INSPECTION TUNE-UP: HOW GREAT INSPECTIONS ARE LIKE GREAT STORIES

The practice of digital inspections and visual aids (pictures/videos, notes) has helped motorists better understand their vehicle’s problems and approve more work. But digital inspections can only be effective if the resulting inspection is properly managed and executed by your team (owner/manager, technician, and service advisor).

Join Matt Fowler, from Airport Automotive, for How Great Inspections are Like Great Stories, as he shares what each team member needs to do with every inspection to get better results.

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):
Episode 14, May 8th, 2019, and we got a great show for you today. It’s a follow up to a show that we had two weeks ago with Matt Fowler and Jamey Whitlock was on. We were talking about how to create the most effective digital inspection and we had great engagement, a lot of questions, and we hope to inspire you again today to ask lots of questions. And so please join in the conversation. You can go right on Facebook and ask your questions in the thread and we’ll answer those live on the air. And then of course, remember tomorrow we’ll be having the follow-up webinar. So think of it as today is concept and ideas. And tomorrow in the webinar we’ll get into the how to do it, the implementation side of it. And we will probably have a trainer in there talk us through how to implement some of the things that Matt talks about today. So first of all, I want to welcome Matt back and we’re really excited to have you back. Matt, that was pretty hard. That was a tongue twister right there. How you doing?
Matt Fowler (01:10):
Good, good. Thanks Tom. I appreciate being back and yeah, a couple of weeks ago, I know we got into some good stuff and there’s a few things we could elaborate on. Shout out to Jamey. I’ve seen some of the inspections just in the last couple of weeks, so it looks like he’s really taken off with some of that. And hopefully we can spread that throughout the users and I can share with some things that we’ve had success with and hopefully provide some insight.
Tom Dorsey (01:36):
Yeah, it’s funny because we were thinking, Hey, we’ll have him back in about six weeks and see what his results are, but we won’t be having him back next week. Who knows? Because he took to it fish to water. I mean it was great. I mean the ideas, and I think the instruction that you gave him was super clear and easy for him to take and implement and we’re seeing the results and I think those Facebook posts that he had put up. So if you guys haven’t seen, take a look at the posts he’s putting up on Facebook there and you can get up to speed on that and then join in the conversation there as well. So Matt, I think we kind of left off, we were talking more about tech process and best practices from the techs perspective and a lot about service writers perspective, but pick it up from how do we get that inspection sheet? The title or the theme of the show is great. Inspections are like great stories. So how do we start to tell that story to the customer?
Matt Fowler (02:40):
Sure, no problem. Also, real quick, from last week or two weeks ago, there were a couple of fresh postings with the infrastructure of how we use our inspection. So folks want to use that and template a lot of that. Please take advantage of that. So I just wanted to connect
Tom Dorsey (02:58):
That real quick. Is that posted up in the library?
Matt Fowler (03:01):
I believe so. Bill had put it out and I had actually had a few Facebook messages from folks asking for that. So it’s out there. I don’t know if we can hyperlink it to this video, but that is out there to use some template, which I think part is what brought Jamey’s up so quickly.
Tom Dorsey (03:18):
Awesome. That’s awesome for you guys to do that. So what you do is just go into your inspection sheet settings, go into the library and search for Matt’s inspection sheet and add it to your library and then you can edit that and make it as your default. And we’ll be talking about that tomorrow in the webinar. So we’ll kind of go through the steps on how to get that done. Thanks Matt. That’s a great point.
Matt Fowler (03:40):
Sure. So as far as the great stories, we’ve got a few different roles in the process. So I actually brought a few props along to kind of illustrate and articulate. I think that the first person involved is our customer. And so what I’ve got here is our customer usually is kind of disguised. You don’t really know how they’re coming at you, what they’re thinking. They’re very unfamiliar with the product. They can very easily get overwhelmed. Sometimes they’re anxious, they’re nervous, they’re vulnerable. So this is just an expression of how your customer may be. They’re kind of timid and not really sure trying to not show a poker face in disguise. All right,
Tom Dorsey (04:27):
Awesome.
Matt Fowler (04:28):
Now as far as, oh, and by the way, if there’s some of this may rub you the wrong way or I just tried to get some illustration, but I appreciate any feedback. You can give me any of that. Just my email is [email protected].
(04:47):
Okay, so next up is our writer. And so what I’ve got here is our writer is the professional communicator. So he or she are the person that are doing a lot of the moving around a lot of the shaken and taking the information, not necessarily an order taker, but taking the information and then turning it into a beautiful sale. So in that you’ve got a lot of expectation that needs to be set both externally to the customer. And we touched on that a little bit last week to where our process, the onboarding process of a customer involves showing them an example of an inspection, what that’s going to look like, how they can navigate it, the different categories, how to interface with it, with the videos and the photos and all of that. And then on the backside, the rider is now going to kind of set the table.
