Customer Service as a Competitive Advantage - Dan Bernier - Moay Collision Episode 10

Hey guys, in this episode I interview a guy named Dan Bernier, which in America we would say Bernier. And Dan is a Canadian guy that I met about a year ago. He actually was a prospect to my, my Vaultonic software for his shop, and he's since sold his shares in that and he's running a couple of products and focused on that side of the business. He has a like a labels thing that he's doing and a couple other software gigs. But, um, it's very recent that he sold his shares in the, in the shop. He still actually works in the shop. But what's really cool about Dan and why I thought he'd make a great guest for the podcast— two things. One, he is a Canadian body shop owner, and if you know anything about how it works in Canada, there's actually a couple of provinces that have, um, regular insurance like we have in America, and then there are some that have, um, this, um, like state insurance. So it's one insurance company. Kind of works like a DRP, only they don't send them work. So there's like constraints that they have, but, but also not. So it's very nuanced and kind of interesting. Um, and I thought there was some stuff that we could learn from that. That's number one. But the second thing is Dan is super focused on customer service, and we haven't done a, a podcast on customer service yet, and I thought this would be a great timing to, to get in and discuss it. So I had a lot of fun talking with Dan, um, about, you know, what it takes to bring great customer service to your shop. Everybody talks about it, But I personally have seen where, you know, we can tend to get into more of the robotic things and maybe what once was great customer service has kind of slipped a little bit, you know, if we're being honest. So this episode is a good kind of wake-up call because every shop needs to focus on customer service. I don't care where you're located or what you do. Customers, it's all about the customer, right? Even if you think your insurance companies are your customers, they still need good customer service. So this is a good episode. I'm glad to get Dan on the podcast. And I hope you enjoy this one as much as I did chatting with Dan.

Dan.

I wish I had more time with him. Maybe I have to bring him back again. We can talk more about this subject. So, uh, enjoy the episode. Welcome to my podcast, Operational Intelligence. I'm Thomas Zoebelein. I spent 15 years running a marketing agency in the collision industry. I sold it, and now I build AI tools at the Hero Group to help shops run better. The world does not need another collision podcast full of generic industry talk, so I'm doing this one my way. It's all about owners teaching owners. One episode, one topic, and one operational lesson that you can take back to your shop and use. And seriously, what is it with all these marketing people turned podcast hosts anyway? So, so tell me, tell me about how you got into the clothing repair industry.

Oh, okay.

Right on.

That's, that's, that's an interesting one in my life because, you know, I grew up in, I grew up in a small town in the middle of Manitoba, right? And farming community. This is late '80s and early '90s, and this is all pre-internet, right? And I really didn't know what to do. Grew up on a farm. I just knew I didn't want to be a farmer, right? And the funny thing is, like, like every small town back then, everyone had a body shop, right? And the local guys always had the nicest trucks and the nicest snowmobiles. So, you know, as a 16, 17-year-old, I'm like, it felt like auto body was like the high watermark to achieve. Because in town where we lived, those were the guys with the cool stuff. Fast cars, you know, and I was never that good in high school either. I wasn't very studious. I'd rather drink beer and play hockey and chase girls, right? But these auto body guys seemed pretty cool, and I was lucky because obviously I didn't have any experience working on cars. And right out of high school, there was a program where, back then it was a pretty big, Canada was in a lot of trouble, okay, so it was high unemployment rates and there was a special program to help young guys like me that really had no skill, kind of half of a dipshit, and we gotta get these people working, right? And the nearby town was a body shop and they were given a kind of like an allowance to have a student to come in and start working. You know, so I got the job. Nice. 'Cause I was free, right? I was a free kid and I started grinding rust on tractors and working on old trucks and he really wanted a body man. So just like today, you know, there's always a shortage of body men, right? And even back then there was. But I was terrible at it. So it didn't take long for him to kinda, get me going on the painting side. I really dug it. It all sounds like the first time in my life where I felt like I could do something, you know. And so here I was at 18 and a half years old and I was starting to sand and paint, you know. And, um, yeah, so that's how I got started. And then very, very quickly, I, uh, you know, to this day I'm still married to my high school sweetheart, and she had to move to the big city to go to school. And at some point I had to move there too, right? So I had to follow her and I got some really lucky breaks, met up with some good people that gave me opportunities to paint cars, and I hit flat rate, and flat rate blew my mind, Tom. Like, I still remember that first check I got. I was always straight time, and I had a good work ethic because on the farm, like, you don't stop till the work's done, right? Right. So if there was cars to work on, I stayed. So I stayed late, I worked weekends, I came early, you name it. It was like harvest all the time. And That first paycheck when I was on piecework was like triple what I normally made. It stuck with me, I couldn't believe it. It felt like it was Christmas in July, right?

Right.

But then it kind of— I quickly started meeting people, you know, professionals in industry, professional painters, professional bodymen, managers, paint reps, and I started getting interested in the business side, you know, and So I started having dreams of being a tech rep, and then I did that. I was in technical support for a few years for a local paint supply store, and I got into managing a paint supply store, and got into sales. And then along the way, I actually got into manufacturing. I left industry for a few years and got into manufacturing with my current business partner. He also has a manufacturing, Chad. He has a manufacturing facility and ended up being an ops manager for him. And that was good actually because you got to see a little bit of a, a different way of doing things, right? That actually applies in body shop. There's a lot of lean principles at the manufacturing side, right? Kind of a little bit before we did the body shop side. So that was just all part of it and we stayed close and then along the way we end up coming I actually worked at a body shop for a while and the owner wanted to sell and he asked me to help him sell it. And I was like, well, how about I buy it? So that was, you know, 8 years ago. I went to Chad and said, hey, you want to buy a body shop together? And he already had, you know, his family owned 3 body shops here and he's like, yeah, let's do this, man. So, and then—

so that was Moray Collision, is that— is that—

that was, uh, yeah, it was Moray Collision. We purchased Moray Collision in September 2018. And that was a real opener for me because I bug all my paint rep buddies because when you're in the world of selling paint, you really think you're smart and you can really help the body shops, right? And then I went and worked and owned a body shop and I realized how little I knew, Tom, right? And so I bug all my paint rep buddies, I always say the same thing to them, it's like, guys, just keep your mouth quiet when you're in a body shop because you actually don't know much, because living it's way more intense. Yeah. Than what you see, uh, what you see from the outside looking in. So, uh, yeah, so 7 years ago, and then 5 years ago we picked up a second shop together. So I officially became an MSO of 2 body shops. Pretty cool, right, Tom?

Yeah, yeah.

