My department is being restructured...

[Wrenchturner]

My managers have decided that too many issues have been falling through the cracks with regards to our customer service(I work in an RV service department as a technician).  I think the managers have had enough "squeaky wheel" customers coming to them with understandably bad experiences with our department.

This is not a unusual business model; service departments for the auto industry probably have this stuff down to a science, although it's a lot more straightforward in the auto industry.  (Technicians are not even involved in most estimates as cars are more cookie-cutter and the flat rate guide books are more straightforward.)

Basically my job will now involve a lot more customer interaction in the interest of aligning their concerns with my service.  This seems like a nice idea but it does two things I don't like:

It puts me in a customer service-heavy role which I'm not really interested in and not very good at, and
It reduces the economy of scale of having a stratified department where advisors deal with the customers and turn their concerns into work orders(at a low hourly rate), and the technicians receive the work orders and complete the tasks as decided(or with some of their own discretion).

The techs are supposed to have a day per week where they will be assigned to "wait appointments" -- doing jobs quickly at the time of customer arrival so we can avoid the costs of receiving a trailer for some simple work, as well as going through the trailer with the customer's concerns so we can 1. talk them out of small or less significant concerns, and 2. get a good handle on what - precisely - their concerns are.

Not sure what the purpose of this thread is, other than to vent and see if others have been through something similar.  I think the upper management is a little ambitious with this plan, mainly because I think they are seeing this only through the lens of the 1 in 500 jobs where things go horribly wrong and customers leave angry.  Restructuring the department to attempt to resolve this seems like throwing the baby out with the bathwater, not to mention the imposition it places on the techs to now be customer service reps, and it will require a large amount of refined communication(which is already dubious), and it seems to offload the service advisors to a more secretarial role(where they will mostly just schedule, and write down what people say).

Finally, my pay plan is heavily built on a bonus structure, and we had a rough year so my income was about 20% lower than it could have been.  If my income continues to stay at this rate, AND if my job becomes stressful due to customer interaction, it won't bode well for my career at this company, unfortunately.  The managers have considered the need for a restructuring of the pay plan as well but I don't know how you can track customer satisfaction compared to something simply tracked like collected time.

[six-car-habit]

 Sounds like you should plan on next year being a similar, earnings reduced, situation.
  And / Or polish up your resume'

[friedmmj]

Most likely the management will overhaul the whole approach again in 2 years once its shortcomings become apparent.  If you otherwise like working there just stay positive and patient as it plays out.

[RWTL]

Couple thoughts as both an RV owner and a manager....

- It's hard to tell if they are aligning this way for better customer service or because they don't want to hear the issues.

- It's good that you've identified what you do/do not like about the change.  If you have F/U money, and the situation doesn't change in a while, you could look for another job. 

- Something has to change with the RV industry.  The quality assurance from the manufacturers is no where near the auto industry.  You might even be able to setup your own mobile business - but then again, you'd always be talking with the customers.

[Wrenchturner]

Thanks for the replies.

Sounds like you should plan on next year being a similar, earnings reduced, situation.
  And / Or polish up your resume'

Agreed.

Most likely the management will overhaul the whole approach again in 2 years once its shortcomings become apparent.  If you otherwise like working there just stay positive and patient as it plays out.

Also agreed! 

Couple thoughts as both an RV owner and a manager....

- It's hard to tell if they are aligning this way for better customer service or because they don't want to hear the issues.

- It's good that you've identified what you do/do not like about the change.  If you have F/U money, and the situation doesn't change in a while, you could look for another job. 

You're correct also.  And I do have options.  Although I have a good job and my pay is good for the amount of effort it requires on my part.  I am well positioned currently but I would love to crank up my income.  (I could also drop my spending dramatically with lifestyle changes like shared accommodation.)

Worst case, I see this as a training experience for my customer service/people skills.  I have considered moving into management or sales since I know if I could become competent and comfortable with working with groups of people, it would probably be relatively easy.  Relies heavily on that first bit, though.  The reality is that being a tradesman gets more expensive on the body with every passing year, so the opportunity cost of moving into management/sales goes down relative to that.

