Special Event: Ask Us Anything!

In this special Q&A episode, we answer questions from shop owners like you on a wide range of topics with our expert panel of experts! Uwe and I will are joined by John Long from Schertz Automotive and Adam Bendzick from Pro Service Automotive.

Episode Transcript

*This transcript was generated using Artificial Intelligence. Errors may occur. If you notice an error, please contact [email protected].

Tom Dorsey (00:00:02):
Good morning and good afternoon. Welcome to this week’s edition of The Digital Shop Radio I’m, and today we’ve got a great episode. We’re doing an Ask us anything edition episode with the expert panel of experts. And so I want to welcome back John Long from Schertz Automotive, Adam Bendzick from Pro Services Automotive and Uwe Kleinschmidt, our founder, and CIO three of our four experts on our expert panel of experts. We still miss Bill Connor. And Bill, if you’re watching or listening, we miss you buddy. Hope to talk to you soon, but let’s dig right in. So if you remember from last week, we were talking with JR and Fred and we were going through some KPIs and some analysis in the VCP and we got a lot of feedback on that. People wanted to see a little bit deeper. So we’re going to start you off today, who was going to kick us off and we’re going to pick it up from there.
(00:00:54):
And we’re going to talk about what are we looking for, what are we looking at and what do we do with what we find? And we’re going to go through maybe some KPIs that you’re not used to using yet or you haven’t discovered yet in your business control panel and give you some insights on what that for you. So let’s get it started. Again, welcome gentlemen, appreciate you coming on, looking forward to a lively show. And if you’ve got questions, go ahead and start chatting ’em in. We’re going to cover again, it’s an ask me Anything episode. I mean, we kind of want to keep it close to PG as much as possible, but nothing’s off the table. So if you’re interested in what Adam’s favorite flavor of Lollipop is or how long John Long’s been growing that beard, knock it out, right? Chat away and I’ll keep my eye on those chats and we’ll get those questions answered live for you on the air. Let’s get started. Uwe, if you could, and let’s dig into some data.
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:01:47):
Bubble gum, by the
Tom Dorsey (00:01:48):
Way, Tom. Oh yeah, yeah.
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:01:50):
Bubble
Tom Dorsey (00:01:50):
Gum. Lollipops are for kids.
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:01:55):
Unreal, all kids. Good morning. Happy to pick it up. Where we left it off, it was really interesting last week, the moment we started showing some KPIs and graphs of JR’s shop, all of a sudden the chat became super lively. So we thought let’s pick it up there. And if you remember, and I’m going to share my screen now and hope technology is going to support me, let me know whether you can see it. So this is Concourse Motors JR Shop and we were talking about how back shop and front office work together and how to measure it. And so we talked about number of recommendations given by the tech and then the estimate to recommendation rate, meaning how many of those recommendations the tax are making actually land on the estimate. And last but not least, how many of those get sold and don’t be discouraged by his high ARO?
(00:03:17):
He is European, he’s an European shop, right? So the reference line, it should be 700 at least up, but we are not talking about the absolute number. We’re going to look at trends and correlations. And so the theory is encourage the text to make as many recommendations they show up on the TVP and the service advisor presses their work order update button, at least for the point of sales where we support it and Adam and John use Protractor. The same point of sale JR is using. And then a hundred percent of the recommendations are on the estimate by one button press. And so we checked out and saw, if you remember, his estimate to recommendation rate was 25%, which is extremely low. So something is not right. So was there a step missing in setting it up? Is there some hidden procedure the service advisor is doing which is not per best practice? So we want to dig in a little bit in, I want to show of really quick what would
Tom Dorsey (00:04:48):
Be a good estimate to recommendation rate If 25% is really low, what’s the ballpark?
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:04:56):
I’d say minimum 60 a hundred percent is probably not possible. There’s always an outlier, but if you want to start and have a good starting line, 60% should be it. And why is it all important? Are we just try to hammer a procedure with no value just to follow a process? I, it’s really interesting. Let me zoom in a little bit here on the BCP for JR. You can see when you look at this October 11th week, his ARO is 962 beating his goal, which is Rachel Low. I think that’s a hint for Shay maybe to talk to JR. The sales to estimate rate 55% grade estimate to recommendation better than JR’s average. And the number of recommendations six per vehicle six is kind of at the lower end. The point I’m trying to make is if you look at the whole correlation across the board, you see the ARO is suffering if one of those components is not high, if everything comes together like here or here, if everything is kind of in a balance, you are scoring an awesome ARO. If that should be the takeaway. It is all about establishing a good process where the recommendation recommended actions, sales to estimate rate or estimate to recommendation rate and sales to estimate rate or in the exact right balance, that’s
Tom Dorsey (00:07:16):
Really going to give you an indication if the front and the back are jelling.
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:07:20):
Right? And so let’s take it to the next level. So what are the options here? Why this is not such a great estimate? The recommendation rate, any guesses?
Adam Bendzick (00:07:40):
The 47%,
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:07:42):
The 25, yeah, but this means only a quarter of the recommendations made by made the technicians, which are service packages in this case because it’s make it to the estimate. If I as a technician look at this and say, why am I putting all this work in? So what are potential options why this is not 60% or higher?
Adam Bendzick (00:08:17):
Jake? Yeah, I think even 60% can be low as well.
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:08:23):
I agree.
Adam Bendzick (00:08:24):
You have to have a barometer to go off of. So ours is generally right around 80%, excuse me, plus or minus a little bit. And case in point yesterday I was bidding out control arm bushings and ball joints. We have two separate can jobs that are in inspection for each one of those individual things. But then as we would know, you might as well just replace the whole control arm so that it’s one job. So in that case the technician marked two things and then we ended up selling just item. And if I was going to be really anal about it, I could go back to an inspection and uncheck one or whatever it might be. But those are the things that kind of bring our percentage down a little bit. But I still think even with that stuff, 80% should almost be your goal. Try to hit that or go higher,
Tom Dorsey (00:09:14):
That 300% rule, right? Yeah,
John Long (00:09:16):
I mean I agree. Yeah, exactly what Tom was just bringing up, what Frank Scando points out the 300% rule estimate a hundred percent of everything and then present a hundred percent of everything to the customer on that. But yeah, it sounds like maybe they don’t have a canned job set up properly or they could be doing what Adam’s doing, not deleting if you have two jobs that are combined into one when you sell it, not deleting the second one out. But I would suspect probably canned jobs aren’t set up properly would be what I would think.
Tom Dorsey (00:09:48):
Yeah, and Bill Connor in the chat is agreeing say can jobs not being used using different jobs than the tech selected and not editing it?
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:09:58):
So for everybody, I really want to make that point, right? It’s not necessarily a fault of any person. This is, I just picked one topic of JR’s inspection sheet for drive belts, right? He has two can jobs for all those many conditions. So there’s a high likelihood that the number of can jobs slash service packages, it’s just not high enough to account for all the different conditions which can happen during the inspection. So what happens more often than not is the service advisor looks at the condition and creates a service package by Theil, was packaged by themselves
Tom Dorsey (00:10:48):
Instead of saving it as a canned package and then input correct
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:10:54):
Into inspection
Tom Dorsey (00:10:55):
Sheet. Adding it into the inspection.
