YouTube Q&A: Your Top Comments Answered

Welcome to the big show. Today we are going to take questions from YouTube. So comments from YouTube, some great questions, some really interesting conversations. If you're a fan of learning and talking about shop, you're in for a treat today. We also talk about the new kill switch that is installed mandatorily in all cars after 2027. And our thoughts on that and much, much more. I'm Chris Collins. That's Hoagie, Adam, and this is Service Drive Revolution. Hey, did you guys see this? It's old news, but it's new news to me that in 2021 Biden signed into law that by 2027 every car has to have monitoring in it that watches your face and eyes, your behavior and movements, and has breath or cabin sensors.

I didn't know about the breath, the breath and cabin sensors. That is interesting.

So every car sold after 2027 by law has to monitor your— where you are, what you're doing, even if you own the car, you don't own the car. And there's no, um, there's no, you know, sort of, uh, rules in place about how long they keep that information, what they do with the information. It's completely wide open.

Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, I do remember, I remember hearing about that like as it was kind of happening, and then I haven't heard anything about it for a long time, which is, you know, uh, probably, probably by design.

You guys don't seem as upset as me about this.

Uh, I—

it's, uh, Adam's laughing like he thinks it's funny.

I think it's par for the course, man. I mean, we could have talked about it back in '21, it would have been called conspiracy, right? And now it's— now it's happening.

I mean, Hoagie said a long time ago that he, he thought that, um, that Tesla would get in trouble because they were collecting all kinds of information that nobody else was. Remember when we had that conversation, Hoagie? Yeah, I don't know. And you're like, I don't know how Elon gets, gets away with it.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, they definitely, they definitely do. Like, that was always kind of a funny thing. Like, in the— even in the first Teslas, you could turn the GSM off. And I remember just talking with one of the engineers that was training me, and I was like, what's that do? Like, how— that's not connect— like, not really connected to anything. He's like, oh, it doesn't do anything. It just makes them think they're turning it off. Um, but, uh, there's, you know, it's, uh, it's, uh, it's the same thing with telematics, even in a lot of new cars, like you can turn off certain privacy things, but it doesn't turn off, like it's transmitting information. And yeah, I don't know. I guess I'm not surprised by it at all. And I don't know, like just where is the line? You know, like, is it going to, is it going to have a 90% reduction in DUI fatalities? I don't know.

No, like, no, absolutely not.

So like, if we're not impacting something like that, then what's the, you know, what's—

it sounds good, I think, because it sounds good, right? And what, what also I think they're masking it as, like, I just bought that '25 F-150 and they're like, oh, you get Blue Cruise or whatever, and it's got a LiDAR and it's got all this other stuff. They're trying to sell it as additional features or some sort of security feature that you can buy into subscription. It's like, you guys are still monitoring and looking at all that stuff. Like, even if I don't want it, or I do, it's, it's always going to be monitoring something. So it's like a, it's a masking.

Well, it'll, it'll monitor the vehicle right back to them if you miss a payment. That's what it'll do.

Yeah, yeah.

So that's, that's the other thing is it has a kill switch. Yeah, so every car after 2027 has a kill switch. So you don't even own your own car. Like, if you— like, I pay cash for a car, I don't own that car in a sense. They have control over my car.

Yeah, yeah, that's crazy. Well, uh, did you see the one segment where they're, uh, somebody was actually testing out— like, they were acting erratic, like, on video, and and just like an emotional response to— with all those different cameras, and the vehicle actually shut off. So even if it's not a, uh, I guess maybe the logic behind it is trying to decipher if somebody's actually whatever, drunk or impaired. Um, he just basically debunked that. If you're having a really emotional state or some sort of fight and you get in a vehicle and you try to drive, you can't go. So his scenario is about what if there was an accident, like most— he's in a truck, so most trucks are on farms. Can you imagine if you had some sort of incident on a farm or out in the middle of nowhere and you can't start the vehicle, can't run the vehicle because it has a kill switch because it's— in its logic, it's thinking you're impaired? Like, that's nuts.

Yeah, I don't support this. I don't like it.

