Trends in the Trucking Industry are Impacting Your Daily Life with Guest Chryssa Hunlock

Today on the show, we have an exciting guest, Carissa Hunlock. And she's currently the district parts manager for Daimler Trucks of North America. But she's much more than that. Longtime friend. And we're going to talk about the challenges facing our industry with recruiting technicians, connecting with customers on a deeper level. And just what is the future hold and what are we seeing right now and how can we be more effective and and get ahead? That and much more. Coming up on this edition of Service Drive Revolution.

Welcome everybody, to Service Drive Revolution. I'm Chris Collins and this is Christian La. We have a special guest today, Carissa Hunlock, who is the closest thing to Wonder Woman. I think that we know. We've established that.

Yeah, we're gonna get her the tiara with the star on it.

So she currently is the district parts manager for Daimler Trucks of North America, which is America's largest truck manufacturer, carrying Freightliner and Detroit Diesel, Western Star and Thomas built bus brands. Krissa has been with DTNA since 2012, minus one year during the pandemic where she was working directly for a truck fleet as the director of Driven Engagement and Technology. She holds her class A CDL and has driven tractor trailers across the country. Prior to this role at dtna, she was also a technical sales rep, helping sales men and women and customers spec the powertrain on a truck, as well as the district service manager, assisting dealerships with repairs and and business strategy. In her current role, she covers California down to Bakersfield, helping to grow parts sales and assist dealerships, Chase parts and truck repair. How is it going, Wonder Woman?

It's going pretty well. Thanks so much for having me on here.

Was that a good introduction? Did I. Did I do that justice?

I think you did. It's definitely a mouthful. You wouldn't expect that I went through that journey after getting. Getting a degree in music. But yeah, you did a great job.

Yeah, I was gonna say it doesn't even tell a quarter of your story. You're a hard person to put into a couple paragraphs, but I'm so excited to have you on and just have a conversation and pick your brain and your thoughts about certain things. So you have kind of, in the last few years, you've gained some new experiences and moved around and seen different sides of our industry. And that's actually one thing that I really admire about you, is that you. You're not scared of taking on new challenges. I think you almost do you crave new challenges?

I think so. I'm more of the here hold my beer type, you know, Watch this. Let's go for it. It doesn't mean they aren't scary, you know, I don't walk into them. Not understanding the risk is definitely scary when I jump into brand new roles, but I definitely get a thrill out of that, for sure. I've been an adrenaline junkie for a long time. I guess we just replace it as we age, right?

Yeah, well, for some of us, it slows down a little bit, but I don't know, I think if that's a part of you, it's a part of you. I know that I'm definitely addicted to fixing things, and I don't know that that slowed down.

But maybe, you know, one thing that has slowed down is I'm tired of fixing people.

That don't want to be fixed. That's a whole nother episode and a different story. So as. As we sit here today, and different from the last time you and I hung out is the problems are worse than they were. So we as an industry, when we talk about trucking, there's a shortage of drivers that is almost insurmountable. Right. For the industry. And then the shortage of technicians. So I remember us in Portland talking about all the things that Daimler was doing to help vocational schools and supporting them, and the McKenzie study you guys commissioned on how to retain technicians and, and all that. How do you see it now compared to years ago and what, you know, what are your overall thoughts on, you know, recruiting in the labor force?

Yeah, so definitely worse, like you said, and the pandemic and a lot of people leaving the workforce, going on unemployment for different various reasons, taking care of loved ones, I mean, this has all made what was already on a downward trend that much worse. Everywhere I go, the dealerships I visit previously, when you and I hung out last time, like you were saying, I was a district service manager then, so I was living in that service world as their OEM rep and we were pushing throughput, which Daimler still is. We want to get that truck fixed and back on the road as quick as possible, even as the oem. And we're partnering with the dealership, saying, what do you need? And the answer is always technicians. And now that I'm in parts sales, it's the same story, except it's not technicians. It's. I need someone to work with cores, you know, shipping back cores, or someone to be on the front counter or in the call center or. So it's. It's still just a massive shortage of people, I think, willing or interested in being in the trucking industry overall. And certainly my time when I left Daimler most recently, just a couple months ago is when I rejoined Daimler. But I spent about a year working for the truck fleet and boy, oh boy was the driver shortage right in my face there too. So I don't know. I've been in this industry, in this corner of the world and I don't know if it's true for every, is it just every blue collar job? Is it every skilled trade? Have we been shoving degrees, you know, at people for too long and now there's not people who work with their hands? Or is it specific to the trucking industry? I don't know that. I just know that here within this industry, it is just getting progressively worse year over year. And this pandemic has really expedited that.

