The Secret to Exceptional Customer Communication in the Service Drive | SDR #291

Welcome everybody, to the big show. Today we are talking about the secret to good customer communication. And it is a secret. I believe a lot of people don't know this. A lot of people think about it a different way.

They're going to want this answer.

Even if they think they know something about it, they're doing it the hard way.

No doubt. We see it day in doubt every.

Day they wake up and they're like, I want this to be harder than it should.

Right.

And then it's harder than it should.

There's some interesting things in the news.

And we talk about how sea doo came out with a 325 and much, much more. Coming up on this edition of Service Drive Revolution.

I read your horoscope this morning. It said you're in retrograde. What does that mean, retrograde?

Yeah, it sounds like I'm going back.

You're like wearing in Saturn's retrograde or something.

Like, I have to walk to work backwards. And then the jokes.

Eder's been into that. The walking backwards thing, it's supposed to be really good for you and it rewires your mind.

Really?

Yeah.

That's funny. Sometimes when, when we hike, if my. If my muscles get too sore, I'll.

Walk backwards, flip around. Yeah, I've done that before.

So that makes sense that he would suggest that the whole balancing thing.

Taking.

The jet Skis in for a service.

Can it chip them?

The dealership doesn't chip them. I think the dealership. I'm guessing, I'm just guessing. I haven't tried this, but I'm guessing that they would say that voids of the warranty.

Oh, you probably have to sign something that says that it voided the warranty. But I don't think that there's really long warranties on motorcraft sports thingies anyways. But I could be wrong.

We could trade those dudes in for the 325s. Yeah, just as. Just as I fall. Fall in love with the sea dos, they come out with a bigger, faster redder.

Are you losing?

Would you do the red ones or the white ones? Like the red ones are pretty red. Like, you look like a. You look like a guy driving a red car.

When in Rome. I think you do the red.

Really? I was thinking the white.

I think they all look pretty cool. I really like the ones you have.

I wonder if anybody makes like vinyl wraps for them, because wouldn't they look cool camo green?

I see a lot of power sports shops that also do wraps.

You know, the one thing about the state of Washington. That drives me crazy. You got to put those stupid numbers on the side that completely ruins the. Like you're putting up on a jet ski. You're putting those huge numbers that are meant for a boat or. Or a yacht.

It takes up 27%.

It looks so terrible, by the way.

That's hilarious.

I'm not admitting or denying anything, but there is a possibility that I've never put those numbers on my jet skis.

I have no idea what you're talking about. I assume that you follow everything to the letter.

I saw zero.

Police on the lake last year.

I remember you had told me when I first got there, you're like, they might be out there. Be careful, because it was a holiday weekend or something like that.

And you. Did I make you get your license?

No.

You didn't get a license?

No.

Oh, no.

Oh, wait, didn't I just pay money? I did get my license. I apologize. You. There was no. There's like a three question chat.

People are gonna hear this. You say, yeah, I studied for it. I got my life. What are you doing?

No, I really.

You had somebody else take it for you.

No, I do think I got it. Now that you say that, I remember you got it. I did it all online. It was easy.

Like, it was 40 bucks.

It has no bearing on whether or not I should drive a jet ski, is what I remember doing.

They gave you a license for a car, so there you go.

Also ridiculous. Oh, I was going to ask you. I got a question for you, because when you talk about Washington, I think about, like, you know, that's where you. That's where you spent, like, your formidable years growing up, and you started to really get into music and everything like that. And what do you get when you cross a guitar.

A drum set, and a tire?

I don't know. What do you get?

A rubber band.

That's pretty good.

Thank you.

I had no idea how to answer that. You stumped me and made me laugh.

That's my preference.

Yeah.

But.

But yeah, I think, yeah, this summer we'll just be driving last year's model. Just sitting, basically sitting still.

25. Less horsepower than.

There is no city.

You know those neighbors two houses down that had the, you know, fireworks show on 4th of July? I guarantee they'll have the 325s zipping around. I don't know, a bunch of Tasmanian devils.

