By Herb Mast
(Published in Dealer Magazine – January 2019)
Every time I ask Service Managers about the 4thC I get a blank stare.
All Service Managers know about the 3 “C”s: Concern, Cause, and Correction. But none seem to know what the 4thC is. Why is that?
The answer is actually quite simple. The 4thC is not part of the original formula and did not exist until I had an epiphany while working with a client and gave life to the 4thC. You see, this particular client wanted to increase their customer experience and after much discussion we came to the realization that the 3C approach does not go far enough.
It seems that the 3 “C”s originated with manufacturers and warranty administrators as a way to hold service departments more accountable for warranty billings. By requiring repair orders to detail certain minimum and consistent information manufacturers were better able to validate the legitimacy of warranty claims. And, since each of these validation items begins with C, the alliteration of the 3 Cs was born.
In other words, in order for dealers to be paid for warranty claims, the technician’s story on every repair order must detail the concernunderlying the claim, how the technician diagnosed the situation to discover the root cause of the concern, and what the technician did to correct the concern.
This makes total sense for warranty claims, but how the 3 Cs became the industry standard for customer-pay repair orders behooves me. The reality is that the 3 Cs fall woefully short when it comes to customer-pay. Kudos to those few dealers, the truly customer-centric ones, who figured it out on their own as they simply sought to provide a high level of service to their customers. Unfortunately, most service consultants still haven’t caught on and still only teach the 3 C approach.
I contend that stores who don’t go beyond the 3 Cs are delivering inferior quality, have higher incidences of repeat repairs, provide a lesser customer experience, get lower CSI scores, and reap lower customer retention as a result.
The good news is that with a simple epiphany and a small paradigm shift every dealer can adopt the 4C approach to provide higher quality repairs, experience fewer comebacks, and deliver better customer experiences while reaping higher CSI and retention.
The Epiphany: Customers Don’t Care about Cause and Correction
The old axiom holds true that perception is reality.
So, when customers arrive in your service drive, their issue is usually a combination of reality and perception together with a dose of emotion. They are not thinking in terms of the 3 Cs. Hence, they don’t really care how their concernis diagnosed, nor the corrective action that is recommended/ taken. In other words, they simply want you to make their issue go away—provided it does not result in higher than necessary cost and inconvenience.
Since most dealers are myopic, transactional, and rationally focused they dive right into problem solving mode and often don’t fully listen to the customer’s concern, thereby missing many of the subtle, but important, emotional cues.
For those that have read some of my other articles you know that research has found that emotions/feelings have three times more impact on people’s choices and behaviors as compared to rational and logical factors—for a refresher on the greater impact of the emotional brain refer to my article Research Reveals Up-Caring to Be 3x More Effective Than Up-Selling at HealthyDEALER.com.
A customer concernis more times than not emotionally based, like the irritation of a rattle, vibration, squeak, or warning light, which is usually associated with a rational element, like metal-on-metal brakes, over-heating engine, or A/C not blowing cold, etc.
A disconnect often exists because service advisers, managers, and technicians tend to think rationally (diagnosis and correction) while customers, who don’t understand what is done behind the curtain, tend to think emotionally. That is why Fix-it-Right-The-First-Time and No-Problem-Found are such a big deal to customers—neither solves their concernand only add to their emotional discomfort.
Customers are only interested in having their concernresolved while minimizing cost and discomfort. Typically they don’t care about all the words that are written about causeand correction—not only are those parts of the story often written poorly, but in such a way that you have to be a technician to be able to understand what is being said.
Truth be known, customers view the second and third C, causeand correction, merely as the dealer’s justification for the amount charged. Therefor it’s important to add a 4thC.
Trails of Evidence and the 4thC
The 4thC is confirmation.
Ronald Reagan was known to say trust but verify. The benefit of verifying is that it reduces the reliance on trust, which is helpful when trust is already in short supply, like it can be in our industry.
Think about it. How does the customer know that the work was actually done? Sure they can see when new tires have been installed, but how do they know that their oil was actually changed, especially if a new oil change sticker was not applied. Further, I have heard of many technicians who were fired for claiming work they didn’t actually do. Every now and then they are caught, and even featured on shows like 2020, reinforcing customer skepticism and distrust.
For this reason a Texas service manager shared with me that he instructs his technicians to leave “trails of evidence.” For example, when it comes to an oil change his technicians wipe away the dirt around the oil fill cap, whether they spilled oil or not. If there’s ever a question as to whether the work was actually done, like when a new oil change sticker is not applied, the adviser can pop the hood and show the cleanly wiped area around the oil fill cap. It is not foolproof, but it shows that the technician was there and it is usually sufficient to nip a customer’s skepticism in the bud. Either way, the intentionality of a trails of evidenceapproach increases a customer’s sense of quality and confidence and eliminates any sense of distrust that might otherwise arise.
Another service manager told me that his technicians always do a final hand torqueing of all four wheels whenever wheels are removed. This practice virtually eliminates incidences of wheels falling off and again increases a sense of quality and confidence, while enhancing customer experience.
Intentionality with the 4thC
Great service departments not only leave trails of evidencewith all of their repairs and maintenance work, but expand their repair order stories to include words of confirmationthat directly address the customer’s concern. Further, great service departments ensure that the rest of the repair order communicates a consistent message—if the story says the vehicle was test driven the in/out mileage reflects how far and vice versa.
I estimate that repair orders in 50% of service departments show the same in/out mileage regardless of what work was done to the vehicle. This is one of the simplest confirmations of a test drive, yet many service departments demonstrate laziness and arrogance (suggesting that customers will come back regardless of what is done) when they don’t take the time to follow through on this simple element.
A best practice is that service advisers write customer concernsin the customer’s own words. This not only avoids pre-diagnostic errors, but increases the chances that the emotional aspects of their concernare also captured and conveyed to the technician.
Another best practice is for the adviser and/or technician to add a few easy to understand words of confirmationthat specifically address the initial concern.
For example, if a customer states, “the driver’s side window goes down slowly and makes a clicking sound,” the repair order needs to go beyond normal causeand correctionstatements, like “The power window motor was faulty and replaced,” and say something, like, “The power window motor was faulty so it was replaced. The window now goes up and down with ease and without a clicking sound.”
I realize this sounds so basic and obvious, but I estimate that repair orders in 90%+ of dealerships stop at the 3rdC and neglect the critical 4thC.
A 4C Approach leads to the all-important 5thC
Without the 4thC it is difficult to get to the 5thC, which is confidence.Confidence is a feeling. In fact, since feelings drive behaviors, it is a critical feeling when it comes to customers choosing whether or not to come back in future and whether or not to advocate in a positive manner for the dealership. In other words, confidence leading to retention and advocacy should be the ultimate objective of everything that is done—it is incumbent therefor on service managers to help their advisers and technicians understand the importance of adopting a 4C approach.
Herb Mast is a Leadership Coach and Employee Engagement Specialist. Learn how he can assist you in implementing the principles and concepts presented here.