From Growing Pains To Goal-Smashing Gains

What: We are talking about shop growth and how to achieve it based on your goals. By combining highly refined tools and shop-owner-developed best practices, The Digital Shop method created by AutoVitals is equipped to turn growing pains into huge gains.

Why: If you aren’t growing, you’re stagnating. And in modern times, we must use modern tools to fuel expansion. In this episode, you will learn the tools necessary to grow your shop and stay ahead of the technological curve.

Episode Transcript

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

Tom Dorsey (00:00:03):
Oh, there. It’s good morning and good afternoon. Welcome to this week’s edition of The Digital Shop Talk Radio. I’m Tom Dorsey. Up there in that little box you can see my cohost, Uwe Kleinschmidt. Good morning. Today we’re going to be talking about going from growing pains to growing gains with couple great shop owners from Issaquah, Washington, Teri Scafidi, Dave Scafidi. Welcome.
Teri Scafidi (00:00:28):
Thank you. Thank you, Tom. Good morning to you.
Tom Dorsey (00:00:29):
Very much. They’re from Eastside Bavarian and been with us quite a long time, actually going digital early forecasting, very wise decision. And that’s exactly what we want to be talking about today is kind of how did you come to that decision, right? How did you see that there was going to be a need to make these transitions? And then what was it like? Was it, I’m sure a growing pain initially, but now you’re into that spot where you’ve got good, strong, consistent growing gains and we want to help folks to learn from what you’ve done. Let’s start off if we would, because now it’s even a little bit more challenging, right? With the pandemic and gosh, the lockdown and all the stuff that we’ve been going through over the last, I guess it’s 43 days now. Can you believe that time flies? How have you stayed? Because we can see from the window behind you, you’re busy and you’re in operation. How have you been affected and what are you doing to stay busy?
Teri Scafidi (00:01:43):
Well, I don’t know if you want me to ask your first question, Tom. You can answer all of you, Teri. Okay. How do we find what drove us to, I think we’ve been with you for about six years and it’s been incredible. So back in the day when digital cameras first came out, Dave and the team started taking pictures and we had CDs for all of our customers so we could show them pictures and we’d have to email and text it to them. And I guess it was probably his email at that point, some texting, but not as effective because we had it on a cd. So that was our first thing that we started doing years and years ago. And then we started trying to formalize and standardize the inspections that we were doing because we saw text just kind of doing what they thought was the right thing. So we found, I actually have a little picture of it. We found one of these and we customize it to ourselves. So that was a consistent inspection, same kind of idea. Things are good, they’re green, things are yellow, better pay attention, red Danger World, Robinson. So we started that and we said, there’s got to be a better way to do this.
Dave Scafidi (00:02:53):
So like Teri said, originally we had, everybody had their file, little sleeve with the CD in it. So we take pictures of the leaks and things we do on AutoVitals now started out with our own handmade inspection sheets and then went to the ordered ones with the color coding and all that. So basically it was AutoVitals put all that together into one thing. We were able to do the checklist with the pictures. It was clunky. Not everybody knew how to load pictures and send them, and it was just a lot of work. It was a
Teri Scafidi (00:03:31):
Learning a curve, that’s for sure. And this was early days of AutoVitals, right? So there weren’t some of the very sophisticated things that we have available to us now. So that’s kind of how we came about finding AutoVitals, and it really pulled the things together, the things that we wanted to do. And over the years we’ve continued to grow and learn from it. I think probably one of the biggest turning points for us was, I believe it was either 2017, 2018 when the team you guys changed, rather than having an account manager, just one-on-one, you put us into Teams. I think we were Team 25 and Team 25 and Team 29. We went through a training program. And I got to tell you, that was phenomenal. It was right after I joined Dave. I had my own career on stuff, and I joined the team about four years ago.
(00:04:22):
So it was right around that same time or within about a year and was introduced to Shay and the team on Team 25. And we went through an incredible training program. I thought you guys did a fantastic job. I think that was just phenomenal. We learned from each other, I learned a whole set of things that I didn’t know that AutoVitals we could do or we weren’t aware. And then new things came out of that as well because we had that discussion. So I think that was phenomenal and a big jump for us in standardizing things. Around that same time, we instituted, and I come from a background where operations, KPI, standardization, workflow management, I ran an HR department that was the director of HR for many years. So all of those things in audit were all part of my life. So it was just a natural progression for us to go into a very structured workflow management where everybody knew exactly what was going on, where it was in the TDP, who was responsible for what was going on with the TDP, not just building the estimates, but communication with customer.
(00:05:31):
And that we started our training program here for our team. And I think Tom, I’ve shared with you before, our workflow management training tool that we go all of our employees. So that was another big training point for us. I think that following year was the big rollout, Uwe, where we would get together every week as owners with you guys on the rollout because it was so enormous. You guys did so many new incredible things. And we learned through that. And I think that was just another big push for all of us that were using AutoVitals. The mapping came into place then it was phenomenal. So we continue to grow, we continue to learn. And I think those opportunities that you afford us by these kinds of meetings or by training or the groups together, I think really just do nothing but help us be stronger and better advocates for our customers as well.
Tom Dorsey (00:06:28):
Oh boy. That must be music to ears because, and why don’t you tell us a little bit because we’ve learned right alongside you, Teri, really. And so for folks that are kind of considering this, one of the things that Teri just hammered home is the need for training and effective training and kind of a baseline or in a goal to drive for, and then a way to measure yourself and your operation against that goal and also others that are doing the same thing. And I know that that’s a lot of what Uwe has worked to develop because we like to say a lot of times we don’t really build a tool. We don’t really build a digital inspection. We build a process change that allows you to be consistent in its application to get the best results possible, whether it’s maximize efficiency and productivity or maximize dollars and build hours sold. And when you put those two together, it’s pretty successful. So if you could give us a little background on how that development transpired over the years when you had the epiphany matter of fact, the four steps to that epiphany, that’s from, for those of you that have been around AutoVitals for a long time, that was one of the biggest drivers for Uwe in the development of AutoVitals, sir,
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:08:00):
Thank you. But before I start, I wanted to say Teri is the first shop owner who hasn’t mentioned that her shop is special and everything is a little bit different than anybody else. And so I guess it has to do with your background. And I mean, I don’t want to divert from the topic, but I’m super curious when you started being full time in the shop there and you wanted to standardize, was there a pushback and real special? We do things differently? No standard
Tom Dorsey (00:08:35):
Discussion,
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:08:35):
Never.
Teri Scafidi (00:08:38):
I think one of the questions that you guys always ask or that any business asks themselves, what is the biggest struggle that anyone has with shop? I think change management is always, in my experience, probably the biggest struggle that you have, whether you’re implementing AutoVitals or you’re implementing just a change in any kind of minor procedure, people get comfortable, they’re in their loafers, it’s old shoe, it feels good. And that change management and that process management is really, really difficult. It’s not to say that when we went to the more standardization when with Team 25 and I was learning about, oh, here’s some best practices that we just weren’t aware of that we should probably start instituting or taking some guidance from because there’s a reason that it’s called best practices, whether it’s the number of which pictures you need to take and having a process or having a procedure for that. And that was, I’d say the back of the house actually was easier. I think the technicians, it was much easier, maybe because we already had some of that process in place, the front of the house a lot more difficult.
