The Service Drive of the Future (Service Drive Revolution)

Today we talk about is the future of our industry, just tires and alignments. And Christian weighs the odds of his son's life. Do you think he makes the right choice? I talk about my dog bite trauma and the greatest comedian of all time. And we get a question from Michael, a new service manager. I'm Chris Collins, this is Christian Lafferty. And that's what's coming up on today on service drive revolution.

How old's your son, Christian?

Eight.

Eight. Okay. You ready for a. Would you rather.

Yeah.

Would you rather your son have a pet boa constrictor? Be familiar with snakes?

I. I'm aware of the animal, yeah.

What?

Boa constrictor, long large snake, doesn't necessarily bite people and they die by poison. He constricts them and they breaks their spines?

Typically, yeah. Wraps around them like a slinky and then.

Then consumes them over a really long period of time, depending on the size of the prey.

So pretty gruesome death.

Yeah.

Okay. Would you. Would you rather your 8 year old son have a boa constrictor as a pet? A rescue dog that bites people? It's just a little glitchy. Like overall, it's a nice dog, but every time you look at it, it wants to kill you.

Okay. Got it.

Or a gecko.

Okay. Couple of questions.

What color is the gecko?

Orange.

Hmm. Okay.

It's a rare venomous gecko.

That could be an issue.

How is the boa constrictor?

Fully grown teenager.

Okay.

Knows it all.

We all know about boa constrictors.

Nothing worse than a teenage boa constrictor that knows everything.

Good lord. And then very important question. The. The rescue dog that wants to eat everyone. Does he want to eat my son?

Initially, yes.

But then they start to become friends.

Well, I don't. Do I have a crystal ball?

No. Because it hasn't happened yet. You're right.

Shine my crystal ball.

Dang it.

Clear.

I mean, there's. There's a pretty good chance he.

Gets bit.

Okay.

I got bit the other day.

Yeah. Your dogs have some pretty strong jowls too.

Yeah, I was worried.

Yeah.

Because one time I spent three days in the hospital from a dog bite.

It's healing nicely, though. I didn't get infected.

So. Is that why you were in the hospital for three days? Because you got infected?

Yeah. So I was babysitting somebody else's dog and my dog at the time attacked that dog and I tried to break him up.

Yep.

And I got bit right through the middle of my hand at the time.

Oh, you can still see it.

Oh, yeah. At the time, my assistant was like, oh, I worked at a vet all the time. We're just gonna put iodine on it. So he went and got iodine, and basically I soaked my hand in iodine and all it did is make me look like I had some weird liver failure.

Yeah. Some yellow, you know, gross stuff coming out.

Yeah. The next day I was doing like a live webinar or something that I had to perform. And the whole time I'm, like, sweating, just sweating after, you know, swelling, and it just. I felt terrible. So I drugged myself to the emergency room right over here. And I go in there and, you know, they put me in a room and this is funny. Little Asian doctor comes in and he looks at it and then he leaves for, I don't know, it seems like forever. Right. He comes back and he says, okay, we. We have a bed for you upstairs. You're going to be here a couple days. And. And I was like, no, I can't stay here for a couple days. I gotta fly to a dealer on Monday.

Right.

And he goes, oh, he goes, you left handed? Right handed. I go left handed. And it was on my left hand. And he points. And I hadn't noticed. I literally had red lines.

Oh, the infection went up the arm.

And he goes, so you learn.

Right.

Right handed. It's okay. I was like, oh. And so basically every six hours, they gave me a new drip of antibiotics, and I just sat there with my iPad.

Holy cow.

For three days.

That's nuts.

It was scary. So when this happened.

Same thing. They were just playing, and two of my bulldogs are playing, and one of them went to get more leverage on the toy and, you know, nicked me. But it didn't get infected. I doused it in peroxide, I was gonna say.

But all that worry came back, though.

Yeah. So your son could, you know, could endure that maybe three days in the hospital.

Man. I know this is probably not gonna be popular, but I don't really pick the popular option, apparently in some cases. But I think I'm gonna go with the boa constrictor.

Really?

Yeah.

You ever had pet snakes?

No.

Me neither. They creep me out.