(05:51):
So in our facility, if the customer has a specific concern, say they’re in for an oil change, which we do the inspection on, but if they also are like, yeah, and I kind of have this weird noise in the dash, we front load that on the top of the inspection, so that rises right to the top of it in the report. And how you do that in the editing process is you have the check boxes above the work order and the inspection and then the work order is where you will edit and kind of tailor that and you’ll check both of those to send it to the customer. And in that process it will load the customer specific line item to the very top of the report. They’re going to be looking for that. So that’s one thing that the service writer will do internally.
(06:40):
And then also internally, they’re going to want to allow enough time for the process. And that’s probably the biggest thing I want to touch on is this respect for time from front of the house, back of the house and then also of the owner because the service rider knows the customer’s kind of window of time as far as expectation and they need to kind of back load that so they have enough time to get the inspection, edit it, send it, and then build estimates in sale. So they’re a huge project manager of time internally and externally as far as that internal time, the editing process, they are there to simplify what the technician is putting through, tidy it up as far as the editing, the jargon if you will. And then also a big thing for the service writer is to have solutions to the problems.
(07:40):
So if you’re just sending out a whole bunch of problems but not showing to the customer, brake pads are thin, nearly metal to metal, and you’re just sending that out, that’s incomplete. You want to say nearly metal to metal, recommend front brake service. You got to make sure that your inspection has the problem and the solution in it or oil pan leaking need to reseal something to help that customer understand not am I just looking at a problem, but what is the solution? And that’s where you can articulate further when you speak to your customer. But that’s a big thing. You want to have solution to the problem.
Tom Dorsey (08:19):
Yeah, no, that’s a great point Matt, and I really like what you said about how important the time management is to the whole process, right? It’s like when you’re saying that I’m envisioning it like it’s a big ballet or it’s a dance, you got all these people doing their different dance steps and how do you make sure that they’re not running into each other? And so can you elaborate a little bit because sure. The service writer understands what amount of time he needs to prepare correctly and run his full process without shortcuts to get it from technician submission to the customer’s phone. How does the technician help? How do they fit into that time management scenario and how do you get those guys on board to follow those best practices or that operating procedure so that you’re not colliding on stage?
Matt Fowler (09:12):
Sure. And to clarify, you’re asking about the writer, not the technician and the time management part. Is
Tom Dorsey (09:17):
That right? The technician? How does the technician help support the rider? Because the writer, like I was saying, he kind of understands what he needs. So how does he communicate that to the tech? Maybe, hey, is it a deadline for inspection submission because customer has some demand, they need it by three o’clock, let’s say. So that means I need working back in that project management process. That means I need inspection results by here, I need editing done by here. How does the tech support that and how do you set ’em up for success?
Matt Fowler (09:50):
Sure. So the service writer is going to have to know when to have the inspection to allow the time for editing before it sends out, and then ultimately they’ll know project completion. So it starts with orienting the tiles properly in the TVP, so the technician knows which job to go to next, and then the service writer needs to say, need inspection by 10:00 AM in my process or in our process, we allow an hour before I want to get it to the customer. If the customer, I set the expectation, you’ll see this inspection by 11:00 AM I want the inspection from the technician by 10 to allow an hour of editing phone calls, putting out fires, whatever it is to get it into the customer world. So the service writer can manage that and clarify, I need this inspection by whatever hour. And then that’s how the technician can be set up for success. So then he can manage what he does in his process, the test drive, those type of things.
Tom Dorsey (10:52):
Exactly. And so how are you communicating that? Are you using a special marker that says inspection by this time, is it a node, is it a chat through the communication tool? How are you keeping ’em on track to hit that time?
Matt Fowler (11:09):
So our process, again, we’re at much smaller outfit. We’ve got currently two technicians, so I’m just doing it through the messenger, the show last week from my man Marty talking about the signs and all that kind of stuff and the markers that may be more necessary when you’re running more high volume in our process. I’m just simply using the messenger feature for the technician. And then the last thing on the service writer is that there’s a big part of protecting the sale, and we touched on that a little bit two weeks ago, but the process for that is once the customer has the evaluation or the inspection in their world, that timer is like gold because that’s telling me what doing, how they’re doing it. If it’s sitting and if I see it sit for probably about 15, 20 minutes dormant, then I’m calling ’em, even if I’m not fully prepared to make a sale, I don’t have all my estimates, I’m not fully ready.
