Chris Collins and Christian clarify they're not against tablets or video inspections, but argue that fancy tools won't fix broken fundamentals. Collins uses a fine china analogy: you need good food first. He cites BMW's $5,000/month MPI program that dealers bought without tracking profit, and notes that if a team can't execute with paper, they won't execute with digital.
Can tablets or video inspections save your service? Drive. And the reason why we're talking about this is because it comes up that people perceive that we are anti tablet.
Yep.
That we're anti video inspection.
Which is not the case.
It's so funny, though, because I don't know how often it happens to you, but it happens to me all the time where people come up to me like, I know how you feel about tablets. I'm like, really? It's funny how they pass that on.
So let me give just a simple analogy to that conversation. Is like, let's say that you are.
Living in Alaska somewhere and you're out of food. Like, you have no more food.
Got it.
And you're snowed in. And I go, hey, Christian, should we pull out the fine china?
And we argue for 25 minutes about whether you should pull out the fine china or if we should eat off of the, you know, regular plates and bowls that we're using. Yeah. We don't have food to put on it. That's right.
We're gonna look at the plates either way.
Yeah. And so most of the time, what happens is we have managers that are very ineffective, that don't have systems in place, haven't built a very good team, and then they think that there's this Hail Mary called video inspections, or. I mean.
I remember very clearly when I was the general manager of Crevier, sitting at the LA Auto Shows. BMWs like, their little area.
They have. Yeah.
And so it's a bunch. All the local dealers are sitting around tables with the vice president of BMW and the local market team and all that. And they're talking about. What was the name of that inspection? Soft mpi.
Yeah. Where it was a. It was like a novel that you.
Had a deal with BMW and they were trying the. The BMW field reps. Their job was to get you to sign up for MPI, which was $5,000 a month, like a bunch of colored printers. It was a. Literally a joke. And so they were talking to us because we weren't. We weren't doing it. And we were number one in the country. Right. So we were influential or whatever. So they're talking to us about doing it. And I remember the dealers at my table, I go, well, how much did your. How much more are you making in profit? Oh, I don't know. You don't know? And I go to the next guy, Dennis Assail or whatever was his name. I go, how much. How much more are you making? Goes. And that was after he'd said how much they love it and how great it is. And I'm like, this is like you guys with CRMs. Like, everybody has a CRM, but nobody knows what it is or uses the value is.
Right.
We are not against anything that makes you better. We were, we are against changing the subject of the fact we don't have food, we don't have systems, we don't have talent. But we think that bringing out the fine china is going to present the greatest meal that we've ever had. Yeah. And it's not a band aid. It's. It actually is a level of complexity to execute. And so if you can't execute with paper, you can't execute with digital. Is been my experience.
And then the kind of more subtle thing is if I go and get you a Kobe Angus steak from Snake River Farms and I pepper that thing and cook it just right, do you care if it's on china or on a regular plate?
It could be on a paper towel.
Yeah. And so what happens is if you get good at paper, you realize you don't really need the china isn't going to make the thing taste better.
It's the plate, it's not the meal.
Yep. You know, you have a level of complexity when you have technicians doing video inspections in the sense you, you got to train them on videos. You got to train them on what to say. You got to inspect what they say. Well, you're not even inspecting now. If you do it on paper and the quality, you're not re rack. You're not doing any of that. And so most of the time, like when I, when I was taking my car in and I got a video inspection, it's not, it's, it's not the best presentation. They're giving you price right off of the top. They're confusing you like it's not, it's not well executed. And so if you can't do it with paper and execute it well and present it in a way that's quick and friendly to the customer. Thanks so much for watching this clip of Service Driver Revolution. 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 offers dot. Chriscollinsinc.com that's offers dot chriscollinsinc.com I'm Chris Collins, and I'll see you in the next video.