- Something has to change with the RV industry.  The quality assurance from the manufacturers is no where near the auto industry.  You might even be able to setup your own mobile business - but then again, you'd always be talking with the customers.

I don't know that the RV industry will ever achieve that.  It will require some very substantial manufacturing changes, like far more modular construction.  The products built now are far too "bespoke" to have the level of refinement like the auto industry.  I also lay this at the feet of the customers: if you finance a product for 30 years that only has a 1 year warranty, you are setting yourself up to be disappointed.  These are more like rich people toys, and less like romantic sturdy campers.

I have considered a mobile business, and the customer service side wouldn't be so bad since I'd be strongly personally invested in the work.  The issues here are more business-model problems--parts are expensive and hard to get, overhead is very high, customer satisfaction will be very difficult, lots of opportunity cost from the logistics(talking to insurance adjusters, factory, managing orders and payment, etc).

[Dave1442397]

I wonder if this Illinois supreme court decision has anything to do with the new approach?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iub0v_wjGlg

[Wrenchturner]

I wonder if this Illinois supreme court decision has anything to do with the new approach?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iub0v_wjGlg

VERY interesting.  I will have to do more research.  Thank you for the video. 

I doubt that this is related.  My dealership is in Canada, and I will have to research the relevant laws to see what our commercial code has to say about this type of thing.  I also don't think my upper management is this "on the ball", but I am certain the dealer's association is aware of it.

Interestingly, we have had a couple cases where we intended to send trailers back to the factory to be repaired(severe structural problems that we couldn't reasonably address) and in one case, they simply told us they had no capacity(literally, no room) to help, and in another, the rep chose to phone a service advisor and discuss it over the phone rather than in writing.  Even this advisor saw this was a case of covering their ass.

A quick search of some RV forums resulted with these comments, among others:

"Well, unlimited liability put the brakes on small airplane manufacturing in the 80s and 90s. Cessna and Piper virtually halted production of 2 and 4 seat planes for 15 years until they got tort relief. The new aircraft aren't that much better than the old ones, and some say they're worse. They're certainly more expensive."

and

"“We find this language plain and … subsection (1)(b) (of the UCC) does not require that a buyer give the seller an opportunity to cure.”

This is BAD news for everyone. Every Tom, Dick and Harriet will be demanding their money back for simple issues that can be fixed. This could quite conceivably just push manufacturers of ANY product out of business as the precedent has been set, not to mention they will have to build the cost of litigation into their pricing. "

For what it's worth, Thor's stock price has climbed handsomely since this case.

[norajean]

Service advisors are useless. Cutting them out of the equation is a great first step and a signal management is willing to pay for better service.

[Wrenchturner]

Service advisors are useless. Cutting them out of the equation is a great first step and a signal management is willing to pay for better service.

I hope management is willing to pay more for better service.  They might be overambitious with this idea though.  Considering our shop rate is already over $150/hr I think I should be spending as little time talking to people as possible.

[Metalcat]

Service advisors are useless. Cutting them out of the equation is a great first step and a signal management is willing to pay for better service.

I hope management is willing to pay more for better service.  They might be overambitious with this idea though.  Considering our shop rate is already over $150/hr I think I should be spending as little time talking to people as possible.

Yeah, this sounds more like a poorly thought out half measure rather than a strategic solution.

If it were me, I would start strategizing now for next moves.

When a company starts making knee-jerk moves to compensate for an issue, they tend to then follow it up with a sequence of compensatory knee-jerk moves and the level of injury to the front line staff is disproportionate.

It tends to start with mismanagement and then progresses to more and more pressure tactics to squeeze the front line to compensate for the failures of the systems put in place.

I'm seeing it right now at one of my workplaces where the strongest front line employees are rapidly burning out and their loyalty is steadily being eroded.

