Cut service advisors? Why that may costing your shops money

Efforts to cut costs by reducing service advisor staff may be undermining productivity and profitability at independent auto repair shops, according to a shop coach.

Murray Voth, president of RMP training, said many shop owners are advised to trim front‑end roles to control expenses, but doing so often leads to technician downtime and lost revenue.

“You do not get nine hours per technician per day with less front staff,” Voth said at the AIA Canada National Conference.

Voth said his firm’s benchmarking suggests a ratio of roughly one service advisor for every one and a half technicians in general repair operations, although the ratio can vary depending on business mix. Shops handling high volumes of consumer vehicles, he said, require more front‑end support than fleet‑focused operations.

He described technicians as highly skilled specialists whose time should be protected.

“Technicians are like surgeons,” Voth said. “They work on the vehicles. They do not estimate. They do not order parts. They do not chase approvals.”

Instead, he said, service advisors should act as a central coordination point, ensuring technicians have the information, parts and approvals needed to keep work moving.

“The advisor is the control tower,” he said. “They provide everything that person needs to get the job going.”

Voth said even short delays can have significant financial consequences. He estimated technician productivity at several dollars per minute, far exceeding the cost of service advisor time.

“If I wait 15 minutes for my next job, that is lost opportunity,” he said.

Despite this, Voth said many shops continue to operate with minimal front‑end staffing, creating bottlenecks that prevent technicians from billing a full day. This contributes to the industry’s average of just 4.2 billed hours per technician in an eight‑hour shift.

Voth said the issue is often misunderstood as a labour shortage, when it is more accurately a workflow and management problem.

“This is about scheduling, dispatching and communication,” he said. “It is a process issue.”

He also warned that under‑staffing the front counter increases stress on both technicians and advisors, leading to burnout and higher turnover. Over time, he said, that further limits a shop’s ability to improve productivity or invest in training and technology.

Shops that treat service advisors as revenue enablers rather than overhead, Voth said, are more likely to improve billed hours, profitability and employee retention.

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