Questions to Ask in a Service Advisor Interview
For candidates interviewing for an automotive service advisor or service writer job, at a dealership or an independent shop, who want questions to ask the service manager when the interview turns to them. The groups run in the order worth asking: the drive and its daily load, the pay plan, the shop behind the counter, sales targets and CSI, hours and training, then turnover and a few to close on. Under every question is a note: the answer that should reassure you, the one that should not, and often the follow-up.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
The drive
How many repair orders does each advisor write on a typical day?
Why ask it
This number sets the pace of everything else in the job. A count that leaves time to walk around each car and call each customer back means the work can be done properly, while a much higher one means writing tickets and little else. Get the figure for the busiest day of the week as well, since that is the day an average hides.
How many advisors work the drive, and is this an added desk or a replacement?
Why ask it
An added desk means the same customers are split more ways until volume grows, which matters on commission. A replacement means there is a book of customers waiting, and the thing to find out is whether you would inherit it or whether it has already been shared out among the others.
What does the first hour of the morning look like on the drive?
Why ask it
The morning rush is the hardest stretch of the day, so ask for a description and not a reassurance. Listen for how many cars arrive at once, whether appointments are staggered, and whether the manager is out on the drive helping or in the office.
What is the split between customer-pay, warranty and internal work?
Why ask it
The three are usually paid and measured differently, so the mix shapes both your check and your day. A warranty-heavy drive tends to bring more paperwork and more customers who are annoyed that a newer car needs fixing at all. Internal work at a dealership, such as getting used cars ready for the lot, makes the sales department your customer, with deadlines of its own.
Who answers the service phones and books the appointments?
Why ask it
If a call center or a scheduler does it, you get time back and lose some say in how your mornings are loaded. If advisors do it, get a rough number of calls a day. A ringing phone in the middle of a write-up is where the customer standing at the counter loses out.
How do customers reach an advisor: by appointment, by rotation, or by asking for someone by name?
Why ask it
Rotation is even but ignores the regulars an advisor builds up. A drive where customers ask for their own advisor rewards staying, and it makes the first months slower for the new person. The walk-in with no appointment is the test case: find out who gets that customer when everyone is busy.
Is there a cashier, a porter and a shuttle driver, or do advisors cover some of that?
Why ask it
Every job the store has not staffed lands on the advisor's desk. 'We all pitch in' is fine in a small shop as long as the repair-order count allows for it. Advisors who cash out their own tickets and pull their own cars around cannot write as many as a drive with full support, so weigh this answer against the count you were given.
Is there an express lane for oil changes and quick service, and who writes those tickets?
Why ask it
Where quick work has its own lane and its own writers, the main drive is left with the longer repairs. Where it all comes to the same desks, part of your day is fast, small tickets, and they may be averaged into your numbers. Either can work, but it changes what the repair-order count you were quoted means.
Which system do you write repair orders in, and can customers approve work by text?
Why ask it
If you already know the system, say so, since it shortens your training. Text approval with photos changes the afternoon: less phone tag, more typing. A store still working on paper and by phone is not a worse store, though it is fair to ask whether a change is planned and whether you would be learning it in your first months.
Pay plan
How is the pay plan built: salary, hourly, commission, or a mix?
Why ask it
A service manager expects this from anyone who has done the job, so ask it plainly once the work itself has been covered. A good answer is specific enough to write down. If what you get is 'you can make great money here', ask what the fixed part is.
Is commission paid on labor, parts or both, and on sales or on gross profit?
Why ask it
The same month can pay very differently depending on which of these the store uses. On a gross profit plan, every discount you give comes partly out of your own check. The clearest way to see it is to have the manager put one real month's numbers through the plan while you watch.
Do warranty and internal repair orders pay the same as customer-pay?
Why ask it
Stores handle this differently, and some pay less or nothing on one of them. If warranty pays less and makes up a large share of the drive, the headline commission rate overstates what you would take home. Set the answer beside the work mix you heard earlier.