I think it's very wise to be proactive about a job that's hard on your body. So it might be a good time to think really realistically about your next moves.

If moving towards sales/management is something you are seriously interested in, I would be a lot more proactive about it than just seeing what more client interaction is like in your current, modified role. It doesn't sound like you will be dealing with clients in optimal conditions, and that kind of client interaction requires wildly different skills from sales/management.

I'm extremely comfortable with sales, but I would papercut my own eyeballs over dealing with client insurance issues.

If you really want to build your customer service skills, I would actually aim to do so in a more structured way. I have a staff member with poor social skills in a role where she has to handle client complaints/issues, and it's definitely not helping her develop her skills. I'm proactively pulling her out of that role and training her up from the basics and it's working much better.

This isn't to say that you should be pessimistic about the future of your current job, but you may really benefit from being cautious and proactive, and take this chance to start fact finding and skills building for your potential next steps.

Worst case scenario, you end up more skilled and more informed, and if you quickly hit your limit with what you are willing to tolerate, you've already got the foundational work laid for your next moves.

I'm quite happy with my day job right now, it's been modified in certain ways and I've voluntarily taken a pay cut by reducing my hours. I'm hoping to stay there for years to come, but I've also already primed my network to produce multiple other options if I decide to bail. It can take a long time to generate an entirely new career path, so I like to keep a few of them primed at all times.

There's a lot of comfort, security, and autonomy in being proactive instead of reactive.

[Buffaloski Boris]

Service advisors are useless. Cutting them out of the equation is a great first step and a signal management is willing to pay for better service.

I hope management is willing to pay more for better service.  They might be overambitious with this idea though.  Considering our shop rate is already over $150/hr I think I should be spending as little time talking to people as possible.

Yeah, this sounds more like a poorly thought out half measure rather than a strategic solution.

If it were me, I would start strategizing now for next moves.

When a company starts making knee-jerk moves to compensate for an issue, they tend to then follow it up with a sequence of compensatory knee-jerk moves and the level of injury to the front line staff is disproportionate.

It tends to start with mismanagement and then progresses to more and more pressure tactics to squeeze the front line to compensate for the failures of the systems put in place.

I'm seeing it right now at one of my workplaces where the strongest front line employees are rapidly burning out and their loyalty is steadily being eroded.

I think it's very wise to be proactive about a job that's hard on your body. So it might be a good time to think really realistically about your next moves.

If moving towards sales/management is something you are seriously interested in, I would be a lot more proactive about it than just seeing what more client interaction is like in your current, modified role. It doesn't sound like you will be dealing with clients in optimal conditions, and that kind of client interaction requires wildly different skills from sales/management.

I'm extremely comfortable with sales, but I would papercut my own eyeballs over dealing with client insurance issues.

If you really want to build your customer service skills, I would actually aim to do so in a more structured way. I have a staff member with poor social skills in a role where she has to handle client complaints/issues, and it's definitely not helping her develop her skills. I'm proactively pulling her out of that role and training her up from the basics and it's working much better.

This isn't to say that you should be pessimistic about the future of your current job, but you may really benefit from being cautious and proactive, and take this chance to start fact finding and skills building for your potential next steps.

Worst case scenario, you end up more skilled and more informed, and if you quickly hit your limit with what you are willing to tolerate, you've already got the foundational work laid for your next moves.

I'm quite happy with my day job right now, it's been modified in certain ways and I've voluntarily taken a pay cut by reducing my hours. I'm hoping to stay there for years to come, but I've also already primed my network to produce multiple other options if I decide to bail. It can take a long time to generate an entirely new career path, so I like to keep a few of them primed at all times.

There's a lot of comfort, security, and autonomy in being proactive instead of reactive.

Exceptional advice. I enjoyed reading it Malkynn.