You know, 60 Minutes did a piece months ago about, about this and it's not specific to our industry. They can't find plumbers. You know, it, it, most kids, I think, that have, you know, some sort of skill set and knowledge are going into programming, they're going into it, but they're not going into industries that one, they don't perceive as being cool. So like nobody, nobody perceives a plumber as being cool or you know, technicians, maybe.

They don't have the same stigma that a plumber would. But you know, if you talk, if you're hanging out with your friends and you say I'm a coder, that has a, you know, a little more value, I think in a sense to, to the younger generations coming up. And so they, they did a piece on, they were talking about how there's plumbers that could make a couple hundred thousand dollars a year and they can't find, they can't, you know, they can't.

They can't provide their services for the amount of demand that's out there. And I think we see that all the time too in service departments, whether it be in truck or car, that they're booked out three weeks and they, they, they're just trying to shove more into the pipeline. And it, it diminishes the experience, the attention to detail.

And the outcome of it is a customer that's unhappy and a stressed out employee that's just doing more.

And more and more and more stress day in and day out. And so it's harder to retain employees and the retention of the customers is diminishing. So we're at an interesting crossroad where we have to figure out how to provide a work environment that people want to be in. And it's not just about money. Right. But also that they want to stay.

Yeah, well, and in the trucking industry is even more unique there because I don't know, there at least 70% of all goods are moved by truck. And if we don't have enough support personnel to, to keep trucks on the road, then we don't have stuff on the shelves, you know, so it's so tied to all of our daily lives that we should all be pushing and figuring out how to make trucking more sexy or whatever needs to happen. Like you said, a cool job. And I'm hoping that the emergence of electric trucks and autonomous trucks and, you know, all this new technology that's coming out, I'm hoping that that's going to be the push that we need to fill that gap that you're talking about that's going to get the younger generation interested again that, hey, this is tech stuff, this is cool stuff. You know, you have some of the older generation that comes down hard on millennials, which I am a part of that generation, barely. And then Gen Z that, oh, they just don't want to work hard, they want to be behind a computer. But I think it's more than that. They want to purpose, purpose to what they're doing. And that's what really drives me in this, in this industry is that I see the long term effect, you know, that the work that my work has within the trucking industry, that all of us do contribute to that. If I don't want the price of avocados to be double the amount I need to do my part to keep trucks on the road and keep commerce moving. It is all really tied together.

You know, that's one thing that I, that I want to point out that I think makes you so special and unique in the industry is that you're thinking about that bigger picture. You're thinking about the end outcome. And I think a lot of times what happens with advisors and techs and parts people or personnel is like a technician is working on a truck or a car and they don't understand that, that that car is a mom trying to get their kids to soccer practice that's single or, you know, whatever the story is, that there's humans that have these complicated lives behind what we're doing. And the same thing like the, you know, do you want the price of avocados to double? Do you want, do you want toilet paper? Whatever it is, like, we, I don't think we too often think about the Outcome of what we do and how important it is. And we're just thinking about in the moment this, you know, pain in the ass thing we have to do or whatever it is. You know, I was, I had an experience pre pandemic that I actually was, was dying to tell you about and talk about. And it was so interesting to me.

Because, you know, we created, you know, advisor training and manager training for, for international truck. And part of it is we do, we were doing live pre pandemic, we were doing live advisor training. And one thing that just completely blew me away, that happened in Baltimore, Dallas, everywhere that we went to do the classroom training was the advisors would talk about how drivers would bring in a truck, they would go to the waiting room and three hours later the advisor would go to update them or whatever. And the driver had left and taken another job with another company. And how common it was that drivers would just up and leave and take another job with another company because the truck had been in service for a couple hours. And it wasn't one time, it wasn't two times, like in one. Finally kind of by the third time, I'm like, how many have had that experience? And like half the room raises their hand.