You'd fit right in that family with your driving.

I can only imagine. I've never seen you like this before.

Oh, really?

Yeah. Yeah.

You Have.

Can you name it another time? Where?

Speakers.

Just kidding. Yeah. I have seen.

Wanna keep going?

No. Yeah, maybe a little bit more.

Well, you. Maybe it's your turn. Like, let's see how observant you are.

Okay, let's see. What do I have?

I mean, the building.

We're in the latest and greatest for sure. The building. Do I get that way about cars?

No, I don't think I do.

Your car thing confuses me.

Yeah. I remember you saying that you'd never. You never can match up what I get with.

Well, you were so excited about the Tesla. You literally the reason why we have a Tesla is because you had a Tesla.

Yeah.

And then one day you're like, nope, no more Tesla. And it's like, oh, everything you. It's like your parents are. Are lying to you. It's like everything you said about how great it is is just. Was just in the moment. But it wasn't real.

No. I have no complaints about that car. It was just time for.

No. But you didn't get another one.

No, I wanted a convertible.

I really kind of want a truck now.

Why do you want a truck?

I don't know. I like trucks.

You had a truck in Florida.

I did.

When we moved to Vegas. You can get a truck.

Yeah, I don't think it's definitely not conducive to my apartment complex.

So, Christian, just for everybody who commented on the video about where we should move the office. Christian has been online on Zillow looking at houses in Vegas.

Yeah.

And he likes it.

Well, it's because I can actually afford a house in Vegas as opposed to out here.

Can afford a nice house.

You can afford a nice house in Vegas with a nice swimming pool. And out here, that will buy you.

Nothing.

A room in a house.

Yeah. That you don't own. Like, it's. It's insane. The difference. So I, like, keep putting Vegas in the comments, everybody, Just every week, if you could. Vegas.

Luis said we could move the library.

The whole thing.

Yeah.

And we could probably find a place to put it pretty easily.

Easy, so. Well, whatever a building is, there is probably half of what it is here. Yeah.

I feel like it would be really fun to have an event in Vegas. Well, I remember when we did Caesar's Palace a few years ago.

It's not. By the way, we did Top Dog in Vegas twice.

Yeah. I was there.

Yeah. People the second day don't show up.

I went, came to the second.

But you don't drink. They go out to strip clubs and drink and Whatever. And then the second day, it's like half the amount of people that were there the first day.

Okay, fair enough.

And then people roll in late.

Yeah. That is one of my big pet peeves. Like, if we're going to do this thing, let's do it.

Yeah. Like, I've been to events in Vegas. I never. But I'm not going to. I'm in bed by 8.

The thing that I would say is, like, where it would work is if you have an event where it's Thursday, Friday, and then they stay through the weekend and do all their Vegas stuff after the event's done.

But that isn't how our clients work.

Yeah. They come back on Saturday morning or Friday night.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Well, we'll see what happens.

Yeah, we've. I wonder like, if we did it in a. If we built the library in a hotel on the Strip, which I'm sure we could get them to do. Right.

Or we built it off the Strip somewhere and they had to.

That's where my.

Is the proximity to the Strip what makes people party all night?

Yeah. I think that there's a. There's a way where we could get this thing off the Strip and it wouldn't be the. That novelty of the Strip.

And still really easy to get through. That airport's got a lot of flex.

Let's do the news.

The first. We talk about technicians all the time. And it's interesting because it's something that, I don't know, I've noticed.

And I say kudos, more power. But there's been an increase in female technicians in the automotive industry.

I think that's normal, that it's increasing, probably for a bunch of reasons.

Yeah.

So right now there's a lot of room to grow. Two and a half percent of all technicians are women.

That's great.

So.

And growing.

Yeah. I think there's an opportunity for that to double.

Right.

Maybe more.

I always think that some of the. Just women in the automotive industry in general, some of our most successful service managers are females for sure.

