Are you FIXING or MASKING the problem?

That is it! I am going to kill them! Either they go, or I go! That is a statement most hope their spouses will say when their spouse’s mother and aunt visit, but it is not something you ever want to hear said about your dogs. Especially if they are your dogs that you really, really love. But there it was. She said it, and she meant it. I was heartbroken. I know how far I can push my wife, and I know there are lines that you never cross. This was one of those lines. One of my dogs had peed on the rug in the one room most people are not even allowed to sit in: the formal living room. This was not the first time either, and it was not the only place they peed in the house. For my wife, this had gotten old and had gotten old fast.

We tried everything—we thought—and struggled to get the dogs to do their business in the yard and not in the house. We read the books and watched the videos. We limited where they could go in the house. We allowed them to sleep only in the laundry room at night and when we were away. We used potty pads. We caged them. I even bought a cheap doggie door from Home Depot that I fastened to the backyard patio sliders that they used twice because on the third try it started rattling and scared them too much to walk through it. Nothing worked.

Sad and defeated, I went to our vet and made them aware I would be giving the dogs up but wanted to ensure they went to great home. When they asked why and I told them, they asked if I would mind having their expert dog trainer visit our home to see if she could help. They could see I really wanted the dogs, and they wanted to help me. I reluctantly agreed because I know my wife had already made up her mind. Somehow, however, I convinced her to give the dogs one more chance.

Upon arriving, the dog trainer introduced herself to the dogs, walked around our house, walked around the backyard, and explored all the unsuccessful methods we had employed to solve the problem. Within five minutes of doing this, she claimed to have a permanent solution that did not include giving up the dogs or killing them (By the way, my wife would never harm the dogs or any creature. She is the only person I have met who insists on “shooing” flies away rather than killing them). The dog trainer’s solution would cost one thousand dollars and require that she spend three days at our house while we were away at work.

Her solution: building a permanent dog door into the wall and taking away all things that said it was okay to pee in the house. Not telling my wife about the one thousand dollar part, I got her to agree to let this lady do her stuff, and it worked! Turns out that all of the things we were trying as solutions were really not solutions at all. Turns out we had trained, enabled, and actually encouraged our dogs to pee in the house. All of our tried and failed methods actually always left the option to go in the house - many times with no other option. Once this trainer installed the permanent in-the-wall dog door, got rid of all the gates, cages, potty pads, etc. and spent three days with them, the problem was once for all solved. Instead of covering up or patching the problem, we took it face on and solved it.

What is my point in sharing this, you ask? Because this is exactly what most of you are doing with your severely underperforming service advisors. Instead of solving their problems, you mask their problems, enable their bad habits, and actually encourage them to underperform.

One of the biggest selling points “tablet” companies use when encouraging you to invest in tablets for your drive is that it will force your advisors to get up from behind their desks and actually go to the customer and their vehicle on their drive.

One of the biggest selling points to having advisors that cashier their own customers is that it forces the advisor to talk to each customer at the delivery, therefore eliminating the chance that advisors are going to mislead a customer or fade heat at the end of the day.

One of the biggest selling points to having online route sheets is that a service advisor is more likely to use it to follow up verses when using markers and pens on printed one at their desks.

One of the biggest selling points to having online service menus is that your advisors can email a customer the menu, and if they forget to or don’t, someone else in the dealership can email it, thereby ensuring every customer gets one.

Don’t get me wrong. I understand there are a lot of other great selling points to these products and other products you have brought in to your shop to make it work more smoothly, and many of them I would employ myself if I owned or ran a shop. But the fact of the matter is that with the advent of all these products and so many others like them, they, in too many cases, do not solve the problem you were hoping they would, and the issue actually continues to exist or got worse. Rarely is the problem solved by these supposed remedies. Why? Because you are masking the problem and not actually solving it. The problem is not the lack of technology and tools that you have—it is the failure to train your people to do the job you want done the way you want it done and then failing to hold them accountable to do it. That is the problem.

Until you are ready and brave enough to train your people to do the job and hold them accountable to do what you know you want and what will work, your advisors will continue to not sell at the vehicle, not walk around it, not use route sheets, not present menus to your customers, and not give full explanations of what they are doing presenting it. Ever wonder why they will not use the MPI you pay a ton of money for every month? Ever wonder why they won’t offer the various services and products you pay so much to stock and have at the ready? Ever wonder why (fill in the blank on what your advisors won’t do that you would like them to do). Answer: you have never trained them how to do it or shown the benefits of doing it. Or, if you have, you do not hold them accountable to do so through their job security or income.

 Until you are willing to stop enabling your team to be mediocre and start training them to do the job you want done the way you want it done—and hold them accountable—then they are going to keep peeing on your rug