Yeah, it's a weird, uh—

I think if, if you're driving for a job, like, um, Last year I was at an event that I was speaking at where it was like trucks, like commercial trucks. And they were talking to the, uh, you know, the leaders in the room about compliance of the software that their, that their insurance companies, I guess, kind of have them put in every truck that watches what the drivers do. And to be honest, they were playing clips of drivers and things that they had caught in accidents that they'd caught on, on video. And, um, it feels wrong to be watching that. Like, you feel very voyeuristic, like you're watching somebody almost in their bedroom or something. Like, it feels weird, but I get it. Like, if it's a job, like if somebody's driving a school bus and they have a bunch of kids, or a pilot is flying a plane Okay, yeah, I, I understand. But an individual in their own car on their ranch or just driving to work?

Yeah.

Uh, yeah, I mean, watching, you know, watching somebody pick their nose and like, it's just, it's gone too far for me. Yeah, it's almost like I can't kill turkeys on my own land and now this.

Hold on, you did a little pattern interrupt right there. I, uh, I have to share this quick little story. It is still getting towards the end of turkey season. My father-in-law comes to our house in the middle, uh, or in the afternoon, and as I pull up, he's already sitting there right in front of the house. He's calling in a turkey to our front, like, driveway with the kids in the car. I could not believe it. Now it was a hen, so we couldn't shoot it, but I said, hey Bob, if, uh, that was a tom What would you have been doing? He's like, I would have gone in your gun safe. I'm like, I'm pretty sure you can't do that. And I don't have a tag in our county, but it's that much. But I could not believe he was actually calling it because we've gone out, we've had zero luck. And I was kind of razzing him about like, there's no way. I don't think he has it in him anymore. But I'll tell you guys, he still called in that turkey at like 4:00 in the afternoon. It was pretty impressive.

I'd ask forgiveness if it's on my land. I don't—

it was on our land.

Yeah, I don't understand that, but yeah, kind of crazy. Kill switch in every car.

Yeah, yeah, that's nuts.

Did they say— now, is it official, or can they, uh, what is that, appeal it?

There's tons of lawsuits, and I'm sure you guys are familiar with all the rules and laws that were passed about the black boxes in cars. Yeah, the information belongs to the owner of the car in a lot of states, but it's state by state. And so yeah, there's all kinds of lawsuits of, you know, going on. And I got to imagine that you'll be able to opt out of it. That's what I'm guessing eventually, but it's going to take years.

Yeah, it's kind of crazy. I guess like that's kind of the, uh, suggestion is go look at what your state is. Uh, I'm in Illinois, so I'm pretty sure they just give it away. You have no rights.

Well, probably the same in California, but it does make you think that like a 2025 vehicle is going to be worth more.

I don't know.

I'm saying we got to go back. It's like everyone that was chasing, uh, pre-emission trucks and probably even maybe even some cars, people are going to start looking for a lot of those with less electronics. I I mean, that's the one thing that, you know, reviewing this is very kind of interesting is that I remember when they were talking about those black boxes. And what's interesting is they kind of like to point over here and saying, hey, if there's any sort of accident or whatever that happens, we can use this as like for the person that like, hey, I couldn't do this type of thing. And they use it as like a positive, but they don't really tell you like there has the negative repercussions that they can always be looking or pulling something. That black box is always running. Just always running. I think that's the start of it. I think that's when it first started, my opinion.

Well, I mean, where does that— where does that line stop? Like, in a sense, like, you could say, okay, well, domestic violence happens, so we should watch everybody in their homes. Or like, you, you could make that case just about in every situation.

Yeah, yeah, you're right.

Yeah, I think that's, that's the thing I was going to say, is, uh, just connectivity in, in general Like, uh, at what point does it stop serving us and, and, uh, start, you know, being too much? Like, everything you buy, like, uh, you know, your toaster has Wi-Fi connectivity. Like, why does my toaster need to talk to the refrigerator? I, I don't want either one of those things on Wi-Fi, you know? And just like all that stuff, it, like, you, you know, it's all out there.