Yep, yeah, it's, it's all too common. And you know, as the director of driver engagement for Chima Freight Lines, I was running the team for recruiting and retention as well as, you know, training the drivers. And what I found was driver enrichment was really important because every fleet out there is trying to do the same thing. They're trying to attract and keep drivers. And a driver can go put their thumb up on the highway and get a job. You know, we, we picked up guys who, same deal, their truck broke down and it's like we get a phone call and we'll do whatever it takes. We'll scramble, we'll ask some other driver to go get him or pick him up or, you know, it is a dog eat dog world out there and all things trucking. And every single piece of the industry has to make sure that they're taking care of what I call the talent. They're the talent. Nothing happens without the driver. And so we need to be, you know, taking care of them. Whether they're at a service repair facility, which is always a bad day. You know, a lot of them aren't getting paid when they're sitting there. If they're an owner operator, they're definitely not getting paid. And on top of that, whatever is in that trailer behind the truck, which is, that's the piece that I think a lot of advisors and technicians and dealerships and, you know, anyone that's related, they don't consider what's in that trailer behind the truck. You know, and if the guy's an owner, operator, he stands to lose the contract if what's in that trailer doesn't get there. If what's in that trailer is vaccines and it's a reefer and it could run out, you know, the vaccines could expire. I mean, there's different ways to apply empathy to what you're doing, but it's a. It's a completely different ball game. And I don't understand why trucking seems like it just kind of got trapped or. Or frozen in time when all the other industries were focused on customer service. It feels like trucking is so much further behind when it comes to how we're treating the driver or the owner or, you know, who. Whoever is. Is dealing with that experience. When a truck is. Is down or, you know, needs a part or. Or whatever other piece of it. I don't understand why things seem to have kind of stalled. You know what I mean? It seems a little behind the times. It's not like walking into a car dealership. Oh, hello, Mr. Collins. Here's where our espresso machine is. You know, it doesn't even have to be a luxury car to have that kind of treatment, but you go to a truck dealership, and it really wasn't that long ago that, you know, you just walked up to the technician and wait for him to wheel out from under the engine bay and, you know, toss him the keys, and he'll say, yeah, I'll look to. I'll look at it when I get to it. And, you know, it's the old school salt of the earth crude. I. I don't know how to put it, but it just feels like it's slower moving to the point of now suddenly we're at this really crucial pivot point of, guys, we really don't have enough drivers to go around really, really, like, for real now. And it's getting worse. And now suddenly, it's come to the forefront. We need to make sure that we are doing everything we can to keep them happy when the truck is down. In those terrible moments, you know, if the truck's not moving, so they don't do what you're saying and just say, screw it. I'm gonna, you know, I've got six recruiters blowing my phone up. I'll just pick one and respond to them. And that'll be that and I'll have a new job. It's a crazy world.

How far would you go to recruit a driver? Like what are the keys in the, what's the nuclear weapon? To recruit drivers, like what do you do?

I mean that's the age old question. If any one of us could answer that question, we'd be making lots of money selling that to all the trucking fleets out there. But I think at the end of the day, the, the name of the game for, for attracting and keeping drivers. It's word on the street and your drivers are your best, you know, defense to attracting more drivers. And if they feel like they're treated with respect, like for me, you know your pet, the dog story, right. It's legendary with Freightliner Northwest still, by the way, from the time you came out there. But it, it just comes down to the simplest things. You don't have to pay more. Of course, that matters. And some of your brand new drivers are just going to look at, you know, what's my bottom rate, what's my paycheck going to look like? That's what some of the newer drivers, the seasoned drivers are saying. Are you going to treat me with respect? Are you going to talk to me like a human being? Are you going to, if I call in and I'm broken down on the side of the road and you're my dispatcher, are you going to act like you care? Are you going to care about me getting home for my son's softball game since I missed the last 12 in a row?