Adam Bendzick (00:10:57):
Exactly. Well that’s absolutely a, not to knock on it, but that’s actually absolutely a setup issue. I mean the technician is like they select at our place, they just select the condition. They’re not going over the recommended action and sifting through there. It’s all set up ahead of time. So for JR as his example, not an easy fix because it takes some time to get those jobs on there, but it’s once it’s fixed, the solution going from 25 to 80 90 plus percent will happen overnight for him.
John Long (00:11:29):
Yeah, don’t get me started on the easy fix because it’s not an easy fix.
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:11:33):
It’s not an easy fix, but it’s worthwhile.
Tom Dorsey (00:11:36):
You’re digging
John Long (00:11:37):
It
Tom Dorsey (00:11:38):
The spoon,
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:11:39):
Right? Say again?
Tom Dorsey (00:11:42):
I said it’s easier than digging a ditch with a spoon.
John Long (00:11:45):
I don’t know about that. I
Tom Dorsey (00:11:46):
Sit with Gatorade next to you at least or something.
Adam Bendzick (00:11:53):
I mean John and I have both spent a lot of time doing that and I know he would say it’s worthwhile. Yes, it’s a tedious task that takes a bit of time obviously, but it’s something that you do hopefully one time adjust it periodically and you’re not having to hammer it out repetitively.
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:12:12):
Correct. So just for the audience to compare, so this is John’s same KPIs,
John Long (00:12:24):
Let’s see, which shop is this one?
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:12:26):
The 3 0 0 9. Okay,
John Long (00:12:29):
That’s alright. Yeah, that’s the older shop.
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:12:32):
Okay. Yes. And you can see the estimate to recommendation is 89% on average and also the technicians do 10 more recommendations per vehicle. Right? So John, you master created a process in your shop where the technicians embrace that tremendously. And then the sales estimate rate is about 44%, which I consider extremely high given the fact that so many recommendations make it to the estimate. And then if we look at Adam’s shop, very similar estimate to recommendation rate, 81% over the last 90 days, 13 recommendations on average. And interesting, Adam, if you wouldn’t mind sharing with us is in the last 90 days and a tremendous shift from upwards what happened and then sales to estimate rate 51%, right? Those are the numbers which really embody what we like to recommend. And so yes, it’s tedious to set it up, but would you gentlemen mind talking about how many service packages did you end up defining once the concept has been embraced in addition to what you had before and how did you introduce it in your shop? What was the response by technicians as well as sales advisors? And
Tom Dorsey (00:14:25):
Real quick I want to add in a couple of questions from the audience to Sergio Garcia is asking, is it possible for the general service text to build a strong and accurate estimate that we not only import the recommendations but the micro URLs for any actions that were deferred? If you could address that, and also Tony Thunderberg is saying, as a Mitchell team user, it seems that we should go through all of our can jobs. They’re used in kits to that when the kit is sold, it has the same canned job in AutoVitals. So if you can just address that as well as how you guys got set up and around that.
Adam Bendzick (00:15:03):
Yeah. Could I start with Sergio’s question kind of from there and then it’ll probably lead into the other one a little bit.
Tom Dorsey (00:15:10):
Yeah, of course. Oh, I’m sorry, Tony on Rachel team, it’s Max tracks she put MT and I was just first thing that came to hit.
Adam Bendzick (00:15:18):
So for the general service techs, I think absolutely, I mean you still have to have the production manager, service advisor, whatever your shop setup is on the backend that is somewhat auditing that because they’re going to be probably talking to the customer anyway. But literally with this can job set up properly and then depending on what your point of sale system is, those can jobs come over and if you have the pricing set up appropriately in the point of sale system with little placeholders for air filters and wiper blades and different things like that that are just kind of like a flat line price through your vendors, there’s 90% if not more of the stuff that’s on our inspection that is pre estimated just with the click of updating the work order from the technician’s inspection. I mean it’s almost turned into where editing the inspection, adding your arrows, your notes, whatever might not be there already is almost building estimate for you because you’re choosing the right can jobs if they didn’t, but in reality it pre-fills in the can job that based on the condition. So it’s building the estimate as the tech is doing the inspection in my mind.
John Long (00:16:30):
Yeah, I would’ve to agree with that. I know you’ve asked the question, how many jobs did we end up with? I have no idea how many we ended up with over what was originally in Protractor or even just any system. If we see a need for a job, we add it just plain and simple. Our inspection’s a living document just like our management system or canned jobs or their living documents, we add ’em as we kind of go and add ’em in there. So yeah, that’s the key is just continually setting up and not just doing it once and forgetting about it because if you add jobs over the course of a year and you don’t add ’em to your inspection, then that does you no good.
Tom Dorsey (00:17:15):
And can you, I’m sorry John, go ahead
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:17:21):
John. How did you, I mean the tech and the service advisors were on board immediately or how was there some insight going
John Long (00:17:31):
On? No, I would say they were all on board immediately just because of the use of the system. Once it’s set up, if you don’t have it set up properly, then you can have some, I guess disagreements between the front and the back. But just because the ease of the use when it’s set up, like Adam mentioned earlier, our tech select a condition, it automatically selects the action, so it’s limiting some steps there and then when we bring everything over, it’s already there. So it’s just a very easy way to do it with canned jobs, especially with Protractor. I know some of the other systems are very similar, but canned jobs just make everything so simple and easy.
Tom Dorsey (00:18:09):
So if you could talk a little bit about how you maintain that. So we talked about, yeah, there’s some work in the front to get it done, but then now what happens when you need to add a new canned job? You need to adjust a can job that’s existing because I think this happens is I’m super busy, I go in and I fix it in the point of sale. What do I have to do to make sure that it updates the AutoVitals and what’s your timeframe around that?
John Long (00:18:33):
Well, I know for Protractor there’s a button that says update our can jobs and it’s usually 15, 20 minutes after that. We can go in there and update the inspection or you can wait overnight and it does it automatically myself and pretty much my right hand man, Edgar, that helps me implement things. Him and I are constantly updating that inspection usually two or three times a week. This morning I went in and updated a couple things in it just because I saw some things that I wasn’t liking, so I changed a few things around on it. So it’s just a matter of just constantly doing it and not forgetting about it.
Tom Dorsey (00:19:11):
Yeah, yeah. It’s got to be built into the process that you have to do that update. You don’t want to build a bunch of stuff in the point of sale that you’re not adding over here and then you just start using it less because it now the service rider has a whole bunch of workarounds to make his estimate and then he just stops.
John Long (00:19:27):
Yeah,
Tom Dorsey (00:19:28):
It’s really important that you keep it up to date
John Long (00:19:31):
And just almost what Bill mentioned in the chat is anytime we see a technician that has to manually type something in, we create a can job for it. Or if we get a technician saying, Hey, do we have a canned job for this somewhere in there and then we look into Protractor and see if it’s there and then if it is, we add it to our inspection. If it’s not, we add it to Protractor then add it to our inspection because the less work they have to do, the more recommendations they’re going to make because it’s quicker and easier for them.
