A shop owner on a recent Autoflow webinar compared two of his own advisors. Advisor one is warm and wants to be everyone’s best friend. He doesn’t enjoy delivering bad news, so he softens it and spends time making the customer feel better before getting to the point. His average call runs 17-20 minutes.
Advisor two is direct. He has a plan before he dials, gets into the inspection quickly, and leads with whatever is red or urgent. His average call runs about four minutes.
Advisor two consistently closes higher tickets.
Why Shorter Isn’t the Same as Colder
Most people don’t have patience for a rambling call, even a friendly one. Advisor two isn’t skipping information. He’s covering the same inspection and the same findings, just with a plan instead of improvising, so he isn’t repeating himself or wandering into small talk. Being concise and being thorough aren’t opposites here.
What’s Actually Driving the Weaker Number
Advisor one avoids bad news because he doesn’t want to feel like he’s piling on to someone’s rough day. That instinct comes from a good place, but softening the message too much leaves the customer without a clear picture, and an unclear picture can actually promote confusion and uncertainty, leading to unapproved estimates.
The panel described a useful mindset check: when you present a repair, do you picture yourself reaching into the customer’s wallet, or handing them something valuable? Advisors who feel like they’re taking something tend to soften their delivery out of guilt. Customers can pick up on that difference.
Reading the Customer Instead of Reading a Script
Not every call should run four minutes flat. Some customers want a conversation. Others just want the facts and the price. The skill is reading which type of person you’re talking to, sometimes even the same person on a different day, and then making adjustments.
A practical starting point: track average call length alongside average repair order for each advisor. If one advisor’s phone calls run noticeably longer without a better close rate, that’s worth a direct coaching conversation. This comparison, along with more coaching detail, came from a recent Autoflow webinar with shop owners and trainers who worked with advisors on this topic.