(00:09:52):
I don’t know if it’s just because they were with customers more, but that probably was our biggest challenge. And I’d say it still continues to sometimes be a challenge because we’re constantly changing. So you think you get it and then all of a sudden it’s not pulling the rug from Adam underneath, it’s saying we’re getting better at things. So the struggle’s there, I think for all of us, but it’s how you manage it and how you support your team with it. And I always look at it from my background’s mathematics. So when I was math teacher, it’s if you didn’t understand the basic foundations, you can never get to the next step, right? Exactly. So you don’t understand this base part. How do you get to differential equations if you don’t understand when you’re algebra, you just can’t get to the next step. So the same thing with awa. If you don’t understand the base outline and the workflow, when we go to change something, you’re going to be two steps behind or three steps behind. So trying to push our guys and getting ’em up there, regular training, regular meetings, testing, just spending time with folks, one-on-one is helpful as well. So probably it continues to be our biggest challenge.
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:11:02):
And I mean, I don’t even know what to say because I was saying exactly the same thing. So the story, to go back to Tom’s question goes, I think it was customer number five back in the days, Larry Moore and Mountain View, he said, Uwe, if you think you can build us a software, we are all going to use your wrong. We all anarchists. And I am thinking, okay, I take that challenge, but it sounds pretty big of a mountain to climb. And long story short, I’m a strong believer, as you just said, it’s just like in sports, if you want to excel at something, you have to get the fundamentals down and the fundamentals are universal.
(00:11:51):
And yes, good ball players and teams win because they have a certain specific play they play, right? And not deflated balls or anything wheel plays. But in order to be able to do that, you have to have the fundamentals down as second nature, otherwise you cannot build on top of it. And so for me, it was an amazing ride and still is together with the Tobo shops to get all the input and learning as we do things and hopefully crank out the new stuff fast enough or as they say, fail fast. So when you try to do something new, you inevitably fail and you have to deal with it. But if you fail fast and overcome it fast, actually an awesome learning experience, but to get to into that culture and allow yourself to fail and do it fast, that’s a big challenge. But that’s what the tobo shop environment allows us to do. And I bet we have a few tobo shops in the attendance here,
Tom Dorsey (00:13:11):
John Long.
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:13:13):
And it’s also fun. I mean, not always because there’s a lot of pressure, but no risk, no fun.
Tom Dorsey (00:13:25):
So Uwe Teri had said something very, and I know a lot of shops have this same, and it’s almost unexpected because a lot of times when you hear initially, especially when somebody’s first considering going using a digital inspection, things like that, it’s always, oh, the techs won’t use it. But what they come to realize is that, and to what Teri was saying is that a lot of times that the biggest challenges are at the front counter, and a lot of times it’s, Hey, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Or it’s almost like, gosh, I’ve been doing this so long and it’s been successful. Or like Teri was saying, it’s comfortable, it’s a comfortable shoe. How do we change that behavior? And really to influence them, you have to show them the results. And so it becomes almost like a catch 22 because gosh, I got to show you what you can do with the thing before you’re willing to actually do what you can do with the thing. And so how, we’ve done a lot of analysis around this challenge and we’ve done a lot of development into the product. Can you give us some just an idea on how you approach that challenge? What are your thoughts? How did you kind of pick that apart and then decide on a solution moving forward?
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:14:48):
Let me just use an example. I had a discussion with John yesterday about, he made a very good point in the last week’s episode. We didn’t really elaborate on, and this is in order to be successful for the technicians, you have to have a good setup. And setup means the inspection sheet has to be perfect, the conditions have to be mapped so that the moment the tech takes a tablet in his hands, everything is set up perfectly. I remember John was at the vision show, John, I hope you don’t mind me sharing that. The division show and switched to Protractor the same weekend and was sitting in a hotel room on a Saturday night setting up all service packages. And so make it perfect the first day. So when the technicians take the tablet, everything is set up and ready to go. And so that’s one way, and for everybody who really wants to do this and has the team behind him or her, I think that’s the best way to do it.
(00:15:58):
But we also have, and we know that through the numbers, there’s some baggage coming from the paper inspection where you all heard of pencil whipping and over recommending that technicians, the clever technicians know what the service advisor can sell and only recommend that everybody else is doing pencil whipping because there’s a kind of disconnect between the back in the front and now you’re giving them a digital tool and say, now everything is going to get better. But the team before has optimized the process to have with minimal effort, the inspection check box checked now the world is changing now it actually needs to yield more results. And you’re not just cherry picking and do a good inspection when you see, oh, this car has a lot of problems, I can sell that. Right? It’s more about now consistency. Everything’s the same. Back to Teri’s point standards process, you don’t think about it anymore. It’s second nature.
(00:17:13):
And that spectrum of those two kind of extremes attack you will not be faster with a digital inspection if you have penciled it before. Just be crystal clear, right? That’s impossible. And now to convince the techs and the service advisors that this is a better process in my opinion, needs to come with quick wins. It’s like little kids playing piano. You can train for three months to play Ong at the end, and most of the people give up in the middle. It’s too hard. Or you play your favorite children’s song after three days. So find the inspection topics, which happen often enough, are easy to do and are highly convincing to a motorist like alignments, tire wear, break fluid. And so I’m yapping a lot, but that’s really the where do you find that balance? What is right for what shop to either do the perfect setup and combine it with quick wins in the beginning. And I err on the side of quick wins because then the moment you have success, both sides of the house all of a sudden see, wow, this works. I want more of it. Teri and Dave, how did you experience that?
Dave Scafidi (00:18:49):
Well, I mean, that’s what I see because I’m out in the shop sometimes. So I realize that using the inspection might take longer, especially when you’re first using it, you’re a little unfamiliar with it, but you get used to it within a couple weeks or it’s second nature to me. But I think overall, like I said, it takes a little longer, but you get a much better inspection. People rave about it. We never got that kind of feedback before from anything else, but I think those pictures stick in their head or whatever because we get calls a few weeks later with people saying like, oh yeah, I wanted to get the car back in for that work. Never did we get people calling us back in. Oh, that little box you had at the bottom of the ARO that had future recommendations that I had an oil leak, nobody’s going to call you back on that.
(00:19:54):
Probably don’t even have the paper anymore, right? Stuck somewhere. But they always look at that inspection center and they, in fact, sometimes they’ll post it on a review or they’ll send it out to their friends, look at this cool thing I got from the shop. So I mean, to me it’s definitely worth the extra effort it takes. And maybe that’s since we do go to that extra step, maybe that’s why we are still have some work at this time where I’ve got buddies with shops that have closed down for a month because it just wasn’t worth coming in. We’re getting a lot of new customers whose shops are closed. So I think just having that extra edge is separating the top shops from everybody else.
