By Jamie Redmond

1. An overview to Service Advisor Accreditation in the retail automotive industry • By • Jamie Redmond

2. Research Areas • Commercial considerations • The role and structure of Service Advisors across the industry • Numbers of Service Advisors employed • Recruitment and retention • Training and development • Career paths • Remuneration • Core competencies to perform the role • Accreditation models and testing methodologies

3. What value could accreditation offer? • An accreditation scheme would raise levels of customer service, therefore gives business an opportunity to improve competitive advantage. • Customer demands continue to raise and this trend is predicted to continue. • Setting standards across the sector will allow for benchmarking and encourage more training and development for staff.

4. The role and structure of Service Advisors • Service Advisors are front line customer facing staff that also require technical knowledge and the ability to sell additional products and services. • There are 2 different types of structure:- • SA reporting into a manager that also runs the workshop and parts operations • SA has direct control over 2-3 technicians

5. Numbers of Service Advisors employed • Approx. 10% of the workforce of the sector that equates to 25,000 staff. • The fast fit operations do not employ specific staff to perform this function. • Independents often mix this with other roles, e.g reception, warranty etc.

6. Recruitment and Retention • Mixed approaches to recruitment, both very poor and some examples of excellence. • Landrover and Jaguar system- People Solutions illustrates that recruitment has the largest hit rate from the dealership user groups • KHA conducted assessment centres for SA from 1996 to 2001, 782 candidates were put through the process and the pass rate was 56% • Published labour turnover rates vary enormously on %

7. Training and Development • Very little information available from the independent sector. • Some excellent training available from the manufacturers, some of which is linked to the national occupational standards for customer service. • Automotive Skills are to develop national standards that will be specific to the Service Advisor role.

8. Career Paths • This varied appertaining to the part of the sector and size of organisation. • Less than 50% surveyed aspired to onward promotion to a higher rank. • Those that wanted promotion saw the next step as a Service Manager or After Sales Manager role.

9. Remuneration • The RTS survey 2004 stated pay as the largest influence on turnover. • Bonus and commission structures are predominately paid on sales targets. • A small percentage of organisations include an element of bonus for achieving satisfactory customer service scores

10. Core Competencies Interpersonal Skills Effective communication, influencing others, building relationships and innovation and creativity. Personal Commitment Motivation,Customer Service, Resilience and flexibility and CPD Business Orientation Selling skills, Technical ability and Business awareness Managing Performance Self management, continual process improvement and legal understanding

11. Other requirements • Industry experience • Influence and autonomy • ‘Bolt on Competencies’

12. Proposed model • The proposed accreditation model would be graded accordingly: • Service Advisor • Senior Service Advisor • Service/Aftersales Manager • These would be mapped to the national occupational standards for customer service and to ARMS for the management grade

13. Testing Methodologies and Governance • Assessment centres using actors to play case studies and assessment made of the role plays. • Online testing of knowledge and technical aspects of the role. • Scheme to be governed by the IMI in the same way as ATA.

14. Any Questions? • Thank you