(12:08):
I want to make sure that they are doing what the process is to do is to have them look at all this work that we’ve been doing for the last couple of hours, getting this presentation together. So I’m calling ’em and say, Hey, I just sent over that evaluation. I wanted to see if you had a chance to look at it. Okay, why don’t you take a peek at it? I need to do a couple things. I’ll call you back here in about 15, 20 minutes. I’m setting 15, 20 minutes. I want you to camp out on that thing and look at all this hard work we’ve been doing. And then if that timer rolls and then I see it stop, I usually do a couple little things. And if it’s sitting dormant now I’m calling and I’m actually acting on the sale because I want to protect that. I don’t want lingering off onto the Amazon and the Googles and those type of things like we talked about a couple weeks ago.
Tom Dorsey (12:55):
And also there, I know a lot of shops, so are you guys working maybe an expectation either at drop off or if you notice that the timer’s running and they’re not engaging in the inspection sheet yet. Hey, call me back with some questions that you might have.
Matt Fowler (13:11):
It kind of depends on the feel of the customer. At the point of drop off, I say, this is what you can expect, take a look at it and then yeah, if you want to call ’em, we can chat. I prepare ’em. I say there’s no pricing on that and our inspection don’t have any pricing because that’s when that next part, after they’re educated, now I come in and then start layering in the numbers and getting the money rolling.
Tom Dorsey (13:35):
That’s a great point. You got to know your customer. So what about the story? How does the customer perceive the story? What happens after they’ve read it?
Matt Fowler (13:45):
By and large, I mean most people are blown away. And I say that with the overwhelming majority of people are just like, wow, I had no idea. And we showed a couple of weeks ago, we’re taking as many, we’re taking a lot of photos of good reinforcing building the value in the vehicle so that it’s not such an overwhelming deal. But a lot of that read is at the front end just to kind of see if there are more of that receptive personality. And then I just speak to that. I say, Hey, I know that’s a lot of data. Did you get a chance to process all that? I don’t want you to feel overwhelmed. Yes, there’s some things in that immediate category, but let’s talk about that. What do you think? And then I’m really just trying to listen and maneuver within that.
Tom Dorsey (14:32):
And that’s a great point. And I see a lot of inspection sheets and how do we get that across to the shops to other service advisors as they’re building that story to prioritize, here’s those customer concerns and I’m going to pin those to the top. Here’s the how I’m going to kind of tell the rest of the story. And it might be you start out with some good stuff and you kind of ease ’em in. And like Matt was saying is if you can read that customer and set up your inspection sheets to meet their kind of profile, you’re going to get better results. And it’s one of those things where you want to look at the results over time. You want to get an honest assessment of it and how can I structure this better to get a better, even from the conversation perspective, I’m getting better conversations, which leads me to more opportunity. I’m going to continue doing this and kind of scale from that perspective so I can ultimately get the best results as I’m tracking that through my KPIs.
Matt Fowler (15:37):
Right? Right. So that’s kind of the writer portion of the story. Okay, let’s check. Next is our technician. And so this is our field expert. He’s the guy working the hands out in the field collecting the data. So really what is a good part or a good role to play as the technician is quality? Well, well labeled photos. I can’t express how crucial that is because if you’re back and forth with having to bounce back an inspection that you now as the service writer been waiting an hour for, and that window is getting tight to be able to get back to the customer an underlit photo or an under labeled, okay, what am I looking at as the service writer that you’re trying to point out? Am I the leak over here or the blown boot there? Where am I? So labeling it well for your front counter and it’s okay to use jargon.
(16:50):
That’s what I tell the technicians is that I, as far as the sales folks, they’re the gate before it goes into the customer world. So they can say, need diag or blown out or whatever to let the service writer then pretty it up and say extremely failed instead of blown out. You know what I mean? So you can use some of that as the field expert as the technician’s. Okay, that’s that’s not a problem. Our technicians have really gotten in the habit of the video, part of the tool for the digital inspection from leaking struts. You can take a photo, sometimes the photo will grab the leak, but our technicians, you can see his big old thumb coming up there and wiping off the moisture and then showing it on his glove. Nice. This is gold. Because you take something like that and you edit it to the customer. I mean, they’re like, wow, I didn’t even know there was fluid in there. And sometimes that photo can’t really grab the depth of what we’re trying to express, which sets the sale up easier, makes for a better story.