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:19:58):
And do the tech trigger that process and say, Hey, I had to type too much or is it your lunch and learn feedback or how does
John Long (00:20:05):
It roll? No, they’re constantly sending us chat messages in. That’s part of the process that we have with them is to say, Hey, if you guys see something that’s not there, send us a message and we’ll get it added immediately. And that’s just part of our process. It’s not a wait a week later, then we talk about it because people are going to forget about it a week later. They may write it down or they may send it in and I may write it down and who knows what’s going to happen. It’s immediate action for us
Tom Dorsey (00:20:31):
And it’s empowering to the team. Accountability goes both ways,
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:20:35):
Right?
Adam Bendzick (00:20:35):
And it’s kind of a combined effort in some of that for us where the technician is sending a message just like John is, but then too is the tech is still picking a recommended action. I still want ’em to have something on there so that the notes and the URL and everything gets carried over to the work order and from there, if that package doesn’t match what they’re actually calling for, the service advisor will see it too. They’ll be like, why are they saying suspension general service and this is an exhaust thing that’s needed or whatever it might be. I mean that’s maybe completely off the wall, but those notes coming over, if the package that they’re trying to estimate doesn’t match what the tech is calling for, I mean that’s another opportunity for the service advisor to catch it too.
Tom Dorsey (00:21:14):
Yeah, yeah. And Sergio Garza is saying that they build a capacity to personalize those canned jobs. An example would be oil change versus service A in the pricing and the parts match. It’s less work for the service writer. And also I’ve got a question from Jake Decker and he’s saying, would you recommend having multiple canned jobs, for example, calipers pads and rotors and another ones for just pads and rotors?
John Long (00:21:38):
Oh yes, definitely. We do it. We have all those, a hundred percent it.
Adam Bendzick (00:21:43):
Ours are add-ons and the main reason is just on the tech end of it is we have the set brake pad and rotor timeframe package, whatever it might be, and then it’s like add calipers and calipers has its own predefined time, which is adjustable obviously depending on the car, but it’s its own service package so that the tech can just click on that item, it fills in the recommended action and then it brings it over to the work order. Just sometimes the only one why, what we run into where we don’t have necessarily that predefined is we have our front tires and our rear tires on a separate topic on the inspection and a lot of times we run into where they say mountain balance two tires, mountain balance, two tires, but then we actually want ’em to mount balance four tires. I want to make it easy for the technician that they can just click on stuff and if you have it as one big package, I think they almost have to then maybe click off of something to click on the other thing. And I just want it just so that they can just tap, tap, tap all the way through.
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:22:49):
Adam, back to, if you can see here the last 90 days, your recommendations tripled,
Adam Bendzick (00:22:59):
Right? Yeah. I mean I’m guessing you probably have an idea as to what OI that might be.
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:23:06):
I have no idea.
Adam Bendzick (00:23:08):
It is. It’s guided mode inspection. I mean.
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:23:10):
Oh, I see. Very cool. You got set up for that one, you got set up. I knew it was coming. It’s awesome.
Adam Bendzick (00:23:20):
I was planning on talking about it. I mean it really is. It took a long time to set it up and we don’t even have our entire shop doing it. We have two guys in the back out of the four that are doing guided mode inspections and literally it’s led to a lot more recommended actions and what I would say is it’s not like they’re just finding all this more stuff. It’s just the inspections are more accurate. I don’t think that they’re doing more, we didn’t add a bunch of topics or anything like that. It’s just they’re not missing the little button presses of Yes, I need four tires or yes, I need those calipers or whatever it might be it in. So there’s less work on the service visors end to make sure that stuff’s there and the entire process is more thorough and more accurate. So I just don’t want to give the impression that all of a sudden we’re at five recommended actions, now we’re at 15 and our guys weren’t checking the stuff very well, not the case. They did that thorough. It’s literally just the accuracy of what guided mode has brought to us.
Tom Dorsey (00:24:22):
Yeah, bill said, bingo, advanced approval and retention mode for the win. GIO said process is king,
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:24:29):
Right? So I think we have to talk a little bit about guided what it means.
John Long (00:24:33):
Oh, okay. Let’s go here.
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:24:37):
For those who haven’t, I haven’t heard about it. So guided is a new mode we implemented with a new TVPX version, which is meant to make it as the name says, easier for the tech because the ultimate goal is all the tech needs to do is select a condition and get guided what picture to take and that’s it. And then go through all the topics one by one it shaves off very precious time, but also very important since the notes for the customer automatically added, we will never run into a creative spelling or similar problems, but you can still over edit the notes. But in the ideal world are trying to approach is the tech is just tap, picture, arrow, move, tap, picture, error, move, right? It is really, really straightforward and simple. Setting up is not as simple. Adam alluded to it,
John Long (00:25:57):
No,
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:26:00):
Nothing
Tom Dorsey (00:26:00):
Good is easy,
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:26:02):
But the payoff is tremendous. On the other hand, Adam, that’s the number if I’m not mistaken. Oh, look at John. He’s at 25 now. So he started at 10, ended up at 25 in the last 90 days. John, do you want to talk about that? Well, that’s also guided,
John Long (00:26:29):
But I want to say that that hasn’t come with without it some frustrations on its own. But yes, I would say it is part of guided. I know at first not everybody at that shop was using, but I just got a notification that now everybody is using guided over there. But yeah, there’s still some things to work out through guided
Adam Bendzick (00:26:51):
For sure. Oh yeah,
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:26:53):
I’d be happy to do that. Right? But
Adam Bendzick (00:26:55):
It’s not gauging efficiency level in comparison. It’s gauging the recommended actions for a vehicle. And I’m not saying it’s a lot less efficient, but it’s a work in progress is probably the best way to describe it.
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:27:08):
We will take the challenge.
Adam Bendzick (00:27:10):
Yeah, for sure. I mean it’s another thing that is worthwhile, the setup and everything like that. I think it’s worthwhile going through there and getting a guided mode inspection and getting everybody on board to do it, especially when it comes down to the carry forward part of it here in a bit. I mean that’s going to be just something that’s awesome. We take VIN sticker pictures every single time for build dates and tire sizes and all those things. That’s a one-time thing now where we did it every single time before. So there are benefits that we haven’t quite seen yet that we will in short time.
John Long (00:27:46):
And like Bill just mentioned, there’s some things on guided that can be actions that are just more so notes and not leading to money in every case. And we have that same thing too. There’s a lot of actions that we have set up that are just kind of notes for the customer, not necessarily actions on it. So that could be a little bit of an increase there as well. But it does take our techs a little bit longer to do a guided inspection, but they are a little bit more accurate and a little bit more thorough because of that. Once we get the last few remaining things taken care of with Carlo and get those implemented, I think we should go back to a normal time for what we had before, guided on our inspection time, if not maybe a little quicker, even
Tom Dorsey (00:28:31):
Even faster should
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:28:32):
Be.