And dealers.

And some great dealers that are females, general managers that are female. I just think it's a really good opportunity. And what better way to break into the business than in, you know, I.

Have a. I have an opinion about that. That probably isn't popular.

Let's do it.

I don't really think it has anything to do with gender.

What do you think it has to do with?

Somebody's drive and want to be good.

Yeah.

I also would contend that.

There'S so Much attention to detail in being a technician that like in general, and I'm just, I'm just talking about me and my personal world is that my fiance is 10 times more organized than I am. And the way that like systematically she goes through, like a technician would go through on almost everything. I just think that that's a way that there are many women that think that way. So like the strengths that, that make you a good technician, a lot of them possess already.

Yeah. I think with the, with the female technicians that I have worked with or been around, the only.

The only thing that comes into play sometimes is sometimes they can't lift some of the bigger wheels. But I don't know. There's guys that can't lift them either.

Yeah, for sure. Like some of those big old ones, unlifted trucks and stuff like that.

That's the kind of truck you're going to get when we move to Vegas.

It should be a two person job anyways.

How big of a lift are you going to have on your truck? Are you going to do a Dodge again?

I don't know. I really like the, like my favorite truck is the GMC Sierra right now.

Oh, really?

Like an AT four? Yeah.

My favorite's the, the Chase Hughes had a Dodge in Virginia when I was out there and that thing.

Just. The interior I thought was great the way.

Yeah, because you were, you were in the one that had the really nice screen in the middle. Right.

And you could put your laptop in the middle and it had a. Yeah.

That armrest console is no joke.

So.

Yeah, I, I would like a three inch lift.

Yeah, probably.

Wow.

I think that would look good. And then maybe some oversized wheels that you can hear and feel as you drive down the road.

I remember we would put lift kits and big wheel packages on, on the Rams and people come in complaining about the ride afterwards. I always thought that was funny.

Well, yeah, they don't know.

Yeah.

You know, when I did that to the Gladiator, it got better. The ride did well.

I don't think you overdid.

Was a softer ride.

Yes. I thought that that Gladiator rode better than any Jeep I'd been in up to that date.

I really like that. Yeah.

I do think if you hadn't given it away, you would have kept it for sure. All right, so. So, yeah, so women making a move in the automotive industry. I like it.

So that might change the way you recruit.

Job fairs, all that.

Don't do it the way you've always done it.

All right. And then the Second thing is, is that they. Have you heard of this thing called the Automotive Dealer Sentiment Index? It's a Cox Automotive thing. Just basically.

It sounds funny already.

It really does.

Your jokes.

No.

So. So the concern from the. Essentially, it's a survey to dealers asking about what their thoughts are from the first concerns from the first quarter of the year. And the two things on their mind. One, I think has direct correlation with service departments. The other doesn't profitability and inventory disparity. So just keep that word profitability on everyone's mind, because I think that that is going to become more and more popular, and increasing disparity in inventory typically means profitability issues on the variable side. So let's. Let's keep that rolling.

But, yeah, that's the news for today.

Let's talk about the secret to good customer communication.

It ends up the secret isn't so much of a secret.

You probably would say it's more common sense, wouldn't you?

We probably think about it different than most people do.

Okay.

To other people, it might be.

A shift in perspective.

Yeah. Would you say that nowadays there's never been an easier time to communicate with customers?

No, I'd say it's harder.

Oh, okay. I think we have more.

More methods to use.

I think that makes it harder.

Okay. I would argue that I. That I would. If I was writing service, I would take the text message to the bank.

I would tell you that if I was writing service, I would still. I would use the text to get them on the phone. But I'm way more effective talking to somebody with tone and inflection and listening to their questions than I am texting back and forth.

Okay, that makes sense, because there's plenty of times when you're texting people and they take the wrong tone.

So you know. You know how sometimes I'll text you and I'll go, hey, Christian, what are you wearing? And then you'll say, I don't know. Whatever. You say. Tankini. Whatever it is. And then I'll say, call me because.