[KBecks]

I would look at this situation as an opportunity to climb the ladder.  I'm going to assume you know your stuff and are doing great work.  This should put you in a great situation to become more valuable and important to your team.  I'd read a couple customer service and expectations management-type books at your leisure and also look and the processes that the company uses.  Can their processes be improved for customer communication and or workflow?  Anything you can contribute to make things to better is important, document it, get credit for it and ask for those raises and promotions.

If you want to switch to auto then try to do it at a step up from where you are now, or look at the next job as a step up.  Gain all the skills you want/need now at your current job to get there.  You can also possibly go to commercial/bigger vehicles.

Good luck!

[Wrenchturner]

If moving towards sales/management is something you are seriously interested in, I would be a lot more proactive about it than just seeing what more client interaction is like in your current, modified role. It doesn't sound like you will be dealing with clients in optimal conditions, and that kind of client interaction requires wildly different skills from sales/management.

Excellent point.  Some of it is the nature of a service department, where you encounter mostly people who are having problems.  There's also the bigger issue pointed out by @Dave1442397 and Steve Lehto's commentary in the youtube video that these types of disappointment are endemic to the industry.  I am more sympathetic to the dealerships though, at least my dealership, because we are a fairly ethical company and are caught between the inadequacies of the manufacturer and the expectations of the customers.  It's a rough place to be.

If you really want to build your customer service skills, I would actually aim to do so in a more structured way. I have a staff member with poor social skills in a role where she has to handle client complaints/issues, and it's definitely not helping her develop her skills. I'm proactively pulling her out of that role and training her up from the basics and it's working much better.

I think more optimal conditions would be a better place to start, for sure.  Not sure how to get there though.  Do I move into an unrelated sales position to start, and then get back into RV sales after cutting my teeth, or do I try to dive straight into RV sales(I doubt someone would hire me for this), or do I head into management?  I could work as a parts advisor to start, that would give me some element of sales and still being RV focused.  I will start doing the more immediate ground work of improving my social skills in my personal life.  That would be the first proactive step anyway.

I feel like sales would be a better position than management since it's less like herding cats, and you're dealing more with external people rather than internal ones.  Not sure about this though.  I know my service manager spends a lot of time trying to put out fires with angry customers and trying to please 40+ staff members.  Any of you guys have some experience with the difference here?  Sales probably has the downside of being a less-skilled department, in some ways comparable to a service technician position.  At some point, that would lead to management as well, probably.

There's a lot of comfort, security, and autonomy in being proactive instead of reactive.

I agree, and thanks for the thoughts.

I would look at this situation as an opportunity to climb the ladder.  I'm going to assume you know your stuff and are doing great work.  This should put you in a great situation to become more valuable and important to your team.  I'd read a couple customer service and expectations management-type books at your leisure and also look and the processes that the company uses.  Can their processes be improved for customer communication and or workflow?  Anything you can contribute to make things to better is important, document it, get credit for it and ask for those raises and promotions.

If you want to switch to auto then try to do it at a step up from where you are now, or look at the next job as a step up.  Gain all the skills you want/need now at your current job to get there.  You can also possibly go to commercial/bigger vehicles.

Good luck!

I will start reading books on the subject of management and/or sales to help frame my mindset this way.  I'm sure I could make good contributions to management processes, I already have in some areas.  I'll save the document I produced at work so I can use it as an example later if I need to.

Management is definitely transferable and I think I could climb ladders more generally in that area.  My company is a good one, but it's fairly small and if I became competent at management I could probably move "diagonally" to other companies in a reasonable time frame.  Of course, this is going to take salary-type commitment from me as well, but I think I'm prepared to do that if I'm happy with my progress and not feeling overwhelmed.

Management also seems like it would involve more abstract problem-solving and would probably be a better match in that regard.

[six-car-habit]

 I would imagine finance / loan officer is a place where big $$ is made.

 On the idea of going into the 'sales" force - is the compensation structure the same ?  I'll assume as-is you make a certian hourly rate, and than your bonus structure is built on top of that depending on "speed / 1st time quality"  .
     Whereas sales may be way more structured with pay being based on actual sales made /  significantly lower hourly rate + commision. 
  Also, it may be hard to stretch the truth on selling some brands, if you know from the service dept that some manufacturers quality is sub-par .  " Umm , Sir / Ma'am you really don't want a Forest River brand anything based on warranty claims "...

