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Why your top service advisor sells more

In Kimoby's data, a top-10% advisor sells about $760,000 more customer-pay work a year than a typical one, the advisor in the middle of the pack. Even inside one store, with the same techs and labor rate, the gap is 53% in the US (32% in Canada).

It's not hours, and it's not what your advisors say in their texts. It's how many cars leave with a job over $500.

About 84% of the 8 million repair orders behind this come from Canadian stores, so treat the US numbers as directional.

Published October 2026. US dollars unless marked C$. Not legal or tax advice

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$760,000

more customer-pay sales a year, top-10% US advisor vs a typical one, in Kimoby's data. About C$680,000 in Canada.

29 vs 17

cars out of 100 that leave with a job over $500, top-10% US advisor vs a typical one. 31 vs 22 in Canada.

74%

of the difference in average ticket between US advisors comes from the store, not the advisor. 83% in Canada.

The short version

  1. 1Your best advisors don't work more hours. They turn more cars into jobs over $500: 29 out of 100 in the US, against 17 for a typical advisor.
  2. 2Top advisors already write about 2 more of those a day. One more a day is worth about $360,000 a year in sales, per advisor.
  3. 3Their jobs over $500 are also bigger. Getting your other advisors there is worth about $88,000 a year each.
  4. 4Pay your advisors for those jobs, and drop the clauses that make your best ones leave.
  5. 564% of estimates texted to customers never get an answer on record, even in stores on Kimoby. The one-hour rule is what fixes it.

What top advisors do differently. It's the big jobs.

Your top advisor writes about as many small jobs as everyone else, about 1,100 a year. The difference is how many cars leave with a customer-pay job over $500. We'll call that a big job.

Cars that leave with a big job, out of 100

Full-time advisors, closed ROs, November 1, 2025 to October 8, 2026

Typical advisorTop 10%

United States

Typical17
Top 10%29

Canada

Typical22
Top 10%31

Their big jobs are also bigger: $1,602 against $1,500 in the US, and C$1,626 against C$1,429 in Canada.

Where the sales gap comes from

Customer-pay sales a year, top-10% advisor vs a typical one

United States, $762,000 in all

More big jobs$622,000
Bigger big jobs$88,000
Small jobs$52,000

Canada, C$676,000 in all

More big jobsC$490,000
Bigger big jobsC$176,000
Small jobsC$10,000

It's not extra hours

Top-10% advisors work about as many days a year as typical ones. In the US, they actually work fewer.

It holds in your store too

Take stores with three or more full-time advisors. The top advisor writes more big jobs a day than the middle one in 97% of US stores and 86% of Canadian stores. Jobs over $500 make up 94% of the sales gap between them.

The store matters more than the advisor

Most of the difference in average ticket between advisors comes from the store they work in: 74% in the US, 83% in Canada. That's your labor rate, your brand and how your lane runs. It's also the part you control.

1. How to get more cars to a job over $500

This is most of the gap. Top-10% advisors write 2.1 (US) and 1.3 (Canada) more big jobs every working day, on top of the same small jobs.

  • Customers don't run from a bigger numberUp to $4,000, a bigger estimate gets about as many yeses as a small one. It just brings in more money.
  • Most estimates never get an answerIn Kimoby's data, 64% of digital estimates in the US and 55% in Canada never get an answer on record. When customers do answer, 70% (US) and 80% (Canada) say yes to some or all of it.
  • So the leak is the follow-upAn estimate nobody answers is a yes nobody asked for twice. That's a process problem, not an advisor problem.

One more big job a day

$360,000

a year in customer-pay sales, per advisor, at a typical big job of $1,500 over 240 working days. C$343,000 in Canada.

What to change on Monday

  1. 1Put big jobs per 100 cars on the board, by advisor, every day. A customer-pay RO over $500 counts.
  2. 2Make it a lane rule: an estimate with no answer after an hour gets a call.
  3. 3Ask for every item the tech found on the estimate, and let the customer pick.

Now, what the data can't settle. Some stores send heavy-line work to certain advisors, and we can't fully separate that out. But in the same store, the top advisor writes at least as many small jobs as the middle one, plus the big ones.

2. How to sell the whole job

The second part of the gap is the size of each big job. Your top advisor's are about 7% bigger in the US and 14% bigger in Canada.

