This is a conversational episode of Service Drive Revolution (hosts Chris Collins and Christian Lafferty) with guest Jamie Morris. The opening includes informal banter and a striking anecdote about a consultant found dead in a hotel room that segues into reflections on workplace stress and how people are "on edge." The hosts introduce Jamie (a social-media-savvy customer service/experience manager) and begin a substantive discussion of retention/marketing tactics — specifically a social post about Firestone’s “lifetime alignments” (pay once, alignments for the life of ownership) and whether such offers function as retention/sales tools versus gimmicks. The tone mixes humor, industry tradecraft, and candid conversation about customer experience and the need for marketing to bring customers in so service quality can retain them.
Chapters
Welcome, everybody, to Service Drive Revolution. I'm Chris Collins. This is Christian Lafferty.
Hello.
Today we have a guest. We are going to talk about.
Marketing, retention and alignments for life. Yeah, in a sense.
Yep.
It's. It's a great conversation. And then we're gonna. We're gonna talk about stress in the workplace, mental illness.
And that conversation gets very intimate and emotional, but very relevant to our time, I think, especially because. Does it not seem like a lot of people are on edge?
Oh, for sure. It's very interesting.
Why is everybody so on edge?
Yeah, I wish I knew why. As a matter of fact, I was just in a. I was in a store a few weeks ago. So I walk in there and great people.
You know, I can't tell if this is a segue to a joke.
Yeah. And I understand that is.
Was. It's. It's kind of a funny story, but not necessarily a joke.
Does this end with like, so what do you call an advisor? That. Something, something?
No. Okay, so.
So you're in a store.
Yeah, I'm in a store. Going there for the first visit.
Where's this store?
Michigan.
Michigan.
So north Michigan, Auburn Hills area. Beautiful part of the country, actually. I had no idea until I went there, but walked in and sat down for what we call, like, our opening meeting that we do with the general manager and the service manager. And these two ladies are amazing people. And we're sitting down, I'm kind of going over, like, what the week looks like and all those wonderful things like setting the table for what I need to have happen and all that other stuff. And they're like, well, we just want to let you know we haven't had anybody in our store for a while.
A little bit worried about you being here. And I'm like, why? They're like, well, the last person.
That.
We had come into the store to help us out, it's been several years now, and we really liked him. And.
He came in on Monday and we had a good visit and everything like that. And Tuesday, it's 7:30 in the morning, he wasn't there. And I'm like, oh, okay, that's kind of weird. I'm like, all right. So he just showed up late. And they're like, no. So 8 o' clock showed up. We started calling his cell phone. And.
I'm like, okay, so that's interesting. I'm thinking at this point, like, the guy dodged. He's like, okay, I can't deal with this store. It's broken or something like that. And they're like, nine, ten o', clock, ten o'. Clock. They call the hotel and they're like, hey, can you buzz the room? They buzz the room, no answer or anything like that. And they're like, well, if you come over, we'll walk you up to the room, let you knock on the door and everything like that. So the service manager and the general manager go over to the hotel, go up to the third floor, and then they knock on the door. Nothing. So an agent actually lets them in to the room.
And the coach is dead on the floor. On the floor, dead on the floor.
Hookers and blow.
Not that they knew, but it was pretty interesting. So, like, these two then do what anybody would do and they start cleaning up the room and packaging all of the personal belongings and everything. Like that of this coaching consultant.
Did he call 911?
Well, I think it was already too late by that point. So I'm pretty sure the hotel might have done that at that point. But, like, they just start cleaning up, business as usual. In my head, I'm thinking, okay, so they're divvying up, like, what are we gonna do with this? And everything like that. But, yeah, they went to the funeral and had all that stuff. And they're like, so we just wanna let you know, like, you need to do a good job because we kill people that.
Oh, that's their joke, is that they'll whack you.
Yeah. So I mean, that is kind of like the Jimmy Hoffa area, right? Like that. There's. There's some bodies buried up there. But thankfully I made it back. Like, we had a great week. But I like that extra pressure.
Were you worried?
No, but I do like the extra pressure.
Does that really help your performance?
No, but it was a funny story. I never had it. I never come in after a dead person before into a store.
So they should have got into Diet Covid. Pre Covid.