Tom Dorsey (18:00):
That’s awesome. Yep. Yeah, you are creating a production if you do it right, think about what works, what do you respond to through advertising and TV and things you see online. And you can never go wrong with a comparison, especially if you can catch one on the vehicle. Hey, look at this non leaking strut, look at this nightmare and then go ahead and show the results. Have you ever thought about maybe putting a follow-up video to that of it’s dripping down and then seals are dying in the arctic or something like that because of the damage that they’re doing to the environment or something?
Matt Fowler (18:39):
I haven’t thought of that
Tom Dorsey (18:41):
Evolution.
Matt Fowler (18:41):
It’s a process.
Tom Dorsey (18:44):
That’s the next chapter of the story.
Matt Fowler (18:48):
But one thing that I know when I first started with the product, it seemed like, here, technician, you take this and now you have another thing to do within your job, which is already taxed out. And the more that the technicians are giving me with quality photos and good and videos as the sales counter, we want to honor that. That’s a lot of time that takes, that doesn’t really get the yield, the result of hours on Paychex if it’s not accompanied by a, well edit an articulate presentation. And that’s a two-way street man. And I can’t say that enough that the texts put in a lot of time the service writers need to put in a lot of time to make this thing presentable and to make it effective.
Tom Dorsey (19:38):
Teamwork makes the dream work. So how did that process go? Did you find yourself at first? I’ve got two questions for you. First one, did you find yourself having to kick back a lot of pictures and say, retake this picture for me to get the texts into what are the best practices from the lighting and the angles and all that good stuff? And then what about the service writers? How did you monitor the service advisors to say, guys, you’re kind of accepting images that maybe you could have got better quality and would tell a better story?
Matt Fowler (20:13):
Yeah, yeah. So early on, yes, there was a lot of bouncing back like Mr. Technician, there’s no lighting or what are we talking about? Or man, that’s blurry. Did you take that while you were falling over stuff? Getting bounced back to just say, Hey, this is how we’re going to be making, this is how we’re going to take an ARO and add two, three, $400 to this ARO, and it’s got to be understandable for the customer. A blurry photo isn’t doing anybody any favor. So yes, early on, a significant amount of bouncing back as soon as this week I had to kick a couple back that are like, dude, it’s not well lit. I need some more light on that. And okay, bam, bam. Yes, it’s cumbersome, but it’s going to turn into what we want it to as far as Go ahead.
Tom Dorsey (21:12):
Well, I was just going to say, I mean that’s the kicker right there is if they see the end goal, I mean, hey, it’s more money for everybody here and it’s not like I’m asking you to go dig ditches in the middle of summer in Arizona. I’m asking you to simply take a better picture, get better lighting, maybe see yourself a little bit as a photographer to some extent, but it’s all about the end result, right? It’s all about the impact it has on the customer and how easily they can interpret the need. And then after that, it is that in and out burger hat because you are taking orders, they’ve got a lot of the understanding out of the way and it really boils down to, Hey, I can’t run from this. How long is it going to take? What’s it going to cost? All of those closing questions that help you take those orders.
Matt Fowler (22:01):
And then the second part of your question, so the service writer, just that metric that AutoVitals provides as far as the amount of edited photos that quickly shows you what is happening. Are we used to be pencil whipping now? Are we picture whipping and just crap out there? Rather than having it prettied up or throw an arrow on it or throw a little note that says brake pads then need replacement again. Yes, digital inspection makes improvement over non-digital inspection, but a well done digital inspection is seriously just like the next step because yes, you’re getting photos into the customer world, but if you really want to maximize it, if it’s edited, if it’s clean, if it’s simplified, now we’re talking some pretty
Tom Dorsey (22:51):
Good. And I got to tell you from the show we did with Tyler Hubbard, one of the first shows we did, I mean kind of the realization, the epiphany that he had was, I’m going to invest a little bit more work here, but it saves me so much more time on the backend because all of that explaining and back and forth questions gets in a lot can be just completed by one picture if you do it. And so from your time management comments is to say, really, if you block out a little bit more time for editing, look at how much time you gain on the backend for bringing in the next vehicle or maybe adding one more customer to the day over time. I mean, that’s a huge impact to the bottom line. Did you guys, I mean, did you figure that out? Did it happen kind of organically when you were talking about preparing, giving yourself enough time at the counter to tell the story, or did you just see the need for that right from the gate and kind of make that change to block it out and just like a change to the process?
Matt Fowler (24:04):
I think for us it was a matter of maximizing the opportunities that we had. We could tell that there was still room to grow from an ARO standpoint with this product, and it continues to be the case. We have had consistent car count over the last three years, which is pre, mid and current digital inspection where our car count has really not fluctuated, but our ARO just continues to climb and that’s what is allowing those sales and things to grow. And so that kind of brings me to the last person of this puzzle, which is the owner. Yeah, sure is. Hang on, it’s coming. Okay, so we got our owner now. Alright. Right, got,
Tom Dorsey (24:51):
He’s the money man, the banker.
