Chris Collins and others explain why dealer service bays stay unprofitable despite manufacturer mandates. Dealers juggle multiple software tools that create inefficiency, and manufacturer solutions work like a flawed Google Translate: roughly right but not how people actually operate. The paradox: the better you do at following the program, the worse your business performs.
You know, through our travels, I've spoken at many events with manufacturers where the question of how they design the quick lube and all that comes up and the quick lube isn't profitable. And I've offered manufacturers like I. I have had, you know, one that I recall is Ford. Like, the Ford executives were there, and they came up to me after, and I say, hey, call me. I'll, you know, I can. I can explain to you how this can work for you and for the deal never called, like so. But they force this quick lube thing on them. That doesn't. I mean, the. The thing they're trying to accomplish is they're trying to get customers through quickly. But there's a way to do that and accomplish being profitable and having a better customer experience, having the most customers handled by the least talented advisors that are fit. You know, to keep a quick lube advisor, sometimes it's like 50% of the gross you have to pay them. They're not creating anything out of it. It's just. It's a lesson in deduction.
Yeah.
In the end is what happens the better you do, the worse you do.
Right.
You know what the whole thing kind of reminds me of? When the dealer, the manufacturer does a decree. It's kind of like. Like Google Translate. Right. And no, this isn't a joke. Like, this is serious as a heart attack. But it's like you put the information into Google Translate and it gives you the Spanish version or like, whatever it is, but it's not the real Spanish version. Right. Like, so sometimes I'll do that Google Translate thing with my fiance and I'll be like, is this right? She's like, well, it's kind of right. But it's not really how the people talk. And I always think that the manufacturer, they just. They do the Google Translate version, and it's like their thought is, well, the customer says that we take too long. And like, well, what if we had multiple people working on the thing? Like, Google Translate would say that that's what you would do is you'd have two people working on the car. They, like, I don't know, it's like a target that they just constantly miss to the right or something like that. But it's. It's super interesting how consistently off it is.
Yeah.
I don't think I've ever seen a manufacturer program hit it on the head and like. And now, you know, Hoagie was actually. I got to listen in on his master class, and he's almost making a joke. He's like, you know, this advisors have to open up like 25 different software programs just to write one ro. Yeah, and those all come down from like manufacturer decrees and everything like that. It's like, oh, you got to have this latest and greatest thing. Their, their goal, of course, is that they want a good customer. Well, they want to sell more cars, like to your point. But it's so crazy how it's like they regularly always miss to the right like it's always just off.
Yeah, software is a great example of that. Right. Like there's so many softwares that promise all these different.
You know, outcomes. Right. And all these different metrics. And the truth of the matter is.
Is it's like American politics. It's like they promise it when they're running for office, but nobody ever goes back and checks like, except for us. Like how many times do we put something in place in the hours per O or the numbers the CSI goes down and nobody, nobody makes that connection that that disruption in the, in the system or the process is causing that.