Yeah, I don't, I don't have the— what's the Amazon one that you can talk to? Don't have that. My phone is like— I'm very much like you, Hoagie, where my phone is in one place. I don't wear any of the stuff. I'm not wearing a, you know, a Whoop or what. Yep. Nope, I'm not wearing an Apple Watch. Adam just held up your app, his Apple Watch. I'm not doing, you know, just because I know too much, like I know a lot about that, and I, uh, it's easy to hack.

Yeah, they were, they were saying that. I read something the other day too, uh, that for the first time in, you know, 10 years or whatever, um, wired headphones are outselling, uh, because of all the security issues with, uh, uh, cordless headphones. And, uh, like, even those, like, my iPods know where I'm at, you You know, like, it, uh, it doesn't make sense that your AirPods know, you know, are tracking location and stuff like that. Like, all, all of it, it's, it's, uh, it's nuts.

And then they sell it differently though. It's like, oh, so you can go find him. It's like, you know, it's so you could find me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's interesting.

I don't know, I don't know if this is interesting for any of our listeners, but it's fascinating to me that we We just keep losing more and more of our—

no, I don't think, I don't think anybody knows what to do with it. But I was just joking with somebody last week, we were sitting around talking about this exact thing, not in regards to, to auto, you know, to cars, uh, tracking the driver and stuff, but we were talking about this very thing and we were just joking like we feel like a bunch of old men sitting at the diner on a Saturday morning talking about, you know, the conspiracy of the government and stuff. But like, I don't think anybody really knows what to do about it, but, uh, they know it's a being, right? But we just kind of keep moving forward with it. And, um, yeah, it's an interesting thing to comply to for sure.

Well, as it applies to the service drive is, um, you know, I think about this all the time. Like, my, my Rover will update to the cloud, completely cutting out the service department. So it'll say, you know, when I turn it off, hey, it has an update, do you want to do the update? And everything that happens in that update completely cuts the, the dealer or the service department out of the, the, uh, transaction. Whether it's free or not, there's no reason to go to the dealer, which is, you know, always kind of been interesting to me because like I've always thought like with BMW and some of the brands, like if I went in to get my a BMW service, which I don't currently have a BMW, but when I did If they would have told me, hey, we have a software update for $1,000 that'll make your, you know, your phone actually sync up and show the music you're playing or whatever, or just different options, right? Like now you can have this dashboard. I, you know, I would do it, and I think a lot of people would do it. And in the absence of more maintenance, the cars are more and more reliable and they have less maintenance. There's, uh, there's no reason to be cutting the dealers out on that. But, you know, the manufacturers kind of loathe the dealers in a lot of ways with that sort of stuff anyways. And yeah, it's interesting.

Yeah.

Okay, well, we're gonna, we're gonna do some of the comments. So these comments or questions are from YouTube. And our, uh, crack team has copied and pasted them for us. And so I'm just going to go through some of them. I forget whose idea this was to do this, but I think now looking at these, it's a great, it's a great idea. There's some good ones. So, um, the first one I'll read is somebody put, does everyone use matrix pricing for customer pre-labor or do they use straight labor hours for quotes?

Yeah, um, I don't know, I would probably say a little over half of the stores we go into when we start with a new client are probably already using some type of, of, uh, of, of matrix pricing. And then, um, I, you know, it's definitely a good idea to, to use matrix pricing, uh, but it seems like it's a lot more common than it was, um you know, even just a few years ago. It's not something, um, that, uh, you know, used to be a lot, a lot less places we were going to, uh, all, you know, already had it when we started working with them. Um, but yeah, that's a, that's an interesting, interesting question, but it's a great thing to, uh, to develop, especially, you know, a lot of these brands right now are, are very repair intensive and And, um, there, you know, this can be a pretty deep pricing strategy, uh, conversation. So I don't know how deep we want to go with it, but, um, the more, uh, intensive some of these repairs are, um, you can utilize the matrix pricing to, uh, you know, get a little bit better effective labor rates on those things. And, uh, and then anything specialty, you usually have a separate rate for it and a separate grid for it. So like EVs and diesels and things like that. Um, but, uh, but yeah, it's, uh, it's, it's way more common now, uh, than it's not for sure.