That sounds simple and it is. And yet it's such a frantic, you know, crazy, fast moving world that that's the part that I think gets overlooked a lot. And it's also soft skills. How do you, how do you teach the soft skills to people that are like, yes, I can answer a phone and look at a computer and dispatch a load, or yes, I'm a service advisor. I can listen to a, you know, someone come in and tell me what they think is wrong and then give it to a technician. But can you teach the empathy? Can you teach the human side of showing someone I actually care about you and what's going on in your life right now and how this impacts you. But yeah, we would go to any length to get a driver, especially a known good driver or, you know, a lot of drivers come and go, they'll leave and they'll go to another fleet or another couple of fleets and then they resurface and want to come back and work at you Know Chima Freight Lines, which is where I was working. So that happens a lot too. And if it's a driver we knew, and we know they're good, and we know they really put in the miles and, you know, show up and do some of the simplest things, then, yeah, we're gonna. We'll send a. We'll. We'll get you a train ticket from Nebraska or whatever needs to happen, you know, to get out here and. And drive for Chima.

Well, now that you're in parts, I guess the question I was thinking about is when you look at the dealerships that you're affecting, what are the commonalities between the successful parts departments and the ones that are asleep at the wheel or just kind of going through the motions, is it the same thing you're talking about? Is that a big part of it, about the empathy and caring and, you know, treating people like they're your friend, different than they're just an employee in another number? Is it drive? Like, what. What are the magic characteristics that make somebody perform better than their competition?

Yeah, I mean, parts. Parts is kind of tricky. It's not as clear cut as service. Service is simple. Fix my truck or don't fix my truck right, and then treat me nice while it's. While it's broken. Parts is interesting because parts is partly warranty repairs or repairs when the truck is down. But it's also being a partner to your, you know, local customers and saying, hey, who supplies your oil? Can we help with that? Or hey, who supplies your brake drums? We can put them on a parts truck and deliver them for you. Meanwhile, they might have a different brake drum replacement that, you know, is also trying to get that business. So the good, you know, part salesmen that are out there and California truck centers, who I work with now, along with Redding Freightliner, they're just banner year, you know, year over year, just really making some groundbreaking numbers in part sales. And I think a lot of it has to do with the hustle. They are absolutely willing to hustle and get their outside parts people, people out there making the connections, building the relationships and saying, how can I help? How can I help you? You know, and being willing to listen. So much of trucking is based on relationship, and that's very similar to what I was talking about before. Those are soft skills. But I think you might have. I'm sure that at some point. I don't know that we've talked about this before, but I'm sure at some point during your service advisor training too, you Might have picked up that there's, there's trucking fleets that won't do business with a whole dealership family just because someone's brother, you know, pissed off another brother 10 years ago. It's, it's generational. You know, trucking is so much related to family that every relationship really does matter. And I know I was just talking to one dealership who doesn't want to do business with a particular oil supplier that's in the area because they found out, I don't know, it's not, somehow, it's not, you know, completely affiliated with the US and there's some Canadian affiliation. They want to be fully US So it's, you never know where these ties come from. And just what I've learned in trucking is everything that comes around goes around. And you know, burning a bridge will last a long time here. So yeah, it's, it's about beating the streets and being willing to constantly be fully engaged, fully listening and then saying, how can I help? And on top of that being willing to do all the follow up. And you know, it's a really busy world, but you have to make time to say, oh yeah, I promised this customer I was going to get them a quote on this. If you don't get that quote to them, it's the same as the driver. They're just going to go to the next place and get them a quote or get them the part.

Well, I think there's something to that, to like the organization of the whole thing. Like if you think about the most successful parts departments, I'm going to guess a couple of things. One is that they probably got a really good outside sales program, right. Like where it's structured and how they're going to have the salespeople go out and talk to the clients and everything like that. They've probably got a really nice clean inventory and they probably not got a core issue. Right. So I think that it's kind of that how you do everything, anything is how you do everything. But what I see with the, the parts departments that work the best, they absolutely to 100% to what you said. They remember that they're in the relationship game. And so many times I'll see parts departments where they're like, well, I've just, I just move parts. But it's not, you know, it's way more about the relationship than they think that it is. And the ones that are doing the best, they run it clean and then they run it, they run it to the relationship. And I Totally get it. About the generational thing, too. I like to think about my. My grandfather right before he.

This is a segue, Chris.

Right before he. Right before he.