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:20:41):
I’m sorry, go ahead, Tom. No, I wanted to ask Teri, when she said the front of house was a little bit more challenging to convert, where those examples, the convincing moments where they said, dang, they called me because I sent them an inspection result and it sold itself? Or what was the kind of driving factor for being a converted, so to speak? Yeah, I didn’t know they got there.
Teri Scafidi (00:21:17):
I don’t think that there’s a dispute from the front of the house that this is a best practice. I think it is following the process that is the challenge for them. Does that make sense? So here’s a good example. So when I got teamed up with Shay and we started going through a process, we used to be with Laura, Lori, Laura. So got teamed up and started going through the process. And I had, again, I was all new to this, so I had no idea what anything was. I could do some research, but it’s so much easier for a team meeting and talking through it. We weren’t sending out our inspections proactively. They would just go out when the repair order closed. So the service advisors at the time were like, well, yeah, we tell ’em everything that’s on here. We tell ’em everything is due.
(00:22:08):
But they wouldn’t always send that inspection report. People would still do the work and they get a report afterward because when she closed the ARO out, it goes automatically. And so when we did the change, when we did that process workflow and we sat down, we said, this is what you do, this is you, this is your job, this is how you’re going to be compensated. We tied bonus through these things as well. It was a component, one of three components for the service advisors. And that was a big motivator for them. So they went from sending out, you could look at our old numbers from sending out maybe 30% proactively to now, you know what? It better be 90 to 95%. So we didn’t have a problem with the things like every car needs an inspection. And I think our inspection rate’s probably 97, 99%, somewhere in that, yes. Yeah. So the only cars we don’t do an inspection on is if we saw it the week before and they’re coming back for the work that we have recommended. So we do actually do a mini inspection, but not a full blown courtesy inspection. So the techs got it. So I think it was that change when we learned some of the best practices and we were trying to implement them. They were like, well, it worked before. I’m like, I don’t care if it worked before, this is the way it’s going to be.
(00:23:32):
But to get, I guess the way that we approached it to make sure that people really understood why we were doing what we’re doing, we think that was much better for them to understand why and the systemic component of it. So they’re more vested rather than just an edict of saying, this is what you’ll do, it was, this is what you’ll do. And I think if you look at our workflow, we have all the steps there. They match up with our TVP exactly, but there’s an extra step. And on each one of those TVP points there is who’s responsible for it and what they’re supposed to do while it’s in that area. So I don’t know, it’s like one page document that we go through with and we review it with people on an occasional regular basis. We’re like, okay, is there something you don’t understand because I can see this dipping. Is there some reason that this changed? So the BCP helps us with that as well. Oh, if our inspection are going down from a sending standpoint, I should say that inspection being sent proactively, I can see it. I can address it and I can say what happened. And sometimes there’s a legitimate reason and sometimes, oh, I screwed up. So there’s points where we can make those adjustments
Tom Dorsey (00:24:48):
Because that’s one thing that I know you have very detailed documentation that you have for your staff. When you introduced that, how did you notice that they ramp up faster and turn in more consistent results? And what’s that timeframe for folks that might be, or should be, I should say, considering doing something similar?
Teri Scafidi (00:25:14):
When we knew that efficiency was going to probably be hurt a little bit when we rolled this out probably almost two years ago, that we rolled out, this is the process, this is what we go through. And we did see a little bit of a dip because some people weren’t as consistent as they should be, and their efficiency went just, it was a dip. And that’s okay. We were okay with that. And probably within about a month and a half, all the texts were where they needed for the most part. The ones that are no longer here, there’s a reason why they’re no longer here. But the texts that stepped up, they got it. They understood why they were doing what they were doing, they understood the value to it, and not just the value to the customer, which is the ultimate reason for this, but the value to the team, because if they can all participate and they all understand how they affect each other as well, a service advisor has some impact to a tax efficiency and them understanding that I think makes a huge difference in them taking accountability and responsibility for their piece along the way.
(00:26:22):
So if they understand why you need to get things taken care of on a proactive basis with a customer and not the back and forth, oh, they’re coming in for a brake inspection. Well look at the last report. Were they at four millimeters and it’s been 10,000 miles? Guess what? When you talk to them, say you were at four millimeters, it was 10,000 miles ago, you’re probably going to need front brake. This is the price. They’ll like, oh, great, do the inspection. It’s needed. Go ahead and do the work rather than get the car in, get it up on, they take the measurement. Oh yeah, go back to the customer. It’s like, no, do these things proactively. So I think the digital inspections help us with that as well. And then the ownership of who is responsible, where along the line is helping us as well. So they have a responsibility to one another and they get that.
Tom Dorsey (00:27:08):
Yeah. Yeah. And is so, I mean, you see it in all things, right? In sports on a team. Matter of fact, one of the analogies that Uwe likes to use a lot, it’s like it’s really refining the talents going from being kind of a good basketball player to an elite or a professional basketball player. And funny thing about basketball players, they still have practice. They still go and train. They’ll have coaches that review and measure them and then try to raise the bar. And that’s how you become elite. That’s how you get to that top level or get into the Olympics or whatever it might be. And it’s no different really when you approach it from how do you get your business to that next level. And so tell us a little bit, because you came from a process driven background in HR and there’s a lot of documentation and stuff has to be very transparent or how else can you make sure that you are not liable and all that good stuff? And so once you kind of established that and you had really good success there, what did you do to kind of measure that you were on the right path, that it was working, that the consistency was coming back, that you had taken that initial dip in efficiency and now it was breaking through the ceiling and actually increasing beyond where you were before we learned this process change. How do you go about that and what’s your process around measuring your results?
Teri Scafidi (00:28:39):
I guess there’s maybe a couple things to it. So from the tech standpoint, we measure four overall things for the entire shop. And each area has a majority driver towards each one of those. So every tech, just because, I dunno, just because you have the expectations, you need to set the expectation with the employee, with your team member. They need to know what the expectation is and then you can measure to it. If they don’t know what the expectation is, how are you going to explain to them what they’re doing wrong or So every technician knows what their efficiency should be at. We monitor that monthly. There’s a bonus associated with that. We display that every month they get a report and nobody knows who’s who, but they’re all pretty darn efficient, which is good. And same thing with the parks department because we have a parts specialist, so we’re doing some refinement to his measurements, but we can’t just have these outrageous expectations about how many dollars in parts we sell because we’re all in that 45 to 55 ratio with parts to labor.
(00:29:53):
But we can’t just blow things out of the water just to keep parts volume up. We have to remain competitive. So he’s monitored on that. Our service advisors are monitoring something else. They’re looking at our average, what’s our ARO, how many hours do we sell in a month, how many hours we’ve got going? And their third component is that sending out the inspection. I wanted some skin in the game for them and their bonuses on that. Then we have some team goals as well, so they understand how each one of them plays a part in the overarching team goals. The team goals are very similar. There’s an efficiency component so that overall, there’s an ARO, there’s a number of hours and there’s parts dollars. And if they don’t hit their individual goals, boom, even if we hit all four team goals, they get nothing because that means they’re not participating.