And that brought a whole new set of learning curves, right? And, uh, Along the way, again, I'm very grateful because I got to work with some really cool people, I learned a lot, and I had a lot of support from everyone I met in the industry over the years up here in Canada. Then I kind of hit a point where it was like, I felt I was better off, because I really like the body shop industry, I really like the people. And I really want to be a helpful part of it. I'm not looking just to take, you know, I'm actually looking to give back a bit, right? So I always figured my best way to be is instead of being a body shop owner, I decided to move on from that recently, right? And kind of focusing now on distribution of stuff, right? And be a supplier to the industry. I just figured that would be a better spot for me. Because I think I can try to be helpful to more people, right?

So you guys had 4 locations, right? You grew Mori to 4?

Yeah, we had— so we got a Marion location, we got an Inkster location, a Mori location, and a South Pema location. And then there's a— they have a 5th kind of body shop that kind of focuses more on kind of private work for larger trucks and equipment like that. So they have 5 shops, but 4 of them are kind of designed on insurance repairs, you know, collision work, working like your standard style body shops, right?

And for the sake of this podcast and for the audience that may or may not know how things are in Canada, there's a slight difference too to how Canada works as far as insurance. So you're in a province where you have Only one insurance company. As everybody's a DRP, right? Every shop is a DRP for this one insurance company, right?

That's right. And yeah, in Canada we have, um, it's called government insurance. So really the, you know, we've got, we've got 10 provinces and in those provinces there's, um, um, 3 of those. So that'd be Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and BC. Um, there's no private insurers and the insurance company is actually the You know, it's like a government entity, right? So every vehicle on the road is, for light vehicle, is registered to that one insurance company. If you're a body shop and you want to do repairs for them, it's essentially a DRP model, right? They set the rules of how you can estimate and how you charge for parts and all the hours you get paid, all that stuff. It's all very clearly laid out and the equipment you have to have and the training you have to go through, it's very clear. So either you're, you're, you're, you're an accredited shop or you don't exist. It's that simple, right? So all the body shops in those areas, really, there's only one insurer and you're all DRPs.

So, so in the States, there's a pretty good distinction between a body shop owner makes a decision, I'm a DRP shop and I do things this way. I'm an independent, I do things this way. And that could be like an OEM certified independent or just an independent or whatever, and you can be an MSO and be an independent, or you can be an MSO and be a DRP. So does that, does that affect that, that decision? Like, is there like a distinction between— so let's say I'm just going to throw out a number just for— not that this is how many, but let's just say there's 100 body shops in Winnipeg or whatever where you guys are. Are they Because everyone's getting all the work, I guess, evenly distributed, I guess KPIs probably, like a DRP part, probably play into it. Do you guys do any kind of marketing or anything? Is there any, like, do you do anything to try to distance yourself or set you apart? Like, hey, we do things differently than those guys over there, you know, where you choose us, you can choose anybody, but choose us because X, you know, is there any of that kind of stuff that goes on then?

Yeah, that's a great question because I guess that'd be one of the nuances between us and a traditional DRP. We're like a traditional DRP in that, you know, the rules are straightforward, right, on how to charge. But in this market, they don't direct work because everyone's a DRP, right? They don't direct. So because it— because in a way they— in a way they are, because they go, if you want your car repaired, you have to go to one of our shops. But every single shop is one of our shops, right? So they don't direct it saying, hey, you have to go to Eastside. They just say you have to go to an accredited shop, which is every single shop, right? And then, no, so then when it comes down to the shop, um, there's, there's a lot of marketing involved because now it's really kind of like a level playing field. No one— no, if you get in an accident, you're not told really where to bring it other than bring it to an accredited shop. And every single shop's accredited. So therefore, um, yeah, marketing and that comes heavy into play now, right?

Right. That's why I wanted to call— that's why I wanted to call that out, because it's like you're a DRP but with none of the benefits. The whole reason to get on a DRP for shops in the States is that they don't have to market, they don't have to sell. Well, you have to still sell, but you don't have to market. You, you have a constant stream of work. I can turn on a shop, I know I'm going to get this much revenue in the door, but you don't, you don't actually get that. You have to deal with all the sucky parts of being on a DRP with none of the upside. Correct.

And that's, and that's the challenge because it is very challenging. Um, because you're, you nailed it right there, is that we don't get the benefits of a DRP right now. There's, there's other things. You only got one insurance company to deal with. So understanding rules and all that stuff is, you know, you got one guy to worry about, right? So the rules are very clear-cut. And I'm also very much like, you know, it's kind of like we viewed it as almost like a franchise that you chose. I chose to own a shop. Therefore, I'm accepting the rules of what I inherited, right, by being a DRP in Manitoba. And, you know, as a whole, they're not that bad to deal with also. Like, yeah, there's some— don't get me wrong, there's always— and this is true of any body shop in the world. Deals with insurance, of course there's, we disagree on some things, right, but as a whole in the government insurance areas, you know, I don't think there's any extra, you know, battles between the body shop and the insurance side compared to other areas, right. So there is some positives to it comparatively to a traditional DRP. I think the government insurance guys are typically a little bit more, and I can only say this anecdotally, right, because I've never dealt with a DRP outside of government insurance, but they're typically a little bit more willing to work with the shops in that they, if they're going to make a change, they often are like, they want to get the shops involved in that decision to understand before they make the change, right? So it is unique though. Like, we got these 3 provinces that have this insurance model that we don't have anywhere else. So it does create some, you know, So a little bit different way how to run your business, right? Yeah.

So a couple more questions about that. So in the States, if you decide, hey, I'm going to be a DRP, then there's a contract that you sign. You literally are agreeing to these terms and they actually may be different shop to shop. I know that wouldn't be the case for you, but it's like, hey, we'll agree to this and this and you agree to this and this, right? So do you have to sign a contract at all or is it more so just these are the rules with which to do business with us. You only have— we're the only game in town.

Yeah, you know, we have a contract, right? There's a— okay, um, we call it an accreditation agreement. And every few years it goes through a negotiation where we revisit, you know, because, um, you know, the last agreement was— I can't remember if it was a 3-year agreement. I just don't remember the top of my head, but and there would stipulate, okay, this is what's going to happen to the labour rates over the next 3 years and material rates, right? And here's the rules of the estimating that you guys have to follow, and that agreement lasts for so many years. And at the end of the agreement, we go through the same process again of everyone has to sign a new agreement, and there's a bit of a negotiation going into it beforehand. That's how it's done in Manitoba anyways, and it's pretty much the same way it's done in the other provinces with some nuances to it. Yeah. So, uh, yeah, no, there is 100% an agreement. And if you don't play, like, if you don't sign and you don't play by the rules, then you're off.