You want me to video chat with you?

No, no, I didn't say FaceTime. I said, Call me. Did this just happen, like, a couple days ago? I was like, call me?

Yeah, I think so.

Um, but you don't remember that it.

Wasn'T about what I was wearing? But yes.

Uh, that's how I would use it. I'd be like, hey, customer, how's it going? You sitting at your desk? Call me. But I wouldn't send an estimate. I wouldn't send a Price, I wouldn't do anything because.

That'S a one, it's a one dimensional form of communication. And a lot of, a lot of kids in these younger advisors, they grew up in a world where everything is one dimensional like that. But that's not.

That'S not really effective.

Okay, I like that approach. You've converted me.

Yeah. I want to hear what they, what they're saying and how they feel. And so you think that the text.

Messages, the hook to get him on the phone.

Well, I would use it as the way to control them and get them on the phone. I would, I would see it as a form of control.

Yeah. So is that the secret as you control the level of communication no matter what?

Oh, so on our secret to good customer communication. Yeah, no, no, I think the, the secret is if you're thinking about communicating with your customers, it's too late. You want to, you want to come 10,000ft up and you want to create a frame and then function inside of that frame. If you just leave communication to chance. There's too many variables. Right. So to kind of give you, give you an example is if I'm, if I'm writing up a customer, right. I'm going to tell them how it's going to go and what to expect.

For two reasons. One is I don't want them calling in.

When I'm not ready for them.

Yes. It's the worst when that happens.

But if you leave it to chance, they'll do that.

Yeah.

So they'll call at noon. So I'm going to tell them, hey, your car probably isn't even going to get in the shop until two to be looked at. I will call you don't call me. And I will kind of give them like I have a general sense of when things are going to get in.

Right, Right.

And so I'm, I'm, I just don't want to leave any of that to chance. So I'm avoiding leaving it to chance. But I'm also setting an expectation that then makes them feel comfortable because if I tell you that it's not going to get in until two now you're, you know that if I don't tell you anything and you're a person that worries or overthinks stuff at 10 o' clock you think, well, I dropped it off at 7, it should be in already. Not understanding that I work in a service department where the manager's terrible at hiring techs and we're still working on the cars from two days ago. Yeah, you Know what I mean? And so, and that was kind of my scenario when I was an advisor is like we had tons of holdovers, like we were calling it too, to tell everybody that we wrote up that day they weren't going to get in.

Yeah, but I remember you telling a story where you got to a point where on the write up you were telling them there was a possibility it was going to come in that day. And then, then they didn't.

And they would say right then, but I made an appointment two weeks ago. I'd be like, I understand we've had a couple of people sick, you know, whatever. It was all the truth.

But there, but the truth is by dropping the car, if they're in line now to get it done. Yep. Right. So there's a reason to leave the appointment for them to drop the car off and everything like that. But what I remember you finding out is, is that there wasn't that when you told them that up front, they weren't scurrying at the end of the day to get a ride home. And I think that that's kind of the key, is that you have to just completely flip this thing on its side and understand that the enemy of communication is what the customer's imagination goes to.

Well, yeah, they'll say like, oh, hey, I got to go somewhere at 4 and be like, hey, well we have this deal with Enterprise. You can rent a car for 35 a day, maybe you should do that. But it's way easier like you're saying in the morning than it is at 3 o' clock. And they got to be somewhere at 4 and they got to come back to get the rental car. Get it now.

Yeah.

Plus if you, you know what, Enterprise will pick you up.

They will. That's in their tagline. But, but the thing that happens is that, is that advisors won't do that. And then how many people are calling them at 3 o' clock? And the same thing. So then you've got 18 customers calling you at 3 o', clock, you're doing everything twice. And you're doing.

I like to do it once.

Yes, exactly.

Or three times. Really?

