Keep the customers coming back with The Digital Shop strategies

You did a great job of creating a positive “WOW” experience for your customer’s first visit to your shop. In this episode, we are joined by shop owners Russ Crosby, Bruce Williams, and Brett Spaulding to explore digital shop processes and strategies to keep those customers coming back again and again.

Episode Transcript

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

Bill Connor (00:00:05):
So let’s get started. Good morning, good afternoon. I’m Bill Connor and this is the Digital Shop Talk Radio. On today’s episode, the panelists and I are going to dive into keeping customers coming back to your shop using the digital shop strategies that we all have that we’re working with. So joining us today, we’ve got Russell Crosby with Russ’s Wrench Auto Repair. Good day, Russ. Hello, Bruce Williams with Rivers Edge Services.
Brett Spaulding (00:00:31):
Hi
Bill Connor (00:00:31):
Everybody. And we’ve also got Brett Spaulding from Sage Creek Auto Repair. So all three of these guys have actually been on and joined us on past episodes, and these are all first class operators and they’re a great panel for today’s topic. So I’d like to welcome everybody and today’s topic is really huge when you think about the cost of acquiring new customers. And we’re not going to get into the difference in the cost between acquiring new customers and keeping what you have. But there’s a phrase out there that gets used really often that it’s cheaper to keep him or her, and that’s applied to not only your personal life but probably your business as well. So we’re going to dive in and I’m going to highly encourage you to take some notes as we move along. I put a link in the chat for you to go ahead and actually print out a document if you’d like to, and you can take some notes on them on the different statuses the customer goes through to shop as we go along. And I’d like to highly encourage you to go ahead and find the chat button on your webinar toolbar and go ahead and chat some questions in if you have ’em. And I’m going to ask my panelists to help me watch this also because I don’t normally have my chief innovation officer here to go and assist me today, but we’re going to go ahead and make this work and we’re going to make it work real well.
(00:01:49):
So that being said, what I’d really like to do is I’d like to start out with each one of you and I’d like you to take about a minute to go in and tell me about your staff size, where you’re located, and maybe just your 32nd elevator pitch on why a consumer is going to go do business with your shop versus one of your competitors. So let’s start with Brett and then we’ll go around the table.
Brett Spaulding (00:02:13):
Sure. So I’m from Idaho Falls, Idaho, and we have a four technician shop service advisor, customer service rep. And we are currently looking for another customer or service advisor to try to expand a little bit more. And we generally service general repair service shop. And our biggest thing is our transparency that we’ve developed through AutoVitals and our customers. One of the reasons they come here is because they like the process that we put ’em through, the difference between us and other shops, it all has to do with that communication and the transparency that we have available to us through AutoVitals.
Bill Connor (00:03:04):
Cool. So Russ, if you would go ahead and give us your one minute speech on who you are and how you wow your customers.
Russell Crosby (00:03:13):
Alright. Russell Crosby from Russell’s Wrench. We’re located here in New Jersey, Clinton, New Jersey, and we have another location hopefully opening in White House, New Jersey shortly. I think the reason that our customers come to us much like Brett is our transparency and we are very focused on giving back to the community. Fixing cars is just what we do, but helping people is what we’re passionate about. So I think that’s what really drives people to us is we care about them and fixing their cars is just the vehicle that we use to help them out.
Bill Connor (00:03:53):
And how about Bruce from our way north of the Canadian border there?
Bruce Williams (00:03:58):
Yeah, so I’m up here in Canada. I have a 12,000 square foot shop. We’ve got six technicians, three service advisors, a service manager and myself and a lot personnel, again, same as Brett and Russ. Building that trust and transparency has been huge since I started with AutoVitals years ago. It takes away that stigma in the industry and the trust that we have built with them, with all of our customers, they’re super happy, they recommend their friends constantly. We’re getting every day we get five star reviews steady and it’s just been great. Having that digital process is what has really turned our business around and we’ve tripled in size in the last five years and I owe it all to AutoVitals and the processes that we’ve implemented.
Bill Connor (00:04:47):
Perfect. And that’s what we’re going to dig into is we’re going to dig into these processes quite a bit. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to share my screen and what I’d like to do is make sure that you guys can go ahead and see this infographic that I’ve got up on the screen.
Bruce Williams (00:05:02):
Got it.
Bill Connor (00:05:03):
And so what I want to do is I want to begin with the end in mind. So when I talk about the digital shop, I always talk about it as a journey and the end of the journey here. What we really want is the motorists to go ahead and do something that we need them to do and that is to go ahead and use the appointment or service reminder that we send them to view services or recommended they’re due backed up by inspection results. And we either want them to confirm a date and time from when we set it up, when we exit them or to choose their date and time. And then on this side of it as we go through here, we’ve got some actions that are going to take place by either an employee in the shop and here we’ve got listed a service writer, but really everybody in the shop contributes and or the tool itself, which would be AutoVitals.
(00:05:52):
So this is where we want to go and then we’re going to start working our way down through here and talk about the different things that happen on these different steps to go ahead and make sure that we stay on target. So I’m going to go ahead and stop screen share for a minute. I want to make sure that everybody on a call with me has the same belief that I do is my belief system is after many, many years in this business as retention really starts with that first phone call to shop or the first interaction with the customer at the counter. And it kind of continues on in a whole bunch of ways from there. And so what I wanted to get in first of all is some of the settings that we go through in the shop and why they’re important and then we’ll continue on from there. So what I’d like to do is describe your thought process when you’re building your inspection sheets. Are you keeping some future service needs in mind when you’re building your inspection sheet? The rest you want to go in and start out with that?
Russell Crosby (00:06:54):
Yeah, I mean as you’re going through and building your inspection sheet, you want to be able to not only be able to service the customer now, but really focus on what’s going to get them back in and how do we help them not only get the car back in but also build. I like to help them build a budget so they know exactly what to expect when they’re coming back, which can certainly be one of the more frustrating things about owning a vehicle, not knowing what it’s going to cost when you walk through the door. So I think when you’re building that inspection sheet, it’s really important to make sure that the action items really reflect that this is something that you can put off for a little bit and we’re going to help you prioritize exactly what you need to do and when you should come back for these repairs or mileage based services or what have you in that inspection sheet.
