Advice for Express Service Advisor
A few months ago I left veterinary medicine and became an Express Service Advisor at a Subaru dealership. I love the job, and the work life balance is way better than I had it before.
Recently our team of four advisors has become two. One left due to our income not being what we were told when hired (commission only, told $70-90k would be easy to earn, actually making ~$40k) and the other just didn’t work out. As a result, we are fully booked every day, which is great bc it was really dry a few weeks ago. We’re open for 15-20 appts every day, depending on the day, and we also take walk-ins on top of that. Each appt slot is 15 minutes and the goal is to have the guest checked out within 45-60 minutes (hahaha).
I am currently struggling with the work load and the fact that I’m expected to give everyone 110% and my best smile (gotta get a good NPS score 🙃). I often am booked solid for 4-5 hours with guests arriving and needing checked in every 15 minutes, plus walk-ins, as well as all of the other regular stuff, like communicating with the techs and parts, giving estimates and presenting inspection results, making sure the car is washed and clean for return, and checking the guest out and walking them to their car. On many occasions I have multiple guests who can see their car is ready to go and who I have ready to check out, and then am getting pulled away to go check someone in.
I worked mostly in the ICU/with hospitalized patients at an ER vet clinic. I am no stranger to being short staffed and having a high demand job (with upset clients!) where I am often running behind (sometimes 15 pets by myself and one or more take 30+minutes for their treatments that happen every two hours). However I feel like I am at a 9/10 stress level every day, and I know that isn’t sustainable. Our schedule is 5, 10hr shifts, and I often do not get to leave on time and am closer to 60hr weeks sometimes (surprising that I have a better work life balance now, right?).
Does anyone have any tips on managing stress at this job? How to keep things flowing smoothly? Verbiage for clients when you’re already backed up and the wait time is actually closer to 1.5-2hrs?
I know I probably care too much, but the threat of a bad NPS score and getting penalized or losing my job due to that is really starting to make me feel overwhelmed when I’m busy. (Also got a survey recently that tanked my score bc someone else was rude to them when they got there, so I have broken trust with other advisors helping my guests). I feel like I’m drowning and barely keeping my head above water most days, but also if I’m not busy I will literally be making no money 🙃 apologies for the ramble