[Wrenchturner]

I would imagine finance / loan officer is a place where big $$ is made.

True, but a four year degree and $60k+++ in student debt doesn't really appeal to me.

On the idea of going into the 'sales" force - is the compensation structure the same ?  I'll assume as-is you make a certian hourly rate, and than your bonus structure is built on top of that depending on "speed / 1st time quality"  .
     Whereas sales may be way more structured with pay being based on actual sales made /  significantly lower hourly rate + commision. 

Depends on the dealership, I assume.  Our dealership offers $0 per hour, and you get commissions when you close.  They also receive incentives from the manufacturers when they close but I don't know how they manage cashing a US cheque in Canada with regards to their taxes.  They probably make close to what I make already.  And sales managers usually have business degrees.  In typing out my previous reply, I realized that sales is probably not a good stream for me, and that management is probably a better one.

  Also, it may be hard to stretch the truth on selling some brands, if you know from the service dept that some manufacturers quality is sub-par .  " Umm , Sir / Ma'am you really don't want a Forest River brand anything based on warranty claims "...

Definitely true, but this is the nature of the industry.  All the manufacturers are subpar, to be honest, but this is a complicated problem.  Autos are very highly regulated in comparison, RVs are built for occasional use, weight savings are a priority, designs and materials change annually, etc.  And at the end of the day, people keep buying RVs so the manufacturers really have no reason to change this.

[Metalcat]

If moving towards sales/management is something you are seriously interested in, I would be a lot more proactive about it than just seeing what more client interaction is like in your current, modified role. It doesn't sound like you will be dealing with clients in optimal conditions, and that kind of client interaction requires wildly different skills from sales/management.

Excellent point.  Some of it is the nature of a service department, where you encounter mostly people who are having problems.  There's also the bigger issue pointed out by @Dave1442397 and Steve Lehto's commentary in the youtube video that these types of disappointment are endemic to the industry.  I am more sympathetic to the dealerships though, at least my dealership, because we are a fairly ethical company and are caught between the inadequacies of the manufacturer and the expectations of the customers.  It's a rough place to be.

If you really want to build your customer service skills, I would actually aim to do so in a more structured way. I have a staff member with poor social skills in a role where she has to handle client complaints/issues, and it's definitely not helping her develop her skills. I'm proactively pulling her out of that role and training her up from the basics and it's working much better.

I think more optimal conditions would be a better place to start, for sure.  Not sure how to get there though.  Do I move into an unrelated sales position to start, and then get back into RV sales after cutting my teeth, or do I try to dive straight into RV sales(I doubt someone would hire me for this), or do I head into management?  I could work as a parts advisor to start, that would give me some element of sales and still being RV focused.  I will start doing the more immediate ground work of improving my social skills in my personal life.  That would be the first proactive step anyway.

I feel like sales would be a better position than management since it's less like herding cats, and you're dealing more with external people rather than internal ones.  Not sure about this though.  I know my service manager spends a lot of time trying to put out fires with angry customers and trying to please 40+ staff members.  Any of you guys have some experience with the difference here?  Sales probably has the downside of being a less-skilled department, in some ways comparable to a service technician position.  At some point, that would lead to management as well, probably.

There's a lot of comfort, security, and autonomy in being proactive instead of reactive.

I agree, and thanks for the thoughts.

I would look at this situation as an opportunity to climb the ladder.  I'm going to assume you know your stuff and are doing great work.  This should put you in a great situation to become more valuable and important to your team.  I'd read a couple customer service and expectations management-type books at your leisure and also look and the processes that the company uses.  Can their processes be improved for customer communication and or workflow?  Anything you can contribute to make things to better is important, document it, get credit for it and ask for those raises and promotions.

