OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Choosing an Organization Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Identify an organization and situation you want to study over the remainder of the course.
2. Describe the organization and the situation

Complete the following making sure to support your ideas and cite from the textbook and other
course materials per APA guidelines. After the peer review, you have a chance to update this and
format for your Electronic Portfolio due in Module 6.

1) Name and describe your organization.

I used to work at a Dodge dealership that has been open for quite some time. They have four
main departments, sales, finance, service and parts. The sales department is in the front and are
in charge of helping the customer find a car that meets all their needs. Then there is the finance
department that helps with the loans and the actual purchase of the vehicle and any other
coverage. The service department is usually in the back of the dealership and consists of the
service advisors and technicians. The service advisors are there as a middleman between the
customer and technicians and are supposed to sell services for the technicians to complete. We
work closely with the Parts department that coordinates with us for all materials that we need
daily.

2) Describe your role in the organization (it can be an internal or external role).

I had started off as an appointment coordinator when I first started off at the Dodge dealership. I
was quickly offered a spot as a service advisor in the service department. Service advisors are in
charge of greeting the customers as they drive into the service lanes. We had to identify what the
customer came in for and recommend services they were due for by mileage. Then we had to
enter in all information into a repair order that the parts department could look at to determine
what parts were needed. The technicans were also able to see what services needed to be
completed on each car. As I mentioned, the service advisors are essentially the middle man
between the customers and the technicians that perform the work. So when the technican would
inspect the car for their issues, the service advisor has to determine the price based off the hours
the technician says it is and how much the parts will be. Then I have to inform the customer and
try to sell the repair and any other services that the technicians recommend. After all services are
completed for each car we had to take payment, complete out the repair order on the computer
and return the car back to the customer. We would get about ten to twenty cars through out the
day. These could span from just oil changes to sometimes having to replace an engine, which
could take a few days to a week for the technican to finish.
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 3) Describe the situation, including information you think the will help the reader
understand the most important elements of the situation. (This will require
selectivity: part of the art of case writing is separating the essential facts from the
mass of information that might be included).

As a new service advisor and a female in a male dominated industry, the transition from
answering calls to becoming a service advisor wasn’t easy. A part of our pay plan was customer
surveys that went out to every customer after their service. If you did not get a perfect score, it
was considered a bad review and if you got one you could not reach the top pay bracket for the
pay period. When I worked as the appointment coordinator I was always disappointed in the
service advisors for not being very engaging with customers, making them wait to be greeted,
and not staying organized. So when I became a service advisor I wanted to be better and took on
all customers when no one else wanted to. This made me fall behind and eventually led to bad
reviews and me getting in trouble with my boss. Eventhough sometimes the reviews wouldn’t
even be about me, and the customer would complain about the car itself, or how they were lied to
by the people that sold them the car.

No matter what I did and how hard I tried there would always be at least one that would
bring me down. I found out that the rest of the service advisors were erasing customers email
addresses to prevent them from getting a survey and to avoid getting a bad review. Although this
would have prevented me from getting in trouble with my boss I did not feel right doing this.
This ultimately got me demoted to express lane advisor and I was only in charge of oil changes. I
ultimately really flourished in this position but I don’t know if that is because it was less
responsibilities or I was just more experienced by this time but it was a real shot to my pride.