Matt Fowler (24:59):
Okay. So for the owner, obviously he’s laying down the cash for the product, for the digital product and then they’re also for us, we had to upgrade some equipment as far as minor type of things like getting lights for the tablets upfront. I had to get a dual monitor set up with the swingy arm. I had to kind of get a little bit more equipment. So I would encourage the owners to be open to that to allow this product to be successful. And really the next thing is just some patience and not expecting this product to go right into the shop and then boom, it starts to yield an ARO because of the things we talked about earlier that take a technician getting a streamlined process, a service writer using the editor, and that editing tool just continues to get more user-friendly from AutoVitals and what it is now is substantial, but that kind of stuff takes a level of patience from the owner to allow this system to get integrated, let it get culturized and allow it to start to climb with that ARO. And so as the owner watching the numbers and the metrics, there’s a lot of metrics that we’re watching as far as effectiveness, growth of ARO to then help moderate some of that marketing. If your marketing plan is to just bring in a ton of cars, it can really get dangerous and it’s going to thin out the value of this digital vehicle inspection. That’s really the biggest thing that I would say is to be careful with car saturation because it’s going to take away from this process.
Tom Dorsey (26:49):
And that is just, I hope people write that down because I mean, I see a lot of the metrics I go through and I’m analyzing these and I got to tell you, and a lot of times I don’t understand why you don’t feel it as much in the shop, but I see consistently car counts down, but weekly revenue aros up and they’re making a lot more money doing less work. And some people understand that, and that’s actually part of their goal is to get higher quality, less volume, but other people think, oh my gosh, I just got to stuff the bays. And then like you said, it starts to fall apart. And why, the question is why would you do that? I understand a lot of people, hey, you are in a spot where you have to manage the community’s needs and you’ve got that amount of customers in, but you’ve got to look at it from a perspective of instill your process.
(27:48):
And like what you said, Matt, it couldn’t be more need to be repeated is that you have to commit. You have to have that because it’s not a toaster. You’re not going to plug it in and make crispy bread. It’s going to take some time. But if you start out with the baby steps and then low hanging fruit and like Matt said, right, when you’re tracking that ARO over time and you have the buy-in from the team then and they’re following the right process, then you can analyze and it’s just nothing but incremental improvements until you reach your top performance and then just open up more shops, right? Then you got to,
Matt Fowler (28:27):
And yeah, heavy car count marketing has some of those quick triggers to be able to bring in car count, whether it’s an email blast or a direct mail piece or something to where that’s going to create, it’s designed to create a reaction. However, that reaction can be so quick and overwhelm that now, oh man, all this effort we’ve been making to get our technicians bought in to get our service writer editing to get all that yumminess, and then we just blow it out with a marketing campaign that just floods. It’s just such a, yes, it’s a fine line, I get it, but busy being busy or busy making money, and we all want to be looking at that idea because if our faces are just melting, we’re not going to take the time to throw on an arrow or a sweet little nothing for the customer to read about the good break pad or whatever. It’s just, man, I got to crank on this one. I got three more behind it. And that just it’s, it takes away from the value of this.
Tom Dorsey (29:33):
Yeah, no, that’s a great point, man. You got to feather that throttle and make sure that, because especially in the early stages when you’re just getting by in and guys are like, Hey, this is actually something I’m into and it’s improving. And then if you blow it up by pulling the trigger a little too fast, just crack the throttle and ease into it until you get high speed. I mean, this is awesome, Matt. Thank you very much again for coming on. Unfortunately, time flies when Matt’s on the show. I loved all the guests that you brought with you. That was incredible. I mean, gosh, I don’t know how many guys you got working over there, but for you guys to all be able to attend and guest spot on the show, that’s fantastic webinar tomorrow where we’re going to talk about implementation and how we take a lot of those things like prioritizing customer concerns and things like that and show you how to do it and set it up on the backend and how to structure the inspection sheet and good stuff like that. Again, Matt, thank you very much, buddy. Really appreciate it. You’re like the guru. Looking forward to having you back soon. Thank you. It was my pleasure. I appreciate it. Yeah, thanks again, and until next week, next Wednesday, same place, same time, 10:00 AM Pacific, 1:00 PM Eastern, and follow up on Facebook, ask questions, get engaged and we’ll be more than happy to give you some answers on there. Have a great day. Go make some money. Thank you.