(00:30:44):
And that’s when we have conversations with folks. If they’re not doing what they need to do to help the overall team, not an individual tech game or it’s not just a service advisor game, it’s a team game game. If they’re not doing their individual parts, we have to have those conversations with them. And we do that on a regular basis. We know there’s going to be ebbs and flows, and then it gets them more vested in making sure that they’ve got what’s going on for the team as well. So they understand that. And we have conversations on a regular basis with individuals if we need to. And sometimes it’s just not the best thing. We get it. We’re not for everybody. As much as we like to think that we’re great place, we understand that this is not for everybody and not everyone wants to play in the sandbox, and that’s okay. We don’t take it personal. We they’re probably going to be better suited for somewhere else. And that’s okay.
Tom Dorsey (00:31:36):
Well, and it’s better to have that direct conversation, set expectations, and then figure out where the disconnects are. And then part ways amicably and like you said, it’s just business instead of having them drive down the morale and productivity of your operation until you figure it out.
Teri Scafidi (00:31:55):
And sometimes are tough decisions. And I’ve heard stories from, I think it was Frank told us a story about somebody that hasn’t been with him forever, and it just wasn’t, this is where we’re going folks. And I see more and more with the forms that we participate, whether it’s this one or the owner’s group or some other forms that we participate. We have a Euro group because we’re Euro only. We feel so fortunate that we discovered AutoVitals early on because I think we’re going to be that much further ahead. And I just don’t foresee a lot of shops out there on an independent basis being able to survive without digital inspections. I don’t see it. So we’re ahead of the game and we like that. We’re also very blessed with the demographic that we serve, that they really appreciate it and it is aligned with our values of transparency and integrity. So it just is another supportive tool that we have that we’re very, very fortunate to have and that our customers really see the benefit of it as well.
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:33:01):
But when you introduced workflow and with a document, how did you know it’s going to be successful?
Teri Scafidi (00:33:14):
I think
Dave Scafidi (00:33:16):
It just seemed like such a common sense thing. I mean, I kind work all different roles throughout the company, so I see everything. I might be a service writer one day at parts, guy the next, and tech the next. So I see it all. And when I look at, we use WinWorks and if I’m writing service and I see this screen with 30 lines of just names and cars, it’s like, how do you know what’s going on with all these things? How much easier is it just to see these tiles and thing, oh, this one’s waiting for inspection. This one we’re creating an estimate, waiting approval. And to me, I tried to talk to some of the advisors about the tiles and say, look how easy it is to know what’s going on with this car. It’s like walking by the TV when the baseball game’s on and you just see the diamond and okay, it’s inning, three balls, two strikes, it’s this inning, this guy’s on second. How easy is that? And otherwise you’re opening up AROs and trying to figure out is this in process or whatever. So it just makes it so much easier.
Teri Scafidi (00:34:31):
And then when we went through the training and we had the documentation, there’s pictures of everything, the way you see it and why you see what you see. And it’s the life of the vehicle while it’s here at the shop and even before it gets to the shop, it’s the entire life. It’s walking through and just again, it makes a lot of sense. Now, do we know that everyone would be on board? No, but you know what? We spent a lot of time, our foreman gives us a lot of input. He’s fantastic. We work with him and one other person really closely on any kind of changes, making sure that whatever we do put out is going to be something that makes sense. We have a good team that we can ask questions and say, what, are we missing something? Did we not drill this down enough to make sure that people understand the change that we’re going to implement and why we’re doing what we’re doing? And so like I said, that was about two years ago when we sat down with everybody. We closed the shop for a couple hours, we met for about three, and it was pretty intense. And some people are no longer here, and that’s okay.
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:35:39):
And so I assume you have done some iterations based on that input.
Teri Scafidi (00:35:43):
Absolutely. And then as things change or if something comes up that’s new, when the mapping got done, we mapped me mapping queen. I try to map as much as possible. And that was the time we took an opportunity to say, what kinds of things do we always see? So how can we help the efficiency in the shop, the least amount of typing they can do the better. So fortunately or unfortunately, the way you look at it, when you own A BMW, you got three major oil it’s going on. If your valve cover isn’t leaking, then your oil pans leak or your filter housing needs to be resealed. So guess what? Each one of them is on there. So we put all the common issues and then we map them to whether we need additional diagnosis or they need to monitor it or they need to replace it.
(00:36:30):
So all of that stuff is mapped in there. The tech doesn’t have to type any of that, and it makes it really easy for them. And then they’ve got it on their inspection. They know what, they know how to build their estimate. There’s no confusion and it’s consistent. So we had spent a lot of time, I remember on the difference between seeping and leaking, because again, you go back to the pencil whipping idea, oh, that’s a leak. Well, here’s a picture, here’s a picture. There’s no questions asked. Or control arm bushings, you get that one all the time. Oh, they’re cracked. No, not so much because they’re people, because maybe a tech, that’s what his forte felt really good about. I can do control arm Bushs all until the cows come home. I’m just going to check those all off. No, no, you’re not going to do that. So that helped build the consistency as well. And we are very blessed that we have a fantastic team of techs. They’re phenomenal. So years and years of experience with BMWs, most of ’em step program graduates, so really great, really great team.
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:37:28):
And so do you do weekly shop meetings then, or is it
Teri Scafidi (00:37:33):
Well, we try to do weekly. It’s been a little weird this last couple of weeks, but we try to do weekly. We have a thermo do some silly other goofy things on a weekly basis. So in addition to our overarching monthly tingles, we have a weekly tingle on just how much we do in revenue. And so we’ve got a thermometer with that going up on how much we do. And if we hit the mark, then we get breakfast, lunch or dinner or something goofy or we barbecue or do something like that. So there’s going to be a month that we might have two fantastic weeks and then two that we don’t hit the monthly. So they still need to be rewarded for the participation that they’ve had, even if it’s just on that weekly basis because everybody did their best to do what they could do. So we’re not always going to hit those monthly because they’re goals. They’re goals, we’re not going to hit ’em. If they weren’t goals, stretch goals, then it’s just doing your job. So there’s a difference.
Tom Dorsey (00:38:28):
So Teri, you said something that was very interesting is you kind of established the fundamentals and it took a little time, but you helped yourself and you helped your team by documenting and being transparent and setting expectations and goals. But then it seems like, and speak to this if you would a little bit and how you identify and take action once you kind of have those fundamentals down the tool, we’re just kind of halfway getting started a little bit, right? And it opens the door for you to make some additional process change or to make some changes in the way that you sell or the way that you manage your customer service that then has a nice result. And recently I think you’ve began pre-selling work or focusing on pre-selling work. And how did you get that? What gave you that epiphany to start doing that or prevented you from doing it in the past? And what’s been the results since you’ve been doing that? Because to earlier to what you were talking about is really when you’re putting that information in and documenting in the digital inspection more than anything, it gives you a conversation to be had in the future with your customer. And that’s what results in kind of getting that presale done.
