Revitalizing Service Excellence with Reinforce & Sustain Training

The Challenge

This automotive organization was facing two major challenges: underperformance in service quality and the need for a more customer-centric culture. The client’s service advisors scored below industry norms on the Service Advisor Index (SAI), highlighting a deficiency in the level of service delivered to customers. This pointed to the need for a comprehensive change in the company’s customer service strategy, encompassing not just procedures and practices, but also a transformation in mindset and behavior across all levels of the organization. To address this, they launched a live training event for 800 service advisors, focusing on delivering exceptional customer service. The client recognized that to truly elevate customer service levels, a post-training reinforcement solution was essential to solidify new knowledge retention, sustain skills, and accelerate development. Their ultimate goal was to ensure every customer interaction embodied the organization’s dedication to customer satisfaction.  

The Solution

The client partnered with our team to design a sustainment strategy for service advisors to practice and reinforce key skills, behaviors, and knowledge acquired during the live customer service training event. We leveraged myPractice, an exclusive methodology for reinforcing and sustaining training to deliver experiential “deliberate” practice sessions. Over 800 service advisors engaged in realistic, strategic roleplays and were provided with individualized coaching and feedback from the customer perspective.  

The program design achieved the following client-specific objectives: 

• Reflected the culture, the reality of the customers’ world, and the actual objections and behaviors that real customers exhibit 
• Anticipated and addressed learning obstacles
• Developed strategic roleplays with personality-types, ranging from moderate to difficult, that the service advisors encounter in their day to day work
• Ensured that the roleplays promoted the right behaviors, so service advisors would experience the ‘pay off’ and execute on the desired behaviors
• Took learners on a journey, starting with key foundational skills and building with each roleplay
• Ensured high program engagement so participants left the learning excited, confident, and ready to apply the skills
• Detailed reporting during the pilot and rollout phases ensured all participants received a consistent, tailored experience, with necessary adjustments to content made when needed 

The Results

The Reinforce & Sustain Training program designed and delivered by our organization (myPractice) successfully turned around the underperforming service advisor team and created a significantly enhanced customer-centric culture.  

The post event reinforcement training yielded exceptional results with service advisor quality scores jumping 4.8 points on the Service Advisor Index. Post-practice surveys echoed this success, with 84% of participants expressing ‘extreme satisfaction’ with the training. This high level of satisfaction represented a substantial increase in their confidence and ability to provide top-tier service.  

As a direct outcome of improved service quality, customer satisfaction and loyalty increased, fortifying the organization’s standing in the competitive automotive market. The client anticipates that the exceptional service experience now delivered by their service advisors will continue to have a positive impact on customer retention and sales. This case exemplifies the organization’s commitment to continual learning to elevate the standard in customer service.