How does the customer satisfaction (CSI) score affect pay?
Why ask it
It can be a bonus on top, a multiplier on the whole commission, or a mark you must clear to be paid at the full rate. The last kind is the one to understand completely, because one poor survey in a month when few come back can swing the check. That makes the number of surveys an advisor usually gets back each month the follow-up.
Is there a guarantee or a training wage while I build up, and how long does it last?
Why ask it
Commission is thin in the first weeks, while you learn the system and have no regulars. A guarantee that covers that stretch shows the store has planned for a new person. Check whether it is a true guarantee or a draw to be paid back out of later commission, and whether it ends on a fixed date or once your commission passes it.
What did an advisor in the middle of your drive earn last year?
Why ask it
The middle is a more honest figure than the top earner, who has usually been there for years. If the manager will only quote the best advisor, ask how long that person has been on the drive and what a first-year advisor made.
When was the pay plan last changed, and what changed?
Why ask it
A change with a reason you can follow is normal. A plan that is redrawn each time the advisors start earning more is a different thing, and so is a manager who cannot remember the last change. If you get to speak to an advisor later, put the same question to them.
What comes back out of an advisor's numbers: comebacks, discounts, goodwill repairs, rejected warranty claims?
Why ask it
Some stores charge these against the advisor and some absorb them. The answer to worry about is a list of things you would not control, such as a technician's repeat repair. What an employer may take back also depends on the rules where the store is, so this is one to read in the written plan and not only hear.
Are there spiffs or bonuses on particular services, such as tires, alignments or maintenance packages?
Why ask it
Spiffs show what the store wants pushed. A few, on work customers really do need, is ordinary. A long list suggests the base plan is light and that the day would be spent steering people toward whatever pays this month.
What benefits come with the job, and how soon does a new advisor qualify?
Why ask it
Health insurance, retirement contributions and paid time off differ from one employer to the next, and there may be a waiting period, so get the dates as well as the list. On a commission plan, find out what a paid day off is worth: the base only, or an average of what you have been earning.
Can I see the pay plan in writing before I accept?
Why ask it
A store that is comfortable with its plan will hand it over or email it. Read it for wording that lets the terms change at management's discretion and for anything you were told that is not in it. 'We'll go over it on your first day' is a reason to slow down.
The shop
How is work dispatched to the technicians?
Why ask it
It might be a dispatcher, a shop foreman, an electronic system, or advisors walking tickets to the tech they like. That last arrangement ties your promise times to your standing in the shop, and a new advisor has none. Whichever it is, find out who decides when two advisors need the same technician.
How many technicians are there, and how many can take heavy diagnostic work?
Why ask it
An advisor can only sell what the shop can produce. Several advisors feeding a shop with one or two strong diagnostic techs can mean cars sitting for days, and the advisor is the one who phones the customer. How far out a diagnostic appointment is booked right now is the quickest measure.
Do advisors work in teams with set technicians, or with the whole shop?
Why ask it
In a team you learn how a few techs write and how fast they work, and your results rise and fall with theirs. Working with the whole shop leaves you less exposed to one slow tech and with less pull over any of them. With teams, the follow-up is how they are rebalanced when a tech leaves.
How do technicians report what they find: a paper sheet, a tablet, photos or video?
Why ask it
Photos and video make an estimate far easier to explain, because the customer sees the worn part instead of taking your word. Timing matters as much as format. An inspection that reaches the advisor at three in the afternoon is too late to sell or to fix that day, so ask when they usually arrive.
When I need a parts price for an estimate, how long does it usually take to get one?
Why ask it
An estimate cannot go to the customer until parts has priced it, and the repair cannot start until the part is on the shelf. A manager who answers with something specific, such as a parts person assigned to the shop or a target time for quotes, has worked on it. A laugh or a sigh shows where a share of your day would go.