Teri Scafidi (00:39:57):
So it goes back to some of the consistency things as well. So it used to be that in addition to you seeing inconsistent inconsistencies in the inspections, the notations within the recommendations and the repair order and the point of sale system were inconsistent. So we said, how do we do this? So we have templates for people to follow and they follow the way things are laid out, just like the green, yellow, red. They follow the same kind of vernacular in the point of sale system as they do in AutoVitals, which is there’s a condition, there’s an action, and there’s a date. It’s just like when somebody makes an appointment, what’s the condition? A three Cs? What’s the condition? What do we need to do? What’s the cause and what’s the correction? So we saw the same inconsistencies in the point of sale system. One tech would have it written one way and another tech would have something written, the same thing written, but in a completely different way.
(00:41:05):
So we take a holistic approach to the vehicle and we want to say, and it’s a nice thing that we only have a couple of makes that we work with every vehicle that comes in. We started this about a year and a half ago. Every vehicle that comes in in the point of sale, we have a template that calls out not just the, we have two segments. We have the repair portion, the things that the technician said, Hey, you need new brake, your oil filter house is making whatever it is. But we also have a maintenance schedule on every single vehicle and it’s specific to their vehicle. It’s pretty much a similar template based on whether it’s an Audi of Volkswagen or it’s A BMW mini. But we call out all their maintenance items that are called out from this so that you see all the same things, oil change, cabin filter, air filter or fuel filter plugs, dips transfer case, applicable, trans tiny belts, anything that the manufacturer would be calling for.
(00:42:05):
And we tell them what the interval is as well as when the next time it’s due. And those are also incorporated in the inspection report. So if we know that they have a cabin filter due, that technician, just like they would click the box that says, I see oil filter housing leaking and it maps, they already know ahead of time texts don’t have to look up when anything is because I’ve done everything ahead of time. And they know and we can also base that information also helps us in that presales. So it’s kind of a full circle. So if they call for an appointment, like you said, if my breaks were this, I’ve got the digital inspection that tells meem exactly where it was at. I have my notations of what else they’re due for. I find out what their miles are and bay, the way you’re overdue for your cabin filter, you are two months past your breakthrough flush and you got this going on too.
(00:42:59):
And we can have the conversation on the in set of the email or the phone call and get things set up when they come back again against full circle. We’ve got the inspection. If you go through that workflow, you do the inspection, we move it to creating estimate, we create an estimate. If they don’t do all the jobs, those jobs, that’s okay. We get it. Those jobs in the point of sale system go off onto an estimate. Everything is built. So when they come back again, everything’s there for them. So this first year and a half has been a little bit tough because all those vehicles that had been worked on that were a big mess because Tech A had blah, blah, blah, and Tech B had wow, wow was completely inconsistent. We had to normalize that and make every one of them consistent. So it’s been a big step, but it’s really paid off.
(00:43:53):
The efficiency for the techs is helping because they used to look up our tech, have to look up when all those services were due and like, no, it’s service. The service maintenance, guess what? You’re a service advisor. That’s your job to know when maintenance is due, right? Dave always tell it’s totally objective. There’s no subjectivity to it. If it says your cabin filters are due every 20,000 miles, they’re due every 20,000 miles. We know we did the last one 20,000 miles ago. So there’s no arguing about it. So why does a tech have to know all that stuff? It should be pre-written, if you will, for that vehicle. So we’re still trying to find a more efficient way to do it. Uwe and I talked about this, right? So I could create everything in the can jobs thing, but 16 years of standard tasks and WinWorks for 16 years of BMWs and tens of thousands of standard tasks that we have be a little bit of a challenge.
(00:44:51):
So we have kind of this workaround in the interim, but it’s been helpful because now somebody calls, our waiters have gone down tremendously. We used to have people I’ll just make for an oil change and then they go, oh, well you’re also due for X, Y, Z. Oh, I didn’t make time for it this time. So how about next time? Now they’re coming back. Now they’re coming back. And we’ve told people every time that car has to come back, it has to be put on a lift, it has to have an inspection, it has to be vacuumed, all the things, test drive, it has to go for a test drive, all those things. It’s like, why not twice a year instead of four times a year? So as much as I know car counts down right now, and it’s kind of scary from, but we’re looking at it from I’d rather have less cars in here less times a year and drive my ARO up and my efficiencies better. And the techs get that because they know, oh my gosh, why didn’t the service advisor do what he needed to do ahead of time? If you knew these things were due, why didn’t you talk to him about talk to the customer about it? And most of the time it’s pretty successful, not always,
Dave Scafidi (00:45:57):
But now that first wave of cars that we standardized, all the maintenance due dates and everything are cycling through. It’s so much easier, quicker. That
Teri Scafidi (00:46:10):
Was going to, and that pulls into, and it’s great because it pulls into the service reminder and we can set that. And so even you have the defaults. So the service reminder, because we went to the CRM this year, this last year, so we’re slow. We’re very deliberate when we take on new challenges. So we want to do them. So it’s been great because when we go to set the service reminder, all of that information is in there. So we can say, Hey, we monitor your brakes. Maybe we won’t check that one off. Maybe they’ve got five millimeters. It’s not that big of a deal. And their oil changes due in let’s say six months, but we already know that they’re getting close to miles on their cabin filter. So we click that box off and we also know that that brake fluid flush is coming due during that time when click that box off and they might be close for the vehicle check, which is a BMW driven service. That’s a big deal. And that’s where we catch a lot of stuff and we’ll put all that in there and they’ll know, oh yeah, it was due at 94, I’m at 95. I better get that done. They’ll be able to say, yes, thank you so much. Let’s get that scheduled. So it’s a little more administrative work, I guess, but I think it’s paying off tremendously. So
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:47:23):
Would you mind sharing with your audience how many canned jobs you have?
Teri Scafidi (00:47:29):
I have no idea. I don’t know. I’m scared to even figure it out. So we’ve been doing this for 16 years. We started off with only BMW. So we have all the old inspection one, inspection twos for all the old,
Dave Scafidi (00:47:43):
All the brake jobs,
Teri Scafidi (00:47:44):
All the brake jobs, everything on any vehicle from e thirties to we, the E 28 in right now, two E 2 8 28, 8 40, 8 50. So yeah, 25-year-old, eight 40 and a 22-year-old. No older than that.
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:48:03):
Let me try to look it up.
Teri Scafidi (00:48:07):
It’s scary
Tom Dorsey (00:48:10):
Chatting your guest into the chat there and we’ll see who gets closest.
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:48:17):
We see that a lot with European shops that each vehicle type has their own can job.