Yeah. So the, so the setting expectations thing makes a lot of sense to me and I think that that couldn't be more evident than if you look at customer satisfaction between an advisor that does a good job of proactively framing everything and an advisor that doesn't. And let's say that they both have a car. They both have cars. And they both have cars that have parts that don't come in for a week and a half. And the advisor that frames the part that's delayed a week and a half, their CSI is great. And then the advisor that didn't frame the experience, they get killed and say, it took forever to get my part right. And the only thing that changes in those two things is the perception. And the perception has to be controlled by the advisor. So it's another thing I got from you. I think it was you. But where, you know, if you have an extended period where the car's gonna sit for a while, what you do is you're like, hey, I've had cars like this and usually it takes this long to get a, you know, the pardon, it's going to be two weeks. And you're like, I'll call you as often as you want to be called. But the truth is, is you're probably not going to hear anything different from me tomorrow than you heard from me today. So let's talk about a time that you want to hear from me and I'll give you those updates. And like, you completely framed how long the update was going to take. And it would end up that, you know, the customer that gave the advisor that framed it, gave them a good survey, they probably had to communicate less. And then the advisor that got the bad survey, they might have communicated more times, but it wasn't in the area of expectation of the customer. So it was all for not right. But the truth is, if you frame it and you set expectations and then meet the expectations, I think you're golden. I. I don't know. I think the key to that communication is just is. Is missing or, you know, kind of like over, over delivering on the expectation of communication just by a tiny little bit.

There was a, when I was an advisor, there was a time where I was like almost every other day probably writing up a car that the parts weren't going to be there for two or three weeks. And I asked the factory rep too. I'm like, hey, what's going on? And he, and he said, we're literally pulling these parts from the assembly line.

Yeah.

So we have to, we submit a ticket, they approve it, they pull it from the assembly line and then ship it. And it was over in Germany. And so I would tell customers, yeah, just what you said. I would say like, hey, the thing that's going to happen here is we've had a couple of these and so far we don't have the parts. They actually pull the part from the assembly line. It has to Go through customs, and it's been taking about two weeks. So then. And I would say, what, what, what, what? I told you before, like, I can call you all the time to tell you this or just know that you probably aren't going to hear from me for two weeks, but it's, you know, it's fine. And. And it was true. Like, that's how it was. It was taking a couple weeks to get the part because it had to come. And it just came a different way. I don't know. It wasn't like in the, you know, in the stock order.

Yeah, exactly. So if we don't explain that to the customer, they don't know it's special. No, but you leave it to the assembly line. I know that that's a big deal.

Yeah. Okay, so the, the next one is. And it's this. We're still talking about the frame we have. We're. We're talking about how you set all of this up. And I really think that that's all we have to talk about here really, is how you set it up. Because that's the most important part. But a lot of advisors do something I like to call whittling. Do you know what whittling means?

Like where you're making wood into pipes?

No.

Not a dog person, are you?

Yeah, I'm a dog person.

You've never seen a dog whittle?

No.

When a puppy gets excited and they pee all over.

Isn't that called peeing all over?

Well, they call it whittling.

Oh, okay. I literally thought whittling was when you had like a stick and you turned it into something.

Oh, it's not too. But in this world that we're in right now with this analogy, it's a different.

So whittling is a universal term that I've never heard before.

Yeah. Like when a puppy gets really excited and they pee.

Yeah, I've heard piddling. Maybe that's just the Washington version.

Oh, maybe it is piddling. Is it piddling. Is piddling then puddling?

I think so.

I think you might be right and I might be wrong. Um, but I do think I called it whittling. But piddling makes more sense. Okay, but let's just say whittling and piddling. Advisors whittle and piddle. What do you think I mean by that? Let me tell you what I mean by that. They over promise because they want to please the customer. They don't tell them the truth. You have to tell the truth at the time of write up. You control Communication by telling the truth. It does you no good to leave the truth until later. The truth does not get better. It's not wine. It doesn't age. But if you piddle or whittle on yourself and you're like, oh, no, yeah, we'll get it. Okay.