Who handles warranty claims after the repair order is closed?
Why ask it
With a warranty administrator, your part is writing the customer's concern clearly and making sure the tech's notes are complete. Without one, advisors may be chasing rejected claims on top of the drive. Ask what the most common reason for a kicked-back claim is, since that is what they will want you to get right.
What happens when a car comes back with the same problem?
Why ask it
Listen for a process: who looks at it, whether it goes to the front of the line, who talks to the customer. Listen for blame too. If the manager's first words are about which advisor or tech was at fault, expect the same when the ticket is yours.
Are there loaners, rentals or a shuttle, and who decides which customer gets one?
Why ask it
A ride is among the first things an upset customer asks about. If advisors can hand out a loaner on their own judgment, a lot gets settled at the counter. If each one needs a manager's signature, what matters is how quickly that manager can be found on a busy morning.
When a promise time is going to be missed, how does the advisor find out?
Why ask it
The good answer is that the tech or dispatcher says so early enough for you to call the customer first. The bad one is that you learn it when the customer walks in. Some shops go through every open ticket at a set point in the afternoon, and it is worth knowing whether this one does.
Sales and CSI
Which numbers are advisors measured on each month?
Why ask it
Hours per repair order, total sales and the survey score are common, but every store keeps its own list. Ask which one the manager looks at first. Your conversations with them will mostly be about that one.
What is the target for hours per repair order, and where is the drive today?
Why ask it
How far apart those figures are shows how much pressure there is to sell. Close together, it is a goal. Far apart with no plan behind it, it usually turns into the advisors being told to push harder.
How are extra services presented: from the technician's inspection, a maintenance menu, or both?
Why ask it
Selling from an inspection means recommending what this particular car needs. A menu by mileage is quicker and can mean offering work before it is due. The telling follow-up is which one wins when the menu says a service is due and the technician says the car does not need it yet.
If a customer asks whether a repair can wait, what do you want an advisor to say?
Why ask it
This is the pressure question, asked politely. A manager who wants customers told what is urgent, what is coming up and what is fine is describing a drive people return to. If everything on the sheet is supposed to be sold today, decide whether you could say that across the counter.
How are declined services followed up?
Why ask it
Where the store calls or texts later about declined work, a no today is not lost, and the first conversation can be relaxed. Where nobody follows up, every recommendation is now or never, and advisors start to sell that way.
How does the satisfaction survey work here, and which answers on it count?
Why ask it
A manufacturer's survey and a shop's own review requests are scored in different ways, so ask how this one is counted. Find out whether anything short of the top mark is treated as a fail. Where it is, advisors are usually coached on how to bring the survey up with customers, and you want to hear that coaching described.
What happens after an advisor gets a bad survey?
Why ask it
Reading the comment, calling the customer and talking it through with the advisor is the survey used as a tool. Scores posted on the wall and pay docked with no conversation is the survey used as a stick. Ask about the most recent one and what was done.
How much can an advisor discount or give away without asking?
Why ask it
A little authority, such as a set dollar figure or waiving a diagnostic fee, lets you end an argument at the counter in a minute. None at all means every unhappy customer waits while you look for a manager. Get the limit, and find out whether what you give away is charged against your own numbers.
Hours and training
What are the advisor's hours, and when does the drive open?
Why ask it
Service drives often open before the shop does, so the day can be longer than the hours on the door. Ask when the person who had this desk really arrived and left, including how long they stayed after the last car was picked up.
How are Saturdays shared out?
Why ask it
A rotation with a weekday off in exchange is easy to live with, if that is what they do here. Find out whether Saturday is a full day or a short one and how many techs are in. An advisor with two techs on a Saturday spends the day turning work away.
Do advisors get a real lunch break?
Why ask it
It sounds small and it says a lot about staffing. Someone covering your customers for half an hour means the drive has enough people. 'Most of us eat at the desk' means the count is too high for the headcount, whatever else you were told.