So simple. Are there variances between, like, do you negotiate? So like your shop might have different rules than the next guy, like maybe parts discount different or anything like that. So do you negotiate those or are they basically, they slide it across your desk and sign it or not? you know, stay in business.

Yeah, there is no, there is no like individual negotiation that like we can negotiate something different than the guy down the street. It's a standard for everyone, other than they have, um, they have a northern and a southern. So, you know, we're a big province and the guys, you know, there's shops that are 10 hours drive north of here, right? And it's a whole different game up there. So, um, they do have a separate agreement with the northern shops than they do with the southern shops. But all of us in Winnipeg, for example, the 100 shops in Winnipeg, we're all under the exact same profile. Okay, so when we go into our estimating software, um, we all download the exact same profile and all have the same rates on everything, the same rules, etc. So what differentiates you though— this is, this is why customer service is so good, Tom, right?

Right.

Because the differentiation now is is not price. Yeah, it's totally eliminated all this, right? Right. And there is no insurance company saying you need, or we suggest you go to that shop.

Yeah.

In this case now, you, you are, you know, you're marketing and living, um, your shop life in a way to attract customers to your door, right?

So, so I have one last question before we go into that. That is our subject at hand here, is customer service, but one last DRP question is just curious about this. Are they tracking your KPIs and scoring you based on that too? Because that does kind of play into customer satisfaction too, but like in the States, cycle time, recycled parts usage, you know, repair versus replace, and I'm sure I'm leaving a ton of things out. Like you're, obviously it's not negotiated, but do they score and grade you on that? And if If there's no— like, like in the States on a DRP, the better you do, the more work you get. Since you don't have any of that, that upside, I'm just curious, do they score that stuff? Do they hold your feet to the fire on these, these numbers or penalize you?

Yeah, yeah, 100%. Yeah, no, we do have— every shop's got a monthly KPI that's tracked, um, and there's, there's kind of a handful of key areas. And it's— there's a minimum score you have to meet. Basically, if you don't maintain that minimum score, they just kick you off the program. You're just no longer allowed to do insurance work. So it's either you're in or you're out, right?

Okay.

And, um, yeah, but, you know, you know, we have, uh, big ones are ASC approved. So whenever any denial you get— denials are huge in our world because we're allowed to only run with a very thin amount of denials. And if you consistently go above that You can get kicked off the program.

Mm-hmm. Denial, meaning denial, meaning that you, you wrote something on an estimate that violates their insurance rules. I just wanna make that clear for people who might not understand what that means.

Yeah, sure. That's a great, uh, two kind of things that cause denial. So one of them is you're right. If you put something on your estimate that, that's in contradiction of their rules, they'll deny it. Right. And they'll say, sorry, we don't pay for that. Or, you ask for too many hours or something that we have a set amount to, or something to that effect, right?

Right.

But the secondary one is there is some, we'll call it gray areas on an estimate, and body shops know that, right? Like, for example, is especially, it's more on complex repairs, right? If you get a rear end hit and you've got some, you gotta replace a quarter panel and you gotta replace the wheel opening and there's some sacrificial parts and there's some unique materials you might need for it, that's where you can get a denial because you're asking for something that, you know, isn't necessarily in the estimating platform clearly, right? So that's— sometimes you get denied on things that it's not that it's against the rules, it's just not in the estimating system as an approved process, right? So now you have to explain why we need this extra time.

Yeah, it's really a silly concept, I think, because if they're not paying for something, there's specific rules about it. If you ask for it, who cares if they deny it? Like, I mean, like, we all care, right? Denials— build a whole— I'm building a whole product about fighting insurance denials. But why, why ding you on asking for stuff like that? Like, they're just not gonna pay it. They're gonna flat deny it. They've got software to deny it. Like, Who cares that you ask for 50 things that they're just not going to pay? Like, why does that ding you? And even if it does ding you, what happens? You get kicked off the program? Too many? You ask for too many? It just seems so ridiculous to me.

Well, yes, I agree. But at the same time, I can understand their side a little bit though, Tom, because If the goal is they're— and I'm only— again, I gotta assume this because I don't know what goes through their minds, but they're training us to stay and color in the lines, right? I'll go outside the lines, we're going to punish you. So what are you going to do? You're always going to color inside the lines. And it does create this— what it does create though is there's a— and a lot— I think this is true in any DRP shop, is that there's a little bit of fear that if you push too hard or ask for things, right? So you end up to be, you know, you end up being careful. And I think you leave things off the table because of that. And that's what a lot of shops do. They're afraid of having that bad score, right? And they're afraid of being denied on something. So in turn, they don't ask it. And then they still do it though, right? They do it and they don't even get paid for it. Because they're like, "Yeah, I might, I don't know if they're gonna approve me on this." So, but in the name of doing a proper repair or getting your customer happy, you still do it, right?

Right.

And then, and then this is extra paperwork and admin and there's other reasons to why shops choose not to ask for things, right? But a big one is, I think it's no different than touching your hand on the stove, right, Tom? Like, right, when you get burnt a few times and now your score is in the bad and you get warned, they might get pulled off the program while They're training you to not ask. They're training you to not ask.

Absolutely.

Because unless, unless you have irrefutable evidence, like it has to be so beyond confirming, then you can get it approved. But if you think you need something, it doesn't work. You don't get it.

And the one, the one thing that is going in your favor though, this is what I love about Canadian insurance, state insurance. If I could give silver lining in it, it's that if the OEM requires it, they do not push back at all. They're like, yep, we agree, it's got it, you got to have it, right? They don't fight. Is that the case?

I would say that's, um, 99% of the time, yes.

So what a beautiful thing, right? If that's— if everything that the car needed, they paid for, you know, maybe DRPs wouldn't be so bad, right? You know, it's just like At least in the States.

Yeah, but I'll say, but I'll add a however. However, Tom, you know, I haven't experienced yet some of these other things, like, because I believe they're in negotiation and behind the scenes because we have a trade association and there's various committees that, you know, there's a technical committee, for example, that's body shop guys and insurance guys, and they meet and they talk about these kind of gray areas within the estimating so they can come up with a plan on how to deal with it, right? And I just don't have that answer today. Like, you know, I mean, you've talked about this before, but, you know, some of the OEM procedures where vehicles in accident that you have to— I think it's correct if I'm wrong, I think it's Subaru. No, you have to inspect the steering—

steering column.

Steering column, right? So are they paying for that today? I'm not sure.

