Chris Collins discusses what Business Development Centers should actually do to generate business, and whether offering free car washes with maintenance appointments is worth the investment.
Have you been in our Facebook group?
Oh, yeah.
So we started a Facebook group. The link to it will be in the description here, if you're not in there. But some great conversations going on in there that are really fun. And oftentimes now, like I see a question go up and then before I can even answer it, four people have had a better answer than me.
Yeah, I love it.
Like, I love being a part of that community. So if you're not in there, go, go check that out. Click on the link. But a couple that I. That I thought were good is. Corey Klotz posted a question in there about what. What are your guys's experience with BDCs and how much of a role should they play in helping to generate business? So there is a point. And so BDC for, for those who don't understand, is a business development center. That's what it stands for. And it is basically to make appointments. Now, the purpose of a BDC in our system is to load the shop and load the shop early. And so we have a very specific script, a very specific system. Now, I know a lot of managers out there and BDC traders try to get the BDC to sell.
We just try to get them to load the shop and we get the advisors to sell. I mean, I've never seen it where the BDC sells that it's really that successful. They. And oftentimes the customer already feels like they're being sold and they're kind of put off.
Yeah. And then they get sold on the phone and then they come in and the advisor tries to sell them again. And then it's really starting to feel like an infomercial.
So the BDC's purpose is to make the appointment process really, really easy and to endear the customer to us while we control the situation is basically load the shop early. I want to load the shop as early as I can. Another one in here by Greg McKenzie. Customer complimentary car washes with maintenance appointments. Yes or no?
Yes.
Yeah, I mean, it's a huge advantage to do that. It doesn't cost that much. It's easy to execute, and it's the difference between you and the Jiffy Lubes, honestly. And if you think that it takes too much time, you can break it out and give the customer an option. So say, hey, your, your oil change is going to take 30 minutes or 40 minutes, but if you, you know, would you like the car washed and vacuumed? Yes. Okay, well, then it's gonna, you know, then it's gonna take six hours. Good. Maybe an hour, whatever. But the customer knows that it's gonna take a little bit longer, and it's their choice that they made. So it's just all in the frame and the way that you word it. But I think that's an easy thing to. To execute. We have in some situations where it hasn't been easy to execute, we'll go to a car wash that's, you know, within a mile and buy tokens and give the customers the tokens, but you're losing the customer. And if that car wash is backed up or they scratch the car or whatever can create a problem and.
But it's better. It's better than nothing, though. It's a nice. It's nice bridge. You know when you need to have your car washed when you come back from Vegas? A lot of weird things happen in Vegas. As a matter of fact, last weekend, two antennas got married in Vegas. The wedding was horrible, but the reception was great.
Oh, I love it. You know Vicky, Our beloved Vicky?
Oh, yes.
One of our favorite people in the world. Or my favorite people in the world.
Me, too.
Who do you think likes Vicky more? Me or. No, I'm joking. She used to have this car wash in the dealership she ran that literally ate antennas like the Cookie Monster.
That's great.
Like, you can sit in her office and at like, once an hour, somebody'd walk in with a broken antenna.
One of the first things I did is cut that. We just went to hand wash. Yeah, it was way more efficient, too. Those car washes, after a while, slow everything down. But I remember, like, I don't know, whatever those springs were on that car wash, it was snapping and plucked them right off. Right Crazy. The policy was in. The policy count was insane.
We had a. We had a lot where it was a guarantee. So back in my day, right, we had the antennas that were the power antennas that went up and down. It was a guarantee. Anytime we had a new porter, like, I'm walking through, I'd be like, now, here's what's going to happen in the car wash. You're going to break one of these antennas because you're not going to realize that it's an electric antenna and you're going to forget to turn the radio off. You have to turn the radio off off every time. Less than two hours later. Every time. I have that speech. Hey, I. I broke an antenna. I broke an antenna. Really? That's so weird. I would. I didn't expect that.
Whatever happened to those antennas that would go up and down on their own. They just got phased out.
Yeah, I think so.
Well, those. Those were cool.
Those motors were nice repairs, too, right? Yeah, decent. Like 5, 600 bucks to put a new motor in. So it was fun.
Would customers just opt to have the antenna up all the time?
Well, you got to see people being creative, right? And they'd put weird scrap coming out their car, depending on how industrious they were.
Thanks so much for watching this clip of Service Driving 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.chriscollinsinc.com now that's offers.chriscollinsInc.com I'm Chris Collins, and I'll see you in the next video.