Been years and years. There's a long time. Like, they took a break. That was.
That was a lot. Have you ever heard that joke by Norm MacDonald? The moth joke?
Oh, yeah.
It's one of my ones. Felt like.
Yeah. But there was really no punchline.
Well, it just kept like, then they're cleaning up. Is funny.
Yeah, that's what my favorite part was, too. Cleaning up the room. I don't know. I mean, there's no manual on how to act when you walk in and your coach is dead.
Yeah, there is.
Really?
Yeah. You call 911 or.
And let them deal with it.
Yeah. And don't touch anything. What if there's foul play? You want your dirty fingerprints on stuff.
That's a good point. I'll let them know for next time.
Maybe, I don't know, maybe I have different friends, but I back out slowly, put my hands in my pocket.
These two are go getters. They weren't afraid of any dead bodies. Rigor mortis does not just deter them in the least.
Hilarious. That's great. Well, should we get to our esteemed guest?
Yes.
Jamie Morris. We're really excited for you to hear this conversation. And it's going to. It's going to affect you and touch you. And she's really smart, sweet. It's good.
She's great.
And that's all coming up on Service Drive Revolution.
Welcome Jamie to the show. How are you doing, Jamie?
I'm doing well, thank you.
So Jamie is what we call Christian social media influencer.
I like it. I don't know what it means, but I like it.
She posts a lot of cool stuff that spark conversations and ideas and she's genuinely curious about our industry.
And so speaking of conversations. So there were two muffins, they're sitting in an oven.
This is the thing, Jamie, is you gotta let him laugh and then you go on.
Yeah, you gotta let him get it out.
Yeah, right off the top.
So the two muffins are sitting in an oven and one muffin turns the other and says, so these muffins, they're in an oven.
They're in an oven. Together.
Together.
And the oven's on.
That's right. So one muffin turns to the other muffin, says, man, it's hot in here. And then the other muffin looks at that and says, wow, a talking muffin.
That one hurt a little bit. I'm not gonna lie.
Eat happiness. Low expectations, Jamie. So.
Jamie is Christian, a customer service experience manager at a Scooby Doo dealership.
In my favorite brands I love, I.
Wrote service for Scooby Doo Jamie when I was a kid.
I love the brand. Honestly, it's great.
So you have a couple interesting posts I want to talk about. Let's start with the first one.
That.
It it. Maybe you feel the same way, but it's interesting to me the way people approach and see things. So you put up a question and you said, doing some research on creative ideas today.
I stumbled across Firestone, who offers lifetime alignments. I called them incognito to see what it's all about. And apparently you pay 179.95 for the first alignment for as long as you own the vehicle, you get alignments for free. If a shop does this and internalizes an alignment, let's say once a year, paying the tech their time at their rate, do you see this as a customer retention tool and selling opportunity or just a waste? And so give me a general sense about the feedback that you got from that and then I'll tell you my, my opinion.
Yeah, sure. So it was, if you read through the comments, it was a very wide range. There was a lot of, you know, it's a great idea. Then there was some people that were just flat out saying no, wouldn't work, can't work, there's no way it'll work. I had one comment from a BDC person who actually said that, you know, you don't really need it. As long as you can offer a great experience, the customer will come back. You don't need retention tools. So there's kind of just a lot of different ways to look at it, I guess, which I guess is why I post the way that I do. It's just to show there's just such a broad, you know, range of answers that you really just have to make it work for your specific dealership. I think, I think that everybody kind of has a different ebb and flow. It's just you have to really get to know what makes your customers tick and what makes your department tick.
Yeah, but so just in general though, when we talk about.
Using that as a retention tool, because that's what they're doing. Right?
Right.
You do have to have some sort of marketing to get people in so they can experience the great customer service. So just having great customer service in and of itself.
Doesn'T give you the opportunity without the customers. And so there has to be something that brings them in.
Exactly.
So it always surprises me how thin sided people are in their comments where they're not looking at the whole picture as, hey, as managers, as you know us running, running service departments, we have a basic toolbox and you don't have to use that. You go to the toolbox and you need a screwdriver, but all you have is one wrench. You can't use the wrench where you need the screwdriver. And so what I admire and like about the way you're approaching this is you're asking.