Tom Dorsey (00:28:34):
I mean that’s the goal. The goal is to, we’ve always kind of hedged saying you do digital inspections faster than paper.
John Long (00:28:41):
Correct. But now the way it’s set up though, it is like I said, a little bit more time consuming with the picture app opening up on everything, every single thing. I don’t want a picture of every little part on a car obviously, so why does that picture app have to open up? But we’re working on that. I know Carla’s working on it, you guys are working on it and hopefully that’ll get fixed sooner than later.
Adam Bendzick (00:29:03):
He did say a few weeks ago. A few weeks ago, but
John Long (00:29:06):
I know that’s why I’m saying sooner than later.
Tom Dorsey (00:29:08):
Well, those are dog weeks buddy. Those are dog weeks.
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:29:14):
We hope the message loud and clear.
Tom Dorsey (00:29:17):
How’s that? Yeah, I’m sure Carla’s in the audience. Oh, now he just dropped off. He must be getting to work. Look at that
Adam Bendzick (00:29:25):
Crawl underneath the bus
Tom Dorsey (00:29:26):
There for a second. Racking the
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:29:30):
Cool. Before we leave that topic, I want to make another, unless there are questions, I can’t see
Tom Dorsey (00:29:37):
Them right now. Well, yeah, I mean I’ve got a transition question from Jason Yori that I want to bring in, but after this topic I just
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:29:44):
Want to round up the topic by saying can jobs are no-brainers, they should be set up and they also benefit in for the retention. And so if you, for example, look at a service reminder like this, I blew it up, it’s on mobile then the recommendations that’s actually JR’s. Oh wow. Wow. So
Tom Dorsey (00:30:18):
I’m one of his customers. I guess I have that on my phone.
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:30:21):
Yes, you should. I don’t know whether you break fluid needs work and so everything, it’s really a highly beneficial because there’s a difference in looking at just a list of technical lingo you might not understand or whether the pictures from the inspection which made the approval happen or in this case was declined will be repeated. The only thing I would say which is missing here is on the phone you would click on it and then you see something like this and the note dismissing, right? The note is gone. And so we highly recommend do picture captions by the way in guided they’re automatically created
(00:31:20):
And then it’s an impacting lasting impact on the customer. So in summary, if you want to measure how the back in the front works together, the three crucial KPIs and I’m now talking inspection, send rate and inspection rate and picture editing, all that, it’s already in the bank. You are professional at this and there’s no discussion about it anymore. This is the next step we’re looking at number of recommendations, estimate the recommendation rate and sales to estimate rate are the three tremendously important KPIs to watch because that will allow you to see how well they work together. And as we’ve shown in J O’s case, if everything is in balance, the ARO goes up. There is no doubt about it. And if the can jobs are set up correctly, the service reminders will contain all the inspection results in a way that the customer gets reminded, oh, there still the air filter has not gotten clean on the last six months and approve the jobs from the service reminder much more easily. Cool.
Tom Dorsey (00:32:53):
So real quick, I got a couple questions before we move on. Is asking how long does it take to set up guided and is there help and where do I find the help?
Adam Bendzick (00:33:10):
I think I tracked my hours and it was between 25 to 30 hours, honestly maybe more, but for sure that timeframe.
John Long (00:33:22):
Yeah, I would say ours was probably a little bit more just because I had more work to do to set mine up towards guided. I had to move a lot of actions and conditions around and topics around which created a whole nother big mess of problems. But ours was probably actually double that just because I had to pretty much redo my whole entire inspection and move things around
Adam Bendzick (00:33:47):
And I mean it was worth it after it’s all said and done. It was definitely frustrating at the time. I think part of why John spent probably more time than I did is he went back to his inspections and literally took pictures off of prior inspections to use as the example picture. I went on to Google, grabbed some pictures, did some Photoshopping, made it fit the window size and went from there. So that was a lot quicker than going back through the previous inspections to find what picture I wanted.
John Long (00:34:17):
Yeah, I mean I would say that probably did help you, but one of the things you brought up is you have to have the picture of a certain exact size, other words it won’t take it and that was pretty frustrating at times doing that, trying to find that right spot, that happy medium where that picture still looks good and is the right size
Adam Bendzick (00:34:39):
For anybody that’s taking it on download. I have a program that I use, it’s free paint.net if you put your canvas size at the aspect ratio that it’s calling for on the inspection, you can copy pictures into that and then kind of format ’em that way and then they’re good. So it just speeds the process up a lot.
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:34:59):
I want to mention two things actually. So yes, we learned from this and we are contemplating building a whole picture library, which you just select from select and then done. The other thing is there is an AutoVitals guided default inspection. So if you start out and don’t have a history of trying to use your previous inspection, you can just start with that and then it works right off the bat to test what the benefits are
Tom Dorsey (00:35:34):
Or get you started. At least start getting some technician feedback so you know what edits you shouldn’t make. There’s nothing worse than spending that 25 hours and then coming back in the text go, hey, this is worthless. It should have went left to right instead of right to left. You know what I mean? So good idea to get it in their hands and get the feedback first and then yeah,
Adam Bendzick (00:35:50):
I think though with playing the other side of the coin, just going to say is that that’s great for new shops or somebody that just wants to literally start from scratch, but if you do that, you’re starting over completely with your can jobs, your inspection history, all that stuff, the carry forward portion of it, that’s all starting from scratch again. So it’s probably worth the time in my opinion, just to take your own inspection and stick the time into doing that because you would create a whole different can of worms by starting over.
John Long (00:36:26):
I would agree doubt
Tom Dorsey (00:36:27):
About it,
John Long (00:36:28):
Especially for shops like Adam and myself, you have had that history and created all these canned jobs that could be even more specific to vehicles or just to where a shop and we didn’t want to lose those, so that’s why we headed our inspection instead of using the prebuilt guided inspection that was there.
Adam Bendzick (00:36:50):
Yep, for sure.
Tom Dorsey (00:36:51):
Cool. Jeff new mom is saying his input, some inspection points need to be able to skip the pictures,
John Long (00:36:59):
But that is in the works. That’s one of the things I’ve been hammering Carlo on
Tom Dorsey (00:37:04):
Doesn’t what he’s talking about with Carlo. Then you can go into the Facebook form and look at that whole dog fight.
John Long (00:37:10):
There’s a lot more than that on the dog fight. I
Tom Dorsey (00:37:12):
Stay away from it.
(00:37:14):
You got to be prepared to brawl. Jeff if you get in there real quick, Sean, raise his hand and I’m wondering, Sean, do you have a question you’d like, I can open your microphone buddy and you can ask it live on the air, so I’ll give you a second. If you keep your hand up I’m going to bring you in live, but while we’re doing that, Ken’s asking, just getting started with AutoVitals and Protractor combination. I’m curious as to how long it took John and Adam to get the initial services, your initial can jobs mapped over to your inspections beyond the initial provided setup.