When I am off or on vacation, who looks after my open repair orders and my customers?
Why ask it
Cars keep moving through the shop on their advisor's day off. A named partner who takes your calls, and whose calls you take in return, means time off is real. If the answer is your cell phone, count those days as half worked. On commission, it also matters who is paid on a ticket you opened and someone else closed.
What would my first two weeks on the drive look like?
Why ask it
The best version is a week or more beside an experienced advisor before you write a ticket alone. A login and a full appointment list on day two is the version to worry about. Find out who you would shadow and whether that advisor loses income for the time it takes, because someone who is paying to train you will keep it short.
What do new advisors here struggle with most in their first few months?
Why ask it
A manager who has brought advisors on before will have an answer ready: quoting promise times the shop can keep, learning the menu and the pricing, or holding firm with a customer who wants money off. Whatever is named is what to practice first. If nothing comes to mind, ask how the most recent hire's first month went and listen for detail.
Is there manufacturer or outside training for advisors, and is it done on work time?
Why ask it
A dealership may have brand training that advisors must complete, and it can be tied to pay or to the survey program, so ask what is required here and by when. At an independent shop, ask what advisors were sent to in the past year. 'Nothing yet' is an honest answer you can plan around.
How much technical knowledge do you expect from an advisor on day one?
Why ask it
Some managers want a former tech who can talk a customer through a diagnosis, and others want a people person and will teach the cars. Say honestly where you stand. Then ask who an advisor takes a technical question to when the tech is under a car.
Turnover and close
How long have the current advisors been here?
Why ask it
Tenure is the best single test of the pay plan and of the manager. Several advisors with years on the drive means the job can be lived with. A drive where nobody has reached a second year needs an explanation, and a new manager, a new pay plan and a store that only just opened are three different ones.
Why did the last advisor leave?
Why ask it
Promoted, moved away and went to a competitor for more money are three different stories. Watch how it is told. A manager who can give the reason without running the person down has probably thought about what the store could have done.
What sets your strongest advisor apart from the rest of the drive?
Why ask it
Whatever comes first is the manager's real definition of the job. Follow-up calls and remembering customers' names describe one kind of drive. The size of the tickets and nothing else describes another.
How long have you been the service manager here, and who do you report to?
Why ask it
The person across the desk would set your schedule, sign off your pay and decide whether to back you when a customer complains. A manager who came up through the drive will know what your day is like. A brand-new one, or an owner or director above them who steps in often, means some of today's answers may not hold.
Where have advisors from this drive gone on to: assistant manager, service manager, warranty, parts?
Why ask it
Names and dates are what to listen for. 'There is always room to grow' with no example usually means nobody has. If you want to stay an advisor for good, say so. Plenty of managers are glad to hear it.
Have technicians been staying or leaving over the past year?
Why ask it
Advisors feel a shrinking shop before anyone else does: fewer hours to sell, longer waits, shorter tempers at the counter. A steady crew is good for your pay as well as your day. If several techs left recently, ask what is being done to replace them.
Could I spend an hour on the drive, or talk to one of the advisors, before I decide?
Why ask it
A morning rush shows what an interview cannot. A manager with nothing to hide will usually find a way to say yes to a serious candidate. Check what you see against what you were told about the count, the phones and who helps.
Is there anything in my background that makes you hesitate about me for this desk?
Why ask it
Asked calmly, this brings the doubt out while you can still answer it. The usual ones are no time with the brand, no time on commission, or a move from the shop floor with little customer contact. Bring an example for whichever is yours.
What happens next, and when would you want someone to start?
Why ask it
Ask what stands between today and an offer, such as a second interview with the general manager or any checks the store runs, because that differs from place to place. 'As soon as possible' for a start date confirms how short-handed the drive is.
