Join us as we challenge the age-old notion that the customer is always right and explores more effective strategies for setting and exceeding customer expectations. Using examples from leading businesses like Apple, we discuss how to establish realistic service promises and the benefits of under-promising and over-delivering

Andrew has a variety of free downloads and tools you can grab.

Discover if your workshop is Retention Worthy© here or visit his website, https://www.solutionsculture.com where the focus is on bringing reliable profitability to automotive workshop owners and workshop management through the Retention, Engagement and Development of their Technical Professionals.

This podcast was produced by 'Podcasts Done for You' https://commtogether.com.au .

Setting customer expectations in auto service beyond

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the customer is always right.

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Join passionate automotive trainer

and coach Andrew Uglow as he explores

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how successful workshops manage

and install customer expectations.

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In this episode, you'll learn

why the customer is always

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right, mindset can be flawed.

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Discover how leading businesses like

Apple set and deliver on service

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promises and understand the real impact.

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Of under promising and over-delivering.

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Along the way, Andrew shares some

practical insights about service, pricing,

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timing, and the true meaning of customer

ownership in modern automotive businesses.

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I'm your co-host, Anthony Pearl, and this

is the Frictionless Workshop podcast.

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Let's get cranking.

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Andrew, I want to talk to you

about this whole concept of.

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Expectations and the expectations

particularly that a client has

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because that's going to be, have

an enormous impact on a business.

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And where do those expectations

come from and how do you

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actually manage that expectation?

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It's a big idea, but it's so important.

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Andrew Uglow: So one of the big metrics

for business is customer satisfaction.

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And there is a whole bunch of very,

very clever people with a whole lot of

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letters before and after their names

who have written some outstanding

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material on customer satisfaction,

delighting customers, customer service

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processes, all that sort of stuff.

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And so I feel like the newbie in

the room when I talk about this,

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you know, here's this, here's this.

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You know, who's this guy?

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So the question though about where

the customer expectations come from.

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They don't magically

just form out a thin air.

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There's actually some patterns

to how customers form their

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expectations, but understand the

customers will form expectations.

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And so the thinking, generally speaking

has been that the customer's always right.

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You know, customer comes in and

says, I want da, da, da da da.

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While the customer's always right.

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And so we have to react or respond

to these customer's expectations.

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And I, I'm gonna go, that's

profoundly flawed, just like.

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What if the customer's

expectations are outside of what's

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within the realms of physics?

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Now, what do we do?

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Do we change the laws of

physics to please the customer?

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You know, I've got a a a, a, whatever

car I've got and I want a major service.

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The service is gonna take six hours

and you've got 45 minutes to do

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it in, or else I'm gonna be upset.

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Well, help me understand

how that's even reasonable.

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I, the customer can have the expectation,

but that doesn't mean that the

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expectation has any foundation in reality.

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So I go back to, well, the

question, well, where do customers

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get their expectations from?

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And, and sometimes they

come from past experience.

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Last time I was in your business,

you did my service in one hour,

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and now you're gonna set up

telling me it's gonna take three.

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Well, from the customer's perspective,

that's a very reasonable, you did it

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before, why can't you do it again?

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At the same time, the customer

doesn't realize that today

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we're five people short.

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You know, two people are away on training,

one's at trade school and two called in

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sick of work or sick, or I don't know why

they're having a rostered sick day off,

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whatever the reason is, they're not here.

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And so we don't have the resource

to be able to serve you the way

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we would normally serve you.

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Uh, and so it's simply gonna

take longer and, and of course,

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the customer gets upset.

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Well, da da.

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Okay.

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But now we've got a variation between

the customer's expectation and

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what's possible out of the business.

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The other thing that drives

customer's expectations is they

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went to Apple or they went to insert

other business somewhere else.

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You know, and, and of course Apple

are outstanding generally with their,

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with their customers to service.

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They have a very.

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Good process.

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They have very good people.

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And so if we go back to the equation

of what makes for good customer

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service, well, we have talented people

talking about talent management.

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We have good processes that

facilitate talented people being

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able to apply their talent.

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And believe it or not, apple actually

install the customer's expectation.

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Mm-hmm.

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You know, people go,

well, what do you mean?

