A Service Drive Revolution YouTube episode where Chris Collins and Christian answer a listener's question about customers challenging service shops over part prices. They recommend honesty, educating customers about risks of cheap online parts (fitment, quality, paying labor twice), leveraging vendor relationships and warranties, and offering to try to source a better price while standing behind parts they purchase.
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Welcome, everybody, to this edition of your Friday drive by on Service Drive Revolution.
We're going to answer your question. So this is what happens every Friday. We take questions from the audience. Get out a pen, paper, or open your notes on your phone and write down this number. This is your shortcut, your hotline, your access to Christian and I to answer any questions. It is 8,333, ask SDR. That's 8,33,3, ask SDR. And if we play your question on the big show, we're gonna send you some swag.
Beautiful swag.
Beautiful swag. Okay, today's question.
You know, before we start that question.
I mean, it's Friday. It's been a. It's been a. It's been a pretty crazy week. We had a lot of rain this week, right? So it made me think of something.
What do an umbrella and the 12th Best Picture Academy Award winner have in common?
What?
They're both gone with the wind.
Okay.
Now can we listen to the question?
Yeah, let's do that.
Hey, Chris, first of all, love the show, great content. I'm a new service advisor. I'm pretty new to the job. I'm not new to sales. So the sales portion of service is coming fairly easy. But there is one thing that I've been running into. It doesn't happen often, but when it does happen, I kind of turn to someone else or I don't really know what to do.
It's in regards to parts. So when somebody comes in and they say, man, why are you charging me so much? The part is only XYZ dollars on Amazon or some other place that, you know, my dealership does not get parts from. And by the way, we're an independent dealership.
And so we only work with certain vendors. And here's a prime example. We had a guy come in and he said that he found a part for 80 bucks on Amazon. We could only get the part as cheap as $178. So I was curious as to what you would do in a situation where somebody just doesn't want to buy your service because of the price of the part. Thanks, Chris.
That's a. That's a great question. So there are some variables in there that, that I would kind of want to understand, which is what is your parts markup? But in the situation where you're talking about how you couldn't even buy the part for less than 178 and they. What they could find on Amazon for 80.
80.
In these situations, I've always kind of leaned towards telling customers the truth. So I'm gonna hope this is your truth and you ran into this. But what I would say to customers in that situation is, I would say, listen, you can shop around and you can find parts cheaper. And what happens all the time is people go out and they buy their own brake pads, or they buy their own cheaper tires, and they shop for the cheapest ones, and then they ask us to put it on, and most of the time, they end up buying it twice because the brakes are squeaky or the tires have road noise and they don't work. Or last. And so there is a fine line between saving a ton of money on the part and not having to come back and forth. And, you know, people will sell their parts on Amazon, but if we source the part, we're going to stand behind it. And in the long run, most people find that. That for a little bit more, it's better to have that peace of mind than having to spend all that time. Hey, if you have all that time and it doesn't work and you want to send it back, you know, you also got to understand that you're going to pay the labor twice if we have to put it on and take it off. So just my feedback and my experience is most of the time, customers would rather have us shop for the part for them. And I can work with my parts department. You know, we can work on trying to find a cheaper part ourselves and kind of go that way. But I would just shine a light on it and build doubt. And when I'm building doubt, that really does come from personal experience. I'm not making that up.
I would say that it's so rare when, in the rare times that I've actually been in a situation where we allowed someone to bring outside parts, I can't even think of a time where the part that was brought to us worked the first time around. Yeah, like, your explanation about you pay labor twice is really, really good. Like, I can't even think of when it came from Amazon or ebay or whatever, and it actually worked the first time. It's so crazy. The other thing you have is, you know, when we're sourcing through our parts departments, we have relationships with the vendors. So in the rare event that something doesn't go right the first time around, first off, the customer doesn't pay that second load of labor, and the vendor's usually really, really quick about getting us a replacement. So there's a lot to do with the relationship. And then I always think about it this way, and this is it's half a joke, but it's half serious at the same time. Like, there are two things that I don't want the cheapest of. I do not want the cheapest plumber and I do not want the cheapest parts for my car. Like, those things matter if they go bad.
I like that. That's funny. Yeah. So just, you know, telling the customer the truth and shining light on the fact that just saving money on a part can actually cost you more money in the long run. We're the experts. Let us do it for you. And let me shop around and see if I can find something for less, you know, and then I would just tell the customer, like, hey, I can't find it for less than 178 cost. I would be really apprehensive to buy this one on Amazon because it sounds too good to be true. But, you know, it's completely up to you. But just tell them the truth, you know, educate them and be a good steward.
That's it. Great advice.
Thanks so much for the question. That was a great question. Remember, 8333 ask STR and we'll answer your question on the show and send you some swag. Thanks, everybody, for tuning in and we will see you next time on Service Drive Revolution.
Thanks for watching this week's Drive By. I hope we gave you something to think about over the weekend. We're uploading new stuff every day, so make sure you subscribe and click the bell icon so you don't miss out. If you have a question you'd like us to answer on the show, call 8333-ASK SDR and we'll answer your question on the show. That's 8333 Ask SDR. For special deals on our books and training, head over to to offers.chriscollinsinc.com now that's offers.chriscollinsInc.com I'm Chris Collins and I'll see you in the next video.