Like that's an example where, you know, Subaru actually, yeah, Subaru actually was really extreme there for a minute. I don't know if it's still the same thing, but like they, they wanted you pulling the seat covers off. They wanted you checking their seat frames and like you basically, when you dismantle the thing, you're dismantling it like it's going to go in containers and go to Siberia, you know, and be a parts car. So like it was pretty, pretty invasive stuff, but I think they've, they've backed backed off on some of that stuff. So yeah, I can imagine where— but, but a steering column, I mean, seat covers, okay, but steering column, there should be no question.

Like, yeah, but see, but, but, but Tom, this is the hard part because now you just applied some common sense, right? You're saying, yeah, you're right. But the thing is, if you try, you try to do that when you're trying to figure out what the plan, how to deal with this, well then how do you draw the line? Like, this is a, this is not a simple conversation around these, like this, hey, yes, let's do the steering column, but no, let's not take off the seat covers. Well, now you're getting into opinions, and then that's the hard part. True, true. Because an opinion of a body shop is different than the opinion of an insurance company, right? Because a body shop says, no, I'm not going to fix that quarter panel, that is better off with a replacement due to damage. An insurance company says, No, you can totally fix that quarter panel all day long.

Yeah, right.

And that's no different than saying the steering column versus the seat cover, right?

Right. And neither one of us are crash testing these vehicles and studying data and making life— yeah, life or death decisions, right? But, but the insurance companies are anyway. They do it anyway. So yeah, so, so anyway, that— I didn't want to turn this whole thing into DRP. It was important though, I think, for a future listener to know the confines of what you're working within, because it is very unique. It's even unique to Canada. It only exists in 3 spots in Canada. So I felt that it was worth taking a few minutes to kind of talk about the playing field that with which you have to play the game, or did before you got out of there.

And know that in Canada, there's still, you know, the rest of Canada is more like your traditional office DRPs, non-DRPs, and everything that goes with it.

Yeah, okay. So the topic at hand that we kicked around a bunch of ideas, but back to what we were saying about how do you get— what's your sales differentiator? It's customer service. Ultimately, that's what you feel like you've really mastered. The whole idea of operational intelligence, the thing that you have— feel like you've mastered maybe better than the next couple of guys is customer service, what we decide on. So I have several questions about that. But first of all, let's just start broadly. Why— how did you determine that this was going to be the thing that you really needed to focus on? Like, in your own words, why is this so important and not other areas that could have easily taken your your attention.

Well, have you ever gone somewhere and got shitty customer service?

Yeah. Yes, absolutely.

Well, I don't like it either.

Yeah, right.

It's that simple. I don't like it either. And I was always, um, this is my shop. I gotta have it be reflective of who I am, right? And it's that simple. I hate going anywhere is where people don't care, they won't listen, they forget about you, all that stuff. Like, I, I, uh, I, I took my kids to Disney, like, I think the first time we went was in 2014 or '15, I can't remember now. So, you know, 10, 12 years ago, and I was blown away at Disney World. Yeah, like the level of customer service there. And I came back just like— and this is before I bought shops, right? Like, I bought— I, I drank the Kool-Aid, I bought the book. I forget the guy, the CEO that wrote the book, and all the secrets of how to do good customer Service.

Was it Eisner?

I don't remember the name, to be honest, but I remember the book was like, uh, just talking about the secrets to like good customer service, right? And I went there and I was like, I came back saying, now that was a good experience. And it wasn't about, you know, of course the rides and all the good stuff for the kids, but I was like, every little nuance, it was all the little details that were excellent, you know. And I thought that it really struck me, so I went they created such an excellent experience, right? And it was memorable. My kids to this day still talk about it. We ended up going 3 times, right? And, um, yeah, so for me it was very much, uh, I, I just didn't want to body shop with terrible customer service. I don't want people to experience that, right? I wanted the opposite. I wanted to come and leave and go, that was way better than I anticipated, right? And that's how I felt when I left Disney. I'm like, this is way better.

Right?

And yeah, so that to me, that was the biggest one of that. That's why I chose it. And then there's other things to talk to people like I just asked you, what was your first reaction? Of course you don't want terrible customer service, right? So then why do we do it? So why do we have companies that do terrible customer service when we all hate it? Yeah, right. So why be that guy? I didn't want to be that guy, right? And my business partner Chad, and that's why we we do really well together. We have a lot of common values and he's in the same way, you know, he's, you know, his dad started his shop, you know, man, geez, it's almost 50 years ago now, I think. So Chad's part of the second generation, right? Him and his family are involved in the body shops today and he's in the same boat, you know. So we're both very driven, very much to have a good customer service, right? You want your customers to have a good experience. Who doesn't?

So that's the why. What about the— what's the what? What do you— what is it that you do differently with your customer service that is different? Like, give it— can you give me some examples of things that you do that you think are unique?

Before I get to examples, all that— yeah, because there's a couple things that are important.

I go— sure, yeah, go for it.

Yeah. And it starts with your company has to be a reflection of the owner.

Okay.

Okay. So Otherwise you're faking it, right? And how do you create a culture of, say, good customer service, right, or excellent customer service, unless the owner actually feels that way, right? So to me, it always starts with that. The business has to be a reflection of the values of the owner. Otherwise the owner is faking it, and you want, you know, and they'll never drive that culture. So we see this all the time, right, in our world, and not even body shops, just companies in general. That promote this idea of a wonderful place to go and be a customer at, then you go there and it's not like that at all. You know what I mean? And we all know where, right? So it's very important to start with that. If you— if this is your business and you can't honestly feel like you really want to have good customer service, then why fake it? You might as well go down a different route, whether it's convenience, price, whatever that is. Yeah, but so it starts with that. And then number 2 is you have to hire people the same way.

Yeah, right.

Like, the hiring process is so important. We're, we're all, we're on the same boat, Tom. We're all shorthanded, right, in the body shop world. All of North America is in the same boat. We need techs, we need people in the admin. Admin's out of control, right? We have more admin people than people fixing cars, like, right? But you still have to hire right, because I always The term I use with people is, you know, you got this owner, he's got, or he or she's got these values, right? And the company better reflect them, because otherwise you won't even enjoy your own business, right? Then after that, you have to hire people that also reflect that, or else they won't enjoy it. And the example I give is, Tom, if I hired you tomorrow, right, you're my new body man, right? Welcome aboard, Tom. One thing I need you to do whenever you're fixing a car Make sure you go through the console and any loose change, I got a jar in the office, I want you to put the loose change in my jar because that's my coffee money.

Right. Right, how would you feel about that? Yeah, I would feel very strange about that.

Yeah, right, and you're not going to enjoy your job and how good of a job are you going to do? Are you going to go take the money out of all of them? Of course you're not.

Yeah, right.