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Well, well, apple tells you exactly

what's gonna happen, when it's

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gonna happen, how it's gonna happen.

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And then they deliver on that

because they can, because they

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installed the expectation.

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And I go, well, how is that any different

to what a workshop should be doing?

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We should be installing expectations too,

because if we don't, someone else will.

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And, and so now we might have a variance

between the customer expectation and

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what we can do, or what we can do

today because of the, the variety.

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You know, whenever I think of

customer service, I, I love the,

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the DIT cartoon or comic strip.

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Uh, they were talking

about customer service.

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One of the, one of the characters

says, you know, um, customer

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service surveys are down.

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Um, what are we gonna do about it?

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And the first person, the person

responds and says, well, you know,

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the, the customer expectations

are this, that, and the other.

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And how are we ever gonna

meet that kind of thing.

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The second person says, well,

the customer's always right.

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The customer's always right.

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You need to meet the customer expectation.

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And a third person that's watching on from

the background mutters under their breath,

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you know, yes, the customer's always right

and should be punished for their insul.

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Just go.

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Maybe that's a different way of doing

customer service, but I'm not sure

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that it's gonna show up in the customer

satisfaction report as a positive.

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Anthony Perl: Um.

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The concept of under promise and

over deliver is a very simple one,

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but it's, it, it, it really does.

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I mean, even the, even the simple

thing, if you, you know, customer

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drives up or customer's coming in to

books, his car in for service, and you

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set the expectation that it'll be done

in an hour and it's, and it ends up

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taking two, you've, you're not going

to endear yourself to the customer.

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But if you do the flip side

of things and you say, look.

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We, if you arrive here at seven and

we take the car in, then it should be

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ready by about mid to late morning.

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So you're setting the expectation

that it's gonna be around 11 to

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1130, that it'll be finished.

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And if you finish that car at nine

o'clock, that's fantastic for the client.

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You know, then you potentially,

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Andrew Uglow: well, you know,

some customers would go,

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well, you finished at nine.

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Nine.

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Why don't you tell me, be ready at nine?

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I could have done da da,

and they're still upset.

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Anthony Perl: Well, yes, there

is always, there is always that.

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And May and, and you and you,

some customers are special

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for absolutely other reasons.

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Some people will find a way to be

critical no matter what happens.

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This is true.

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Um, but, but those, in that simple

idea though of, of setting the

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expectations as you say, you know,

whether things will be done on the day.

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Or not what level of, of satisfaction

that they will have with it.

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I think one of the, the simple things is

that, that you also have to realize that

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some clients' expectations have been set

by previous experience at other places.

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Yeah, that makes it more challenging.

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I mean, I, the, the simple, you know,

going, dumbing it down to a simple

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example is that I've been to places

where my car's being serviced and they

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will clean the vehicle as part of it.

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They'll do a, you know, a reasonably

thorough car wash, like mm-hmm.

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They'll come out looking good,

they'll do a quick vacuum.

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That's all part of the service now.

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Then you go to the next place

and they don't deliver on that.

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You go, Hmm, why isn't my car as clean

as it was when the last time it came out?

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Now there can be all sorts of

reasons why that may not happen.

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And so it's about setting those

expectations from the beginning and

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part of it might be a price thing too

and a time thing and, and any number of

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different things like you know, the last

place you paid $500 for the service.

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This place you're paying

$250 for the service.

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Mm-hmm.

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Well.

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That makes a difference.

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It does.

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It does make a difference.

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There's absolutely, there's no time

and resources to clean the car at the

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$250 mark there is at the $500 mark.

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The Frictionless Workshop podcast is

brought to you by Solutions Culture.

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For details on how to get in touch

with Andrew, consult the show notes

158

below, and don't forget to subscribe

so you don't miss an episode.

159

Now back to the podcast.

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Andrew Uglow: Right.

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And so a couple of questions that are

worth asking, like if you were to look at.

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Because we measure, and most people

have, or most businesses, whether

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regardless of the brand, there'll be

some sort of customer satisfaction

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tied to a financial result.

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So a lot of the industry use a net

promoter score where you have customers

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rank you one to 10, and anything six

and below is considered a detractor.