Bill Connor (00:07:46):
And Brett, you have anything that you’d like to go and add on that particular topic?
Brett Spaulding (00:07:53):
It’s pretty much the same thing as Russell and we like to take pictures of some of the things that are not necessarily bad but that are more like wear items that eventually are going to start showing somewhere. And that way there’s a history of visual history that’s been a really good process for us. And again, just that priority thing is really important to be able to stress to the customer that hey, we can budget this stuff out and you don’t have to fix it all now. And it works. We let them basically they’re in the driver’s seat at our shop.
Bill Connor (00:08:31):
So Bruce, when you look at the inspection sheet here, this is an example, this is a 30 point inspection sheet here and you can see just on the first when I got up here, I’ve got all kinds of maintenance items on here, but do you view the inspection sheet as kind of a living and breathing document that as the automotive industry puts more systems and stuff on vehicles that we need to work with our staff to keep this updated at all times?
Bruce Williams (00:08:58):
Absolutely. We’ve got an inspection sheet, update sheet that the guys weekly bring me ideas, changes that we should implement for sure because like you said, the industry’s constantly changing and there’s always new systems or processes that we need to do, which is including, like Brett said, future maintenance. It’s not worn out now, but it has a time and mileage based maintenance. So we have to include that in there and let the doctors in the back shop recommend it properly based on either breakage and where or time and interval maintenance.
Bill Connor (00:09:33):
I like the way you referred to ’em as doctors because we’ll get into that a little bit later when we talk about exit scheduling for sure. And so what is the value of the vehicle profile does it have with the motorist when it comes to retention? So what I’ve done is I’ve got a screenshot here is showing a service or repair reminder is showing the vehicle profile on here. And I also like to go and point out some other things on here we want to make sure that we talk about, and this is also repurposing the inspection results. So this is where I said the whole entire staff comes into play when it comes down to retention. So here you can see that next reminder that goes out, it’s got a picture of it, it’s reminding the customer nodes video and so on. So can either any of you go ahead and pop off there and tell me the importance of not only the profile picture but of making sure that everybody knows that if it doesn’t get approved today, it doesn’t matter. We have a process in place to make sure that we’re going to poke that customer again with the great content you guys created today.
Russell Crosby (00:10:38):
Yeah, I think that when you have those pictures and that they’re getting those service reminders, I’m sure all of us here are educating our customers and prioritizing what repairs needed to be done at that previous repair time. And we should have also educated the customers, this is what’s going to be coming down the road when they get that reminder it’s it’s exactly that. It’s reminding them, oh yeah, I have to do this, I have to do this repair. And this is why it gives them a little thumbnail picture of exactly why they need to do it because face it, everybody’s busy, everybody’s running around like crazy and the world’s ever changing. That little reminder and picture kind of brings you back for a second from three to six months ago whenever that vehicle is in. Because let’s face it, it’s hard to remember three to six months ago sometimes, especially if you have kids or whatever, at least for me, I’ve got two little ones that I can’t remember what happened last week. So little reminders like that are huge.
Bill Connor (00:11:38):
Yeah, it does really matter whether the kids or not, life has a tendency to distract and the whole last year has been nothing but a distraction for sure. And so when you are planning for your inspection sheet, obviously we want to go ahead and make sure that we’ve got the maintenance jobs on there. Do any of you use the strategy of going ahead and making sure that at least everything that might be found in an owner’s manual is on that inspection sheet somewhere?
Bruce Williams (00:12:07):
Yeah, definitely. We’ve built ours based on our maintenance schedule that’s built into our shop management protractor for sure, which basically mimics the OEMs manuals in everybody’s glove box for the most part. So we built it based on that mileage and interval and any other wear items like I said.
Bill Connor (00:12:26):
Yep. And so best practice is always when we create these canned jobs to go and make them generic because in most cases there’s no way that there’s a one size price model fits all, so depending on your point of sale. So we want to make sure these are generic can jobs where there’s just one of them in the inspection sheet for sure. And I’m going to switch back over here to go ahead and give you a little bit of an example of where I’m talking about that they should be.
Bruce Williams (00:12:54):
I wanted to just touch base on the importance of that picture of the car.
Bill Connor (00:12:58):
Please do
Bruce Williams (00:12:59):
On that because we’ve had so much feedback that it’s actually a picture of the customer’s car, it’s not a stock photo off the internet and that just brings the trust and transparency to one more level. For the most part right now they’re seeing their car, they trust that the other pictures in the inspection process are their vehicle and it makes it more real for the customer
Bill Connor (00:13:24):
And and that picture is kind of a one and done. So if they don’t have their car a vehicle wrapped done or painted as a different color or whatever, you take it one time and it’s just done. So that’s good. That’s a really great information there. And so this is an example here of where these are generic can jobs that’ve been actually added to the inspection sheet. So we want to make sure that when you’re building your can jobs and your point of sale, we want to make sure that they’re generic first of all, and then we want to map them through the inspection sheet. So very simply, a technician can just go and tap on a condition, have it choose the appropriate job that goes with it. And in as many cases as possible, we want to make sure they get imported right directly into the point of sale system.
(00:14:06):
And there’s another key aspect of these canned jobs that a lot of shops miss and that isn’t a canned job scheduler where you can go in there and define these jobs and service intervals so that way they’re available on your campaigns and so on in the future. So this is something that a lot of shops missed that’s there and available for them to use. And I would highly encourage you to kind of set this up. And it’s also going to show the service rider when it’s configured properly, it’s going to let them see instantly that this is our recommendation for all vehicles. And if it’s something different based on a discussion with that customer or based on the condition or type of their vehicle, they can edit it and then decide whether they want to save it for all vehicles of the same type later on. So this is a tool that we put in there for CRM that a lot of shops don’t exploit, so I just want to make sure that everybody knows it’s there. And so are any of you guys using this shopper? We kind of broken a little bit of new ground here.
Russell Crosby (00:15:09):
I personally haven’t started using this. I looked at putting it together so it’s in process, but it seems like a really, really useful tool, especially for those campaigns that we’re sending out.