John Long (00:37:49):
Initially I’d say I probably spent close to 20 to 30 hours initially, but I’m also very meticulous and I want to make sure everything’s there and a hundred percent so it took me some time just because of that.
Adam Bendzick (00:38:06):
That’s probably quicker than it was when John and I did it though at the time we didn’t have a quick upload. 15 minutes later the service package that you wanted came over. It was like an overnight, okay, I want this service package. Gosh, I can’t assign it to the right can job on our inspection. I had to wait for that overnight update and then now I can go back there and do that. So it would be quicker now I would think because of that,
John Long (00:38:33):
And I think especially with AutoVitals and Protractor because I think they have a default library that most of the people are getting versus me, I was the first shop with AutoVitals and Protractor, so it took me a long time to move that over and then Adam probably made the mistake because I allowed him to copy my database so he had to go in there and scrub a lot of notes that I had built into my packages
Adam Bendzick (00:38:57):
That
John Long (00:38:57):
Probably took more time than he should.
Adam Bendzick (00:38:59):
He had his website in the footer notes and stuff like that. So I’m like, yeah, I don’t need that necessarily on there, but I mean it’s still like Protractor has a good database of jobs already there, so I mean don’t think it’s like this crazy undertaking that’s like, oh my God, I’m not even going to try to do that. When you go to it, you go through the editing inspection part of it through the AutoVitals software or website and I mean you make your conditions of a dirty air filter and then you go to the search and then you type in air filter and there’s your can job. So aligning that stuff, it’s just how thorough you want to be. If you’re not as thorough as myself or John would be, you might take five or 10 hours doing it, but we are extremely anal with this stuff and that’s why it takes 30 or 35 hours. I mean I have a yellow condition for my air filter and I have a red condition for my air filter and those are two different conditions, but they lead to the same can job. I mean it’s just how far do you want to go with it?
John Long (00:40:01):
Yeah, and I would agree, but the thing though is the more thorough you are, the better your inspections could be, which could lead to the recommended actions going up and your estimate to recommendation rate going up. So they kind of go hand in hand there.
Adam Bendzick (00:40:18):
Some of that, the way that we set it up is we’re at least I am as I’m forward thinking about, okay, based on those conditions that are there, how does it view in order for the customer on their inspection, but then also how does it go in order when I update it on the work order? So I like to present the dollar values and the jobs that are needed from here’s your highest priority down to the bottom. So that’s why I have a few extra conditions because then it appears correctly on the customer view on the inspection, but then it also updates correctly on the work order. We’re not dragging and dropping jobs to get in a specific order of what we think they should first spend their money on and kind of down from there. Obviously want to try to sell everything, but customers want to know what things should I do first, what things can I wait on? And our inspection kind of leads into putting that stuff in the right order anyway.
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:41:12):
And I really want to emphasize what John said after John’s experience and others, we started working with Scott thoroughly to build a database. When you sign up for protractor, you get basically a can job library, which has already the job codes in there to map the AutoVitals default inspection and thanks to Bill as well. So you really can start, if you have never heard of it and you just started with ProTrac, reach out to Scott and ask for it.
Tom Dorsey (00:41:59):
Yeah buddy, that’s a perfect segue because I want to touch on that Ken Anderson post in the Facebook form a little bit for Protractor users in the audience and if you’re not on Protractor and you got questions specific to your point of sale, don’t think we’re just favoring ProTrac. Throw in your questions too, ask him. We’ve got plenty of people in here that are using all types of point of sales to point in the right direction to help you out. And I might even know something I think Google might know a little bit too, so don’t be shy. But real quick as a transition, I want to bring in Jason’s question. He’s been real patient was the first question we caught this morning, but he’s saying they’re transitioning into AutoVitals, so they’re new and he’s wondering how people address the pinpoint inspections that are sold after the initial inspection is done. Example, a cooling system inspection or something very specific.
John Long (00:42:48):
Adam, I think this is more kind of up your alley. You guys do more of this than I think we do the way our process works, but
Adam Bendzick (00:42:55):
Sure, so we have one base inspection and it has different levels in which it goes. So our level one inspection is the basic light checks, fluid checks, all those things. Cooling system check is there if we see any fluid leaks or anything like that. Then we have a level two that’s a little bit more like under car take wheels, off load test steering suspension and kind of go from there. But it’s all one inspection as far as if there is a fluid leak noted or some type of cooling system issue from the base inspection that is just a new service package that’s added to the work order. And then our technicians make their notes, take their pictures, videos, whatever it might be on just the work order line item. They’re not going back to the inspection and updating it there. It’s all on that service package.
(00:43:42):
There is times where the stuff kind of overlaps a little bit, meaning like today somebody came in and we were doing a brake inspection and then it was a rotor warpage and grinding issue in all those things. So sometimes the service package on the work order to check that issue, there’s notes and pictures there, but then they’ll also say see inspection. So then you go on the other inspection and then some of those notes are there as well. And it does duplicate the information, but it does carry it forward that you can just look at that inspection again the next time around. So I guess for me I would suggest just having that base inspection. If you have a secondary inspection, that’s great, but the reason that we don’t do it is because I don’t want to get two different emails, two different, some of those inspections to be lost.
(00:44:33):
I like to just keep it contained within the one initial inspection. So thinking down the road, and we’ve not done this is there’s, you can have five different columns of information. I would probably make a third or fourth column for check engine light diagnostics and your checks that you want ’em to do for every check engine, light diagnostics and if the cooling system was on its own column or whatever, make another column for that stuff but keep it in the same inspection. I’m sure other shops would probably suggest to do it a different way, but that’s just how whatever approach you want to do, if you want to keep it contained within one or you want to have separate inspections, you just got to kind of decide on that.
Tom Dorsey (00:45:10):
Yeah, and Jason’s follow up is what about QC inspections after service?
Adam Bendzick (00:45:16):
Yeah, that can be part of the base inspection or you can have a completely different inspection, kind of the same principle as another column for just quality control. And then it would be, I would personally put a service package whether it was Protractor, RO writer or any of the other ones, but there would be a job specific that was added to every work order for quality control and that somebody signed off on that and said it was a hundred percent done if you wanted as part of your inspection that they physically touch. Yes, I look for greasy fingerprints. Yes, I look for any tools or anything like that. I took it for a test drive, whatever. Yeah, definitely have that as an inspection that they have to market good down the list, but I would personally add it as a service package on the work order for them to them to do later. And that would be something that you could probably tie an inspection to based off that service package or a special marker. I think you can do it that way if you want ’em to specifically do that is that would be its own inspection, but I don’t know that you necessarily have to have a quality control inspection as part of a what was wrong with my vehicle last time I was in, I want to address those items. I don’t think it necessarily needs to tie back to that type of stuff.