No, but one of our clients actually is a. He has a lot of pet poisonous snakes. But there's a correct way to handle them and everything like that. And I actually think that my kid would love having a boa constrictor. I think that with the caging and everything like that, it's Way more predictable than the rescue dog in venomous Gecko. It's just rude.

Well, you know about geckos being in Florida, right? Because they're everywhere.

Yeah. They're like. They're like spiders in the Midwest. Like, it's just that you see geckos everywhere.

Spiders in the Midwest.

Yeah, spiders everywhere in the Midwest.

Really?

Yeah, for sure. Well, maybe. Maybe in the farmland, like where I grew up. And that reminds me of something, too. Do you ever wonder why cows have bells?

Yeah, all the time.

Yeah, I figured it's because their horns don't work.

That's a good card joke.

Thank you. That's right.

If you're a service advisor, you should be saying that all day in the drive. That's funny.

That's great.

That's a good one. To break the ice with a customer. I like that. Because their horns don't work. Let's talk about the future of service departments. So I think you kind of have. You had two sides of this story, right? You have, like, the doom and gloom where that the industry is going to change and there's no maintenance to be done on electric cars. And then you have the everything's gonna be all right. Where do you fall in that equation? The doom and gloom or that everything's gonna be all right?

I fall way more along the line of we need to get really good at tires and alignments. Yeah.

Why tires and alignments?

Because I don't think that electric cars need much more than that.

So we're gonna be tire. Tire and alignment shops.

Yeah. Yeah. I really. Oh. So one of our listeners actually brought this up, too. Up north, they also need to do brake caliper services where they're lubricating slide pins and everything like that. Because on an electric car, you don't use the brakes very often. So they sit. And up in the salt belt, the calipers will stick if you don't clean them every once in a while. Yeah.

And adjust the carburetor.

Also change out the fuel pump every once in a while. And the electric cars don't have fuel pumps. Yeah, they don't have carburetors either.

But I know it was a joke.

I know it was hilarious.

Funny in mine are.

I don't know.

I laugh at your jokes. Even if it's a courtesy laugh.

You laugh before I tell the jokes.

I just think your segues are funny.

Did you ever wonder about why I count as a bell? Like, what kind of segue is that?

Right. I know. I feel like there are lessons that I'm trying to teach. You know, it's a lot like, how do you stop a bull from charging?

Oh, take away its credit card.

Oh, that's funny.

That was a couple. Back to back.

A couple nights ago, I went down to Norm MacDonald, like, I found a new.

I don't know what. What would you call it on YouTube, like, where they serve up videos, like a new playlist or something. Yeah, Norm stuff. So he's so funny.

He's my. He's my idol, honestly. I think he's so. It doesn't even matter. And I heard somebody describe him the other day as Norm MacDonald is the guy that. It doesn't matter what the heck it is. It ends up being funny even when it's not. And that's why I like him so much. He can just be talking about regular stuff and it ends up being funny.

He's. He's the best.

Who.

So who do you think the greatest comedian is of all time?

That is so.

It's kind of a dumb question, right? It's like.

Yeah, because I think there's so many and they're so different, too. But I mean, there's definitely. There's an elite group. Right? Like, I think that Norm is right up there with his genre of comedy that he does. I think George Carlin, Sam Kinison, I definitely think people. I'm partial to people that are a little bit to the older. I'm not necessarily into the new humor yet, but I'm trying. I'm trying to give it a shot.

Like, who would be classified as new humor?

Like the YouTube guy that has millions of viewers. Dobrik. David Dobrik.

Consider that guy a comedian.

I think that he is considered in comedic genre for sure. I think that the.

I mean, first of all, maybe I should have asked it different. Like, just stand up.

Oh, just stand up.

Because I don't think that kid could do stand up.

I don't know. He doesn't have to for sure, but. No, but if we're just talking about.

It's a lot different when you're doing sketches and you have other people around you and you have the ability to reshoot something. When it's stand up, it's just you and there's no net.

Okay, then I think stand up wise Norm, and especially if you watch his videos and the way that he can improvise and work with the crowd and it doesn't matter what they say, he's going to win. So I think he's pretty amazing when it comes to that stuff.

Yeah. Someone lately, like, to like Dave Chappelle, that sticks and stones.

Oh, gosh, I watched it so many times. Yeah, there's that opening with the, with the 1999 song.

Prince Song.

Yep.

And then.