Bill Connor (00:15:26):
So this is something I encourage all shops to do is go into the hamburger menu, go down to settings, click on inspection, then the shop management tab and look for to canned job scheduler and then go in there and just define four or five jobs for your shop just to see how they work and leave it in test mode and just see. So this is a real simple way to go ahead and learn. It’s in test mode so you don’t have to worry about something going out unexpectedly, but go in there and grab that and make some use of it. So it’s a really useful tool. And again, we’re talking about exploiting can jobs to the max here. And so this is another place that the can jobs are used. And here you can see that we’re pulling the point of sale recommendations from the deferred or the future recommendations in the point of sale.
(00:16:14):
And this star here is telling us these are all based on canned jobs and then these are based on the inspection results from either the immediate attention area. So this is a safety or breakdown concern and this is future attention. So really our goal is when we go through and exit schedule a customer is to go ahead and flip all of them from a reminder to an appointment, go through the date on here and then click that bell icon to go ahead and make sure everything looks like that reminder I just showed when we started out there on the first page. So let’s go ahead and go back to the main screen here and let’s go through this question here. So what are some examples of some canned jobs that you would map to your inspection sheet conditions in the status of good, immediate and future? And they might not just be maintenance job, maybe there’s some other jobs in there that you’d like to share, people that are repetitive jobs you do in your shop. So Brett, do you have anything on that particular list?
Brett Spaulding (00:17:13):
Oh yeah. One of the things I know a lot of shops are focused on the shorter inspections. Ours is a little longer because we do look at the things that aren’t necessarily maintenance items like ball joints. It’s one of those things and just that’s the only one that comes to mind right now. But that’s a really good example. We do ’em all the time, they pay good money and it’s a great opportunity to make an adjustment to your shop and what you see come through your doors.
Bill Connor (00:17:54):
So Bruce, any services that you guys do that might not be found in the owner’s manual but they might be related to what’s in the owner’s manual?
Bruce Williams (00:18:03):
Well, one thing that came to mind on your first question was in ours, our technicians always take a picture of the dash with the vehicle running, checking for running morning months, and those are all instantly mapped to a canned job. If there’s a check engine light on, it instantly maps to our diagnostic level one, if it’s an ABS light on it instantly maps to ABS diagnostics, which automatically imports that onto the work order in proper diagnostic rates and job. So things like that.
Bill Connor (00:18:35):
How about you?
Bruce Williams (00:18:35):
Like you said, it’s a one check, one click and it all takes place in the backend.
Bill Connor (00:18:41):
How about you Russ? I know that you’re in a different position that basically you’ve designed the operation and floor of your shop and you kind of manage it from a distance. So anything on that list that you’d like to add?
Russell Crosby (00:18:59):
Much like both Bruce and Brett here breaks, things like that. Ty rod ends, they all kick over to something that drops right onto the repair order about saving time for our riders at that time. Just ease for the technician. As much as we can make it automated for our technicians, it’s more likely that they’re probably going to click it and shoot it over. So sometimes it takes a little time to get it set up, but it’s certainly worth it. But I would say suspension components are a big one. That’s one that’s kind of overlooked. It says your owner’s manual says to check this stuff, but sometimes we forget to.
Bill Connor (00:19:35):
Cool. So common things I hear from other shops just like yours all the time is, hey, we’re going to put BG flushes on there because they’re a high value to the customer, they’re a high value to the shop and then it’s also got the warranty that goes with it. They might have things on there like Bruce up in the Canadian way that has a seasonal tire swap. They might be things like down here in Texas we’re really kind of particularly about annual HVAC performance test and things like that. So anything that would be a repetitive task that you want to make sure that customers do on a certain timeframe, we definitely want to go ahead and have that generic can job on there, map to the sheet so we can repurpose that. So this is all part of the setup that we do to go ahead and get going.
(00:20:18):
And then the other thing I’d like to cover is there’s certain key things that a service rider should do and if anybody’s falling around and putting notes on here, some certain things a service rider should do right before they move the vehicle tile over to the workflow step of ready for pickup. And so does any of you have a particular process you’re using in your shop that might be related to a QC inspection using the CRM next tab to go ahead and make sure that everything’s on there, make sense to the customer using the bell icon to actually do a quality control check of that next reminder exactly what it’s going to look like.
Russell Crosby (00:21:03):
So we’re using a quality control, but we’re typically doing it towards the end of the the service. It’s like the last step of our inspection process there. So after repairs have been done, we’re going through this checklist on the digital inspection. I’m not sure if that’s what you were looking for there, but that’s kind of what we’re doing. And I guess well actually I think we are using the product production advisor and then a sales person. So our sales person is kind of the quality control person at that point because reviewing it and prepping up to make the sale. So they’re making sure the services that are supposed to be mileage based are on there I guess.
Bill Connor (00:21:44):
Cool. Anything you’d like to add to that Bruce?
Bruce Williams (00:21:48):
Just what came to mind for me is our check-in process, our quality control before they knew the tile, they’ve gone through all the customer information, make sure they have all the data points they need for communication with them for sure. And everything’s filled out properly on the RO before they can move the tile, before the tech’s even allowed to work on the vehicle. There’s a pretty good process that they have to do to make sure everything’s there before the technician gets the job.
Bill Connor (00:22:17):
And when they’re at that particular point, after everything’s done marked, all the jobs a hundred percent completed. And so what they’re really doing before they move it over to pickup ready there really should be planning what they’re going to cover with that customer for the next service visit. We’re always planning for the next visit. Anything you’d like to add to that, Bruce
Bruce Williams (00:22:39):
Or Yeah, exactly. We go right through audit the inspection, go through completely edited everything in there, including the wording, pictures, everything, update the work order a hundred percent and then go through it very carefully to make sure it’s accurate, including going through Carfax history and everything else as well to make sure we got as much of the maintenance and repairs that’s needed on the car to advise ’em. Our service advisors, that’s their job, that’s their title. We’re advising them of their health of their car and what they’re going to need so we make sure everything’s on there and it’s accurate.
Bill Connor (00:23:17):
Do you have anything to add there Brett?
Brett Spaulding (00:23:19):
Yeah, there was a couple things that in addition to what everybody’s talked about, one of the quality control things that we do, the service advisor does at the end would be to obviously make sure all the parts are on the ticket that belong there and make sure all the parts that aren’t being used are not being billed.