No, you gotta slow down for a second. You gotta. You gotta know what you have in the shop. You gotta know what's going on. You know how things function. And then you got to tell the customer. Just like you were saying, like, where I would tell customers, hey, we're still working on the cars from yesterday. We've had a couple technicians calling sick, and there's a chance that we don't get to it today. Now go ahead, yell at me, whatever. Let's get it out of the way.

And then they don't. They run out of steam really fast.

Well, they're not as fired up. Even if they say, well, I made an appointment two weeks ago. I'm like, I know, I'm really sorry, but we're gonna get to it. It's just, you know, we gotta work through a couple things.

You know, when I was. When I was younger, I piddled. Not about.

You didn't whittle. You piddled?

No, I piddled for sure, but we all did. I think it always came back to bite me in the butt afterwards. But it was always when I just. I was like. I was at the end with a girl I was dating, and I'm like, I gotta break up with her. And I would piddle for a month before I did it, and it always got way worse than if I just not piddled. So piddling causes pain. Think piddle pain.

That was tough.

Piddle pain is better than widdle pain.

Yeah. It's only a widdle piddle. A piddle piddle.

Piddle.

How many people turned us off during the piddle discussion, you think?

Nobody. They're like, yeah, I piddle.

We've all.

I'm a. I'm a pit. I'm a manager, and I piddle. Tell the truth. That's the message. Don't leave it to chance. Tell the truth. The. The next thing I had on here is have a system. Because now if we. If we frame them up front, then we're going to call them in two weeks or we're going to call them at 2, or whatever.

You need to then do what you say. You're gonna do that.

Yeah.

So what I'm trying. What I'm trying to do with my system, and I think about this as A system is I'm trying to not touch things two or three times. So I. When I touch them, I'm touching them in a way that's relevant and effective. So I'm calling them when I need to call them, when they expect me to call them. So you need to have some sort of log or system to remind you who to call, when to call. And, you know, I would leave myself a pretty big window when I would frame up front.

I. I've definitely seen a lot of advisors using their alarms on their phones.

Oh, that would drive me crazy.

And then. Yeah, but it works, right? So they can set an alarm for two weeks from now and that. That time and put a little note. So there's ways to help you out there.

It's good. Did you have anything?

No. I was gonna tell you that. You know that I've been trying to eat a lot of protein lately.

Yeah.

Yeah. So what do you call a. What do you call a cow with only two legs?

What?

Lean beef.

You know, on Saturday, I had that steak.

It cut the one you dream about.

The Wagyu Angus one.

It's not Snake River Farms anymore, right? It's somewhere else.

No, they even had one on the menu. Now that's from a farm in Oregon, but the one that I had was from Australia.

Okay.

Man alive. That steak is so good. I came home, I told Missy. I was like, oh, this camp so good. I didn't like, I just went into my own little world for a minute.

Yeah. Even if you only have that steak once in your life, you'll understand.

So good. It's such a treat.

It is.

Protein made me think of that.

I love protein.

Okay, so just to recap, it's all in the frame. Communication is either left to chance or it's controlled. And I would not leave it to chance. I would set up how it's going to happen. You know, the other thing too is like, hey, I'll text you so we can get on the phone. I would control how the communication is going to happen. I also, also, we talk about this in our advisor training. I would ask, where are you going to be today? When are you going to be available? I want to know all that up front so I can communicate. And then you want to tell the truth. Don't piddle or whittle. Tell the customer the truth up front in the morning, what's going to happen? And then, you know, have a system to do what you say you're going to do, whether that's a logbook or a reminder on your phone, whatever it is. But that's the secret to good communication. It's not that complicated if you do the frame up front.

I like it.

We'll see you guys next time on Service Drive Revolution.

Thanks so much for watching this episode of Service Job 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.chris collinsinc.com that's offers.chris collins inc.com I'm Chris Collins, and I'll see you in the next video.

Sa.