Yeah. The great people of Atlanta. We live in a time where Anthony Bourdain killed himself.

Yeah. And that laugh, like the. Oh, crap, I just laughed at somebody commit suicide. Like, you have these. You're, you're, you're, you're humored and you're guilty all at the same time. Like the way he kind of evokes emotion. I think Chappelle's a genius too.

Yeah, he's good in the, the last Louis CK one before he was killed, I think it's called 2017. He does this thing on a. Where you never know if he's for or against because he goes so far both ways. And it's. I mean, it's a really crazy thing to be able to pull that off.

Yeah, I think he does that really well. And I think Anthony Jeselnik actually is just as good at that as Louis.

CK Although there's just something about him that. He's not likable.

No, he's an a. He's an A hole.

I don't like him, so I have a hard time really enjoying him because he's not likable.

Okay.

There's something about being likable, you know, I don't know. Yeah, there's something to that. So get really good at tires and alignments.

What about the idea? This is a theory of mine, but think, based on a lot of facts, that cities like Los Angeles, New York, Dallas are going to implement grids for driverless cars. Because the thing with driverless cars is they're not as efficient if they're not all on it. So they can't have zones where. Once you come into la, this area of la, there's no more stoplights. It's all air traffic control through the grid, the cloud. And cars have to be turned on to the grid and that's it. Because it eliminates traffic, it's safer there. You know, it's more efficient.

People are going to need their cars retrofitted. I think that there, there's, you know, there's already 50 companies out there working on driverless technology. But I think big corporations like BMW, Volkswagen will have their own version of it. I think Apple will probably sell their technology also. I've read that that's one of the things besides a car that they're working on is retro kits that would upgrade current vehicles to be driverless. So don't you think that service departments will be inundated in cities that make it mandatory in the next five to seven years, that the cars are driverless, that all the used cars will be upgraded before they're sold to that in that area and people will be wanting to have that done so they can go into that area to work.

Yeah, I think that that's a, that's probably going to be one of the last big hurrahs of the service center.

Right. It will happen more in populated areas.

Yeah, no doubt.

So I think that we will have huge opportunity there. I, I think another thing with the future of service departments is more and more it's going to be fleet business. I think we're starting to see that right now. But as time goes, people will be, you know, they will be in subscription base purchases, it won't even be leasing anymore. And in those will be maintenance and repairs will be included in the warranty and they will just go to wherever that fleet contract is, Right?

Yep. And I think that the big thing on that, and just hear me out on this, I think that the, that the value to the fleet company is, is not going to be price, it's going to be turnaround because there's a cost to that thing being off the road. Yeah. It's not necessarily going to be. They're not looking for 19.99.

They're only with trucks.

Yeah.

With, with heavy trucks. So there'll be more fleets. I think that I did have tires also, like you said. I think that whoever has the technicians will win. I think you'll be able to charge a premium if you have the technicians because it will be harder and harder when.

Well, especially when it comes to like your modification theory. Right. Like I don't want the, I don't want to, I don't want a $10 an hour tech doing my modification that's actually gonna be responsible for driving my car. Right. Like you want that thing done. Right. And there will absolutely be a premium on the people that are the best at it.

Recently there was a article.

In Automotive News, it was actually in November and we're trying to get him on, but he was talking about how in Michigan General Motors and Ford switched sides in the lawsuit of the dealers suing so Tesla couldn't sell, sell and service cars there. And that uaw, the union also switched sides and was not only backing Tesla's direct to consumer, they were saying that not even carving out for Tesla for all automakers to be able to Go direct to consumer. So I've said this for a long time and you know, it always seems like I'm talking to air. Yeah, to air that the manufacturers are going to go direct to consumer with the car sale which is going to leave service departments for dealerships in an identity crisis. Yeah. Because they're still going to be very needed in the marketplace. But most of the dealers and general managers, their identity is tied up and how many cars they sell. And so a lot of dealers will sell. So there'll be more consolidation in the Lithias and the Autonations and all the bigger companies will grow dramatically and the, you know, mom and PA dealer groups and dealers will slowly sell over time. But it'll be the pen skis, the Lithias, the Autonations, the groups. Maybe there'll be another group that'll, that'll come out of nowhere. But there'll be more and more consolidation through this identity crisis that the car sale will no longer be the star of the show. Service will, but the service department will become more and more important. And I think, you know, service departments will be allowed to have satellites and it'll be more about the customer experience. It'll also be more of a fleet based type thing where you can do it in warehouses and you don't have to have the customer facing part of it.