Bill Connor (00:23:44):
Oh it looks like we lost him. And so that’s really good information in there. And one of the other things that gets often overlooked is not only the new returns but we’re in the hell out of the course. I can’t tell you the amount of money that gets lost through improper core tracking over the years. So we want to make sure that that gets in there. And so while we wait for Brett to go in and get logged back in, let’s cover a little bit about your philosophy. Is it better to schedule a next visit for the oil change or should we be scheduling it for the vehicle health inspection and why? Or is there something else that I’m missing?
Bruce Williams (00:24:26):
Well we actually started transforming our mindset on that, not scheduling as much for the oil service but more for whatever next maintenance service at all that we’ve identified. And while they’re in the shop, we’re double checking the oil service interval at that time and adding it to it if it’s getting close because they might be due for a spring HVAC service, air conditioning service or a brake system service. And while it’s here, why would you not do your oil service so you don’t have to come back next month to get it done? So we’re scheduling more for the real health of their vehicle as opposed to just an oil change. We’re not a quick oil change place at all, we’re a maintenance shop. So that’s what we’re really trying to focus on
Bill Connor (00:25:12):
There. I think we got Brett coming back in. He should be joining us here in a minute, so that’s good. So you’ve already made the transition, you’re actually scheduling for the next vehicle health inspection or some other service. How about you there, Mr. Crosby in your,
Russell Crosby (00:25:31):
Something that we’ve experienced, and I don’t know if Bruce and Brett have, but I am sure other listeners have experienced this in New Jersey here in New York, a lot of people have stopped driving into work, right? They’re working from home. There’s been a huge surge in people working from home. So the idea of scheduling an oil change six months out, three months out, whatever your procedure is, it’s kind of got to go by the wayside because you’re not going to see that car. They’re not going to be putting three to 5,000 miles on their vehicle like they were. You may see ’em once a year if you’re lucky, if that’s how you’re setting up your services. So I love the idea of setting it up for a health inspection. It actually is kind of kind just gave me a bright idea there because we were focused on time. We are trying to talk to our customers like you need to bring your vehicle in so we could really look it over. But calling it a health, really selling the health inspection idea of it, that’s really, really key. We’re focused on getting ’em in here by time now but really, really highlighting that we want to get it in and perform a health inspection. That’s a really, really great point there. Write that down out there.
Bill Connor (00:26:46):
So Brett, is there any hazard to go ahead and actually scheduling the customer for an oil change rather than a vehicle health inspection that you can think of and it looks like we lost them again. So one of the things that I’ve been hearing from shops all over the country is exactly you back there Brett.
Brett Spaulding (00:27:06):
Yeah, sorry guys.
Bill Connor (00:27:08):
No worries. Technical problems are us sometimes. So is there anything else that you can decide to go and add to that topic? Is there any risk to scheduling your customer for next oil change like we used to do your next oil change is and your stickers on a windshield, is there any risk to sticking with that old mindset?
Brett Spaulding (00:27:31):
I definitely see the change in the culture because of the covid and I think everybody recognizes that, but I still think it’s important that we can still adjust it in the system, but I still think it’s important to schedule it at some point so that we’re reaching out to them automatically as well as giving them the opportunity to adjust and reset the schedule if it doesn’t fit for that time so that eventually we can rework what their driving mileage is going to be for a year.
Bill Connor (00:28:06):
Do you agree it should be our goal as far as frequency of customers coming in to shop, we’re still looking at that two to two and a half times a year regardless of whether driving or not. I don’t know about you guys, but here in Texas if we don’t see a car every three to four months, rodents move in there and they start eating wiring harness and everything else. So you can literally save the customer thousands of dollars by even if it’s not time for an oil change to come in and have that visual inspection done. And the other thing is that we found over and over and over the last years as far back as I can remember is people have a tendency to go ahead and cheat on us when it comes to oil changes. If there’s somewhere handy that can do it right now, they’ll get it done and then all of a sudden they’ve missed a very important inspection. So those are two reasons that I hear from shops all the time. So hopefully that’s something that you can take away is just change that mindset a little bit to working on scheduling them for the next vehicle health inspection. And so by
Brett Spaulding (00:29:09):
Tonight
Bill Connor (00:29:11):
As we want to hit
Brett Spaulding (00:29:13):
Sabrina, yeah, I’m thinking it should be done by five o’clock tonight. She her,
Bill Connor (00:29:19):
If we’ve went ahead and kind of transitioned through covid here, we’ve got a lot of stuff going on and a lot of time the exit schedule conversation is done over the phone now rather than the counter have you modified your conversation for the customer, letting them know that as soon as you go ahead and pay out here, you’ll be getting a thank you from us in a couple days. Get another one asking for a review and I’m going to send you an appointment reminder right now that’s going to be your digital one instead of So have you modified the conversation to deliver that car over the phone versus at the counter?
Russell Crosby (00:29:56):
Yeah,
Bruce Williams (00:29:56):
Absolutely. Pretty much the same, whether it’s in person or over the phone. We’re just getting used to doing it over the phone. Now we have a three step process for the reminder of the next service schedule or appointment. So write a drop off. They get discussed that we will be booking the next appointment after their estimate and everything. We remind them that their next appointment’s going to be of everything we found on or potential things we found on the inspection. And then at drop off again, it’s a third touch point planting that seed of doing the next appointment and here is your next appointment book time.
Bill Connor (00:30:36):
So you’ve actually changed your verbiage to basically, we did do this for you already and you’re not asking them, do you want me to set an appointment? You’re just saying that we’re in the driver’s seat because we’re the doctor said and I’m just following orders here.
Bruce Williams (00:30:51):
That’s right. We don’t ask anymore because when you ask leaves a back door for the customer to find a way out of it, we just tell ’em this is your next appointment, you’re scheduled, we’ll be calling you that week to confirm to make sure it fits into your schedule.
Bill Connor (00:31:05):
So Brett, have you taken on a similar thought process?
Brett Spaulding (00:31:09):
Oh yeah, definitely. I’m just like, Bruce, you got to take that mindset that you’re the doctor, that you’re the specialist and everybody else they do it. Why can’t, I mean it works. You take away the option and obviously they have ultimate control, but you still, as you have an educated discussion with the customer, they can see the reasoning and the importance of maintaining their vehicles or at least getting that regular health check at a minimum. That’s what you should be scheduling.
Bill Connor (00:31:46):
You got anything to add on that Russ?