Yeah, so you can have different pricing for like truck versus car and like a Ford dealership or heavy truck. And then we teach in our system how to kind of maximize a matrix, and it isn't just about it going up, but it's figuring out through an RO audit where your leverage is. So we're fans of it and we, you know, scientifically try to figure out where it can show you the most benefit by, you know, looking at your labor ops.

Yeah. A lot of your friends over in the parts department have been doing that same principle for a long time, right? They're kind of finding their sweet spot and maximizing their matrix. It's the same principle for for labor and, and yeah, very, very effective tool.

Okay. This next one. Sure.

Oh, sorry. I was going to ask you like, so in some stores like, well, that I've been into don't have any of that. Why wouldn't they have a matrix pricing?

Just not familiar with it. Probably not.

Okay.

Nobody ever—

they just not take the time, you think? Okay.

Or they just don't understand it. Yeah, where do you start?

Yeah, I think one, some people just hadn't come across their, their field of vision or been trained on it. And then two, someone might have heard about it, uh, from someone else or even got their hands on a, a Matrix and you go to put it in and some of the DMSs, it's pretty arduous. And like some of them you have to even send it off to them and things like that. I think it's a combination of all those things.

So Both of these two next ones are about the same thing. So the first one, he says, I wouldn't let another tech outflag me. You may be more skilled than me, but you wouldn't outwork me. So I'm always at the top of the techs. Techs blame dispatch. And now I dispatch for two dealers. How do you stop the blame game? I hear they don't do it. So why would I? So much seems like people don't care to raise their standards to be better than the next guy. They lower their standards. To meet the others. Minimal effort expecting maximum results. Also, how do you pay— cannot duplicates on warranty, uh, oh, how do you pay C&Ds on warranty so they could not duplicate, um, infotainment nightmares? And then the other one is, what's your favorite way, or what do you think is the best way to dispatch to techs? So, um, we would, we would never run a system that had dispatch in if it was ours to set up. Dispatch is a constraint. It becomes a constraint. And lateral support is a way better system where the advisors are dispatching to their techs and you break things down into smaller groups. So even with a Ford dealership where techs specialize, we still would break it down into lateral support. Dispatch is a really hard thing, and I know that's probably not the answer you're looking for because if your job is a dispatcher, you don't want to lose your job. I get that. But we, uh, you know, it's— it— I would rather make a dispatcher an internal advisor than have them dispatch.

Yeah, I think, um, You know, and I've got into a lot of long conversations about dispatch and, you know, if you just kind of illustrate for a second when you call it a constraint, Chris, like kind of for the audience, just think about it this way. Say I got 4 advisors and those 4 advisors are going to write 50-something tickets today. So at the beginning of the service process, you have 50 different cars coming in. Those 50 cars are going to go through 4 advisors, um, and then those tickets are going to go through those 4 advisors to 1 dispatcher and then back out to 12 techs. So if I, if I write that up all on a whiteboard like that, it's pretty easy to circle where the biggest constraint is. And sometimes I know it doesn't feel like that, but you know, um, there's plenty of exercises you can do to kind of, uh, highlight that. And then it's amazing how much it opens things up. I've had it time after time where I put lateral support in, and the first day we run out of work at 1 o'clock, and we were booked out 3 days like just before that. So, uh, I know it doesn't feel that way, but it truly is the case. And, and if you go from 4 advisors to 3 team leaders back out to 12 techs, you opened up that constraint a ton. And I know it doesn't feel that way, but it truly is the case. And then a lot of the issues you're talking about also are way easier to govern also. Yeah.