John Long (00:46:29):
We do it as a work order line. We have a quality control work order line and we don’t have an inspection for it. The technicians that we do have doing quality control is mainly our two shop foremans. We do have two other a-level techs that do quality control of some of the other vehicles. That’s all built into our standard operating procedures. And so they know what they’re supposed to check every single time. Does some stuff get missed? Yes, we are human. So having that the inspection could ensure that it doesn’t get missed, but they know what they’re supposed to be checking through our standing operating procedures on that. So that’s why we don’t have an inspection tied to our quality control.
Tom Dorsey (00:47:13):
And Tony Feinberg is saying that they do it separately and it’s an internal inspection so it’s not counted in the KPIs. So that’s another optional setup for you too. And Bill’s saying that the QC inspection can be internal, but it’s great to have QC line on an order so customers see that it’s been done. And that’s a great point is that you want to look at that fully the full customer experience. Thank you, that was a great point and great question. Really appreciate that Sean saying we got some newbies in here, which is great, man, because something’s happening to where you’re in the right place. Pat yourself on the back, Sean, pat yourself on the back, Jeff, pat yourself on the back. Anybody who’s found this place, this is where you want to be friend. These guys on the Facebook forum, anybody who’s in this audience right now today, Tony Frank Scando or Bill Connor, all these folks, Sergio, because hey, you know what? You can do it hard or you could do it smart. It looks like you already figured that part out and you’re making the right connections early and it’s going to help you tremendously.
(00:48:23):
Also, I wanted to bring Jeff’s question back in. Also. Jeff had made a comment. He said, Hey, the next big ad is getting recommended maintenance schedules available on the iPads or on the tablets. So that one’s teed up. Who wants to swing? Who wants hit the fences with that one? I’d love to. Yes, I I’m sure Bill’s already typing too.
Adam Bendzick (00:48:48):
Well honestly go, I mean you don’t necessarily have to have a spot where you have a predefined maintenance schedule for us. We have maintenance, do that type of topic on our inspection and it’s actually kind of nice how it works out. The guys will say, this vehicle has 105,000 miles on it. They’ll take a look at does it look like the ignition coil has ever taken off or if does spark plug wires, do they look like OEM spark plug wires and they take a picture of it and then they make a note on there that spark plugs are likely due off of maintenance. We don’t necessarily pull a spark plug out when we haven’t been authorized by the customer to do so. But there’s little reminders or those little nuggets of potential upsell type things that you can put in there and they can just mark ’em off. And the technicians are smart. They know that a tune up on such and such vehicles, usually on a hundred thousand miles or 80,000 miles or a timing belt’s due at a hundred thousand miles, they know a rough idea of when it’s due. Do we need to pinpoint it down to the exact mileage? Probably not. If you’re around that area, why not start talking about it at least?
Tom Dorsey (00:50:01):
Yeah. Is OE em wrecks are great condition-based inspection based on actual skilled techs recommendations is even greater and is we are currently working on our own custom inspection. We work on heavy, medium and light duty diesel trucks only. Yeah, so that’s fantastic, right, is you’re going to have exactly that as your own specific inspection to your operation and as you go through and set up and then build it out and then you can also share that. So I would recommend Sean take a look in the inspection library. There’s a lot of heavy duty inspections like a template. Think of it as a template that’s been shared by other heavy duty guys and give you some good insight and a good place to jump off from.
John Long (00:50:43):
I’m curious to what Uwe was going to talk about with
Tom Dorsey (00:50:47):
Oh yeah, yeah, definitely.
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:50:49):
So I have a theory, it might not be primetime yet for it, but I have seen already a lot of signs that this is going to be successful. Actually we know from Bruce Nation that he is already using. What I’m going to share with you, and it’s piggybacking on Adam A. Little bit, maintenance intervals become kind of obsolete or harder to convey if Vegas like Honda or BMWs don’t have anymore because everything is a service mind on the dashboard. Some light goes on B two service and this way it takes a little bit your power away as an independent, but we have such a great replacement, which is the inspection, but it’s so much easier in my opinion, putting myself in the motorist shoes to get told whatever this engine computer is calculating right now can be not as good as us doing a real inspection of your car.
(00:52:09):
And don’t worry, we take care of this too. So it’s much, in my opinion, much easier because also the result is so compelling because there is visuals of an inspection I can look at to simply say, we would like to sign you up for an inspection schedule and end. It’s up to you once a year we do it, it’s free if you follow our recommendations, if you don’t follow our recommendations, you might have to come in more often to fix things. So the maintenance service in the wall becomes an inspection in the wall. And by the way, I haven’t invented any of this. The OEMs do that already. When I bought a new car, I got my first warning sign and was an inspection warning sign, right? So the ems, the OEMs do it already. I think this is a perfect replacement for a maintenance in the wall. It’s visual, it’s very clear what’s being done and I can take a result home and say this is the health of my car. That’s why we recommend call it vehicle health inspection, not complimentary inspection indicating it’s free and we are just doing it to find work. No, no, it’s a vehicle health inspection. That’s my 2 cents, maybe four.
John Long (00:53:50):
I would agree with that.
Adam Bendzick (00:53:53):
Yeah, there’s a certain level of customer investment that we look for in some of our inspection items to then take it to the next level. Not from a, we’re looking for dollars and cents and stuff like that, but just are you interested in finding more about maintenance schedules? Are you interested in thinking that your vehicle might need more than just what a lifetime transmission fluid is calling for? Case in point, Jeep Grand Cherokees, I think Dodge Durango is the same type of thing. They have this lifetime transmission fluid, but if you’ve ever actually taken a sample of those transmission fluids out at 50, 60, 70,000 miles, they look like burnt.
John Long (00:54:36):
It’s the lifetime of that transmission.
Adam Bendzick (00:54:38):
Yeah, exactly. So are we going off of the dealership’s principles of what we should be doing for maintenance? Are we doing off of Pro Service or Schertz Auto or an AutoVitals customer? We do these things because we are better than the dealership or are we just trying to align with the dealership? So for us, at 50,000 miles, if we have no history of doing a service transmission fluid service, we suggest a, if it has a dipstick, we’re going to check it anyway. That’s easy. But if it has just a side plug where you got to drain a sample out, hey, it’s a quarter hour for a technician, we may or we will probably have a small base charge for doing so for the customer if they end up doing a transmission fluid service, if we have to wipe that cost away, whatever, but it’s getting their engagement to spend maybe 20 or 30 bucks to actually check their fluid. If we have to spend a decent procedure for draining a sample of it out and then actually giving them a visual of here’s what new fluid looks like, here’s what old fluid looks like, you can kind of take it from there. I don’t care that it says it’s lifetime fluid. This is literally what we’re looking at. So it’s getting that engagement from the customer to then move to the next level.
Tom Dorsey (00:55:48):
Yeah. So guys, we’ve got four minutes left. I mean time flies when you got the expert panel of experts. What can I say? Who thought this first segment would go 10 minutes?
Adam Bendzick (00:56:01):
I’m fine for a little pass. I don’t know about you guys or John or anything like that because still a few questions that are
Tom Dorsey (00:56:09):
That’s what I was just exactly going to say. So fire in your questions right now. If you got anything left that we haven’t gotten to yet, I’ll start ’em off. Sergio’s asking is using the CRM feature for exit scheduling everyone, meaning John and Adam?
