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The Gearbox Podcast brings on industry professionals to explore the day-to-day operations of owning and operating a shop. From common frustrations to industry-wide shifts, this podcast covers it with fun and insightful conversations.
Jimmy Purdy [00:00:13]:
My name is Jimmy Purdy, shop owner, master tech, transmission builder, and the host of the Gearbox podcast. Here I talk with new and seasoned shop owners, as well as industry professionals about day to day operations within their own shops and all the failures and successes that come along the way, from what grinds your gears to having to shift gears in the automotive industry. This is the Gearbox podcast.
Dave Krukowski [00:00:38]:
Can I ask you a couple questions real quick?
Jimmy Purdy [00:00:39]:
Yeah, what's up?
Dave Krukowski [00:00:41]:
Tell me about your shop, and tell me why you do this.
Jimmy Purdy [00:00:45]:
Yeah, that's good question zone. So we're transmission specialists. That's when I bought the shop. So the shop wasn't originally a transmission shop in pastor ovals where we're located, and it was automatic transmission service of pass robles. I bought it in 2017 is when I finally paid it off and tried to continue that direction of transmission specialists. Well, finding a rebuilder was. I mean, I was a rebuilder. And my whole thought when I started the business was, if I could build the best units, I'm going to have the best transmission shop and the county and the state, right? I'm just going to do the best.
Jimmy Purdy [00:01:23]:
And I slowly realized that that's not how you run a business. So since then, I've every year pivoted a little bit more, a little bit more into more maintenance, and we've gone more into just general auto repair. I have a lot of technical capabilities when it comes to transmission, so I still get a lot of referrals from other shops that bring in transmission problems. So that's basically what I guess, in a nutshell, kind of what we do. I mean, and honestly, it's pivoted from being in this industry and learning and just trying to get to the top, right? Like when I was 1819 years old, I was a smog technician. I'm like, I'm going to be the best smog technicians. I got all my ses, master tech, you know, got all that stuff, and I'm like, what's next? Oh, I can build transmissions. I'm going to get certified.
Jimmy Purdy [00:02:12]:
And it just kept growing. And I realized now, with running a business, it's worth way bigger than me. So I think my why is like, changed, because it's so much bigger than what I anticipated it was going to be. And I think having seen how many bad shops are out there or how many technicians are not treated, you know, or paid like they should be, and the shops aren't being ran correctly, and it's a disservice to clients. I've realized the hole in the market and that's. I mean, and then fixing these holes and seeing how it changes and providing such a clean environment for everyone here. And, I mean, it's just the why is constantly changing for me. I don't have a good why, to be perfectly honest.
Jimmy Purdy [00:02:52]:
I get that quit. I hear that a lot, like, with coaching services and reading it on. On the groups, and it's like, you got to find your why before anything else is like, I don't know. And, like, write your business statement and your vision statement, which is all, like, I don't know. Not that important to me, I think, looking back, but I think it's important to have the. Have everyone on the team pointed in a direction, but I don't think that needs to stay in concrete. I don't know, it's just you're navigating these waters and it's like, what, what is it this year that we're going to do? Or in the next quarter and the next month? Like that, that's kind of been my driving force. And I find something and I really like that thing and then I attach on to it and I'm like, let's push that direction, you know, dvis, it's like, let's.
Jimmy Purdy [00:03:35]:
Let's get dvis and let's get these things dialed and let's make sure we're not doing this just to upsell that we're doing this so that we're making sure we're catching everything that's wrong with the vehicle, you know? And. And in my thought was, well, if the client comes in and they know this is what we're doing and we charge them for it, that's a totally different service than if it comes in and we sneak this DVI on them and then we try to upsell on the back end to make up for that. So my thought is, okay, you come in, it's a $100, we're gonna do a DVI and we'll give you everything that it needs. And I feel like that's the differentiating line for me to keep, you know, so you're not like, just selling stuff that you don't really need to try to make up that loss.
Dave Krukowski [00:04:12]:
Yeah, that makes sense.
Jimmy Purdy [00:04:14]:
I don't know.