Now that's a ridiculous example but it's still the same idea is that if, and that can work the good way or the bad way. If I say to you, never touch anyone's stuff in the car, it's important that we leave everything, we take pictures, it's very important that we build trust with our customers, that everything in that car returns to that customer, but you're someone that likes taking the change out of the— Right.

How long are you going to last?

You're not going to last very long, right?

Right.

It's the same idea with customer service. The two have to match. What I want as the leader and the owner of my business and the people working for you, that those two have to match. Otherwise, it will not work. So your hiring practices have to be good, that you're pulling in people that are customer-facing that have the same drive and desire as you to have good customer service, right?

So how do you, how do you weed, you know, weed that out in a candidate, potential candidate? How do you attract the kinds of candidates that that have that in them? Like, how do you know in a couple of interviews or a single interview, this guy's got what it takes?

That's really hard, Tom. Yeah. Right? You know what, of course when you set out the various ways of looking for people, right, whether it's online for hiring, we have our own website for hiring people. We actually have an HR company that we've hired a third-party company to help us foster and look for people and interview people.

That's interesting. You're the first shop I've ever heard that does that. That's, that's not like a, you know, like a Caliber or something, you know.

Yeah, no, we, you know, because HR is hard for all of us, right? We're all busy trying to just get around our day of like keeping customers happy and fixing cars and getting parts. Yeah, never mind when you have all these HR issues. And as you grow, they just compound. And as an owner, it's hard, and I'm not skilled at that. That. Like, I can talk to you, Tom, all day, but, you know, dealing with some of the stuff— so we actually got a third-party guy to come in, and, um, yeah, he helps us with hiring people. He helps us if we have a difficult situation. He can guide us. He provides some training internally. I recommend any company that if you don't have a, you know, if you're not at that point where you have like a professional HR team to help you with this, get a third party. It takes a lot of stress off.

Those services have a name, right? Is there like What do you call it? Is it like a fractional HR company, or is there—

I honestly don't know. That's— we just, uh, we actually had the, the company we hired was recommended to us, um, from someone in a totally different industry, but the owner, uh, knew Chad and said, hey Chad, you know, we're dealing with this guy, it's really helpful to us, you know, we don't have to spend our time figuring out what to do.

And yeah, so yeah, the guy that, the guy that bought my marketing agency, that's what he did. He outsourced It's got the— there's a name though, like a something PO or something like that. Yeah, it's like, it's like the 3-letter acronym type thing. But anyway, I thought maybe you might know what they've called.

You know, it's funny, I'll, I'll plug you for a second, Tom, because we looked at your, uh, the Hiring Hero, I think it's called.

Yeah, my hiring tool.

Yeah, that's a really good tool because that's— that helps. It forces you um, it forces you to actually stop and think about what's important to your shop, to your business.

Yeah.

And what these attributes are that you want from your person so that you hire the right person as much as you can. And it's never perfect, right? We're, you know, it's never perfect, but it still gets you down to where you're hiring the right people because it's critical. I, I scream that from the rooftops, hiring the right people. And we all know this. That's the thing is we all know this. When you work with somebody that's right in tune with what you're doing, excellent to get along with, and hits home runs with customer service, right? Don't you love that?

Yeah.

So why would we— let's put more effort into hiring that, right?

So I'm going to drop in a quick plug for anybody listening to this podcast. So what Dan's referring to is my— so at The Hero Group, we build free tools, and one of the free tools that I've just recently recently released as a hiring tool. It's totally free to use. You just go to Herogroup.ai and create a little account there, and it's there. The worst thing you're gonna get is on our newsletter every 2 weeks. But what it does is it walks you through describing your culture at your shop, what's important to you, what a good fit for your company looks like, and what a bad fit looks like. And then once you've imported that stuff one time, Then any job that you need to fill at your shop— estimator, tech, parts guy, detailer, doesn't matter— has a little dropdown. You pick the title, and then it will build out a complete interview questionnaire set that is specific to that role, specific to your shop, and it helps you— it writes the questions to ask to match that person, to seek, to test for that personality trait in every candidate you ask for for that role, and then it'll score it and all that stuff. So that's, that's the tool that Dan's talking about, and I'm going to stick it in the show notes here for anybody that wants to give it a shot.

And it forces you to stop and think about this stuff for a second, right?

Yeah.

So that's a big one. Like, I always start with that top-down culture values alignment. The second one is you, you can't customer service your way out of a shitty run shop. Like, okay, you have to have— like, I explain this to guys all the time in the shop and they get it. I said, if every single car came in— and we do advanced repair plans at our company, okay? So we bring the customer in for the day, we wear their car in for a day, we do a full teardown, we find all the damage, then we put it back together and give it back to the customer while we wait for parts and stuff, okay? That's the model we do. I always explain that to guys. If every single car came in with a perfect estimate and all the parts were ready and all the technicians were there and it just came in and got repaired and pushed all the way through, customer service is easy, right? Right. You tell them when the car is going to be ready and they pick up when it's ready and it's done perfectly because your quality is 100%, right? Yeah. Your customer service is actually quite easy at that point. You just need nice people, right? And so again, part of customer service is that you have to run it, you have to pay attention to your repair planning, your scheduling, and your quality, and your quality. Because if you're missing any one of those, you're just gonna have more problems within the shop, right? More delays. And now your customer service is just relaying bad news. Relaying bad news is not good customer service, right? Right. So before even, like, we even talk about tactics on customer service, you better have your values in line. You better hire the right people. And you better focus on those three in your shop to make it run smooth, because without those, no matter who you stick in that front seat, they're going to struggle and you have customers that aren't happy.

So how do you know when you've got that foundation work done? Like, is there a noticeable feeling to how things are running in the shop? Is there like— like, how do you know you've kind of achieved that level there or still working towards it? It?

Are you talking about like on those 3 things?

Yeah. Like when you feel it. Well, obviously the owner values, that's pretty straightforward. You have it or you don't. But, but as far as like where you feel like everyone gets it and they— you find that the candidates that you're hiring always fit or most of the time they fit, you know, like how do you— is there a point when you kind of like, hey, I think I've got this now. You know, like it just feels a certain way, or it just— you're just kind of always striving for that?

Well, you're always striving to get better. Like, that's again, right? Like, we're pretty driven people here that, of course, the goal is to get better at what you do, right? But, you know, you know when things are going right when— just look at the general mood. Like, we're in a tough industry, so a lot— like, and that me being— I spent years on the, on the distribution side visiting multiple shops, you can tell as soon as you walk in. You can cut the air with a knife on most shops, right? Where it's high stress, people aren't happy, they got a scowl on their face, you name it, right? And so you can— your human intuition knows when things are running right because the mood is good, the mood is positive, right? We measure our— like, Google reviews is a big measurement, right? Like, yes, there's the— the insurance company has their own score, an NPS score on that, right? Net Promoter Score. But Google reviews, someone has to go out of their way to give you a review in a positive manner. If you're like, the 5 stars are pouring in, you know you're doing a good job.