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And so they're basically saying,

I would've been better off being

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in a coma than bringing my car

to you and having you service it.

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Seven and eight are called neutral.

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We didn't tick off the customer, but

we certainly didn't impress them.

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And nine and 10 are what we

consider promoters like we met

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or exceeded their expectation.

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And so there's a method of calculating

you subtract the number of detractors

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that you have from the number of

promoters that you have, discount

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the, the people who were neutral.

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And that'll give you a percentage.

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And depending upon which brand,

depending upon which industry,

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like which part of the industry.

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So are you in aftermarket?

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Are you a dealer?

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Are you dealing with luxury cars?

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Are you dealing with more, you know,

common vehicles, prestige stuff.

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There's different metrics for

this sort of, sort of thing.

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But generally speaking, the

rule of thumb is if you can be

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over 50%, you're doing okay.

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And ideally, like if you can't get

to 70%, well you've gotta be, you've

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still, you've got opportunity.

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To improve in what you're doing.

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Um, there's also other metrics

around fixed first visit

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and those sorts of things.

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Did we fix the customer's

concern the first time?

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Every time?

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And that matters.

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That's a thing.

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And let me just take off my

customer hat for a minute and

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put on my business hat and be Mr.

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Business person I absolutely wanna fix

first time rework is profoundly expensive.

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My inner Scotsman has some

real challenges with that.

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Like, I'm, I, why am I

paying to do this job twice?

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I, no, we're not doing that.

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And so business hat off, customer

hat back on, there's all of the

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anguish and pain of dropping your

car off and making all the additional

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arrangements and all that sort of stuff.

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No one wins rework and it is worth

being slow or delayed the first

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time rather than doing rework on a

whole variety of different levels.

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And, and again, the question comes in.

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Two.

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Where do customers get

their expectation from?

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Well, that goes back to who has their

ear and who has their ear, and what

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are they saying If, if they're taking

their expectations from previous

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experience at other businesses, if

they're taking their experience from,

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you know, I rang Amazon and they deliver

my thing the very next day, why can't

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you people do that with your parts?

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Completely different contexts.

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And, and of course customers have a

challenge in that they don't have.

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Access to the same depth of information,

the same quality of information,

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or the same volume of information

when they form their expectations.

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And so this is why we have people

talking about or going onto

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form forums and stuff like that.

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And, and this is again, a point to one

of the many laments that technicians

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have is customers go to a forum

forum and all the people on the forum

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are discussing a concern about a

particular car or a particular concern.

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They then come to the

understanding that their car may

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have or does have that concern.

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And so they present to the dealership and

say, I was on the forum, da dah, dah, dah.

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I have this concern.

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Um, and that may be entirely

invalid, but the challenge is

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we've got the customer expectation.

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And so we talking in, in technical

world about two different skill sets.

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We talk about fixing the customer

versus fixing the car, and,

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and they're not the same thing.

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Anthony Perl: And part of it

too, Andrew, isn't it about it

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attracting your ideal client?

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Because if you set the expectations to

match who your ideal client is, then

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you're gonna attract those people and

that's part of the process, right?

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I mean, going back to sort of the,

the cleaning example, if you say, if

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you set the expectations, say, well,

we take a little bit longer, but we

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make sure your car is cleaned and

do all of those things, then that's.

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You know, this is the ideal client.

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If you are the on the client's

hat and you say, look, I've got

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an hour to get my car fixed.

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I don't really care

about it being cleaned.

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I care about it being done quickly.

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That is it.

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This may not be the place for you.

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The next place may be the place for you.

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We, we do it, queen, you know, quickly.

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Mm-hmm.

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And, and get it.

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And get it done because

we know you're in a hurry.

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Well, again, sets different expectations,

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Andrew Uglow: right?

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Absolutely.

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Um, the, the other thing that's worth,

worth considering here with customer's,

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customer's expectation is when, when

does the service experience end?

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Mm.

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Like we, we talk with sales professionals

frequently, and we ask that question, when

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does the sales experience finish well?

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Is it when you hand the keys

over and take the check?

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That, that might be when it

finishes for the sales professional.

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But what about for the customer?

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When did their sales experience finish?

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And, and the same thing is true

then for, for service customers.