And there's probably a bigger kind of global grand strategy there too is not only does it increase efficiency, it makes it way easier on the advisors to communicate to their customers. Like, if you've ever been an advisor in a dispatch system, you're just another advisor in a big system. And, you know, if you have— you don't know how to communicate to a customer whether you can get a wait or done or how long a car is going to take. Because, you know, if there's additional work needed on a bunch of the cars in the shop right now, it's going to slow everything down. When I was an advisor and worked in dispatch, By 3 o'clock, you were calling your customers telling them the car wouldn't even get in today. And in the morning, the dispatcher was saying they would. And so it's very, it's, it's, you know, there's just too many variables with that sort of constraint and that sort of system. When you control your own destiny and you're communicating directly to your techs, you, you know, you can pull cars in front of other cars, you know, you can play whatever game you need to play to serve the customers. And then the, the other part of this is, you know, we try in our system to get these customers back to the advisors, like a forced relationship. Same thing happens with the techs, is if the same techs are touching the same cars, they get familiar with those customers, they get familiar with those issues, and it, uh, it's a better outcome for the customer by, by a long shot too. You can serve your customers in a much better way. Yeah, I don't even understand why anybody in the last like 25 years would be running dispatch. It's archaic as ever. But I know if it's familiar, like people just do it because it's familiar, not because it works.

Yeah. Yeah. And it, uh, yeah, it's just, it's just kind of a crutch. It's a, it's an easy way out. Um, And it's, you know, one thing that has pushed people back to that is a lot of scheduling systems schedule off of the time available in the shop for the repair that they're scheduling for, which is kind of crazy if you think about like, so, so say they set up their schedule for 20 minutes for an oil change or 30 minutes for an oil change or whatever. You're shooting yourself in the foot like right away scheduling that way because we all know the main purpose of bringing them in for competitive work is to inspect the car and find other things, but you only allotted 30 minutes for it. So, it's a weird thing. And so, then they need somebody to manage that and then they think they need dispatch and it's a whole thing. So, thinking of it holistically as your system also, the way you schedule is important and scheduling by Advisor, and that's a whole nother conversation. But, uh, um, but it's funny, like, uh, look at it holistically. Look at the whole throughput machine, uh, as a whole to make sure it makes sense what you're doing. A lot of times we go and just look at dispatch and just look at this one piece of the, of the puzzle and, uh, and try to just fix something with it, and it ends up causing other problems upstream and downstream. But, um, but yeah, it's a big, it's a big conversation. Yeah.

Does that take away the blame game?

Well, there, there can be— if it's mismanaged on the other side, there can be, there can be an issue. Because if you're a tech and you get a bad advisor that isn't very good, and that's your team, it, it forces you to have talented advisors or train your advisors. But it also forces you to have less techs for that advisor. So if a technician can't, or if an advisor can't keep 3 techs busy, they're not an advisor in our system. And if, if you find yourself going down to 2 techs per advisor, your advisors aren't very good or something else is going on. It, you have to address it. But we've had advisors with 9 techs that are just so good and they can write that much work. And so lateral support also allows you to kind of address the capacity issue by talent of the advisor. And, you know, if you're a really good advisor, you want more techs. And if you can keep them busy, we would give them to you. And so it isn't uncommon for somebody to need, you know, really good advisor to need 4 techs instead of 3 or whatever it is. But that is kind of the downside, Adam, is If you're a tech that gets a bad advisor, you're going to complain. You should be. It's, you know, but it's different than the dispatch.

Yeah. I was also going to ask, is that assuming that they have minimum standards in place too? Because when they were talking about the standards or lowering of standards, I was kind of thinking in my head, is there even minimum standards even in the shop and then playing to that too as well?

But minimum standards would take 90 days to get rid of that advisor. And for 90 days, those poor techs would be be dealing with that.

Yeah, that's true.

And what happens is, like, in that situation, what I like to do is, like, if a tech's out of work, I want them to come write their name in the office, like, on the glass with, you know, so I know who's running out of work and go find them work from other teams while addressing that. But you need good communication that, hey, if the techs are running out of work on this team, come tell us and we'll find you other work. There's all, you know, there's usually always something you can find, even if it's internals or whatever it is. But you start to see, just like you want to know how many holdovers you have, because if one group has a lot of holdovers, they probably need another tech.

I like that.

But the blame game does go down a little bit too, because, uh, it's just easier to manage when there's these few techs and there's more transparency. All that work is coming to to one dispatch board and everybody can see it. And like, you know, and there's training that goes along with that, with a team leader that's dispatching that work. But yeah, for sure, it can knock down a lot of that. The politics that end up happening if you got one central dispatcher, just from the advisors and from the techs, you'll never squash it.