If you want to switch to auto then try to do it at a step up from where you are now, or look at the next job as a step up.  Gain all the skills you want/need now at your current job to get there.  You can also possibly go to commercial/bigger vehicles.

Good luck!

I will start reading books on the subject of management and/or sales to help frame my mindset this way.  I'm sure I could make good contributions to management processes, I already have in some areas.  I'll save the document I produced at work so I can use it as an example later if I need to.

Management is definitely transferable and I think I could climb ladders more generally in that area.  My company is a good one, but it's fairly small and if I became competent at management I could probably move "diagonally" to other companies in a reasonable time frame.  Of course, this is going to take salary-type commitment from me as well, but I think I'm prepared to do that if I'm happy with my progress and not feeling overwhelmed.

Management also seems like it would involve more abstract problem-solving and would probably be a better match in that regard.

Management skills and sales skills are generally rather different.

As for what context is more ideal for you to learn them, well, that really depends on you, how you learn, and what skills exactly you need to learn.

Is it literally communication skills you need to learn, or is it leadership skills, or team player skills, or closing skills, etc.

Reflect on what you want to do, what you need to learn to do it, and then strategize what the best path is in order to learn those skills.

Is another sales job the best move? I have no idea.
Maybe?
Maybe not.

Maybe you would benefit from reading some books on sales and management, maybe doing some online courses, maybe joining a meetuo group, maybe joining Toastmasters, maybe taking up coaching your kids sports teams, find a mentor etc, etc.

Who knows, it depends on what you need.
There's no right way to engineer a career. The more creative and dynamic the solution, the better.

Also, you don't need to leave a job to learn the skills you need for another one.

[Wrenchturner]

snip snip

I'll keep all this in mind, and I'm pretty much on the same page.  I've got some time to work on it.

[use2betrix]

My wife and I lived full time in a “brand new” 42’ Toy Hauler for 5 years. I work in oil & gas and the vast majority of my coworkers do or have full timed as well.

If there’s one thing for sure, those POS’s break all the time lol.. If it can break, it will. I’m sure some brands are better than others. We now have a 17’ fiberglass casita which is 1000x better than most of the standard crap built stick trailers.

All of that aside, in many places, there is a HUGE market for mobile RV repair people. Since we full timed, we did not have the ability to take our home in to drop off at a repair place for weeks (or months) for repair. In turn, we always paid a premium to have someone come to our RV park and do things like replace AC’s, fix the hot water heater, roof issues, electrical issues, etc.

Have you ever considered starting a business or something similar? As we lived full time, I always thought that it seemed like there was a huge market for mobile RV repair. Lots of time places were backed up forever and it seemed like $75-$100/hr+ was a pretty standard going rate.

[Wrenchturner]

My wife and I lived full time in a “brand new” 42’ Toy Hauler for 5 years. I work in oil & gas and the vast majority of my coworkers do or have full timed as well.

You can full-time in the but it exempts you from the OEM warranty.  And as you might have experienced, your component failure will be higher.

All of that aside, in many places, there is a HUGE market for mobile RV repair people. Since we full timed, we did not have the ability to take our home in to drop off at a repair place for weeks (or months) for repair. In turn, we always paid a premium to have someone come to our RV park and do things like replace AC’s, fix the hot water heater, roof issues, electrical issues, etc.

Have you ever considered starting a business or something similar? As we lived full time, I always thought that it seemed like there was a huge market for mobile RV repair. Lots of time places were backed up forever and it seemed like $75-$100/hr+ was a pretty standard going rate.

I've thought about it.  I'd probably have to bill 4-5hrs per day just to make the same money I already do, because of all the overhead.  If I had steady enough work, I could make decent money possibly.  I'd probably need a helper for replacing ACs for instance.  I'd need a truck and a big ladder and a lot of praying that I don't fall off it(dealers have restraint systems).  Again, the overhead would be rough with stocking parts(for every variation of water heater, fridge, furnace etc), doing invoicing, paying for a merchant system/POS, hoping people ACTUALLY pay me, the time spent driving to and from places, talking to people, etc.  There's also a large amount of work I couldn't do without a shop, even if I felt like hauling a table saw, possibly a generator, then there's the fact that our season is only six months long in the outdoors, so you can cut that income in half annually...  Also, when parts are ordered from the manufacturer, they arrive incorrect or damaged approx. 30% of the time.