How to ask a service manager about the job
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before the interview
Find out what kind of store it is
A franchised dealership, an independent shop and a national chain run their drives differently. A dealership brings warranty work, manufacturer surveys and brand training. An independent usually has neither, and the advisor may also order parts and answer every call. Look at the service department's own reviews before you go. What customers complain about there, such as waits or calls not returned, is what the advisor deals with all day, and it gives you a question nobody else will ask.
Know your own numbers
If you have worked a drive before, bring your daily repair-order count, your hours per repair order and your survey score, and be ready to say how they were measured. A manager who hears real numbers tends to answer with real numbers. If you are coming from the shop floor, retail or a call center, bring two examples of calming an upset customer and one of explaining something technical in plain words.
Pick about five, with pay among them
The time left for your questions is usually short. Take one from each group that could change your mind: the repair-order count, how commission is figured, how work is dispatched, how long the current advisors have stayed. Keep the others as spares for a second interview or for the call when an offer comes.
Arrive early and watch
Ten minutes in the customer lounge before your interview is worth having. Count the advisors, see whether anyone is helping them, and notice how long a customer stands at the counter before someone looks up. You can then ask about what you saw, which is a better question than any on a list.
Asking about the pay plan
Ask after the job, not before it
Questions about the drive and the shop show that you understand the work, and they make the pay questions sound like diligence. Service managers talk about pay plans constantly and most of them wrote or inherited the one you would be on. A direct question in the second half of the conversation will not surprise them.
Have them run a month through it
Percentages and tiers mean little until you see them applied. Ask the manager to take an ordinary month for an average advisor and walk through it: the fixed pay, what the commission was figured on, what the survey score did to it, and the total. If they cannot do it from memory, ask whether it can be sent with the written plan.
Separate what is fixed from what is possible
Write down two figures: what you would be paid in a slow month, and what the manager says a good month looks like. Budget on the first. The second depends on the count, the mix of work, the technicians and your own first year, and none of those is settled on the day you start.
Ask how the rules apply there
How commission, overtime, deductions and final pay are treated depends on where the store is and how the job is classified. Do not assume it works the way it did at your last shop. Ask the store how it handles each one, get the plan in writing, and take anything that seems off to the labor office for that area before you sign.
Reading the answers
Ask for today's number as well as the target
Every drive has goals on a board. What you would live with is the current figure: how many tickets each advisor wrote yesterday, where hours per repair order stood last month, how far out the shop is booked this week. When a manager gives you the target, thank them and ask where things are now.
Put the answers side by side
One answer on its own rarely decides anything. A high count with a cashier, a porter and a scheduler is a different job from the same count with none of them. A strong commission rate on customer-pay matters less if most of the work is warranty. A team system is good news only if the technicians on the team are staying.
Notice who the manager blames
Ask about comebacks, bad surveys and the advisor who left, and listen to where the fault lands. A manager who talks about the process, and about what the store changed, will treat your mistakes the same way. One who names a person each time is showing you how your own bad day would be described.
Let a vague answer stand once, then ask again
Some managers answer the first pay or turnover question loosely out of habit. Rephrase it one time with something countable in it: how many advisors left in the past year, what the last hire made in their third month. If the second answer is also loose, treat that as the answer.
After you leave
Write the numbers down in the parking lot
Count, mix of work, fixed pay, what commission is figured on, the survey rule, Saturdays, how long the advisors have stayed. These blur within a day, and faster if you are interviewing at two stores in one week. Note what the manager would not answer as well.
Compare stores on the same lines
A higher commission rate at one store and a higher guarantee at another cannot be weighed by feel. Lay each offer out on the same lines and work an ordinary month through both. Then add what does not show in the check: the hours, the support on the drive and whether the shop behind you can finish what you sell.
Take up the offer to watch the drive
If the manager agreed to let you sit in or speak to an advisor, do it before you answer an offer. Ask the advisor two things: whether the pay plan has worked out the way it was explained, and what they would change about the job. Where their account and the manager's part ways, plan on the advisor's version.