When discussing the staffing of a professional detail­ing department in a dealer­ship, you must consider the type of people to be employed in your detail department.

This article will focus on interviewing and hiring of the proper personnel to per­form the work quickly, effi­ciently and consistently.

Yes, detailing is a labor-intensive service, and at this stage of technological develop­ment, will probably remain that way. There is equipment and organizational procedures now available to help the dealer maximize the labor, but detailing is still a “hands-on” service that requires qual­ified people who will think.

Mass Production Principles

Some years ago, an article appeared in the Harvard Business Review discussing the problems of service busi­nesses. It outlined all the problems service businesses faced, including inefficiency and inconsistency from employee to employee, service to service, and in the case of a detail center, inconsistency in the quality of the finished product (the vehicle). Sound familiar in your dealership?

It was this author’s premise that as long as service busi­nesses continue to view things in humanistic terms, they will be plagued with these inher­ent problems. What is needed, this author said, is the appli­cation of the “technocratic” principles of mass production to a service business. In short, this simply means to establish a system of mass production in the delivery of the product or service. In this case, auto detailing services.

How? The answer is sim­ple: Eliminate all employee discretion in the performance of a job. That is, give them little choice in how a job is to be performed. You must pro­vide a very detailed and step-­by-step description of how you expect the job to be done.

Is that not what the assembly line approach is in reality? A worker stands on the assembly line and does the same thing, the same way, for eight hours a day. In other areas of your dealership, you operate as much as possible in this way. What is the “sys­tem selling” of cars?

How successful you are in any business, auto dealership, detailing, etc., depends upon how well you can implement procedures to provide consis­tent service to the customer.

McDonald’s Approach

Probably the most suc­cessful example of a company applying the technocratic principles of mass production to a service business has been McDonald’s. Anywhere you travel in the world, from Maine to Mexico and from Tokyo to Texas, a McDonald’s burger, fries and milkshake are exactly the same: pre­pared, packaged and served exactly in the same way, by the same type of per­sonnel.

What McDonald’s did was to set a standard for the type of employee they wanted, interview and screen, and then selectively hire and train them according to a spelled out and detailed set of proce­dures for every job in the store. Part of the training is, of course, an indoctrination period to help the employee to understand the program, the policies and the proce­dures of the company.

After a trainee has passed his trial period, he is con­stantly reviewed and coached in the McDonald’s system. And, if he really moves up in the organization, he can be sent to Hamburger University for managerial indoctrination. The employee knows he can advance in the organization if he follows the rules.

But, the bottom line of their entire program is that the employee has little discretion in the philosophy and methodolo­gy of how the job is to be per­formed. Management spells it out in simple, clear steps to be followed by everyone.

Did you know that McDonald’s has a 125-percent turnover rate in employees per year? Wow! It is their system that protects them.

How many times do you hear that “things are differ­ent?” How many times are you the one saying it? The “things are different” syn­drome is nothing but an excuse for not taking proper action to remedy a problem.

Detailing is no different from slinging hamburgers or selling cars. There are basics to any busi­ness relating to establishing policies and procedures, goals and objectives, standards and job descriptions. If you will not do this, then you can expect that detailing will always be a problem in your dealership. Or, you will even have problems with the out­side shops you contract with to do your detailing; you will have to demand standards of performance from them too.

The Interview

Since an interview is a two-way proposition, the applicants should have ques­tions for you.

If they do have questions, your answers are important because they establish in the prospect’s mind what you expect. Remember, too, that if you find an applicant you like and want to hire, you have to sell them on the benefits of working for your business.

Some of the typical appli­cant questions we have experi­enced are: What will my job be? Is it full-time? What are the opportunities for advance­ment? What days and hours will I work? How much will I be paid?

Certainly, there will be other questions, but these will help you prepare for the fact that questions will be asked. How you answer them is important to developing a suc­cessful employee.

In order to establish a standard procedure for inter­viewing applicants and a stan­dard method of evaluation, we developed an interview sheet for our operators to use. Such an interview sheet allows you to evaluate an applicant on an almost totally objective basis.

We have found that those employees hired on an objec­tive basis, using the questions and evaluation procedures outlined on our sheet, have been the most effective.

Operations Manual

If you have given any thought to selective hiring for your detailing department, you know the type of qualified personnel that are needed to meet your performance stan­dards. To insure that these standards are followed, they need to be put into an employ­ee manual. The written manu­al ensures that what is important does not go in one ear and out the other. It allows you to put into the employee’s head what he must do with his hands. If is not in his head, he cannot do it with his hands.

To begin with, you must let the employee know what the general company policies are in relation to the follow­ing: the customer, require­ments for employment, gener­al conduct, training, meetings, uniforms, pay, work schedule, payroll and termination.

As with any policies, stick everlastingly to them if you expect them to mean anything to the employee.

Now that you have hired the right personnel for your detailing department and indoctrinated him or her about your dealership, the new employee is ready to be given hands-on training.