Some guys do side work in the summer.  I have a coworker that did alright this year doing work at his acreage, but he has an acreage...  I don't own property let alone a garage or a high-roofed shop.  I do have an uncle relatively close with a high roofed shop but I doubt he'd be interested and I still have the other viability issues at hand.

Perhaps it's worth noting--I don't make pocket change doing this as it is.  The RV industry is more regulated in Canada so techs are more highly paid(I think anyway).  I make a base of $27/hr with decent health benefits, two weeks vacation, a $1k RSP matching, and usually a Christmas bonus around $800.  And if I top out bonuses, I can hit $40+ before overtime(although this upcoming year could make that more difficult with the changes I outlined).

My best year(2018) was $62k before tax, with little overtime, and a month off in November.  I've only been a journeyman for two years.  With a couple hours of overtime per day and a good work structure, I could easily exceed $70-80k at a dealership.

Currently, someone hands me a work order, I go retrieve the trailer, work on it, park it, hand in the paperwork, and move on.  I have a hard time believing a mobile business would get me the same ROI.  I work 8-4:30, Monday to Friday.

Since I've gotten into the intricacies here, I might as well mention a competitor: a big fish, large national corp that is known to be a bit more...aggressive in their business practices.  They pay $50/hr flat rate, meaning you get paid based on when the dealer gets paid.  This would be a better deal in the high season and a worse deal in the low season.  The benefit might be that they do a better job of sequestering their techs to ONLY be spending time fixing trailers.  They also offer an aggressive investment program(yields min 10% up to max 25% a year, no idea how it vests or how withdrawals work), as well as some other perks like a free gym membership and comparable vacation/health benefits.

This company has a less than stellar reputation but who knows how they are to work for.  If I stayed focused and motivated I could probably do well. 

A large part of the reason I have stayed with this current employer is because I was(up until this change) working at a satellite shop, not the dealership, so I just had to fix trailers.  No customers, no parts, no sales.  That's a decent advantage for me in the comparison to this competitor but that equation might change substantially this year.

My management has received plenty of pushback on this restructuring, mainly since we weren't really consulted at all.  The concerns about our efficiency, and therefore bonuses, as well as the logistics(my shop doesn't stock parts...how are we supposed to fix stuff as it arrives?) have been voiced pretty clearly by others.

I've been a bit of a shit disturber in the past, and other people made my concerns clear so I haven't felt the need to get too vocal.  Like I've said, I have some options.  And as far as I know, everyone wants this department to be efficient and ideally profitable so if they make a bad decision they will probably see it as such, even if they see it too late.

I will say though, that $27/hr or $55k a year is not really enough for me to stay in this position.

[Wrenchturner]

I wonder if this Illinois supreme court decision has anything to do with the new approach?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iub0v_wjGlg

I've thought about this again, it may be related.  The idea of fixing stuff as soon as it arrives(or at least doing the dealership due diligence) will offer some protection against issues getting more severe while the trailer sits on our lot waiting to be serviced.  It won't protect us against a situation mentioned in the video, where the manufacturer was dragging their feet, and we still have a 4-6 week delay for parts to be ordered, even if they get ordered the day the trailer arrives for service.  Again, this would depend on our Canadian equivalent laws which I am not familiar with.

Interestingly, we had a new RV purchased by an employee of ours(not a Forest River product even!), that had a leaking fridge vent on the sidewall(stick and tin trailer).  The gap between the access panel and flange was too large, and this could be pretty easily missed or overlooked by a tech.  I had a brief look at it but it might have already been corrected when I saw it. 