Dave Scafidi (00:48:27):
There’s always so many, you can’t just, well, it’s just a water pump. It’s always the water pump. We know this hose is impossible to get to. We’re doing that. So we build everything in. We’re usually right on.
Teri Scafidi (00:48:41):
The BMWs are nicer in so far that because they’re more evolutionary, you’ll see the same breaks for a number of years or a number of models where the Audis with the split years, you could have a four built in the beginning of the year. Their front breaks are completely different from a four that’s built later in the year. So that’s not as nice. But the BMWs are pretty consistent. But yeah, 16 years of it, we have a lot of them.
Tom Dorsey (00:49:10):
Yeah, that’s what happens, right? You just kind of build it on the flyer as you get exposed to that vehicle or make model trim, whatever it is, and then build it. And it’s just like what you were talking about earlier, it really is. It took you about 18 months to cycle through, but now you did that work and now it’s going to pay off forever. And what has been the payoff? I mean, did you achieve that ARO increase since you standardized?
Teri Scafidi (00:49:38):
I think so. I was talking to Dustin about this earlier and I’ve talked to shady about this. It’s hard. And when our ARO is probably, I don’t know what is it now, probably obviously is like eight something, nine nine, something like that. So we’re not going to achieve a 30% gain. Some shops are. So for us,
Tom Dorsey (00:50:03):
It’s really broken.
Teri Scafidi (00:50:08):
And I know some newer shops to AutoVitals are going to see some of those kinds of things, especially if they’re doing everything under the sun. So we’re looking at the car count as well. Are we seeing the car count go up and the ARO stagnant, are we seeing the car go down or the car count stabilizing, but the ARO go up? So that’s a good indicator because yeah, we have less cars, but our ARO is stood up. So more of those newer customers, once they’re in the queue, it’s pretty easy.
Dave Scafidi (00:50:43):
But our days seem much more relaxed,
Teri Scafidi (00:50:45):
Much more relaxed. It’s less chaotic, frantic
Dave Scafidi (00:50:47):
With 20 cars coming in every day. Of course, like I said, seeing five times a year, six times a year, it’s like
Teri Scafidi (00:50:54):
I’m a big planner if you haven’t figured that one out, right? I’m a little little OCD on some things, right? No, Uwe would never any of that. Right?
Tom Dorsey (00:51:05):
Just a little. That’s good though.
Teri Scafidi (00:51:06):
Just a little. So I like the calm, I like consistency. And then our customers have a very consistent message that doesn’t matter who works on their car here or what service advisor they talk to, or if they’re talking to me, they’re going to get the same thing. And they should expect that it shouldn’t be all over the board. It shouldn’t be one tech calls out one thing and another tech calls out something completely different. So I think that standardization and the consistency and the continued training. So why this is so important is for the team to understand what the end product is, and taking ownership in that end product is really critical too. I know Tom talked about what tools do techs have when you get that pad and you’ve got it already set up for you. All of our techs also have a desktop with two monitors so that, because we encourage them, look at your final product, look at that inspection that the customer’s going to get.
Tom Dorsey (00:52:06):
Yes. That’s
Teri Scafidi (00:52:07):
Is it understandable? Can your grandmother look at a picture and know exactly what it is? No. Are you going to tell her? Yeah, you’re going to tell her and have pride in the ownership of the product that you’re putting out. So they do that on
Dave Scafidi (00:52:21):
Your pictures on the inspection?
Teri Scafidi (00:52:23):
Yeah. And your pictures on the inspection report
Tom Dorsey (00:52:25):
Now you can’t hide.
Teri Scafidi (00:52:26):
Nope.
Tom Dorsey (00:52:28):
No, that’s fantastic. Right? That’s such a great test is if you can deliver your inspection results to a lay person and they can tell you what’s wrong and what needs to be done well, then you’ve nailed it, right? That’s exactly the way you want to be able to deliver that to the service rider so that they can talk about all of those buying questions versus the why stuff. Because the why stuff becomes self-evident really, if you set it up and to your point, it’s either we’re going to get it done now or now for next visit. And it’s expected and it’s planned for and it’s on the calendar and you could just almost take it to the bank, and that’s where you really want to go. So for folks out there that think it’s impossible, you’re struggling to get there. It really is. You have that plan built out and you commit to that plan and you implement that plan and yeah, you got to cycle through the vehicles that could take you 18 months, could take you six months, who knows? But once you’re done, boy, you really have that in place now for your future and it’s going to pay off. And really, and if you could talk to this Teri A. Little bit, is you almost start to condition those customers. Now the customers come in and they know what to expect, and then they’re asking you, they say, well, hey, shouldn’t I be getting this other? Is it my cabin air filter due? Oh yeah, thanks for reminding me.
Teri Scafidi (00:53:52):
People love it. Because part of that process, again, the process, the service advisor not only goes over everything, the work they did, but they look at the future recommendations and it’s all printed out on the repair order. And people are like, oh my gosh, thank you so much. I never knew, the dealer never told me when things were due. They would just tell me when I got in there this because I can plan for things. So it’s almost like for folks that work with Audis, Audi did a really good job of conditioning their customers to understand that they have a mileage based service. And a mileage based service does not mean at 75,000 you do certain things. It means at a particular mileage, everything is due. Whether you do that at 30,000 or you do it at 60,000 because you haven’t done those things, it’s a package.
(00:54:45):
And so if they bought the package deal from Audi and they got those things done, they’re right on top of every single maintenance item there is. And they just call us and they go, you know what? I’m at 74,000. I know I’m doing for my 75,000 mile based service. And guess what? They get a cabin filter and they get someplace that plugs. They just know. So this is the same kind of thing, but with the rest of the vehicles that we work on. And BMW does a good job with the condition based service because their car tells ’em, and they’ll call me and they’ll go tear a service. Light came on. I don’t know why. So we’ll walk ’em through it. I said, you know what? It’s probably your vehicle check. How many miles are you at? I’m at 71,000. Yeah, we have, it was due at 70 because we took a picture of the CBS.
(00:55:26):
So when the car comes in, service advisors take a picture of the CBS data when the next brake blue flush is due, when the vehicle check is due, if the brake white warrants that’s on there. And then we can tell them and they call, they go, I don’t know why did it just tell em I have to do something? And so I walk ’em through it and they go, oh yeah, my vehicle check is there. You’re right. And then they come in, we set ’em up, they have their vehicle check. It’s a $200 inspection. It’s huge. It’s a big deal. This is where they get a charging system evaluation and a suspension inspection, and a lot of those things that you would do as a holistic kind of inspection, but they just know and they understand how to read their vehicle and what their vehicle’s telling them to.
