Chris Collins and Gary discuss why 82% of customers leave dealerships for independent shops. The problem isn't price but trust and personal connection. They propose changes like instant inspections and better technician communication to rebuild relationships.
And it all comes from that little saying, the theory of constraints, trying to figure out where the bottlenecks are in the business and how to improve the customer experience and the, the stat. That just blows me away. Like I had when I was doing my. My research for my talk for an ada, the workshop. I. I looked at that number, Gary, I don't even know how many times. I could not believe that that. 82%. 82% of our customers go to independent shops or they. You lose them to text.
That's crazy.
It's insane. Like, if that isn't failure, I don't know what is.
Yeah, Yeah. I don't know. I mean, with. And if you've been to some of those shops and I've worked at some of those shops, like the Amen, there are no amenities there. And so they're sacrificing a lot. There's definitely something driving them away from us. And I can tell you one thing from being on the other side of the fence. It's not price.
No, it's not price. I remember that when I was an advisor in Seattle, the independent shop was $20 higher than us, and they. They were booked out weeks. Yep. But people, you know, people trusted them and they liked them and they were pulling right in the shop. And it was, you know, it wasn't all the layers and bureaucracy that we have in dealerships, so.
Right.
And then we know with. Working with. With other service facilities that customers actually will pay for their own warranty work sometimes because they don't want to deal with the dealership, and that's just embarrassing.
Yeah, well, I mean, I've experienced that firsthand. Most of the customers I had at the shop I worked at, they would. They wouldn't want to pay. It didn't matter. Maintenance, repairs. They wanted us to do everything for them because they had a relationship with us. And, you know, they come and hang out in the shop and talk with the techs, and sometimes they take us to lunch. But they wanted us to work on their car. Unless they absolutely. Like, if they needed a transmission and was outside, you know, of the scope of what they were willing to pay, then they take it for warranty repair. But outside of that, they wanted us to do everything. Yeah.
So those two things, they hurt my heart. They really do that. We lose that much in retention. So the idea of instant inspection and changing the process and making it easy and building trust with the customer and breaking down that wall of, oh, the technician's a guy in the back, and, you know, you can't talk to them but we'll call you and let you know. And them feeling like, oh, they're selling me stuff I don't need and it just it, it fixes all of that and it's the future for sure. It's catching on like wildfire and it's, it's the future.
Yeah. And I know a lot of places are talking about doing, you know, pictures and video and I just think that there's this trend that's going back to, you know, service and this, you know, this, this touch or this, this connection that you're going to make with the customers. I think that's what customers want. They don't want to be disconnected. I mean we have the Internet and, and we're constantly on the web and we're constantly disconnected from things. And I think when they're coming in and they have the opportunity, they want that service, they want that touch, they want to be close to that.