Anyway, a significant amount of water got in here, ran down the base of the fridge cabinet and into the floor of the trailer.  It must have occurred during the summer.  It caused rot and enough damage that the RV needs a new interior floor, mold treatment, and new lino.  It's about 26ft long.  I never looked at the damage myself but it sounded pretty severe, fairly unusual for such a short term leak and a seemingly innocuous one.  The RV was supposed to go back to the factory, but for some reason or another we are doing the repair in-house.

[KBecks]

Re: the books,  customer service books.  Communication books.  How to set and manage expectations.  That kind of thing.

[Wrenchturner]

Re: the books,  customer service books.  Communication books.  How to set and manage expectations.  That kind of thing.

I've made a note!

[Systems101]

Ugh - A challenging (and not-so-fun sounding) situation. 

It feels to me like there is a huge theme in your posts of "Is this change actually addressing what we need without breaking other things?"

In general, people hate change, so there is always push-back (and management will tend to downplay it as a result).  They're human and can make mistakes too - don't just push back, help them.  Following on what KBecks said: Bring them something they can use to test that question.

Here are two reads that are much shorter than books, and hopefully relevant to this situation.

This paper raises a conceptual model of customer service; Table 1 gives 10 categories of service.  Can you help management identify which one (or more) the problem is really in, and whether the changes actually impact the others? (and since it surely will, is that risk/impact acceptable?)  Which ones are currently being measured, so they know if the structural change causes value changes? How are they getting feedback on the others to ensure they don't break, etc.  Having a common language is a huge step to removing a lot of the emotion from the discussion, which is likely necessary to make progress (especially since you note the teams weren't consulted before the change).

There are a ton of questions that can be drawn from that paper (and your specific scenario), which will be very constructive, and will make them think.   If you draw a picture of the before and after flow for a customer and who they speak to, etc. does ownership of one of these categories move to new people?  I would also specifically consider methods from How to Change Someone's Mind to try to establish what they think is important on that list and what effects they think/hope the changes will have...  You may end up with something like: "Oh, you think courtesy and communication will only drop a point each.  I work with the technicians every day and I think that risk is higher, perhaps dropping to a 3 or 4.  Customer service training for the technicians would lower that risk, do you think that might be a good investment?"

[Wrenchturner]

Ugh - A challenging (and not-so-fun sounding) situation. 

It feels to me like there is a huge theme in your posts of "Is this change actually addressing what we need without breaking other things?"

In general, people hate change, so there is always push-back (and management will tend to downplay it as a result).  They're human and can make mistakes too - don't just push back, help them.  Following on what KBecks said: Bring them something they can use to test that question.

Here are two reads that are much shorter than books, and hopefully relevant to this situation.

This paper raises a conceptual model of customer service; Table 1 gives 10 categories of service.  Can you help management identify which one (or more) the problem is really in, and whether the changes actually impact the others? (and since it surely will, is that risk/impact acceptable?)  Which ones are currently being measured, so they know if the structural change causes value changes? How are they getting feedback on the others to ensure they don't break, etc.  Having a common language is a huge step to removing a lot of the emotion from the discussion, which is likely necessary to make progress (especially since you note the teams weren't consulted before the change).

There are a ton of questions that can be drawn from that paper (and your specific scenario), which will be very constructive, and will make them think.   If you draw a picture of the before and after flow for a customer and who they speak to, etc. does ownership of one of these categories move to new people?  I would also specifically consider methods from How to Change Someone's Mind to try to establish what they think is important on that list and what effects they think/hope the changes will have...  You may end up with something like: "Oh, you think courtesy and communication will only drop a point each.  I work with the technicians every day and I think that risk is higher, perhaps dropping to a 3 or 4.  Customer service training for the technicians would lower that risk, do you think that might be a good investment?"

Thanks for this perspective.   On the subject of change, the reality is that I'm more dynamic than some of the other staff so if this restructuring does more harm than good, I can just wait it out for the other canaries in the coal mine.