John Long (00:56:26):
Yes, we do use the CRMs feature for exit scheduling. Are we good at it? No, that is something we need to improve on. Something that I have talked to my service directors last week in our meeting and we’ll talk again tonight in our meeting about that. So yeah, that is an area where we are weak on, but we do use the CRM next feature, but we’re just haven’t actually followed through a hundred percent with it. But yeah, that is an area that, like I said, we are working on ourselves.
Tom Dorsey (00:56:58):
So even the expert panel of experts of areas to improve
John Long (00:57:03):
Always
Adam Bendzick (00:57:04):
The same. I mean exit scheduling, it sounds like an easy principle, but then to actually get it implemented or to have people feel comfortable about it, the service advisors feel comfortable doing it when they’ve never done it in their entire career. I mean, it takes time. It’s not just going to happen overnight. So without a doubt, we use the electronic portion of it with reminders 30 days out and everything like that, a hundred percent. We use that end of it and we get people that come back on account of those reminders. But us physically doing it at the point of closing, closing the deal today not great
Tom Dorsey (00:57:39):
And think of it, you really start to soft close. You really start to introduce it at the approval stage. If you say, Hey, here’s your options, but we can always get you on the calendar when you pick your vehicle up, get you a spot for next week, next month, whatever it is, and you start to just set the expectation that there’s options and that they’re going to come back. It’s not that big. Oh gosh, do I ask them, do I try to get, it’s assumed. It’s just like when you leave the doctor or the dentist, you don’t run past that front counter. You stop there every single time and you expect to do it. And that’s kind of the expectation that you can set over time in your shop. You condition your customers that It’s a cycle. It’s not a straight line transaction. Real quick, I wanted to mention this because I think it’s brilliant.
(00:58:27):
Bill Connor had added when we were talking about conditions is to say one important question, Mr. And Mrs. Customer, will you share your long-term plans for this vehicle with me? Right? That’s another really solid piece to build into that service advisor as you’re doing your due diligence, your discovery as it were with your customers, right? Because it might, this might just be a beater I’m using for a week or two and I could care less. And so that’s really going to put you back on your heels if you’re trying to sell in these 1500 tickets. Sean’s asking, do you guys charge for inspections?
John Long (00:59:05):
We do have three levels of inspections. We do have our vehicle health inspection, which is pretty comprehensive that we do not charge for. We do have a second level we call our annual health inspection that does go a little bit deeper into it, pulling wheels off, measuring brakes that way, doing a few other things too. And then we do have what we call our high level that a lot of people call a pre-purchase inspection and we call it a total of true evaluation that goes even a lot further deeper into it. So we do have three levels. Two of ’em we do charge for. How often do we sell ’em? This week alone, I think we’ve sold two annuals and I think one total true, if I’m not mistaken. So it’s probably do get three or four a week at least. And that just adds to our bottom line in essence. And I know Adam, I think has a couple different levels of inspections too, if I’m not mistaken.
Adam Bendzick (00:59:57):
Yeah, basically three levels, kind of almost the exact same thing. Our level two is basically that under car wheel, off load tested steering, suspension. Some of those inspections are built into the pricing of our service packages, meaning if somebody has a clunk, they get the level one and level two with that, so the wheels are off and we load test it. So that level or that clunk might be 0.3, 0.4, 0.5 diagnostic fee at whatever the rate is. And then the tech gets a quarter hour for the vehicle and the level one inspection that we do on every vehicle. And then the level two is automatically something that they do with that because they should be taking the wheels off there in those types of situations anyway, the level two is like a 29 99 type tire rotation, brake inspection fee. And when it leads to brakes, sometimes you credit that back it just kind of depends. I give the service advisors there leniency to decide when they need to do certain things to close a sale so we don’t lose something or whatever, but nonetheless, those levels of inspection have helped us a lot for that type of work.
Tom Dorsey (01:01:05):
Yeah, and I’ll tell you, Bruce Nation put a bug in my air one a couple of years back and I thought it was brilliant idea and I still do, is to say you set the expectation that, hey, you know what? This vehicle health checkup is normally a hundred dollars service, $150, whatever you want to call it. It has to be updated, maintained regularly because conditions change on your vehicle. If you come back regularly for your recommended maintenance visits, we update that at no charge. If you don’t, we’re going to have to charge you the a hundred, $150 to get it updated if you’re skipping. So it really is a great way to set the expectation that there’s value there in it and you’re giving that value and then also that it’s so important that it has to be updated, it has to be maintained. You have to commit to it, and if you don’t, there’s a cost to that and it really can kind of set the expectation for that schedule we were just talking about and help you with the retention folks at least coming in to get their inspection updated and it works.
(01:02:05):
You’ve had people book appointments just to come in and get their inspection updated, not even really have a, maybe there’s a little ticking noise I’m curious about, but please inspect my vehicle and get that updated. And that’s a huge benefit if you can work that expectation into your process.
Adam Bendzick (01:02:22):
That’s awesome. I really like that. Yep.
Tom Dorsey (01:02:24):
Yeah,
John Long (01:02:26):
To enter Tony there, my pricing on my inspections. Yeah, jumping the gun there for you. Our standard inspection is 0.3. That’s our vehicle health inspection. No charge on that. Our next level up, our annual health inspection, we flag our tax 0.6. It’s normally 99 9 9, but if you do it with the price of it, if you do it with your oil change today, it’s 79 9 9. Our total true evaluation is 200 bucks. But if we do it with the oil change today, or if we’re doing a clunk test, inspect on it also, we’ll do it for 1 49, 9 9, and that’s 1.2 is what we flag our text on that.
Tom Dorsey (01:03:07):
Awesome. Yeah. Awesome. And Tony was also asking, she puts a recommended maintenance when the due by age, such as timing belts into future recommendations. How are others using statuses in this case?
John Long (01:03:21):
Yeah, we do it the same thing. If 90,000 miles on a Honda, we’ll recommend the timing belt, but it’ll be, we have it preset set up, do future. If it’s based on the mileage there and the tech just chooses how many miles does the vehicle have, is it a future or is it overdue, and then it automatically set up through the inspection.
Adam Bendzick (01:03:43):
I actually don’t like that and here’s why. It’s not, not because bad. I think there’s potentially a better option. I don’t love future attention type stuff for that because at what point does it switch from future to now? We should do it right now. So I like to have it stand out by a different color. Ours is currently blue. It has a completely different color, completely different icon for it, and it says this is the stuff that’s due based on your mileage. It’s not something that we maybe physically saw and or checked, but based off a mileage due, you should be doing it at this point, coming up pretty quick. I mean, if it’s future attention and you’re going to market yellow, are we 10,000 miles away from this actually be doing based off of maintenance mileage? Maybe. But then at some point there’s got to be a change in urgency if you market that way rather than continuing to save future attention, putting that idea in their head that it’s always going to be future, then
Tom Dorsey (01:04:45):
Yeah, that’s great. Real quick, also before the show ends, get into the chat, Sergio being the awesome dude that Sergio is put a link to their customer interview. They have it, they text it out and he’s got the script that he linked in there so that you can take a look at that and edit that for your operation. So huge. Thank you, Sergio, and all of your awesomeness, buddy.