Tom Dorsey (00:56:07):
Yeah. We had 30% of the folks that responded said that they’re not pre-selling yet and that they need to learn how. Right. And that really, because what you said is so true is that yeah, a lot of those Audi, Mercedes does that to some level where you have this, that’s what your canned job scheduler does for you. For all makes models. You can create your own custom maintenance plan. And it really beyond that is, and if you built it, why wouldn’t you sell it? Right? Why wouldn’t you establish the expectations? But from there, it’s explaining it to the customer, getting their buy-in, setting up the commitment over time, and then just following through, just follow through and what you said. Then it becomes really simple. It’s not like, oh my gosh, I got to try to find this thing and then sell it to ’em and convince them. No. It’s like anything else. It’s A to Z, and you just follow, you’re at B. Next month we’re going to get to C or whatever it is, and just keep sticking to that plan. And then like you said, after you turn over your customer base, now they have those expectations and it really becomes, I mean, it’s no longer selling, right? It’s order taking. It’s just fulfilling the commitment that we made to you, and that’s for as long as you own that vehicle and then on the next vehicle after it comes off a warranty. Right?
Teri Scafidi (00:57:34):
Right.
Tom Dorsey (00:57:36):
Oh, go ahead Dave.
Dave Scafidi (00:57:37):
The other thing just to the value of the inspections and the pictures just a little bit off topic, but when we are doing those kind of maintenance things, having a picture of the old air filter and the new air filter
Teri Scafidi (00:57:52):
Next to each other,
Dave Scafidi (00:57:53):
Just so that people know what they paid for
Teri Scafidi (00:57:55):
The plug, they put them right next to each other,
Dave Scafidi (00:57:58):
Lay them out. Old plugs, new plugs, old air filter, new air filter. I think people appreciate that to know that, hey, they actually did something. Because a lot of stuff you might not feel a difference in the car.
Tom Dorsey (00:58:09):
Exactly. Or it maybe even feel worse while it’s getting broken or whatever. Wait a second. So let me ask you this, because that’s great advice. And I always tell a story about my mom went into Walmart one time and got a new air filter and came home, and it still had the same rat’s nest in there that she left with. They sold it to her. They knew she needed it. They just didn’t actually do the work. But what would you say before we kind of break is what would you say to folks, new folks, just thinking about going digital or in the middle of it or having some frustration, some of those growing pains, what advice would you give them to take forward and implement after this show?
Teri Scafidi (00:58:51):
I think probably one of the biggest things for us has been having a person that is solely responsible, that is the point person for AutoVitals. And I don’t know that we had that. It was kind of split up. And then when I came and I started working with Shay and Team 25 and Laurie, we said, that’s it. We’ve got to have somebody that is the ultimate person responsible for the training, for understanding, for participating, for imparting new components. There’s got to be someone for that with that. And if it’s not the owner, it’s got to be somebody who’s completely vested, like maybe a general manager. But you have to own it. You got to own it. And I don’t think you can say that
Dave Scafidi (00:59:46):
Enough. You got to put in the work, you got to take advantage of the training. Otherwise it would be like before Teri took it over, we were partially using it and it was great for what we were using it for. It was better than the discs and our transferring pictures and inspection sheets.
Teri Scafidi (01:00:06):
But there was so much more, there was so much more.
Dave Scafidi (01:00:08):
We just got so much more out of it when we went all in.
Teri Scafidi (01:00:12):
And so you’ve got to be committed and you got to be committed and it’s time consuming, but it’s well worth it. It’s really well worth it. And I’m happy to share any of our staff, any of the training materials that we have. I think I’ve sent it to you, Tom before, I think Shane’s gone and we change it. We update it as things update. So with the inspections, I think one of the other things that we noticed, this comes up a lot I think at the seminars and meetings and such that people aren’t sure why it takes so long to do an inspection. So our inspections probably take on our courtesy inspection, not a vehicle check, not one that’s specialized. So we have some BMW, mileage based service ones that are very, very specialized specific to that mileage based service or to the vehicle check.
(01:01:10):
But for the most part, the other 80% when they’re coming in just for a courtesy inspection or courtesy inspection is deliberately vague in certain areas. And because we do not want to give away diagnosis time, so we even have a checkbox that says additional diagnostic time needed. So it’s like, no, check the box, tell them we can’t tell where the leak’s coming from, but we’re not going to spend another 30 minutes figuring that out. So I think really getting your inspection dialed in properly is probably another big key so that your techs aren’t spending too much time and delving deeper than they need to on an inspection. So there are ways around that
Tom Dorsey (01:01:56):
And you can break it up and have much smaller inspections for specific components or systems and then dig deeper, use a different inspection as you go forward. So that’s fantastic advice for folks because a lot of times it does. And to Dave’s point is really is take advantage of the training. Get into Teri, I think you’ve been probably in every single webinar I’ve ever done for the last at least five years, right? Four or five years. Teri was always and participate, ask questions, get in there and voice your opinion, voice your concern and tell people about your success because really you get an opportunity to see it from a lot of different perspectives. And folks have tried things and you get to see their results and you can think about what worked and what, why did it fail? And maybe I make these changes, apply it to my operation, and then achieve the results that we’re looking for and then give it back, share it back to the community and help other folks to get there.
(01:03:01):
And Teri and Dave, this was a great opportunity for folks today because like I said, you’ve been there since the beginning. You really kind of were ahead of the curve when it comes to digital communication and digital customer service and things like that. And now look at where it’s kind of gotten you too and you really blazed a trail and now it’s just a much easier path for the folks that are coming up to follow. And so I thank you guys a ton for everything, for coming on the show today, for participating in our webinars and giving us the feedback and holding us accountable to your business, right into the service that we create and provide to you. I know I’ve grown and I know Uwe has as a business person really and as a solution provider because without that type of feedback and dedication and commitment and willing to just jump in and try stuff out and then tell us about it, all we’re really doing is making a fancy camera.
Teri Scafidi (01:04:09):
I’ve worked with all different kinds of platforms and I’ve done migrations accounting platforms or whatever. And I think something that is really unique to AutoVitals is this kind of involvement point of sales do the same thing. Point of sales are like, oh, here’s your product. We’re going to do an update. We’ll tell you about it and we’ll upload it for you once every other year. They don’t take feedback. They don’t have participation meetings like this. They don’t have a turbo group that are actual participants testing something. They just, and it’s not just point of sale systems, it’s all different kinds of SaaS systems. So I think that’s valuable to us as users. And it really speaks to AutoVitals commitment to us as a customer. We just don’t see it. I don’t see it in other platforms. I really don’t. I’ve had to use a couple over the years. Yeah,
Tom Dorsey (01:05:17):
Yeah. No, it drives us. ula, you could speak to that a little bit. I mean, I can’t even tell you how many 4:00 AM Slack messages or texts I’ve ever gotten in my life since I started working at AutoVitals. I just had an idea. I’m like, wait, you couldn’t wait for the sun to come up
Teri Scafidi (01:05:35):
Is mantras If you’re not changing, you dying. Right? So constantly
Uwe Kleinschmidt (01:05:41):
I heard there’s even a country song you can sleep on, you’re dead.