  • Long estimates live on partial yesesOn estimates with 8 or more lines, fewer than 1 in 10 gets approved in full. About 8 in 10 of the yeses are partial. In the US, they bring in $410 per estimate, against $238 for a one-line estimate.
  • A declined job almost never comes backThe typical declined job is worth $174 in the US and C$205 in Canada. Only about 1 in 100 can be traced to a sale within six months.
  • It's not the scriptWe compared advisors' texts in the same store. The highest-ticket advisor writes like the lowest-ticket one. They're as likely to include a price (8%) and as likely to ask for a yes (7% to 9%). What goes on the estimate matters more than the words in the text.

Big jobs as big as your top 10%'s

$88,000

a year in customer-pay sales, per typical advisor. C$176,000 in Canada.

What to change on Monday

  1. 1Make line-by-line estimates the standard, safety items first, each line priced on its own.
  2. 2Give declined work an owner. Someone follows up at 30 days, with the photo.
  3. 3Have advisors check past declines before every write-up.

One thing to keep in mind. Cars that need more work make bigger estimates. The data shows customers don't shy away from a bigger estimate. It can't show that a longer estimate makes a car need more. Coach your advisors to recommend what the tech found, and nothing more.

3. What your advisor pay plan should reward

Your pay plan tells your advisors what matters. If big jobs are most of the gap, the plan should reward them. And it shouldn't punish your best people for things they don't control.

  • CSI can swing an advisor's %One 2026 job posting pays 4.75% of sales below the CSI target and 5.5% for the top 10% of CSI. For a typical US advisor, that's about $6,400 a year for the same work.
  • A few surveys decide itWith 10 surveys a month, two scores under a 10 can drop an advisor below target. Without a minimum sample, CSI pay is mostly luck.
  • Photos and video help the scoreIn the J.D. Power 2026 CSI Study, customers rated their advisor highest when they got photos or video during the work: 907 out of 1,000 in mass market and 928 in premium. Only about 1 in 4 mass-market customers get them.
  • Selling more won't cost you customersIn the same store, customers of the highest-ticket advisor come back about as often as customers of the lowest-ticket one.

What you're competing with

$115,869

a year for a top-10% US advisor. A typical one makes $69,284. In Canada: C$117,216 and C$79,693. That's who you're trying to keep.

Sources: NADA 2021 Dealership Workforce Study (2020 data, the most recent free US numbers), CADA 2026 National Workforce Study (2025 data).

What real plans look like

What to compare What published plans show
Commission on sales 4.75% to 6.2% of RO sales (a 2026 job posting and a sample plan hosted by NADA)
What CSI is worth Moves the rate 0.5 to 0.75 points, or adds 0.5% to 1% of sales
All advisor pay, whole department 12% to 14% of labor gross profit (NCM Associates, 2022)

Building or fixing a plan? Our guide walks through it: how to build a service advisor pay plan. To see what a draft plan pays an advisor in a normal month and a slow one, run it through the pay plan calculator.

Pay plan clauses that cost you your best advisors

Your top advisors read their plan more closely than anyone. These are the clauses they leave over, and what to do instead.

  • The plan changes whenever targets get hitOne advisor put it plainly: "As soon as I hit my goals, they change the pay plan again."

    InsteadPut the plan in writing, with notice before any change.

  • Open ROs are lost if they leaveA sample plan hosted by NADA pays only when the RO is fully closed, and only if the advisor still works there.

    InsteadSay in writing how open ROs are paid on a transfer or a departure.

  • A draw that turns into debtA short month follows the advisor into the next one, and a new advisor can start in the hole.

    InsteadSpell out if a shortfall carries over, and for how long.

  • CSI with no minimum sampleOn some OEM surveys only a perfect score counts. A former dealer put it plainly: an 8 or a 9 "does the dealer or salesperson no good."

    InsteadSet a minimum number of surveys before CSI moves pay.

  • Chargebacks nobody definedSomeone else decides what was the advisor's fault.

    InsteadWrite down who decides a comeback is theirs, and how it's charged.

  • A cap on earningsYour best advisor's best month gets cut off at the top.

    InsteadIf big jobs are what you want, don't cap them.

Know the floor

In the US, service advisors are exempt from federal overtime (Encino Motorcars v. Navarro, 2018), but minimum wage still applies. In Canada, it depends on the province. In Ontario and Quebec, commission pay still has to reach minimum wage. This isn't legal advice, so check with your labor office or your lawyer.

Questions managers ask

How much more does a top service advisor sell?

