What makes a great Solution Builder? Technical expertise, pedagogical skills, and experience are all part of the answer. But this combination becomes truly powerful when the connection to day-to-day operational reality isn’t lost.
Our trainer and coach Mark Doda knows automotive service from multiple angles: he began his career in the workshop, spent more than twelve years in service advising, and today works as a trainer and coach at Formation4You. Alongside that, he steps in operationally at dealerships when needed.
This means he doesn’t just bring additional capacity where short-term support is required. These assignments also ensure his training stays grounded where it needs to have effect: in real working life.
We spoke with him about what makes great service advising, where potential gets lost in day-to-day business, and why hands-on operational experience is decisive for training quality too.
Formation4You: You originally come from the workshop. How did your path lead you to becoming a trainer and coach?
Mark: I did an apprenticeship as an automotive mechanic from 2002 to 2005 and worked as a mechanic for several years after that. Fairly early on, I realised that it wasn’t just the technical side that interested me — I was also drawn to customer contact, organisation, and the commercial side of things. So I completed a qualification as a technical business specialist with a federal certificate of competence, alongside my job.
In 2011 I moved into service advising and worked as a service advisor across various dealerships for over twelve years. In 2023 I joined Formation4You and have been working there as a trainer and coach ever since.
Formation4You: What still fascinates you about service advising today?
Mark: It’s exactly that mix. As a service advisor, you’re the link between the customer and the workshop. You need to understand what the customer wants, know what’s technically possible, keep an eye on the internal processes, and ultimately find a good solution for everyone involved.
Add to that the fact that almost no two days are the same. The organising, improvising, problem-solving, and working with such a wide range of people — that’s what still draws me in.
Formation4You: What makes a truly great service advisor, in your view — beyond technical knowledge?
Mark: For me, a great service advisor is above all someone who can listen. The customer needs to be understood not just technically, but as a person.
A good service advisor recognises what the customer actually needs, communicates clearly and honestly, and builds trust. At the same time, they need to be organised, able to set priorities, and stay calm even in stressful situations.
And something that’s sometimes underestimated: they need to be able to sell. Not by pushing things on the customer, but by identifying a need and explaining what value an additional job or service would bring them.
Formation4You: What happens at a dealership when an experienced service advisor suddenly becomes unavailable?
Mark: The effects can be felt across the whole operation very quickly. The service advisor is a central hub. Customers, the workshop, parts, appointments, insurance queries, and a lot of other information all flow through that role.
If someone suddenly isn’t there, the appointments don’t disappear, customers still arrive in the morning, and the workshop still needs information and decisions.
The team naturally tries to absorb it. But with longer absences, the pressure builds enormously. Eventually something suffers — internal organisation, customer satisfaction, or revenue. Usually all three.
Formation4You: How do you manage to find your feet quickly in an unfamiliar business?
Mark: I observe a lot at the start. Every operation works slightly differently, even if the basic processes are similar. There’s no point arriving somewhere and immediately wanting to explain how things should be done.
I need to understand first: how does this team work? Who handles which tasks? Which systems are used? Where are the interfaces and how do people communicate with each other?
My initial goal is to take pressure off the team as quickly as possible and contribute productively.
Formation4You: As an outsider, what do you tend to notice more quickly in a service operation?
Mark: Above all, things that have crept in over the years. When you work in the same place every day, you eventually stop questioning certain processes.
As an outsider, you can see fairly quickly where information gets lost, where tasks are done twice, where responsibilities aren’t entirely clear, or where unnecessary steps have accumulated.
Often they’re not huge problems. They’re many small things that barely register in isolation. But added together, they cost time every day — and sometimes money too.
Formation4You: Where does revenue potential most often go untapped in the service department?
Mark: Very often right there in the customer conversation and during vehicle intake.
It’s not about selling the customer as much as possible. It’s about looking more carefully and asking the right questions: is there additional need? Are there wear-and-tear jobs coming up? Are there services that would genuinely make sense for this customer?
A lot of potential is lost because in the stress of daily life, only the actual customer job gets processed. And yet there’s a big difference between ‘selling something’ and ‘identifying a need’. For me, that’s one of the most important points in service.
Formation4You: What do you bring back from your operational assignments into the training room?
Mark: These assignments are extremely valuable to me because they keep me connected to the reality of the business.
As a trainer, it’s easy to teach an ideal process. On paper it works beautifully. But in reality, you might have ten customers at once in the morning, the phone is ringing, a team member is absent, a part is missing, and two customers want their vehicle back earlier.
When I work regularly in that environment myself, I can tell very quickly which training content actually holds up — and where theory and practice diverge.
It also lets me argue more credibly in training. I’m not just explaining how something should theoretically work — I know the situation from the inside and I know where the difficulties lie.
Formation4You: What does that mean for how good training should be designed?
Mark: In the training room, conditions are usually ideal. In a real operation, you add time pressure, interruptions, staff shortages, and unexpected situations. What was perhaps an eight-step process becomes four very quickly.
That doesn’t mean the training is wrong. The real question is: how do we integrate the important elements into daily life in a way that still works under real conditions?
That, for me, is where it’s decided whether training actually has an effect in practice.
Good service advising doesn’t just show up when everything goes to plan. It shows up precisely when staff are missing, the diary is full, and quality, customer satisfaction, and revenue all still need to be kept in view.
That’s exactly why at Formation4You we combine training with genuine operational experience. Our Solution Builders don’t just know the service environment from case studies — they know it from the inside.
Want to develop your service advising? Talk to us. Together we’ll work out what your operation actually needs right now.