Dave Krukowski [00:04:15]:
I mean, I can appreciate that. And, you know, the digital inspection, I think, is, you know, an awesome tool, but it's also a dangerous tool.
Jimmy Purdy [00:04:27]:
Right.
Dave Krukowski [00:04:27]:
If you don't do it right or, you know, if your content isn't good. And I gotta be honest with you, I fight with that all the time now because you know, especially when you hire new people or you've got general service techs or just, you know, guys that aren't as skilled as others. And, you know, they, they complete them. And let's just say their grammar is not good or, you know, the pictures don't make any sense. And, you know, my fear is, like, you know, firing that off to the customer with a poor explanation because it does more harm than good, I feel like. Right. Because if the product that you want to deliver doesn't meet your standards, then, you know, then why send it? Why share it? Why do it? You know? And.
Jimmy Purdy [00:05:12]:
Yeah, that and the level of competence that the client is and what you're sending them, you know, like, what is this? Is this good or bad?
Dave Krukowski [00:05:20]:
Yeah.
Jimmy Purdy [00:05:21]:
What's it supposed to look like?
Dave Krukowski [00:05:23]:
You know, I have, I have so many thoughts on that, you know, and, but I have a couple talking points, so I probably should back up to those for a second, if I may.
Jimmy Purdy [00:05:34]:
Yeah, let's get to it.
Dave Krukowski [00:05:36]:
So I grew up around an auto parts business, family owned business. And, you know, I tell people, you know, well, I knew how to sell you a part. I knew how to look it up in a catalog. If you remember those, you probably don't, but I didn't know what they did. I didn't know what the parts were. I could look you up an oxygen sensor for your, you know, 1994 accord, but I didn't know what it did. I just knew that you needed it, and I could probably have it in stock and sell it to you.
Jimmy Purdy [00:06:03]:
That was the back of the day, when all you needed to do is know, like, the first three part numbers, and you could flip to that, those, that page. Oh, I know what you're talking about. And then you're like, okay, I'm in, I'm in 959s now. And you're looking down, oh, that's what it was. And it's like, you start memorizing those part numbers is like, and those were the guys. You go to those parts stores, and they're like, oh. And they flip it up, and they already knew the first three numbers, and they had it looked up in five minutes. That was rad.
Dave Krukowski [00:06:27]:
Yeah. And, you know, and I want to say, you know, because of the industry I'm in, I had the misfortune. I have the misfortune of having a dad who is a, you know, kind of jack of all trades, you know, was a body mechanic and became, you know, ran like, a machine shop out of the back of my grandpa's auto parts. Store where he was, like, turning brake rotors, you know, and pressing bearings and things like that, you know, but a guy who could pretty much fix most things on a car himself. And I say that's a bad thing for me, ending up in this industry because, you know, at first, it was, like, always a comparison to, well, my dad could change my brakes for $40. Right? Why am I charging somebody 550? You know, so that, I mean, that was a struggle for me. But fast forward past that. You know, I was a golf pro for, like, twelve years.
Dave Krukowski [00:07:23]:
Well, not twelve years, sorry, eight years. And I had a dream of playing professional golf. But more importantly, I worked in private country clubs for quite some time. And I think when I got into this field, that was a huge benefit for me because, you know, the level of service and the standards for excellence that you have to provide to members of a high end country club are kind of the opposite of what I envisioned the automotive industry in my head, you know, and fortunately, that became a huge asset because, you know, I got into the field, I guess as of next month, it'll be 13 years ago, and, you know, I really couldn't accept the product that we were putting out in terms of the customer experience. And, you know, so I think I just kind of quickly forced the organization to move to differentiate ourselves in terms of what we offer. Right. And in terms of the customer experience. And, you know, that started out with, you know, improving, literally just the initial interaction with the customer.
Dave Krukowski [00:08:38]:
And, you know, then that evolved to perks, you know, like uber rides and, you know, pickup and delivery of the cars. And, you know, just kind of a. It just kind of evolved, you know, a long way from where we started.