Yeah, yeah.

So, um, and our shops, I think they're all at 4.9, 4.8, all 4 of them.

Yeah, that's amazing.

It is amazing. Yeah. And, and we're in a very competitive market here because that's the only way to differentiate yourself, right? Is by customer service and quality.

That's it. When you do get customers, if you interview them, do you ask them— since they can technically go anywhere they want, there's no— like, I just can't even imagine how nice it must be to live in a world without steering and stuff like that. But what do they cite specifically? Like, this is why we chose you? I mean, why do they choose you if they're going to look at say 5. Are, are you guys really spread out too up there, or, or are they clustered like in Los Angeles where there's a body shop every 5 feet?

Um, it's pretty spread out in their city, but there's at— but there's still some clusters. Okay, so each area of the city kind of has a sort of a cluster group, right? Because to build a new shop, you have to be in the areas that, you know, zoned it. But there's a lot of older guys have been around for 30, 40, 50 years that just all of a sudden they're in the middle of a neighborhood, right? So it is a blend here. Um, I actually spent— that's a good question because I actually spent probably about 2 months at one point where every time we need to give a customer a ride, I gave them the ride. And I didn't, I didn't act like I was the owner. I just said, you know, good morning, I'll be your captain. If you could be the navigator, I'll give you a ride home, or whatever it was, right? And I just asked them that question, like, may I ask why you're like, what happened, you know, is everything okay, and what led you to us, you know. And the funny thing was there was, there was kind of 3 main things. There was always like, convenience is a big one, like you're close to work, close to home, starts with that. No one drives 2 hours to get the car fixed. Yeah, so right, so the reality is you got to be convenient. Um, they, they found us, so there was either they found us on, on searching on like Google Maps, you know, who's who's close to me. They went to the insurance company, they have a locator, right? And then the third one was whether repeat customer or referral, right? But they all had the same answer after that. So they found us online or they went to the insurance website and found us that we were close by, or somebody they worked with or their friend said, "Hey, you should go see the Eastside guys," right? But it always followed up 100% was, and then I checked your Google reviews.

Yeah, yeah, right.

And that's— and I call that the concreter. They kind of had the decision made, and then they read the reviews and went, that's where I'm going. That's it, right? So we really— that's when it really ramped up on us on understanding the power of Google reviews, right?

Yeah, yeah. Well, so, so much of what we buy now has a review component to it too. Like, you were joking that you I saw on my screen about the tube axle from the Model A. So I was just, I need to buy a new wiper motor for that thing. And I had 3 choices. One of them was, they're all within a few bucks of each other. One of them had 150 reviews. They all have the same review on Speedway Motorcycles. One of them had 150, one had 50. So like, which one do you choose? I'm going to choose the one that has 150, 5 stars, but 150 of them versus 50. Like I didn't even. I didn't even think anything past that. I didn't even read the reviews. I just read that there was 5, you know, it's like 5.5 stars, but there's 150 of them. You know, it was like $3 more. I just picked that one. So, so much of how we buy now is review-driven. Like, we probably don't even really think about it. And honestly, Google has a huge hand in that, but I think Amazon does too. Like, I don't buy anything on Amazon. Without reading the reviews.

4-point something.

Unless it's something that I used before, you know, like if I needed, you know, more deodorant, I'm not going to read the reviews every time to reorder. Or shaving cream, I buy in bulk sometimes. That's all, but it's a product I already use, you know. But, um, but anything new, like a new experience to me, I check the reviews. I don't, you know, and then, but even that though, like we could almost do a whole thing on that because I think that there could be too many Like I, I don't know about you, but I'll read the negative reviews to see, okay, are the bad reviews legitimate or are they just crackpots? Like the box corner was crushed. I don't want it, you know, or whatever. Right. Like, um, so, so first thing I do is like, okay, how many reviews do they have? Okay. Then let's see what the negative ones were. And are these something that, and if there's a lot of them, are they complaining about something that I don't want the product for anyway, you know, like, like if you look for like a camera bag or I'm just saying that because I'm staring at my camera, but like a camera accessory, like this thing sucks outdoors. Well, that doesn't even apply to me because I'm buying it strictly for an indoor video shoot. So I don't even care how bad it is outdoors, you know, or something like that. Right.

Yeah. But, you know, I'll throw in a bit of a debate on that is you're right. Other than if you're at 4849. They don't— it's, it's just you're good. Yeah, it's when your choices are all at 4, 4.2, 4.4. Now you gotta go in and dive a little deeper, right? Yeah, so you can just be a 4.9. There's no reading. They just go 4.9, 600 reviews at a body shop, I'm in. Yes.

Yeah, exactly. That's, that was kind of where I was going with that. Do they even read the reviews or is it really just a numbers game?

They know A lot of them read, not all, but a lot of them, because a lot of them said that exact that we saw your 4.9 and that was enough, good enough for me.

Yeah.

Some would read and it was always, they would read the bad ones.

Yeah.

And the thing is when you have 150 in a row of good ones and then one bad one, it's like, it's barely anything to read either.

Right?

Like, yeah. And, and we did have some that would highlight the things they read on the good side. Like we get, like at our Mora location, our main front CSR, her name is Iris, and Iris is a lovely woman. I've worked with Iris for years. I respect her as a human being and as someone I worked with, you know, and we get people coming in going, I want to meet this Iris because on our reviews there's so much Iris, Iris, Iris. Iris communicates well. Iris is so kind. Iris is wonderful, right? And because she really is a wonderful person. And the funny thing is she's not perfect. She's like the rest of us. It's not as if she's like, you know, has all this super exact information every time and the fastest at everything over time, but she is 100% genuine. She's a wonderful person and cares.

Yeah.

And, uh, you can't fake that.

Right. So that's, yeah, that's how you set up that, that job role then is try to find 100%.

It's so critical.

Yeah. So do you have, so wonderful. So you have 4, almost 5 locations, or technically 5, but, but, you know, 4-ish, right? So do you have Iris actually get involved with training new hires at any of the other locations? Do they come over and shadow her for a couple days?

No, and not to— no, though, you know, there's been conversations about how do we ramp this up for, for all roles, like how do you get your estimating and your CSR, right? The good news is Iris isn't the only excellent one we have. Yeah, no, the reason why the whole group runs at a high, high rating is because every location has stellar people, like really good hires, right? And so I like picking on Iris because I know her well, and I'm gonna make her listen to this and she'll be blushing right now.

