A good service manager candidate for an automotive shop would really be the technician who knows a lot about the motor vehicle but has been able to mentally switch gears and now learn how to sell the knowledge he posses and the knowledge and services his team will provide. I am adamant about the knowledge part as I feel that the customer from the very first contact requires guidance right away when recommending service. Example being the other day I interviewed a person whom wanted to service manage and he after a few questions seemed credible but revealed to me that on his own vehicle he required an alignment for the shimmy that occurs at a particular speed. To the trained person this would now tell me that this person would book a car for the wrong service and this would start a chain reaction of a comedy of errors, possibly a technician would have to diagnose the service managers mistake then the vehicles real problem, I will be willing to bet a lot of alignments are done.

A good manager would have a knowledge of what his team members were capable of and also what tools and equipment the shop has to do the repairs. A good SM would also know time frames for jobs as to book properly and also parts availability as to again book and inform customer of completion times. Sometimes the SM has to participate with the tech for drive ability by actually driving with the customer until problem is verified and also asking the right questions to draw out clues to aid in the repair.

The SM must be a people reader as to only fill the bays with informed customers , getting the proper signatures on the repair order as to sell diagnostics to only those whom have authorized them. believe this is a tough spot because far too many techs love to just get into the testing and before you know it problem almost found car all apart , time has flown by and no invoiceable hours accounted for. The SM must know time is to be guarded.