Russell Crosby (00:31:50):
I think at the beginning of the conversation at drop off, just having that clear communication with the customer, what they should expect. Much like Bruce was saying, we’re going to be booking an appointment for you later. You’re going to be getting an email with the inspection or a text, please look at it. Please don’t call until you look at it. Really just laying the foundation for a really great service and leaving it, letting your advisors communicate clearly with your customer and when your customer knows what’s going on, it’s going to be a much simpler process to handle, especially exit scheduling and letting them know, hey, you may get a recommendation email here in a few weeks on some services that we didn’t go over. This is what we talked about. So just that keeping that clear cut communication is so key.
Bill Connor (00:32:46):
So this kind of goes back to what you talked about earlier that I really like you talk about being a doctor’s office in your shop, being a hospital, whatever. But when I think about other professions, doctors, dentists, lawyers, whoever, they all value their time enough to go ahead and make sure that they’re a true profession. They exit schedule, they tell the customer everything that’s going to happen along the ways. I mean there wouldn’t be anything worse than going to doctor’s office and them go ahead and go in there and start performing surgery without telling you the exact steps, the why, what’s good, what’s going to happen next, what your recovery’s going to be and so on. So if we go ahead and want to transition to a truly professional image for the industry, we have to adopt these same principles and I assure you most of them went to school for many, many years to go and learn the exact process to do that. And now in our industry we’re kind of in the learning process and that’s what’s really so great about you guys sharing your best practices. Do you guys see the correlation between if we want to drive our businesses to that highly professional level that that’s where we really need to go?
Bruce Williams (00:33:55):
A hundred percent
Brett Spaulding (00:33:56):
Definitely.
Bill Connor (00:33:58):
And so there’s other things that I can think of that are really a huge benefit to learning how to schedule, exit schedule, keep our same customers coming in. So we go ahead and there’s a shortage of really good qualified technicians in the area. There’s a shortage of parts. So if we can go ahead and make sure that our technicians have got a staff full all the time that they can go ahead and keep rocking and rolling all day long, that builds happy technicians. It’s a really high paid career path if you’re scheduling for things in advance, if there’s a part shortage or whatever and you can adjust that schedule before it’s on your lift tore down and blocking your base. Can you guys think of any other advantages to going ahead and actually running your business as a tried true business rather than going ahead and taking in those 15 minute fire drills that the consumer, maybe their lack of preparation has now become a fire drill for you? And I’m not saying that if a customer’s got a breakdown emergency, that’s one thing, but I hear it over and over again. An oil change is not an emergency.
Russell Crosby (00:35:09):
I think it eliminates the need for so many loaner cars too, for those of us that have loaner cars, just trying to, if we have people bringing in cars we want to accommodate and now we have to get ’em in a car because we can’t get the job done in time. Especially if you’re running into a situation like you were just saying, bill, that we can’t get parts, it’s tore down now, we can’t get parts. So I think anything you could do to schedule your time more efficiently and know exactly what’s coming in is ultimately going to off for your team and your customer because your team doesn’t want to be frustrated like that either. When you have a high power team, they want to be able to deliver a high power product and when they can’t do that, it’s very frustrating to them.
Bill Connor (00:35:51):
So Bruce would, having these policies, I know you run your shop like this, does that help improve employee retention also because they kind of know what’s coming, they can expect their paychecks are relatively even from week to week and so on. So does this professional process, does that go ahead and help in employee retention and maybe even employee recruitment?
Bruce Williams (00:36:13):
100%. When you run a well managed shop with systems and processes that are not optional, we never put in a process and says, well, it’s optional, so maybe do it. Maybe no, this is the process, this is how we’re going to do it. You’re not in the hope and pray business anymore. You’re in a proper scheduled system in your shop. And the techs love it. They know exactly what they’ve got coming in every day in our morning meeting, we discuss it. It’s very simple for them. The service wise will love it. They only have to deal with three customers each a day as opposed to 10 small minor jobs. And it just as far as technician recruitment, I’ve just hired my newest young apprentice. He only applied at one place and he waited until we had an opening and he applied and he waited and his mom said, why don’t you go apply other places? He says, I don’t want to work anywhere else. This is the shop I want to work in. So when you start having that level in our industry where people are waiting, he’s the second guy I have here that waited until we had a spot that says a lot compared to where we were 10, 15 years ago in this industry. It’s huge.
Bill Connor (00:37:24):
Awesome. So I’d like to dig into a little bit about your shop philosophy with a very simple question is when a customer picks up your vehicle, is it better to go ahead and thank them for their trust or is it better to thank them for the business?
Bruce Williams (00:37:39):
I always say trust.
Bill Connor (00:37:40):
Trust.
Bruce Williams (00:37:41):
That’s what we’re in the business of building a relationship with a customer. Like Russ said earlier, fixing cars is just what we do in the back. We’re building a relationship, we’re building trust and transparency with a customer. We just happen to be fixing their car in the process. That’s the way I look at it.
Bill Connor (00:38:00):
So we’re solving all kinds of different problems that motorists may have. So they could be transportation, that could be financed, that could be logistics, whatever it might be. And we do that by going ahead and providing our services. So that’s kind of interesting. And so when you go ahead and do you have a fixed policy in your shop to go in and do callbacks to the customer after X number of days or do you do that by text or email? What is your thought process? Does it need a personal touch or is a text message or an email enough?
Russell Crosby (00:38:32):
So I think again, that comes down to communication at drop off. How do they want to be contacted? I think some of the younger generation out there really prefers to be text. A text is almost more convenient than a phone call. They don’t really want to be on the phone that much, but I think you have to have a policy, whatever it is to call back your customers and say thank you just for coming in, not talking about the next recommendations, not talking about any of that. Just, hey, thanks and we send out a thank you email as soon as they leave. I personally like to call and say thank you, but not all of our customers like that. And I think it’s really important to find out at the beginning how would they prefer to be contacted.
Bill Connor (00:39:17):
Anybody else have anything else they’d like to add? On that
Bruce Williams (00:39:21):
Same thing as us, we ask the customers right front, what’s the best way, text or email as we’re explaining that they will be getting an inspection result, what’s the best way to send that and follow up communication? So we nailed that down. We also let them know we will be phoning them in a week’s time just to touch up or touch base on the process, make sure everything’s going a hundred percent.