(01:05:48):
No, I mean, passion drives it I guess. And we want to help and we want to learn and that will give us a leg up because then we build a software for the anarchist. Hopefully not. But we really and best practices, we are passionate about doing the fundamentals and then have a level planning field for everybody because this is a competitive landscape and it’s not getting easier over time. And especially now that more and more decisions are being made digitally and you’re not having people on the phone, it’s easier and tougher at the same time. It’s just change. And the moment we keep up with change, we’re good. So that’s what we’re trying to do. Before I forget, you have 5,855 Ken Jobs just to
Tom Dorsey (01:06:52):
Let you,
Teri Scafidi (01:06:55):
Those are just the ones that are pulled over into AutoVitals. We probably,
Uwe Kleinschmidt (01:06:59):
They’re probably 10,000 more.
Teri Scafidi (01:07:02):
That’s just for the six years that you’ve seen. We haven’t done one of those jobs in the last six years.
Tom Dorsey (01:07:08):
Yeah,
Teri Scafidi (01:07:10):
It’s
Tom Dorsey (01:07:11):
Real quick. Before we break, we did get a question in just came in from YouTube live. And so somebody was looking for, and also it was a kind of segue into tuning in next week because we’re going to be talking about the new kind of guided inspection and how to use, get the most out of your inspection program and introducing it. But folks are asking, Teri, do you use the workflow view in the TVP or do you also use the tech view for tracking and for operations? And do you switch between those or do you have ’em both open all the time? If you could kind of speak to that a little bit.
Teri Scafidi (01:07:50):
For me and the service advisors, we actually have three workflows open at all times. One is the TVP workflow, just regular where’s the car out in the shop? We have the tech view so that, because there’s certain things that we need to know at a tech view and the techs look at them more at the tech view. Like I said, all of our techs have desktops, so they’re more on the tech view. And then we have a third workflow and that’s our parts. So we have a parts workflow because we have some different suppliers, so we know exactly where things are at. There’s not a lot going on. Usually it’s in and out in the parts workflow and I don’t use that one as much. But yeah, I have both workflows in the service advisors have both workflows open at all times. The techs, I think for the most part just have the tech workflow up because they just want to know what’s in their queue.
(01:08:42):
Yeah, sure. But they also know they can go back to the TDP and figure out, but it also tells ’em at the bottom of the title, oh yeah, I moved it to Creating Estimate. It’s still there. The work hasn’t been approved. It’s still in creating estimate. They can also see once it gets moved to waiting for approval, they know that the service advisor has created the estimate, has sent the inspection, and they’re waiting for the customer to call back and approve the work. So the techs, that way the tech has a good idea. Okay. Still waiting to hear. I don’t have to go ask the service advisor, where are you at on this? And they can move on to the next job that they’ve got. So it helps the text.
Tom Dorsey (01:09:21):
And they’re asking also what your point of sale, you guys are using WinWorks, is that right? So you have on WinWorks,
Teri Scafidi (01:09:29):
Not without its challenges like any point of sale, but 16 years it’s been, it works kind of used to it. Yeah. So last year our big goal was to move to the CRM. We had a little bit of a delay in that just because we were, again, we were demand force and we know you can move that file over for all the reviews. Well, I was a little more demanding. I know that’s shocking. I wanted not just my reviews, but I wanted every response because we had almost 2000 reviews in demand force. So it took me a while, but I condensed demand force that they needed to get that information for me. We migrated that. We work with the AB team, migrated all that information. And so we had a little bit of delay in getting over this year, pushing the CRM as and getting it dialed in as best as we possibly can. And then the website, those are our goals this year. So we had thought about doing point of sale that might not be till later this year or early next year. So those are some of the goals that we have and that AutoVitals has been really helpful with all of those as well.
Tom Dorsey (01:10:34):
Yeah, no, that’s fantastic. Yeah, we’re excited because you’re really kind going full digital with us, like you said, adding the CRM and the website and stuff. And we’d love to probably we’ll be having you back on soon so we can kind of see some of the results of that and really look at what was the payoff, not just because of the process change, but also because of how you’re setting those expectations and how that customer experience looks like and what the differences from a revenue perspective and from a sales perspective. It’d be fantastic. Hey, you got anything before we break? I know we’re a little over and I want to bring Dustin in of tell us about what’s going on for next week.
Uwe Kleinschmidt (01:11:15):
Yeah, I just want to thank both of you to come on. It’s always a pleasure. We are learning something and I want to, hopefully I don’t steal Dustin’s Thunder here. We’re going to start next week, like a 10 episode series of podcasts where we use the second half of the show to really go down into nitty gritty on, we pretend to be a shop owner who just decided to go digital and go through all the steps in 10 episodes with screenshots and digital standard operating procedure, all the things you need to go through and with shop owners on the panel who have done it successfully so that the outcome is you have kind of a handbook of how to do it and what to avoid. So I’m really looking forward to that. And if we could have you guys on again maybe for one of those episodes, I’d really appreciate that.
Teri Scafidi (01:12:31):
I’d love it. Great. I love the idea. I think that’s great. It goes back to that training that I found so invaluable. It was great. And we’d hold each other accountable to things we learn from each other. And this is another way to do it. I think that’s a great idea. That would be awesome.
Uwe Kleinschmidt (01:12:48):
Yep.
Tom Dorsey (01:12:49):
Thank you. Because it’ll really give that, because it’s one thing to sit up there like the teacher, like the professor and say, well, in my theory, this is how it’s going to work, and we build our best practices and training around that. But now you get to really see how the application worked out. Did it really work? What pitfalls were there? What expectations were there? And kind of like you’d said, Hey, efficiency slid for a while, but then we got this payoff or this result. And really give people both sides of the coin. What’s the best practice, but what is the actual will application or implementation going to look like? What can I expect? And then how do I do it and how do I know if it’s working or how do I know if it’s bad and I got to get back in and get some more training. So yeah, next week, same time, same place, 10:00 AM Pacific, 1:00 PM Eastern Time. You can find us on YouTube live, Facebook Live. But more importantly, if you go right to AutoVitals.com/podcast and sign up directly or slash dst, I think either one of those will redirect you and you’ll get the sign up there so you can subscribe and get notification when the show’s on and what we’re going to be talking about and stuff like that.
Dustin Anaas (01:14:05):
Yeah. So Tom, this is a great point, Uwe, thank you for describing that. We’re going to call this 10 episode series, going Digital is Going Places You Never Thought Possible, and we’re going to kick it off with an episode featuring Nate Ramsey, Bill Connor, and we got a special guest that I’m still waiting to confirm. So I’m not going to say that person her yet. But anyways, that’s why we’re going to kick it off. We’re going to go into Service Advisor and then we’re just going to go through the chain like Uwe said. So sign up at AutoVitals.com/dst and you’ll get hooked up with all the information on how to join us through this process and be a part of it. Collaborate with us. I mean, that’s kind of the big part of all this that we’ve talked about a couple times here. But join us with this, not just like Tom said a professor, but as a group. Let’s accomplish this stuff together and come out of this thing better than we started
Tom Dorsey (01:15:00):
Looking forward to it.