Right.

But, but we also have others that are really good too, right? But that would be something that, you know, that would be something we would love to work towards, right? More sharing practices. That's what we're trying to work on next, right, is how do we share these positives between locations so that you can have these advantages, you know, that everyone can exercise on. That's a hard thing, you know. I give credit to anyone that does that successfully because there We're all busy, right?

Yeah. Yeah, to plug another free tool that I have, this one's not a tool like the hiring one, but on my Hero Group Labs, there's a— I walk you through how to do, and luckily now we know it's working because you tried it, Dan, but I do have a Google Reviews tool. So what it does is you use this It's a third-party Chrome extension called Phantom Local. Download it and then you can go in and pull all the reviews of your shop and your competitor's shop and it'll analyze it. And it'll specifically— one of the things it's specifically looking for are there any people that are named specifically so that if you are— if you do have some standout people and you are an MSO perhaps and you want to get this shop operating at the level of that shop. Maybe you got two shops, one's lower review count than the other, lower gold stars or whatever. Uh, it would be a way to, it would be a way to easily let AI do that for you. So I'll, I'll make sure I add the link to that video here in this too.

Yeah. And I did that. I acted, I took one of my competitors down the street, but I pretended that I was him trying, trying to compare to me.

You're right. Right.

It's funny because the AI response was like, you're in trouble.

Yeah.

Because Eastside has like, has it dialed in. They have a very good, you know, communication tools. They had da da da. They just went through all the—

it is pretty cool. So they said that you guys are killing it and this guy's not.

We're killing it. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

That's awesome.

And he was a, yeah, and he was a 4 point something, but, uh, yeah, it was, it was, it was, uh, I, I would, yeah, suggest anyone listening, if you got to this point, because you care about customer service, do that Phantom Local with the, the, the search prompt that you have because it really is a good insight, right? Yeah. So what your competitors are doing well, like, yeah, right? Yeah.

So it's very simple. There's a prompt that's— if you follow that video, in the, in the notes on that video, there's a prompt that I wrote that does all the work for you. So it's really as simple as just you click a couple things, you download all the reviews, and then save it as a CSV file. It'll take the CSV file, it will format it in the way that it needs, and it'll do its own analysis. It's very— it didn't take long, right, Dan? I mean, the hardest part was just going in and waiting for the thing to pull the reviews from your computer. Yes.

I would just have multiple screens, right?

Yeah. So, Dan, we got about 15 minutes before I gotta get on another call now. I wanna hit a couple really important questions. So one of the things that I have seen in my own experience shadowing people at body shops in the customer service roles is getting into a robotic way and not in a good way. Like, you know, it's Monday, I'm tired, I was up too late last night, I didn't get a good night's sleep and I'm just trying to get through my day and I'm not treating every customer with the right, like this is their first time dealing with all this stuff and I'm just like, like the example I am gonna reuse and have used in the past is just like, oh, have you filed an estimate? Oh, I mean, a claim, well, I can't do anything for you until you do this. So just call me when you get that done. And just very being not as dismissive as I just did it, but being just dismissive of people and not shaking themselves into like, I gotta start from my, to be the best always every day in that sort of Walt Disney way. Do you have any kinds of, I don't know, either pointers or exercises that you do to make sure that people don't slip into that robotic mode that we all do from doing this kind of work every day and forgetting that it's not just another day to the guy standing on the other side of that counter?

So, good question. Well, again, it still ties into hiring the right people because even if Iris is tired, she still cares.

Yeah.

And then Um, the other one is we really talk about empathy. Um, so I kind of have this very simple, like, like, it's like 5 steps. First one is, because we do, we, we're busy, so we want to go right to like the kill. Someone called, hey, I got an accident. We're like, what's your claim number? Like, no, no, no, no. First thing is like, hey, is everyone okay? Because this can be traumatizing for people. I've had that where someone hit a deer right? And I grew up on a farm, so hitting a deer is not overly— I've seen that a million times in my life, right? But for a lot of people, especially in an urban setting, this is traumatic.

Yeah.

So you have to start with just that, no matter what. Like, is everyone okay? Because this will give you insight into what, how they're feeling, right? So number one, it starts with that. And then, and then you gotta ask them, like, tell me your story, right? Like, let them have a chance to say, this guy cut me off, or, you know, I'm such a fool, I was backing out of my garage and I hit the mirror. Whatever their situation is, let them tell it, because then now you get even more insight into this customer, right? Right. And this is how you can get away from being the robotic side, is don't go right into telling them, you know, follow the script. What's your claim number? What's your name? What's your make, make, model? Now that's number 3, right? Number 2, 1 and 2 is just how are you and tell me your story. Then I'm gonna go into like Now I need some information from you. So what kind of car do you have? You know, okay? So that after that, now you can go to, now it's my turn to guide you. Now I know what's happening, I know what your trigger points are, I know what's important to you, and now I can guide you down the process, right? Of like, okay, this is what we need to do first. I need to book you in. I gotta look at your car. I gotta get the parts on order. It's gonna take a long time. You drive a, you know, whatever car, and it's like, we wanna go to that one right away. Go into just telling them what to do. It's no, you gotta do those other things first, right? Yeah. So that's the way we kind of focus on, right?

That's an interesting— I hadn't thought about it like that at first, but so by— if you could just train them to start always that, like every customer you must do this, then that person's story is going to shake you up out of that robot process, right? Because now you've got new information. The human in you naturally is going to work to solve that unique set of problems that was just presented to you. Even though it's not unique that, you know, Guy just got into an accident or got rear-ended on his way to work or whatever, but the uniqueness of that might make a model of this particular customer, the fact that they're concerned about it, not concerned about it, that's just enough variance to make it not be robotic every single time. That's an interesting idea.

And this has to be unique. You don't remember, like I tell people, you go to the corner store to go buy a Gatorade, right? And you did that last week. Do you remember the guy's name?

Right, yeah.

Right? No, because that's not a unique scenario. You walked in, you grabbed a Gatorade, you paid, you left.

Yeah. Okay.

You would remember though if the guy started swearing at you and yelling at you and told you to get out of the store. You'll remember that clear as day. 'Cause that was a unique scenario, okay? So we're trying to create unique scenarios every single time so that people remember it. And you have to create it in a positive way, and it starts by talking to them.