Bill Connor (00:39:45):
So let’s go ahead and set up a scenario here and let’s say that you got the customer on the phone, they reviewed the inspection results, they approved a lot of the stuff that you had for today. And so when is the best time to go ahead and start talking to them about their next service due date? Is it right after that authorization has been made? Do you go ahead and say, let me break this down and help you put this in chunks for the future? Or do you go ahead and wait until they pick it up? So any thoughts on that?
Russell Crosby (00:40:20):
I like to actually talk to ’em right then and there and say, how do you want to break this down? Because a lot of our customers I think will say, I can’t do it all right now. I’d like to do it over a period of time. What’s most important if they can’t do everything now? So if you actually set a date with them saying, Hey, how about we address this in about two months or a month, whatever it is, do you think that’ll give you enough time to save up for it and put that date on the calendar and you just tell ’em it’s a tentative date, you’re not locked into this. If something changes, we can make an adjustment, but I like to do it at that time. You’ve already explained what’s going on, you’ve got their juices flowing, they know what you just talked about and how important it’s to do it in the future. So get a date on the calendar and also explain parts issues. Now, if this is something that you want to do in about a month, it’s a lot easier for me to place an order now. Maybe get ’em to a
Bill Connor (00:41:14):
Deposit, actually be here in a month.
Russell Crosby (00:41:16):
Right, exactly. So I mean that’s really important. That helps a customer and us manage expectations so we’re able to say, okay, we can get this stuff ordered way ahead of time. So we’re not trying to do it when the car’s dropped off on a whim because now it’s an emergency. Like you said before, it’s a fire drill when it actually
Bill Connor (00:41:32):
Breaks. Brett, what say you on that particular topic, is that the appropriate time to talk about next services right after approval or you prefer to wait till pickup?
Brett Spaulding (00:41:45):
No, I think what Russ said is good. It should be brought. It’s a great opportunity to talk about it as you’re getting the approval on the work that you’re going to do and the work that needs to be rescheduled. We also, a lot of times we’ll reschedule work because we don’t have the parts. So that’s a great opportunity at that point when you’re discussing what’s approved, what’s not approved, what’s available, what’s not available to do it then, and then just refocus that pickup
Bill Connor (00:42:17):
What’s, say Bruce on that topic?
Bruce Williams (00:42:20):
Yeah, very similar when we’re discussing a drop off that we are going to be doing a digital inspection and we may find some maintenance items or some wear items in that inspection. We make it very clear we don’t have time today to do that. We’re a fully booked shop all the time. We’re booked in for what you’re doing today. But with that inspection we may find some stuff. So we will be booking the next booking you in the future for that stuff. So we’re already planting the seed right at drop off. And then as we go through the inspection, of course, then we discuss it again what we did find. And then at pickup, that’s when we lock in a date and we’ve adopted booking on Sundays with a communication that when Sunday comes up, we look at it, we’ll be calling ’em that week to fill ’em into our schedule that’s already half quarters full so they don’t have to lock into a certain day. Kind of like what Russ said when it is a date, but it’s only tentative, we can adjust it. When we call you with a pre-appointment, phone call
Bill Connor (00:43:21):
Sounds very similar to a doctor’s office or hospital. You’ve got an appointment to go ahead and have your inspection done. Then depending on the results of the tests that performed, they might recommend to have some more tests done or to have a procedure done or so on and they’ll schedule it according to their calendar. So again, there’s a lot of lessons that we can learn from other industries and if we want to go ahead and be paid like a doctor, we might as well go ahead and start acting like one I guess is the way I’d kind of correlate that.
(00:43:54):
And so when you go ahead and Bruce, you had already alluded to the fact that you actually go ahead and schedule an appointment and you do it on Sunday. So that way your customer’s expectation is that you will be calling ’em back on that day. Don’t worry about it to go ahead and get a more firm slot on your calendar. So my question is are you setting them up for a reminder through AutoVitals or do you see a higher value and a higher adoption rate of the customers actually showing up if you actually schedule it as an appointment instead?
Bruce Williams (00:44:30):
Well, we have both. We rely on the AutoVitals because it sends out the appointment reminder, but of course we call early enough. So say, like I said, the Sunday, we take the week before that Sunday to call everybody on that Sunday to schedule in for the week later so they don’t get too appointment reminders. So we do it far enough out that we can lock in the schedule so the proper reminders sent. And also we’ve talked to them so they get double reminders from this, but one’s verbal and we almost will tell ’em, you will also be getting a digital email reminder of it and we get all the responses Yes, yes, yes, yes. All day long that they’re coming in for their appointments
Bill Connor (00:45:11):
And do you, because you’ve managed their expectation this is going to happen and then you follow through and do it. You get a very low percentage of people calling you up on the phone and saying, what the hell are you sending me this text message or this email for?
Bruce Williams (00:45:25):
Absolutely. Because now it’s expected. They know you’ve discussed it, they know it’s coming,
Bill Connor (00:45:31):
And if you don’t do it, you’ll hear about it, which is a beautiful thing. So let’s move on a little bit further. And so with the shops I’m working on, the last frontier seems to be learning how in exit scheduling a customer. So I’ve literally heard all the shops, I’ve dealt with a million reasons why exit scheduling doesn’t get done, and I’d really like to pick your brains and see is there any valid reason to not do it.
Russell Crosby (00:46:06):
I think that comes down to communicating with your team. So if your team doesn’t see the value like we do, why would they do it? It’s another step that they need to follow. But I think if you were to basically play this whole video that we just did to your team and show ’em the highlights of why we should do it, I think it would open their eyes a little bit. It helps them manage their time better and deliver a better product to their customers. So I think it’s, it’s just communication with your team.
Bill Connor (00:46:40):
So you can’t think of a valid reason other than, and actually you not communicating with your team isn’t a valid reason. That’s a shortcoming on your part of not communicating. How about you, Brett? Any valid reason you can think of? And I know you guys have actually been doing this for a long time, so I see you got them racking up.
Brett Spaulding (00:47:00):
There’s no reason not to do it.
Bruce Williams (00:47:04):
The only reason I can see the not exit schedule is if you want to shut down your business.