Jimmy Purdy [00:08:55]:
It's so much more than just making sure that the car is fixed.
Dave Krukowski [00:08:59]:
Yeah, well, and for us, right. For guys like us, you know, for a lot of folks, it's not. For a lot of folks, it's, you know, take it or leave it. You know, I'm gonna show up wearing, you know, these. These dirty, ripped up clothes, and my shoes are falling apart. And, you know, I'm gonna probably fix your car for half the price of what the guy up the street is. And, you know, obviously, we fight that forever and ever and ever.
Jimmy Purdy [00:09:23]:
Well, there's a lot of. There's a lot of stuff, too that they do behind the scenes that no one knows. And I think that's been my. My pain point, too, is especially being a transmission builder, there was a lot of times you pull them apart and a ceiling ring, land is worn or the pumps out of spec. Or there's just things that happen that you got to machine them or lay them or go look for another part. And you spend hours in the, in the, you know, looking for whatever you're looking for to replace when the other trans. With the same exact model. You don't have to do that, right? So I guess my point is I would spend a lot of time doing these extras that no one in the world but me would know.
Jimmy Purdy [00:10:00]:
And for some reason, in my own head, I'm like, that's what makes me worth money because I'm fixing these things right the first time, like, but nobody knows. And then you had the other side of the coin is like, you're going to call the client every time you run across an obstacle and inconvenience them with what you're doing. Like, yeah, but that's, that's where you're selling your service, right? Like, you're not bothering them, you're. You're providing them. Now the experience is like, hey, so I ran across this problem, and this is what I'm going to do to fix it. It's like the same thing is instead of marking your parts down and give someone a break, you just write it as a line item, as a discount. There's so much more value in saying, hey, I discounted your repair order, $7500, whatever, versus, hey, I took, you know, my 60%, my 65% markup down to 44%. Like, they don't.
Jimmy Purdy [00:10:48]:
What. It's just so much more value. Seeing that line item is like, there's a $100 discount on your order, not like, well, it was going to be 500. Now it's 450. Okay. Says who? You know, so that's, that's, that's been a big pain point for me.
Dave Krukowski [00:11:03]:
Well, what do you, what do you mean that. How's that been a pain point in terms.
Jimmy Purdy [00:11:07]:
Well, just, just wrapping my head around that thought process, you know, and, and understanding. And understanding that I'm not inconveniencing a client by giving them that information. Um, I can show a discount, and that would provide more of a service. And what I'm trying to provide versus trying to say, oh, well, you know, I took my percentage off, or, hey, I spent all night building that transmission, even though you don't know about it. And it's just something that I knew about, but they didn't know about it. And I just, in my own head, I'm like, oh, I'm the greatest because I made this thing work. But no one in the world knows it. But me, I think a lot of people are in that world.
Dave Krukowski [00:11:47]:
You know, I think that makes a lot of sense. So, you know, I started kind of just mentioning, you know, what I think I brought to our business because, you know, the fact is, again, like I said, I started there, what? Twelve. As of next month would be 13 years. And I remember, like, yesterday we, we hired a guy to come and do a sales training or just some sort of motivational talk, if you want to call it that. And he had done some secret shopping in our, of our shops prior to this meeting. So we get into this group setting and. And he's, you know, presents to us not only our secret shop phone calls, but also some others, right? And we hear one, and, I mean, you could not make this up. It was like he called a local gas station.
Dave Krukowski [00:12:42]:
Hey, is Mitch there? Wow. No, Mitch is in the can right now. It's like you just said that to a customer on the phone. And as I learned more and been around the industry, obviously for longer, it's like, that's real. That happens still to this day, right. It's unbelievable how low the bar is set. And I think that I'm of a mindset that people will pay more for a better experience, and I think almost exponentially more. And that's.