In Kimoby's data from about 8 million repair orders (November 2025 to October 2026), a top-10% US service advisor sells about $760,000 more customer-pay work a year than a typical one: $1.62 million against $856,000. In Canada, where most of the data is, the gap is about C$680,000. Inside one store, the top advisor sells 53% more than the middle one in the US and 32% more in Canada.

What percentage of digital estimates get approved?

In Kimoby's data, 64% of digital estimates in the US and 55% in Canada never get an answer on record. When customers do answer, 70% in the US and 80% in Canada approve some or all of the work. On estimates with 8 or more lines, fewer than 1 in 10 is approved in full, and most of the yeses are partial.

Do service advisors who text more sell more?

Not inside the same store. In Kimoby's data, advisors who send more texts or more videos don't sell more than their peers in the same store. The highest-ticket advisor's texts look like the lowest-ticket advisor's. What separates them is how many cars leave with a job over $500.

Why do some service advisors have a higher average RO?

Mostly because of the store. In Kimoby's data, 74% of the difference in average ticket between US advisors comes from the store they work in (83% in Canada): its labor rate, its brand and how the service lane runs. Inside one store, top advisors pull ahead by turning more cars into jobs over $500.

What should a service advisor pay plan reward?

Jobs over $500. In Kimoby's data, they make up 93% of the sales gap between a typical US advisor and the top 10%. Published plans pay 4.75% to 6.2% of RO sales. Put the plan in writing, set a minimum number of surveys before CSI moves pay, and don't cap earnings.

Where Kimoby fits

The data in this report comes from Service Lane OS, used by 1,000+ dealerships in Canada and the US. Your advisors text customers and send inspection videos and line-by-line estimates from the repair order. Customers approve and pay from their phone.

We'll say this plainly, because we checked. Inside one store, the advisors who text more or send more videos don't sell more than their peers. And the 64% of estimates nobody answers come from stores already on Kimoby. The tools won't sort your advisors, and sending the estimate isn't enough. The one-hour rule is what gets it answered.

With Kimoby, your advisors see which estimates are still waiting on an answer, declined lines stay on file for the next visit, and you hear about a low score on your follow-up survey while there's still time to fix it.

7 minHalf of digital approvals come back within 7 minutes.
11 minHalf of text payments land within 11 minutes.

See your team's gap in dollars

Type last month's numbers into the scorecard. It works out each advisor's big jobs per 100 cars, and what closing the gap to your top advisor is worth in a year. The 30-day plan comes with it.

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Want to see your own store's numbers next to these? Book a demo and a Kimoby rep will run them with you.

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How the numbers were built, limits and sources

How the numbers were built

  • Window. Closed repair orders from November 1, 2025 to October 8, 2026, a little over 11 months, pulled on October 7 and 8, 2026. Estimate timing covers mid-February 2026 onward. The return rate uses visits from November 2024 to October 2025.
  • Currency. Amounts are kept in each store's local currency and not converted. Benchmarks are shown by country.
  • Typical and top 10%. Advisors are ranked on customer-pay sales within their country. Typical is the 45th to 55th percentile, top 10% the 88th to 92nd. Sales and job counts are annualized. The split of the sales gap comes from a commission split at 5% of customer-pay sales, converted back to sales.
  • Advisor. The person in the service advisor role on the RO, counted per dealership. Full-time means 1,500 or more closed ROs and at least 500 customer-pay ROs in the window. Express-lane writers are left out of the rankings.
  • Big job. A customer-pay RO over $500 (C$500 in Canada). A working day is a day the advisor opened at least one RO. One more big job a day uses 240 working days.
  • Same-store comparison. Stores with three or more full-time advisors, or four or more where the report says so. The store's top advisor is compared with its middle advisor.
  • Estimates. Digital estimates sent in the window. A yes means approved in full or in part. "No answer on record" includes some estimates answered by phone or at the counter.
  • Declined work. Counted as recovered when the same customer approves the same op code within six months. This undercounts.
  • Texts. Texts typed by advisors from October 2 to 8, 2026, automated messages left out.

Limits

  • Correlation, not proof. Cars that need more work make bigger estimates, and some stores route heavy-line work to certain advisors.
  • One platform's dealers. About 84% of the closed repair orders come from Canadian stores. They aren't a random sample of all dealers. The US top-10% figures rest on a small group of advisors, so treat them as directional.
  • Sources vary in age. The most recent free US advisor pay data covers 2020.

Sources