Bill Connor (00:47:11):
I’ve had somebody come up with a real interesting one. They said that if a customer comes in and that vehicle has a do not resuscitate clause that it’s going to salvage yard, that would be the only reason that they could think of not to go ahead and exit schedule that particular vehicle. Other than that, nobody’s really come up with anything other than excuses so far. So it’s always kind of interesting.
Bruce Williams (00:47:33):
But even that example is you want to schedule their new vehicle because they’re going to replace it. So you want to get ’em back in with their new vehicle. So you still have a conversation about the next or a
Bill Connor (00:47:41):
Pre-purchase inspection or because now you’re the doctor, maybe even help them recommend getting them into a vehicle that has a good genetic history. So maybe you don’t want to invite them to go ahead and buy a mini Cooper or X, Y, or Z because the DNA is not really good. So it gives you an opportunity to go ahead and actually help direct them in a better direction. So let’s see. And so one of the things that, this is something that shops really struggle with and they’ve always struggled with. And so if AutoVitals can provide the clients the ability to go ahead and schedule their own next service base on informations and predictions that we give them, and you’ve already almost got that on your CRM next tab. We just are depending on the service writer to do it rather than going and showing the customer, this is our proposal for your next visit. It should happen about this date and mileage. Here’s two proposed dates, click one or the other and you can set it. So is that an opportunity that we should explore and what would that mean to you, maybe your shop or other shops if we can go ahead and crack that code?
Bruce Williams (00:48:55):
I personally just quickly thinking about this, I still like the personal commitment for my service advisors doing it. You’re leaving with this, you’re still leaving ’em a back door unless it depends on how well it’s built and how well it’s communicated. Honestly, it seems like that could be a back door to just forget it because you give ’em the opportunity, they will kind of let it go. But if you verbally communicate and lock ’em in, don’t give ’em the option or the back door.
Bill Connor (00:49:26):
It would be better for just to have the service writers understand the value of it. And so instead of telling them you need to do this, you’re going to start out with the here’s why. What’s in it for them? What’s in it for the customer, what’s in it for the shop and text and so on. You’re can approach it that way and that’s one process that in your case that you really wouldn’t want to automate even as a backup in case the service writer doesn’t do it.
Bruce Williams (00:49:53):
Right.
Bill Connor (00:49:55):
How about you, Russ?
Russell Crosby (00:49:57):
I’m thinking maybe slightly different if you had that, if there was some way to integrate that so that it gave your service advisor two dates that are open with the amount of time that’s needed to do those jobs, that as a reminder for your service advisor, Hey, here’s two options. Offer these two dates to the customer. And I think the idea of having your customers be able to pick is really nice, but kind of like what Bruce said, it gives them a reason to not do it right. I’ll come back to that. Maybe they forget about it or they just don’t want to. But if it’s a reminder for your service advisors to say, pick this date or this date to get this other work done, what does that look like?
Bill Connor (00:50:43):
So should this be a task in the task manager, if the service writer doesn’t exit schedule for them to go ahead and follow through and get that done?
Russell Crosby (00:50:53):
I think that could be a useful tool.
Bill Connor (00:50:56):
Interesting. Do you have any thoughts on that, Brett?
Brett Spaulding (00:50:58):
No, I agree that that would be a great task to be able to put on there. And the personal touch automation sounds great, but it doesn’t always, it just gives an opportunity for people to move on. It’s already been said, so we’ll touch. I think you got to have a happy medium there.
Bill Connor (00:51:16):
Awesome. And so now we’ve done everything right. We’ve created a wow experience for the customer today. We’ve exit scheduled them, we’ve done this and that. They’ve got the service reminder, repair reminder, and they still haven’t come in for their services. What are the next steps? And now let’s say that we’ve got a hole in our calendar, which I know you guys probably never a hole have a hole in your calendar, but now let’s say that we need to go ahead and get them customers coming back. What we want to do is have that easy button so that way we can go ahead and get that customer coming back. So if you’ve got a hole in your calendar, you should be able to see it a couple days in advance on the incoming appointments. So I’m going to share my screen here or at least attempt to. And so can I assume that you can see my screen?
(00:52:03):
So this is one way, and I don’t know if you guys are using it. So tell me what you think about it. So if you go into your hamburger menu and then go down into where it says CRM and then call campaigns, there’s a button that you can click here that says, give me a list of customers that are due for service in less than two weeks. Now you’ve got this list here and you can go through and call and fill your calendar that way. So is that something you guys would go ahead and use to go ahead and actually fill those holes in your calendar?
Bruce Williams (00:52:34):
A hundred percent,
Russell Crosby (00:52:38):
Yeah.
Brett Spaulding (00:52:38):
It’s very valuable.
Bill Connor (00:52:41):
And so if your service writer is not busy and they’re standing around and they’ve got holes in the calendar, this would be something that an individual service writer can do this on their own without any kind of thought from anybody else. So they’ve got the due date so on, they can click and they could see everything about it. So that’s one. And the other thing I like for this process is that we’ve already set up this CRM, the Can job scheduler and so on. So to come in here into your call campaign, let’s say the tech you have hanging around is just a Honda, Acura, Toyota, Lexus guy. That’s all he wants to work on. To be able to come in here and be able to say, look, show me any car that’s got over two recommendations for a Honda Acura, Lexus, Toyota, maybe that hasn’t been in by a certain date and this got an odometer between here and here.
(00:53:33):
Now you’ve got a fixed select target audience to go ahead and actually drive stuff for that guy. So this is part of the campaign manager and a lot of shops, they use it differently. But to go and be able to select that audience right down to maybe even if you’ve got a canned job and your canned job scheduler for a timing belt due, these are things that can be all be filtered on so that way you can create these campaigns. So this is like that one button that you can press when you need help and it’s not the one that’s going to launch the scud missiles and stuff like that.
(00:54:15):
So we’ve talked about a lot of different ways to go and make sure we keep that customer coming back and then if they don’t come back, then they can go ahead and use that. So any thoughts, I don’t know if you’re using a loyalty point program, but what does a good loyalty point program actually look like? Are we rewarding the customer for the dollars they spent today with a cap on it for a bounce back on the future? Are we rewarding them for referring a friend, family member, coworker, or so on? Or are we rewarding them for certain things like having their scheduled maintenance or keeping their appointments on the appropriate due dates? So what is your thoughts on what a loyalty point program should go ahead and present the customer? Bruce, if you want to take that first.