The techs also end up bonding with the advisor and they become very close. So the, the morale in that kind of team atmosphere is, is much higher in that situation.

Yeah, good question.

Okay. In our service department, we have a call center where the calls come in through a BDC and then BDC transfers the calls to the advisor. I find it very annoying when requesting a callback from my customers. That's what they have to go through. My question is, do you think that a good system versus indirect call to the advisors? My question is this: do you think that's a good system versus indirect call to the advisor? What I think he means is direct call to the advisors. So I think if, if I understand this question right, customer wants to call for status or wants to call an OK Work or whatever it is, Everything's going through a BDC, and so there's no direct line to the advisors. Now, I'm assuming if you have a BDC that you have software that manages the phone system. If, if not, the software is usually about $1,500. You know, uh, the reason why I like this software when setting up a BDC is you can set up queues and you can manage how long customers are in the queue, how many you know, minutes they're on hold, which BDC reps are taking the calls and how long they're on a call. So it really allows you to track the BDC like a phone room, like you would at Amex or anywhere else. But that software also allows you to give direct phone lines. And so I would have direct numbers for service advisors for sure. Everything going through the BDC is, is going to, uh going to mess it up. It's going to be really hard for the BDC too because customers are going to be on hold longer that you're wanting to make an appointment for. The purpose of the BDC is to, to develop business. So making appointments, setting up the shop for success, doing outbound. I would much rather have a BDC doing outbound calls to reminders or missed customers that we've lost that haven't been in for a while than doing status. The advisor's job is status. And if you're getting a lot of status calls from customers, it means the advisors aren't doing— well, it means the system isn't set up for the advisors to communicate with their customers very well.

Yeah, so that's what I was going to say, Chris, was, um, it's, it's been my experience and, um, this may be an unpopular opinion. It's been my experience that the advisors that complain about the— and take this as, you know, as strategy, not criticism. It's my experience that the advisors that complain about the BDC the most are the least effective communicators with their clients. And so, if you have this inordinate amount of inbound phone calls, to Chris Collins' point, there's something wrong with that, right? And so one thing I might encourage you to do, you should definitely have set up, you know, your own phone line, like your customers should be able to call you. I would definitely want that. Definitely think that's the best process. But also like when you're at write-up with customers, set up a time and how you're going to communicate with them, you know, and get that commitment that Hey, Mr. Customer, I'm going to call you no later than 2 PM. And I got, you know, 867-5309. Is that a good phone number for you still? Yeah. Okay. You know, and, and, and go through that with them. And when you make that outbound call, if you've set that up at write-up, I promise you'll get way more answers. And so, you know, look for tools in your system. A lot of people, when you say that, it'll be like, oh, I'm going to be in meetings all day. like, can you text me and then we'll set up a time to call? You'll get a lot of that stuff out of the way at write-up, uh, by asking that question. Um, so, you know, I might take another step back from that too and, and look at it from that angle.

Yeah, it's good.

Good stuff.

This one's for you, Hoagie. Do you feel having any of the more basic ASE certifications C1 service advisor, G1 maintenance, light repair, or P2 parts is beneficial for being hired as a service advisor?

Um, I don't think they'll help get you hired. Um, I'm always trying to pick out things and, and it's advice I got a long time ago. Uh, I came up through the business as a BMW technician and I had all my ASEs. I had every ASE you could, L1, L2, A1 through A, I had all of them and they did me absolutely no good. They didn't help my pay one single bit, anything like that. But even in my job now, like I'm looking and always taking different classes and things like that. There's nowhere that, you know, those things are gonna help you a lot. But I think with a lot of those things, it's, you wanna be a master of your craft. And so for me, those things, they were for me, it was just to know that there was some sort of test for me to be, you know, at the forefront of my field. And that was good enough for me. So I don't, I don't discourage it, but, uh, you know, you do need to check with your manufacturers because there are manufacturers that when you come into their brand, uh, if you haven't been in it before, you can jump ahead in your, your manufacturer certifications by having your ASEs. Um, but as an advisor, I don't know if— I don't know of any, you know, like outside qualifications that allow you to jump in their service advisor certifications. And I know that was the question as a service advisor, but yeah, I think it's great to practice things that help you be a master of your craft. But I do them as much for myself as I do to get ahead in But you never know when it's going to serve you because there are some things out there that, you know, allow you to move up faster in their rankings having some of those. But for the large part, I don't know that those just benefit you much at all in regards to pay or helping you get hired. Your results is always— in this field, whether you're a TAC or an advisor, Your results, uh, are going to get you your next job. If you're getting results, people are going to seek you out.