Smooth, wasn't it?

That was.

He likes to think about his grandfather. Right before what?

Right before he kicked the bucket, he.

Said, you like to think so talking about parts made you think about your grandfather Right before he kicked the bucket.

Before he kicked the bucket, you know what he did? Know what he said?

What?

Hold my beer. I'm gonna kick this bucket.

Is that a true story?

No.

But did you think it was funny?

I. I laughed, so. Yes.

Yeah. I don't know that you want to ask if somebody thought it was funny after. Just let it.

That would be someone with shame.

You know, it's like a service advisor that asks a yes or no question. Like, you know, it's better to say, hey, the computer says, you're due for an alignment. Then do you want to do an alignment today?

And then the customer says, yes. And you're like, are you sure?

Yeah, like it's the same. It might be the same. I don't know.

One of my pet peeves is when people say, that's funny. That's funny. I always say, no, it's not. If it was funny, you would have laughed. There's a sound that humans make as opposed to saying, that's funny. Clearly it wasn't actually funny.

Yeah, like, kind of like if somebody said, yeah, it's cute or whatever. It's like. It's dismissive, right?

Yeah, very much.

That's funny. You know, one thing that.

Coming from the car side of things and immersing ourselves in truck, and I think a lot of listeners that are in car will find this fascinating, because I did, is that the parts departments in truck dealerships do insane amounts of sales to the outside. In the service department is a pimple on the backside or on the ass of the parts department. Like, the parts manager swings a way bigger stick. And the service manager is like, so here's something that you'll hear in a car dealership is like, a parts manager will say, well, the service department's my number one customer. You'll never hear that in a truck dealership. The parts manager is like, well, tell the service manager to make an appointment. I'm busy. Like.

Or they're trying to figure out a way that they can actually get rid of the service department and just have more space.

Yeah.

For more inventory.

Because they're moving so much stuff on the outside.

Yeah, it's. It's partly True. But one thing I was gonna say, maybe a cleaner segue than the, the grandpa story, but I was gonna say that relationships that we were talking about before. Yes, absolutely. You're right. They know because I, you know, whenever I come into a new role, the first assessment I'm doing is what motivates this person. You know, what are they paid by? Is this commission based? Outside part sales? They're commission based. So these are going to be the things they're looking for. But of course, there's a lot more money to be had in quantity alone. If you're going to go out, beat the streets and say, I want to supply all of your brake shoes and all of your oil and all of your drums and all these, you know, filters and all these high turnover dollar items. But you have to have a good relationship with the service department too, because they, they are going to make you quite a bit of money on top of that. Yes, it's a smaller fraction. They're maybe not your biggest customers, customer all the time, but certainly I wouldn't want to not have enough of, you know, radiators on my shelf so that my own service shop has to go get a radiator from somewhere else. That can't happen, you know, and that's something that I'm in this role. I'm here to make sure, you know, that we're, I'm partnering with them just to make sure that, that the oa, as the oem, we're giving them the right deals so that they're stocking the right parts so that they can supply not only all those outside customers, but anyone that walks in the door, cash customers, as well as, you know, the service department. And that's something I really respect about the dealership I'm working with now is they come right out and say, we believe in sitting down with the service department. You know, we need to work in tandem. And that can't be overlooked. And there is so much overlap there that, you know, I mean, I say it in the trucking industry, I'm not really sure and I haven't read any studies or just done my own research, but I'm not really sure. Every industry is as tied to each and every component as the trucking industry. Each and every component, you know, if my parts pricing person who sits in some office, you know, in the middle of the country out here for Daimler, for the OEM, if they clock out at 5pm and they had one more part that they needed to price, which means just, you know, their computer method of putting the price in the system. If they clock out before doing that last one and go home, I'll get that tomorrow. Well, that means that the dealership can't sell that part because it's not priced yet. And if there's a customer that needs it tonight, sorry, you have to wait till tomorrow. We'll get the pricing in, and then you have to wait another couple days for the PDC to deliver it, then another couple days for the shop to get it to do the repair. And so, I mean, it just. It truly is. Every single person that's involved in this industry is. Is holding the piece of string. You know, it's like the string on the sweater, the old Weezer song. So it's. That's always the image I get.

