When I was a service advisor, communicating with a customer meant one of two things: I called them, or I emailed them. That was pretty much it. Today, an advisor can text a customer, send a full video inspection, and let them approve work from their phone before they’ve even finished their coffee. These service advisor tools represent real progress, and I want to be clear about something before I go any further. This isn’t an argument against service advisor technology. But there’s something I see more and more when I’m coaching teams, and it’s become a real pattern. An advisor runs the inspection, sends the video or the digital MPI (multi-point inspection), and treats that as the end of the conversation. The tool did its job, so the advisor assumes the job is done.
It isn’t. And when that becomes the pattern, it’s taking the advising out of it.
A video can show a customer what’s wrong with their vehicle. It can’t always tell them why it matters, how urgent it is, or what happens if they wait. That part is still the advisor’s job. If we let the technology carry that weight, we haven’t upgraded our service advisor communication, we’ve quietly stopped doing it.
If a customer hears about additional work for the first time while they're standing at the cashier with their keys in hand, "i'll take care of it next time" is basically the only answer they're going to give you.
Good Communication Starts Before the Inspection
One of the things I always coach people on is that the communication plan doesn’t start when the technician finds something. It starts at write-up.
Ask two questions before the customer walks away from your desk.
“Do you want me to call you, text you? What’s best for you?” Some customers are in back-to-back meetings all day and would much rather get a text. Others want the phone call. It’s easier to just ask.
When should they expect to hear from you? Don’t just say you’ll let them know. Give them something specific: “I’m going to give you an update by noon, whether we’re finished or not.” Then meet it. If you say noon, you update at noon, even if the update is “still working on it.”
That certainty does a lot of quiet work. It keeps the phone from ringing every twenty minutes with “any word on my car?” And it means that when the advisor does reach out with a recommendation, the customer already trusts it’s part of a process they agreed to, not a random upsell attempt.
Let Technology Show. Let the Advisor Explain.
Seeing is believing, and that’s exactly why video MPI has been such a good addition to the service lane. A customer watching a technician point at a worn brake pad understands something a verbal description never quite gets across.
What a video doesn’t always do is close the gap on the why. A customer can watch a cabin air filter video and still not know that a clogged filter affects airflow, or that letting a fluid service go too long can turn into a bigger repair. The why is one of the biggest disconnects the average consumer has to their own vehicle, and without someone explaining it, they don’t really have what they need to make an informed decision.
That explanation isn’t upselling. It’s the actual job. What makes someone good at how to be a better service advisor isn’t how many recommendations they can list. It’s whether the customer walks away understanding what was found, why it matters, and what happens if they wait.
The Best Process Is Hybrid, Not Either/Or
This isn’t call and text versus video MPI and instant inspection. The strongest process I’ve seen combines both.
Send the video or the digital inspection. Then follow it with a message from the advisor, something like: “Hey, I just sent over the video from your inspection. I want to walk you through what we found and why we’re recommending it. What questions do you have for me?”
That single follow-up does two things. It shows the customer the advisor is still involved, not just forwarding a report. And it removes the friction of the customer having to track down the dealership’s number, sit on hold, and hope they reach the right person. Technology handles the evidence. The advisor handles the context. Put those together and you’ve got a genuinely better automotive customer experience, not just a faster one.
A Declined Service Isn’t Automatically a Pricing Problem
When I look at deferred or declined recommendations with a management team, price is usually the first thing everyone blames. Sometimes it is the issue, and comparing your pricing to the market is always worth doing.
But before anyone decides it’s a pricing problem, I want to know a few other things:
- Were the recommendations what you would expect for the vehicle’s mileage and condition?
- How fast did the customer receive it after the inspection was done?
- Did the advisor explain why it mattered?
- Did the customer have a real chance to ask questions before deciding?
Timing matters here more than people realize. If a customer hears about additional work for the first time while they’re standing at the cashier with their keys in hand, “I’ll take care of it next time” is basically the only answer they’re going to give you.
Getting this distinction right, separating a genuine pricing gap from a process or communication gap, is one of the more important service advisor best practices a manager can build into their operation.
Use Missed Opportunities as Coaching Moments
If there’s one thing I’d tell every service manager, it’s that you’ve got to role-play with your advisors. Before a salesperson ever sells a car, they’ve role-played selling one probably a hundred times. Fixed Ops doesn’t usually hold itself to that same standard, and I think that’s a mistake. Real service advisor coaching looks a lot more like this than it does a list of instructions.
Instead of a generic note to sell more maintenance, pull an actual customer interaction. “This was your customer yesterday. Here’s what the inspection found. I’m the customer. Walk me through how you’d present this to me.”
You’ll find gaps you wouldn’t catch from a report alone: a weak explanation of the why, a recommendation presented too late, an advisor who never actually invited a question. This kind of automotive service advisor training turns your reporting into a coaching tool instead of just a scorecard.
From Write-Up to Pickup
Here’s what good communication looks like from write-up to pickup.
- At write-up. Ask how the customer wants to hear from you and tell them exactly when they will.
- During service. Give the update you promised, even if it’s just to say the vehicle is still being worked on.
- At MPI delivery. Use your digital tools to show what was found, and follow it with a real explanation of why it matters.
- During approval. Make it easy to ask questions before they have to decide.
- At completion. Let them know the moment the vehicle is ready.
- At pickup. Walk back through what was done and what’s still outstanding, so they leave knowing what to expect next time, not just what they were charged this time.
Set the expectation. Meet the expectation. Explain the why. That’s the whole job.
Where Data Fits In
None of this replaces good judgment on the floor, but it does help to know where to look. When I’m working with managers on declined or deferred work, the hardest part is usually figuring out whether the breakdown is pricing, timing, or the conversation itself. That’s where Dynatron comes in for the teams I work with, giving Fixed Ops leaders visibility into pricing, advisor performance, and missed opportunities, so you can see where execution is actually breaking down instead of guessing.
Because in the end, the data can tell you where to look. What you do about it, the coaching, the role-playing, the follow-up conversation, is still on us.
If you want to see what that visibility looks like for your own team, book a 15-minute demo with Dynatron.
About the Author
Ariel Breidenbach
Ariel Breidenbach is a Client Performance Coach at Dynatron with 15 years of automotive experience spanning nearly every corner of Fixed Operations. She began her career as a technician before moving into service advising and dealership leadership, holding roles including parts and service advisor, assistant service manager, service manager, and service director overseeing multiple stores. She later became a corporate Fixed Operations trainer, where she led training for advisors, managers, technicians, BDC teams, and dealer leadership.
Today, Ariel draws on that firsthand experience to help dealerships turn performance data into better processes, stronger advisor coaching, and more effective customer experiences. Her perspective is grounded in a simple principle. Technology and data are most valuable when they help dealership teams make better decisions and strengthen, not replace, the human relationships at the center of Fixed Ops.