Uwe Kleinschmidt (01:05:12):
I want to ask a question about going back to exit scheduling Now with text to pay and a more contactless service, would you consider doing something like the following, they get the invoice to be paid and you take 5% off if they schedule the next appointment?
Tom Dorsey (01:05:37):
Oh yeah.
Uwe Kleinschmidt (01:05:39):
Something like that.
Tom Dorsey (01:05:41):
You want to save 5%? Yeah, I don’t know, appointment now.
John Long (01:05:46):
That is something that we are thinking about is what can we offer the client as an incentive to schedule now at the time versus not doing it. So I mean, yeah, that is something that I think we would possibly consider. We’d have to maybe put a limit on that 5%. I’m not,
Uwe Kleinschmidt (01:06:08):
Maybe it’s 20 bucks. And then
John Long (01:06:12):
What’s the incentive for the customer? Yes, and that is definitely in our notes. That’s something my directors and I have talked about, and that’s, yeah,
Adam Bendzick (01:06:21):
You have to be careful.
Tom Dorsey (01:06:23):
Bill said 5% with a cap of X in case they need an engine. Correct.
Adam Bendzick (01:06:29):
That’s a great point. You have to be careful with it though. Just my opinion. There’s a shop in town that is a competitor of mine that is always luring customers in with some type of special, so A, you condition your customers into thinking that they’re always going to get a discount, and B, you’re attracting customers that are always looking for discounts. So I would rather try some type of process that’s going to lead to that exit scheduling being better than offering a discount. I would like to try a different avenue first. If all else fails, then maybe go the discount route, but I think there maybe could be a better option than that for me and John. It’s just trying.
Uwe Kleinschmidt (01:07:18):
No, I don’t want to replace your process. I’m just saying the more contact less it happens, you have to do what you don’t do at the counter then on the phone, which is a lot harder. Right, for sure. Then if you have already a motorist interaction when they pay, which releases the keys and pick up the car, you can use that phone engagement. And that was just one idea. Right? Yep.
Tom Dorsey (01:07:45):
Real quick before we get Uwe, Tony’s asking, is there a way to do a campaign and search filter by shop by vehicles that have not had an inspection in one year? So not necessarily a visit, but an inspection?
Uwe Kleinschmidt (01:08:01):
Currently there’s not, but that would be probably a non-complicated feature request.
Tom Dorsey (01:08:09):
I like that hashtag feature request on where it goes, who’s got nothing to do anyway. And then real quick, Quinn gear is asking, what digital inspection program are you using that carries the last inspection forward question?
Adam Bendzick (01:08:26):
That would be AutoVitals,
Tom Dorsey (01:08:28):
But only on guided mode, Quinn. I mean, it sounds amazing, but yeah, we’re the only ones in the industry that are doing that right now. I’m sure many are trying to chase it, and it’s been a work in progress, these guys will tell you, but it’s gotten because of, I got to tell you, because of the turbo group and because of the work Bill and Uwe and John and Adam and everybody, Frank and huge support and help, it went from a hair pulling exercise into something that’s extremely valuable, and you do have to have the guided on to take advantage of that, but talk to your advisor if you’re not a vitals customer, and they’ll get your point in the right direction. And it’s invaluable once the technicians get used to it, and that’s what we were talking about. That’s how you really trim that inspection down into a laser scalpel. You’re just doing what needs to be documented today and everything else, like taking that VIN picture or the tire rating picture. You don’t have to do it every single time. It’s a huge benefit from your tech will love it. So check into that, but thanks for the question.
Adam Bendzick (01:09:30):
Yeah, there’s pictures and notes that we are taking now that honestly we weren’t taking before because of efficiency and trying to keep things rolling, but now knowing that it’s a one-time thing and it carries it forward every single time now I’m like, okay, just please invest this time right away. It helps the tech. It helps the service. Pfizer tremendously with some of the stuff. Just do it the one time and then you’re done.
Tom Dorsey (01:09:55):
Yep. Yeah, no more excuses.
Adam Bendzick (01:09:58):
Absolutely. I mean, there’s a lot of stuff you couldn’t do before because if I have to require my guys to take a picture of that or take a note of that or anything like that, every single time, at what point does your inspection just get to be so long that it’s not efficient anymore?
Tom Dorsey (01:10:11):
Right? Right, right. Yep. You’re always balancing that. So I got to tell you guys, we’re 10 minutes over. I mean, this was an awesome show. Feedback in here was fantastic. Thank you everybody for attending. Thank you for your great questions. Thank you John and Adam for your and Bill and Uwe and Sergio and Tony and everybody in there for your help and for your guidance. And again, to the new folks, I mean, you found somehow, you found the right spot. Whoever told you to come in here, thank them because this is going to turbocharge you. Just hit the nitrous button when it comes to success with this program, getting the most out of it. Get into the Facebook form and get registered in there, friend all these guys, and follow ’em because it’s pretty hard to find a mentors nowadays that don’t want something from you, and these people give all day long to help other digital shop operators be successful.
(01:11:11):
So take full advantage of that. Tune in next Wednesday. We’re going to have Dennis Eidson from Honest One in Roswell, Georgia coming on, and I’m really excited to meet with this guy. You know why? Because you can just see, he’s been with us just a little over a year now, and his is a guy who, and I don’t want to steal his son, and he’s going to tell you directly, but he feels he’s just getting started when you look at his data. This is a guy, you can tell they just followed the plan and that’s why I want to have him on because they didn’t try to reinvent the wheel. They didn’t try to question the stuff that these guys have put before them and proved before them. They jumped in and just followed the plan and the results are pretty outstanding for a year in, and we’re going to talk to Dennis about what’s coming up next because like I said, he feels like he’s just getting started and he ain’t doing enough, and so it was going to be a really good, really good conversation with them next Wednesday, 10:00 AM Pacific, 1:00 PM Eastern.
(01:12:11):
Until then, get in there and get registered in that Facebook form. Continue that discussion. If you didn’t get your question asked on the air, well, you got to type faster, but you still have a second chance because you can get it asked into the Facebook form. We’re going to add this as a regular recurring episode, so keep sending those questions in because this was awesome, and just as we build up some good juicy topics and questions from you, we’ll schedule another ask us anything episode and invite these expert panel of experts back in to help get clarity and answer those questions. Again, gentlemen, I cannot thank you enough, and I know the folks out in this audience and the people will be watching this recording in the future are going to be helped tremendously from what we did here today, so thank you on their behalf as well.
Adam Bendzick (01:12:58):
Absolutely. Thank you guys. Thank you, John. Thank you, Adam.
Tom Dorsey (01:13:01):
Yep. Thank you everyone. Yep. We’ll see you next week.