Yeah, right. So, so I was in Charlotte a couple, couple weeks ago, and I forgot to bring toothpaste. And so I'm on my way to the trade show, and I stopped at just a typical gas station. And I stay at this area that it's like a really cool part of town, but it's bordered by a not-so- cool part of town. And the guy working there, he was like, you know, I asked him, I said, you know, do you have a toiletry section? Do you have toothpaste? He's like, man, I'm just out. My truck's not going to be here until blank or whatever. And so I was like, okay. I said, what do you think any of those gas stations up the road here? He said, don't go there. Like, he goes, this is where good neighborhood ends and bad neighborhood starts. And he started telling me some stories. And he's like, oh, I'm from, you know, because I'm a New Yorker and I can handle blah, blah, blah, but these guys, you know, so he was like really warning me. And, you know, and so we're both— turns out we're both from Queens. We're from— from neighborhoods that like back onto each other. I still remember that guy. I still think about him, you know. It's just like you said, right? Exactly.

Yeah, he did something else though, Tom. He fought for his customer.

Yeah.

Okay. And that's the one that we talk about too. There's, uh, Simon Sinek. We all heard of him, right? The guy that talks on every— he's all over place, right? And, um, he talked about a scenario where he was like, need to change his flight, and he phones and the airline person was like, sorry, I can't change your flight because the ticket you bought is, you know, like not changeable, over. And he, so he hung up. He said, or the other scenario is he phones and he says, same problem, I need to change my flight, and the person's like, I'm sorry, but you can't change. But however, if you give me a minute, I'm gonna talk to my manager. It's possible they have an override. I can't promise nothing, but let me see. Puts them on hold, comes back, sorry, my manager can't, but my manager is going to their supervisor. Now they're out of state, you're gonna be on hold for 5 more minutes, but he's gonna see if there's anything else we can do behind the scenes. Okay, then they come back 5 minutes later, sorry, I really am sorry, I've tried everything, but between the manager and the supervisor, I can't change your ticket. Now the end result's the same, they couldn't change the ticket.

Yeah, but who fought for the customer, right? Exactly.

Yeah, and that's important, like We get this where we don't do thefts, for example, right? So when someone calls and says, hey, do you guys fix cars? Yes, we fix cars, right? What happened? Okay, go through the thing of it and you find out now he's got a theft. Well, it's easy to sit there and say, well, we don't do thefts.

Yeah.

Or you can say, I'm sorry, we don't do theft repairs here. However, if you go to the MPI locator, they have a spot where you can look for shops that are open to doing thefts. And in fact, if you want, I can go on there right now for you. Give me your postal code and I'll tell you the 3 shops in your area closest to you that are accepting those right now. Now that's fighting for your customer. And when they get in an accident a year from now, who do you think they're going to call?

Right, exactly. Yeah.

They're going to remember that guy that was so awesome, right? To help them out because you fought for the customer. So that's another tip. Fight for your customer.

Yeah. So, you know, I'm sure you've seen the movie Miracle on 34th Street, right? The old Christmas movie from the '30s or '40s.

No.

You know? You've never seen it?

Oh my God. I'm like the only guy in the room.

I know.

Yeah, I've seen it a thousand times. Miracle on 34th.

Yeah, I watch all the old stuff. So, but anyway, every year my wife and I watch that, but that's exactly what happened. So there's a guy that thinks he's Santa Claus and he's up there telling people if they don't have the toy at Macy's where to buy it. And it turns out to be this national campaign. And then suddenly everyone's, you know, like, you think he's going to get fired in that moment, but all of a sudden people are flocking to Macy's, and now the other department stores are trying to knock it off and everything because he's like, you know, because he's Santa, he knows where every toy is, and so he's just telling them, oh, but so-and-so's got it actually 20% off. And so that's the core, one of the core things behind the Miracle on 34th Street. Just made me think about that. Um, so, so then I, I unfortunately I only got a couple more minutes, but I have one question I always like to ask, and that's what have you tried that didn't work? So a lot of this is like easy to hear, like, okay, what works and you know what's important, but some of the shortcuts can often come from not, not doing, not making the same mistakes as somebody else. So are there any, you know, it may sound weird, but are there any customer service things that you tried that like, oh, that was terrible, or like turn people off, or like just don't do that?

Yeah, okay. So I'm glad to say that we haven't done any major blunders, okay, but small things. I remember getting into kind of getting like cut and pasting some of my Google replies when I was getting lots of them. Don't do that. Your Google responses need to be as human as you are.

That's a good, that's a good tip.

100%. Don't, don't rely on some whatever app to fill it in for you or copy and paste the same one. Hi, thank you for reaching out. Call me at blah, blah, blah. No, no, be human. Right. That was one. Number two is we learn quickly. We do a lot of texting. People don't have time. But bad news, do not text. Good news, text. Bad news, call.

That's a great tip.

Yeah, 100%. If you text someone saying, sorry, your part's delayed for 2 weeks, right?

Yeah.

No, no, you say, I have an important update for your call. Please let me know when I— on your car, please let me know what time I can call you at. Right?

Yeah.

And then when you call and say, I'm sorry, but your parts can be delayed for 2 weeks, and now you can have a human talk on bad news, not text talk.

Yeah, it's good. That's a good one. Yep.

So those are 2 big ones I would say right off the hop.

Yeah.

And then number 3 would be is just make everything easy. Like, we talk about all this stuff and then the customer shows up on the day of the drop-off and we're like, uh, where's my pen? Let's give me Just a second, let me find my pen first. Yeah, I got the paper over here. Yeah, oh sorry, I got the wrong file, I grabbed the wrong file, I'm sorry. No, no, no, no. You have everything ready to go, so when that customer drives in, they know where to park, they see the sign on the building and the address, they know exactly which door to open to enter. When they walk in, they know exactly which person, you greet them right away, the paperwork is laid out, everything is highlighted, so when they walk in, it's bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, all the way through. None of this joker stuff, uh, not being organized, right?

Yeah, that's good. That's a good one.

Learn that really fast. Yeah, I've had people say, I'm busy and this is taking too long.

Yeah, right. So yeah, so Dan, those, those are all great tips. I, I wish I had just a few more minutes to keep going through some of these other questions, but unfortunately I have a call that I got to get on after this. But, um, yeah, this also keeps the podcast to reasonable size. So, but, uh, but Dan, thanks for, thanks for joining me here on my podcast. And this was, this is a really good— there's a lot of good nuggets in this one. I hope, uh, I hope people, um, take a listen to this podcast and, um, you know, and, and put some of this stuff into action. It's all very actionable in, you know, pretty instantly too, I think. So, um, but so thanks, thanks Dan for, for joining me today.

Thank you, Tom. All right, okay, take care, buddy.

All right, thanks. Bye-bye. Bye.