Well said.

Okay, last one here. As someone currently being considered for the next service advisor role at my dealership, based on what you are saying, would you say that building a connection with a technician or customer is more valuable than having extensive knowledge about cars?

I wish every new advisor would ask that question at the very beginning because they'd be so much further along. That's a great question, whoever asked that, and you're more aware than most. And the answer is a resounding yes. Now I'd follow that up with saying, you know, you want to be a master of your craft, like I talked about. So really good advisors, some of the best advisors don't have mechanical knowledge, but they're still asking a lot of questions. Like they're preparing before they call on a quote and having the tech explain it to them and going back in the shop and trying to learn whenever they can. But new advisors fall into the trick bag all the time of they think the most important thing is to learn the DMS or the warranty history. And you, you need to do those things like at some point, but, uh, yeah, if, if you learn to connect with people.

One good analogy is the top advisor in any dealership. I mean, I don't think I've ever seen it is never a former tech. Former techs usually make really bad advisors and they have to untrain themselves because they, they take shortcuts. They fix it in the drive. They already know what it is. And it, you know, it backfires more than not. And so, you know, getting the technician the information and connecting with the customers is way more important than knowing how to fix a vehicle. I knew absolutely nothing about vehicles. The reason why I connected with the customers so much was because I was scared that they were going to ask me a technical question and I wouldn't know how to answer it. And when people would ask me a technical question, I would say, let me, let me, let me go ask a tech. And then I would go ask a tech and call them back. So I knew nothing. I still could not change the oil on my own car. I mean, I probably could figure it out, but why?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well said.

But I appreciated the fact, even what you said there, Chris, is like you would ask a tech. There's so many times where I think there's some advisors that would make an attempt or say something wrong and totally lead a customer on a total different path. So then when somebody actually finds something totally different wrong with the vehicle and then they call them back, it's like, well, but you said it was this. Oh, well, no, it's, uh, that was a different vehicle or whatever. I mean, just 100%, just be clear and making that connection from the very beginning and not trying to be somebody you're not.

Now, yeah, over time you learn a lot about vehicles because you just see things, especially if you're one brand. Yeah, for a long time you see them, but you got to be careful because if you pre— if you tell a customer, oh, it's probably an O2 sensor, and then it's not. And also, like, what value is there in diagnosis or anything if, you know, you're just jumping to a conclusion? Your role as an advisor is to connect with the customer and set the tech up for success. And so get the tech as much money up front and, you know, time so they can do what they need to do. But yeah, good question. I know we think we need all this product knowledge, but believe it or not, connecting with people is like, if you could have one thing in life besides being good looking, if you were charismatic and people liked you, that would get you further in life than anything else. Yeah, yeah, that, that's the secret. Not technical knowledge. Technical knowledge makes people fall asleep, which is the same with inside knowledge, right? Like, you tell a customer like, oh, well, I put it on the RO. A customer doesn't know what an RO is. A customer doesn't know what an O2 sensor is or the viscosity of brake fluid. They just want to get in and turn the key and go to work. Like, they don't, they don't care about any of that.

Yeah, it is funny if you zoom way out on that. Like, most people that take their car in for service, they want to be able to trust the person on the other side of the counter and then, uh, you know, just have somebody that's going to call them back and that they feel cares, that their car gets done. Like, the, the good news for people starting in the automotive field as a service advisor is the, the bar that the industry has set for level of customer service is relatively low. So just caring about the person on the other side of the counter, that their car gets done and they're communicated with and things like that, you're, you're off to a pretty good start just asking this question and being, being aware of it. But, uh, but yeah, it's kind of funny, but yeah, not—

I think, I think we create more sales by our process in the service drive than we do our advisor training.