Yeah, yeah. I think that that's beautiful for expansion. Right. Like that's the thing with the dealerships is they got these big beautiful multimillion dollar Taj Mahals. But man, if you can have, you can have eight lifts in an off site location, what kind of money can you generate out of that? That it's not customer facing. What a great opportunity for service centers.

Yeah, more than anything, you know, the cars will drive themselves to us or we will go pick them up. But the idea of a service drive will be less and less.

Yeah, but that flip, that's a really big thing because I think that everyone thought that the big three were going to kind of sit behind their dealers until the end. Right.

It was really kind of a downhill thing because I think both Ford and GM invested in Rivian and the newer companies and stuff like that. So once they started to kind of say, okay, it's coming, I think that was my worry for the way that the dealer model is. But it's not, it's not going to stay the same. And I think just think we got to get ready for it. But service is definitely the answer.

Yeah, it's good stuff. Okay, let's go to A question. The number, if you have a question that you'd like Christian and I to answer is 8 3, 3, 3. Ask STR that's Ocho. Tres, tres, tres.

Ask STR Trigunta STR. But that's only if you're in Moldovia.

Hi, my name is Michael Ramirez. I'm a new service manager. I just finished my first year.

I've got one year under my belt here and I'm just wondering what would the top 10 tips you would give to a new service manager that'll help them, you know, potentially have a successful career. I appreciate any feedback.

The top 10, that's its only.

That's its own show right there.

That's great, Michael. We're gonna, we're gonna make a top 10 list for you.

Yep, there we go.

Here's what I propose, Michael. I will send you my book, the irreplaceable Service Manager. And.

There'S, I don't know, 13 chapters in here. So we have how to be an irreplaceable service manager. Pattern Interrupt pricing, Selling, maintenance and repair, Shift meetings, Increase customer satisfaction, Pay plans and minimum requirements, Hiring bulldogs, Bulldog marketing, Setting goals, Training, common terms, Time management, Action log, and the rule of five. So we will send that deed to you and I think that'll help. It will. It will get you started on the right track. And it's also a fun read. It's easy to read and you know, I call this a two cup of coffee. You can read this over two cups of coffee. So we'll send you that because I mean, honestly, you're kind of.

What would you say, a little aggressive there.

That his ask of the top 10 list. Yeah, I think that the book is definitely a great place to start. I also want to say that Michael's kind of in that zone that are our favorite, right. Those people that are kind of new, fresh, starting out. And I always think from the service manager perspective, he's kind of right. Like a year is just kind of getting started with everything. And I would say that if you learn this stuff in year one, year 10 is going to be great.

Yeah. And we have online service advisor training and service manager university. We have customer service training and training for your tax to understand what the service advisors are doing and to create communication between them. And it's, you know, $250 a month which is nothing compared to what you will see in ROI in return. So go to Chris Collins inc.com and sign up for our on demand. Get your advisors on there, get your texts on there. And that, that'll give you a Kickstarter. It'll change the conversation. Also, it'll change the morale in your service drive, because when advisors have tools that are working, they have more confidence, they're having more fun, and just the energy will change. So, you know, sign up for that also. But we'll send you the book. And that's, that's a good place to start. Christian's wearing a shirt, and I'm, I'm actually jealous that they didn't make me one of these. But our, our crew over kind of the COVID break, we shot a movie. It's really a movie called the Review. Are all customers crazy? And it's going up on our On Demand, the training platform that I was mentioning for everybody. And our idea was to have training that was not only entertaining and engaging, but also kind of had a deeper message and that your employees wouldn't feel like they were just watching a talking head tell them what to do, but that they were being entertained. And, you know, we're taking them on an emotional journey at the same time, but the outcome of it is understanding customer service and how to connect with customers on a deeper level. So check that out. On Demand. The Review's going up now. We'll put a preview up for it, too, on our on our channel. But fun show.

Oh, man, this is great. I had a good time.

Thanks, everybody, for joining us, and we will see you 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. 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 hi, I'm Chris Collins, and I'll see you in the next video.