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Um, when does, when does their

service experience finish?

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Because it could be very different from

the business car came in, da da da da.

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We did the work, did the road test

quality check, you know, wash the

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car or didn't what, whatever it was.

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Some places charge extra,

some places that's included.

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We hand the car, the keys back

to the customer, you know, do

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all of bits that we need to do.

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And from the business's

perspective, we're finished.

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But what about from the

customer's perspective and, and

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who's taking ownership of that?

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And, and this is the piece that I, that

I want to really dive into here is.

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If we don't take ownership as, as

the business, if we're not taking

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ownership of the entire customer

experience, someone else will.

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They will get their information

from somewhere else.

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They will get their information from

sources that may or may not be reliable.

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Sources that have a vested interest,

um, sources that could in fact be

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absolutely spot on, but they will

get their information somewhere

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else if they don't get it from us.

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And so there has been a, what's

the word I'm looking for?

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There has been a, um.

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An opportunity to improve would be

a really nice way to say this around

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customer ownership and I, I like to

use the term installing the customer

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experience and doing it at a micro

level, like baby steps, here's.

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Now that you've bought the car,

here's what you can expect.

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This is how you bring

your car into service.

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This is where you park.

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This is what the discussion

we're gonna have.

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And we, you're gonna see this and

you're gonna see this, and you're gonna

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see this and take all of the mystery

out of it and, and, and explain.

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You know, we only take bookings in,

in two hour lots because we can't

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effectively look after your car.

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Speed.

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It just isn't going to produce

the quality that you deserve.

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And so these are the sorts of

things that, that need to be in the

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communications, in the text messages,

in the, in the emails or the videos.

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And, and I know of aftermarket businesses

particularly who are doing this very,

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very well, and, and perhaps the big

distinction between dealer businesses

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and aftermarket businesses is that

dealer businesses have a pipeline of

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new customers 'cause they buy the car.

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Whereas aftermarket businesses don't

have that luxury and, and so they,

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they have to find their customers.

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And given the shortage of technicians

at this point in time, that is less

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of a challenge because everyone's

booked out two weeks because there just

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isn't enough people to do the work.

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Which of course presents some challenges

around customers expectations.

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Oh, but I'm going away next week.

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Yes.

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Maybe you are, but not with

your car service by us.

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Anthony Perl: And it's hard too, isn't it?

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Because some of these expectations, as

you say in a, in a dealer sense, are

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set by the manufacturer who say, right,

you know, the first service is included.

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Service costs are fixed at this price.

316

Yeah, absolutely.

317

Um, all of those things set a

deal of expectation, you know,

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for the client in the first place.

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Andrew Uglow: Yeah.

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And not without, cause, like

I, I, I think some things.

321

Spot on.

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The challenge is, and I go back to

the Pareto, right, we've got 80, 20,

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80% of the time customers walk away

happier than a dog with two tails

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like the, the everything was done,

met, or exceeded their expectations.

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They had no problems, they had no dramas.

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The, the challenge really becomes when

we didn't, and the greater challenge

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then is, did, was that because we screwed

up, or was that because the customer's

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expectation was inaccurate or invalid?

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And, and so I go back to

the whole idea of ownership.

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Well, who owns the customer's

experience in our business?

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Well, we do.

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The business does.

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That's our job.

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And so we, we start with pre-install

before they come in, and then

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we start, we, we continue the

idea of ownership afterwards.

336

And if, uh, this, this gets back

to the way we take ownership is,

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or the tool that we use for taking

ownership is called communication.

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That's the channel that we use or the

tool that we use to install expectation

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and to take ownership afterwards.

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We, it's a lovely, broad generalization.

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Oh, we communicate with the customer well.

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Yeah.

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Great.

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How specifically do you do that?

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What specifically do you say?

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When do you say that?

347

What?

348

What shouldn't be said?

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Because there's things

that you don't say to

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Anthony Perl: a customer.

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Thank you for listening to the

Frictionless Workshop podcast.

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For details on how to get Andrew

working with you and your technicians,

353

take a look at the show notes.

354

There's also a link to some

special content you can access.

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I'm Anthony Pearl reminding you to

subscribe so you don't miss an episode.