Did you sing that song for us really quick?

No. No.

You have the voice of an angel. Come on.

I told you I went to college for music, but I won't. But yeah, you know, it's. It's. If you don't think that you're having an impact on pulling that thread on the sweater and you're involved in this industry, you're wrong. You're just not looking at the bigger picture. You're not understanding how you fit in this ecosystem. So, yeah, every. Every single player here has a major role.

And you're 100, right? That was a better segue.

Yeah.

So another thing that I think is interesting, and I. I think that that car suffers from this but truck to a larger degree for some reason, and I'm not quite sure why, because it's kind of. Kind of the same is when you talk about a parts department and staffing a parts department.

There are not a lot of people coming into the industry that see themselves as like a parts counter person and as parts counter people.

Leave.

The new kids coming up don't really have assist like our system for training parts people for the last 50 years is in the saddle on the job. Pay attention, learn. And what I've seen over and over again in dealerships in the last few years is the parts counter people that are good are so busy, they don't even have time to train anybody. And they're in such high demand that there's this gap of these kids that maybe could learn it, but feel disenchanted and scared away. And it's, you know, and also the training that they have, like, they can go on and they can do, you know, training where they learn about the system and how to order a part and that sort of thing, but it doesn't really train them how to be a parts counter person. It doesn't train them on the mindset, it doesn't train them on, you know, what to do day to day and they're left to their own devices and, and there's a lot of turnover at that middle to bottom part of, of the parts counter that is harder and harder to fill.

Yeah, well, and also take into consideration that they're the ones that are face to face with the customer and a lot of times the customer is not in a good mood or not happy, not every time. But they're the ones that if, let's say you're brand new, you don't know how to look a part number up yet. And this guy is already agitated because his truck's down or just because, you know, it's a stressful job and stressful day. And here's this brand new guy who hasn't had the training or woman who hasn't had the training and now they're being yelled at and that doesn't help, you know, so you're absolutely right. I think training, I've always been a huge proponent of training and doing that in a.

How do you put it, a stress free, safe environment is so much better than the on the job training which we know is going to happen. But you're, you're right. The, the departments everywhere, every parts department or service department is so busy right now they don't have time. And not every person that's good at the job is a good trainer. We know that being good at a job doesn't mean you're a good trainer. It means you can pass, pass over some of the tribal knowledge, so to speak. Right. But I think having training, formal training for parts people, counter people, certainly ops folks, call center folks. So a lot of dealerships are doing call center, you know, parts sales. But having training that is.

In a sealed environment is really important as opposed to standing there in the middle of the chaos trying to grasp the concepts of what's going on. That's not an environment that's inducive to learning.

Yeah, training by fire, it just doesn't work.

I know a lot of dealers in truck that would pay for parts. Like they would pay a lot of money if you handed them.

A middle of the road parts person like that. They were just trained enough, you know, to get going because it's really hard for them to take somebody from the street and convert them into a counter or a parts person.

Honestly, I think with the way things are right now and the way that the demand has just gone straight up, straight through the ceiling. Now that we're coming back to life and, you know, trucks are hitting the road again, most parts managers tell me they'll just take somebody who shows up.

If you will show up, you know, return my call, show up for the interview, and then show up every day for your shift.

We'll.

We'll deal with the rest. We'll fill the gaps, you know.

Yep. It's crazy how showing up to the interview has become a win for an applicant like that is unbelievable how often I'm hearing people say that. Well, I'm so glad they came to the interview. It's like, man, that's how bad it's gotten. That we're just happy if someone applies for a job, that they actually follow up and show up like, man, the bar's gone low, super low with that stuff. But.

So where do you. Where do you see the future of parts and service going in the next five years?

I mean, I, you know, I'm not necessarily a statistician.

No, but you're psychic. You're clearly psychic.

You're also Wonder Woman.

I mean, the trucking. And this is what I say when I go to high schools, because I, you know, same deal in my OEM service role when the dealerships were telling me, why are you going to come in as an OEM and tell me you promise customers if you buy our brand, that you're going to. That their trucks will be fixed in 24 hours? When I don't have technicians to fix their truck in 24 hours, I said, I'll put my money where my mouth is.