Yeah.

We build more trust by it not being chaotic and customers feeling like there's a plan and there's a reason for things. And that, you know, they, when they show up, they're given attention that creates more trust than anything else that you can do. And people think it's advisor training or, you know, the question I always love is when people are like, Well, my advisors need to know how to overcome objections. It's like, by the time you're at that point, you lost. Like, you lost. Like, that's too late. There's this great quote that Ryan in the office brought up to me that we're working on one of the 17 Laws of Leadership for a video we're doing. And it's by this Canadian, his name was Anthony Stafford Beer. And he said, the purpose of a system is what it does. The purpose of a system is what it does. There is, after all, no point in claiming that the purpose of a system is to do what it constantly fails to do. And that just makes me think about the service department in a lot of ways. Like, we, we have all these systems that don't serve what the outcome is. We're not even clear what the outcome is. Many times you ask like, well, what is the goal or the intention? Nobody knows. And you know, the two things that matter most is the customer experience. We want 'em to feel good about what happened and we want 'em to come back. We want 'em to like us and we wanna make a profit. Those two things, that's the outcome of a system. And you know, human nature is to be mimetic and follow what everybody else has always done. But it completely negates the question of what is the intention? The intention of the system and the drive is to build trust and to increase sales. And anything else is a waste of time and anything else doesn't serve what we're trying to do. And, you know, overcoming objections is like, that's the end of the road, basically.

Yeah. Yeah. You've already lost and trying to, trying to force it. Yeah. It's, uh, I love that quote. Like, um, yeah.

Isn't that great?

So true. Yeah. Yeah. Like it's, uh, the purpose of a system is what it does. Yeah.

Should be that simple.

It should be.

Yeah.

There is after all, no point in claiming that the purpose of a system is to do what it constantly fails to do. If it constantly fails to increase sales and build trust and, and, you know, equity with the customer, what is it for? Just so we can do it?

You know, one thing that's really popular right now and a lot of people are focusing on, and not that it's a bad thing to focus on, but is, is, uh, RO count and, and, uh, RO counts going backwards. And when that's happening, they want to look at that one thing instead of looking at the system and the outcomes it's creating. And it's a hard conversation, but I think what helps people understand that quote and appreciate that quote is there is no magic pill. There is no magic easy button that fixes our account. Like you need a system, you need a great customer experience. People will come back to that, but they go and try to treat the symptom and not the problem. And one of the best ways to get out of that trap is to look at your system as a whole and the outcomes that it's creating and then work backwards from, you know, work backwards from there. But the industry doesn't teach that. It teaches tribal knowledge on a crazy scale. So if you're listening to this and you kind of hear that quote that Chris is saying, if it doesn't make sense to you, that should help you understand why a little bit. Yeah.

And it's also an interesting kind of thing where we want everybody thinking it's hard to hire techs and that RO counts are down. That sort of thing. Like, we, we want you thinking that if you're the competition. Like, that's a great place for your headspace to be. But how many, how many, uh, how many managers are complaining about RO count and they can't take a walk-in? And you tell them, hey, you need one more tech than you think you need, and they want to fight about that. And it's like, you— it costs way more to get a customer that doesn't know about you than the one that's calling right now that wants to come in.

Right.

And that's the part that, you know, nobody's aware of and they're not paying attention to. But if you just build it a little bigger and organize a better system, you're not talking about RO count. You can maximize the opportunity on what you have. And that's definitely where you want to start. Because if you're just chasing RO count, you'll probably go broke.

Mm-hmm.

Because you have a low average and you just want more of that. It costs a lot to get customers in that don't know about you.

Yeah.

Yep. It's fun. Well, great stuff, you guys.

Yeah, it was good. Great questions.

Mm-hmm.

You want the final word, Adam?

The final word? Oh man. Um, You need to restate that, uh, that last line about the system. That was perfect. Can you say it again? You're gonna get the final word.

The purpose of a system is what it does. Anthony Stafford Beer.

Mic drop.

See you next time on Service Drive Revolution. Thanks so much for watching this episode of Service Drive 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 833-ASK-SDR and we'll answer your question on the show. That's 833-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.