Bruce Williams (00:55:05):
We already do the first two that you mentioned there, loyalty program for dollar spent and referring a friend, holding ’em accountable to make sure they show up for their scheduled appointments would be a great one to add onto there. And they get a little extra bonus for being loyal for sure and coming back and being a proper maintenance customer.
Bill Connor (00:55:28):
So Brett, any thoughts on that?
Brett Spaulding (00:55:33):
I haven’t used it, but from my call, AutoVitals doesn’t have the dollar part of it. Is that correct or Because I would, like Bruce said, I would agree with all three of those points. It should be flexible enough to attract someone, any of those categories.
Bill Connor (00:55:56):
And so if you’re not currently losing a loyalty point system, I’d encourage you to go ahead and get hold of your CS advisor, have that conversation to have them walk through what’s involved. How about you Russ?
Russell Crosby (00:56:07):
So we weren’t using a loyalty program up until about six months ago. We started really hammering down what we wanted that loyalty program to look like. So we’re hoping to roll that out here shortly. But I think that third part that we were just talking about where actually rewarding them on coming back, how frequently they come back is a really, really great way, I think to hammer down the idea that they need to come in for their health inspections on a regular basis. And I think that’s a really great way to get ’em to come in. People love free stuff. So if we can say, Hey, we’re going to give you this because just because you came in and let us do a health inspection on your vehicle, what better way to really encourage them to act with good behavior on that?
Bill Connor (00:56:53):
So schedule adherence is really important for them and for you for proper shop operation. Let’s talk about a strategy though that I had somebody, another shop owner just like you, go ahead and tell me they know a hundred percent sure they’re going to have to keep increasing their labor rate, increasing their margin on parts, parts costs are going to go up and so on. And they say what a better way to go ahead and use a loyalty points program to go ahead and reward your loyal customers to go ahead and have a little bit of percentage off to keep them trailing price-wise, your new customers that you’re fishing for and so on. So they use their loyalty points program to go and keep the pricing for their loyal customers just a little bit underneath what their new customers coming in are. So any thoughts about using it similar to that?
Russell Crosby (00:57:45):
It’s an interesting model for sure. I would like to take a deeper look at that. I think it could be useful. Absolutely.
Bill Connor (00:57:55):
Cool. So we’re coming up to the end of the deal here. So what I’d like to do is get each of you to go ahead and give me one takeaway that you do or you’ve heard here today that you’d really like others that are listening to go ahead and adopt. Besides going ahead and explaining to their staff what’s in it for them rather than just telling ’em to do it.
Russell Crosby (00:58:17):
For me, it was really focusing on that timed health inspection. We’ve been preaching to our customers that they need to come in for timed service work instead of mileage based service work. And we explained to ’em, we basically explained to ’em that we want check the car over, but I never thought to really to get their buy-in by saying, Hey, we want you to come in for a health inspection every so often or make sure it’s on a timed basis. So that was a big takeaway for me. It’s just a different way of presenting the same idea. So thank you.
Bill Connor (00:58:52):
Next
Russell Crosby (00:58:58):
You’re muted, Brett.
Brett Spaulding (00:59:02):
Sorry about that. So I really like the job scheduler. That’s something that we haven’t employed. I’ve always wanted to, so I’m going to sit down with my team and hammer that out and get it enlisted.
Bill Connor (00:59:20):
One of the things I’m going to
Brett Spaulding (00:59:21):
Do, was there anything,
Bill Connor (00:59:25):
How about you Bruce?
Bruce Williams (00:59:26):
Biggest takeaway is that’s really worked for us is the team. We got such a team culture that’s working here and it’s all for the same goal and that is given the best value to our customers. And so when we do that, and there’s not a new process or anything that anybody has any pushback with us implementing because they know ultimately it’s for the value of the customer and if they’re winning, we’re winning. Period.
Bill Connor (00:59:57):
So you made the comment the other day about when you come up with a new process, when’s the best time to implement it? Could you share that?
Bruce Williams (01:00:04):
Yeah, so it’s funny, with all the different coaching training I’ve been through in the years, I brought this up and you’d see same people come back in the room with the same complaints and the exact same issues in their shop because they never did anything about it. And just seeing that I learned now and there’s a new idea or something from any of these that I’ve been on and I hear a new tidbit, I implement it right away. We get buy-in, we test it right away and we make it work to our advantage.
Bill Connor (01:00:35):
Awesome. And so we come to the end of the show here, which I’m kind of sorry to hear that because we could have probably went ahead and dove in a lot deeper and I’m sure we will on future episode. And so I’d like to remind everybody that’s viewing here or listening later is there’s a whole warehouse full of prior shows all related to building the most successful shop you can with the digital tools. And you’re going to find it at autovitals.com/radio. That’ll also give you the opportunity to go ahead and sign up for these webinars so that you can attend live and chat your questions in. And I’d like to go ahead and encourage you to join us on our weekly basis. And don’t forget, I’d really like you to go ahead and seek out some other shop owner in your area that is the low price leader that’s kind of disrupting the marketplace.
(01:01:22):
Invite them or show them or send them links to it or whatever. Help them to go ahead and actually lift themselves up. And then you’re doing a real favor to the rest of the industry also. So let’s help them guys out. If everybody could go ahead and seek out one and help them improve their business, that’s a great place to be in. And it’s really our job to be the leaders in the industry. So we just need to keep pushing. So without anything else, if you guys have anything else, spit it out now or forever hold your piece so to say. And I’d like to really thank you guys, lots of great information. I’m glad I got to pick your brain.
Bruce Williams (01:02:03):
Thank you for having us on again. And I’d just like to say if any panelists or attendees, I got an open door policy and the phone, email, whatever. If you have any questions at all, want any help, any ideas, bounce some stuff off me, I’m here to help out for sure because I know how valuable it is to our industry.
Russell Crosby (01:02:25):
Awesome. Absolutely. Same thing here.
Bill Connor (01:02:28):
Always. Yep. And then we’ll use that to go ahead and recruit some other people to come on and share their processes and philosophy also and we’ll all learn together. Thank you guys. Have a great day.
Bruce Williams (01:02:40):
Great. Thanks a lot guys.
Bill Connor (01:02:41):
Bye.