard to answer the phone before the third ring, then the target is two or fewer rings
6. Track the results and compare results to your standard targets
7. Share the results with your team and constantly train the team on how to improve
   1. Take the opportunity to learn from your team and apply their input and best practices, while making sure to give credit and praise for their efforts
8. Regularly update the targets and measurements for your shop, based on the feedback of your team and the results observed

Another thought: the best way to create and implement these standards in a way that ensures their success is to include your team in the step-by-step creation and modification of standards in steps 2-5. Depending on the size of your business, recruit a leader from each department – technician, service advisor, manager, parts supplier, mentors – to take time to create these standards. Practice also drives the process forward: I suggest you tackle one or two standards first, to test your processes. And always start with something nonintrusive and easily measured. Two excellent examples of this type of standard come from quick service food chains. When you walk into a Moe’s Southwest Grill, what do you always hear? “Welcome to Moe’s!”. Similarly, at Chick-fil-a the standards on how their team responds to customers is eveident – you’ll hear “It would be my pleasure” multiple times during your visit. These standards become the expectation from customers and are measured by each business. Implementing your own version at your shop is something that can get your entire team more engaged.

Finally, when considering what to do first, my suggestion is to start with small, easy-to-implement standards and then seek assistance when tackling larger areas of focus. One example of a tool or assistance that can help is a course from CTI called Logical Trouble Shooting Process. This program, recognized with an award from the Automotive Training Managers Council, guides you when creating standards that allows you to meet your customers’ expectations regarding a very complex discipline. As always, send any questions or comments my way at [email protected]