Dave Krukowski [00:13:22]:
I mean, forget auto repair, right? That's in anything we do, right? I mean, why do I go to Whole Foods instead of Harris? Instead of Harris teeter or food lion? I know they're going to charge me double, but I like the product and I enjoy the experience, and I might, you know, have a little remorse thereafter. But, you know, generally speaking, I know what I'm getting into. I've been there a hundred times. Yes, I know they're charging me more and I'm willing to pay it. Right. And I think that, you know, that's. That's something that's hard for a lot of business owners to accept, right. I mean, I, you know, the experience is part of it.
Dave Krukowski [00:14:02]:
And I, you know, I think that when I look at the reviews and the customer feedback that we get, generally, the highlights are about how the people were treated and about their experience. No one's ever talking about how great a job we did replacing their water pump, to your point, right. Or, you know, they don't see that.
Jimmy Purdy [00:14:21]:
They use all. They torqued all the bolts to spec. Like, how would they. Like, I mean, I get it, like, as a tech, like 100%, that's. But that's your job as a technician, right. And that's our job as, as shop owners to hire the technician that has that mindset. Right. That's behind the scenes, though.
Jimmy Purdy [00:14:38]:
But when it comes to the counter and, like, trying to provide that experience, that, that kind of goes without saying, you know, but at the end of the day, if the job goes right, the job goes right, you know, but, I mean, that's, that's all about management. Like, do you want the technician that torques every fastener to spec? Sure, we all do. Right? But it's all about the sops that you have in place to make sure they're following, you know, the repair process or whatever it is. But that's regardless of what the client sees. They have no idea. They just, you know, and you're not going to get everyone right. You're going to have something come back. How are you going to deal with that? When a vehicle leaves and something goes wrong, whether it be the fault of the technician or not, that's where you really shine.
Jimmy Purdy [00:15:17]:
That's where you get rid. You know, how are you going to handle that? You're going to answer the phone like, oh, now what is it? Or, we didn't do that. That's not our. What? There's no way I put that pump on myself. There's no way it's leaking. You know, like, really you're gonna, like. That's how you, that's how you want to start this, right? And you see it all the time.
Dave Krukowski [00:15:35]:
Sure. Yeah. No, I mean, you know. And to your point about that, right? I mean, I. I feel like, you know, it is the worst practice imaginable to get defensive, right? When you don't even know what's wrong, right? I mean, how many times? And, you know, surely, I'm sure at some point in my career I was that way. But, you know, I mean, I. It's like, it makes my blood boil when I hear my staff members, you know, not only getting defensive, but talking about, like, potential additional diagnostic fees and things like that for a vehicle that you just worked on. It's like, why would that ever even come into your mind or become part of a conversation? You know, I want to tell you about, you know, our shop is high volume, and when I say high volume, I mean, that's a relative term.
Dave Krukowski [00:16:25]:
But we've got eight locations, and when I started, we had four. And high volume, meaning, you know, our flagship location would work on, you know, eight to 900 cars a month.
Jimmy Purdy [00:16:37]:
Well.
Dave Krukowski [00:16:38]:
Well, we did this awful, awful experiment that lasted for way too long with something called Groupon. Surely you've heard of it. I know you have. Oh, yeah, funny. Well, you know, that was our way to increase our car count, you know, drastically. And I mean, to the point of, I think we sold 10,000 groupons for oil changes, right? So me just kind of getting my foot in the door, you know, my initial experience was exactly this. Customer comes in with a groupon oil change, you check them in. You have little to no conversation.
Dave Krukowski [00:17:19]:
You dispatch the ticket into the shop. Oh, by the way, we had no, I mean, zero general service technicians. We had nothing but a and b level technicians because we had this mentality that the atech is going to check the car out better than a general service guy. Well, of course that's real. But is it practical? No. Right? I mean, and the technicians, of course, hated it, and the advisors hated it because the results prove themselves. Right. It would be, you know, one out of 15 people even cared what you had to say, anything about their car.
Dave Krukowski [00:17:52]:
But I bring it up because the method was okay. Check them in, little conversation. Dispatch a ticket to the technician. Technician gives you a huge write up for everything under the sun that this car could possibly need. Advisor sits down, builds an estimate with no communication to the customer whatsoever. They're there in their mind for an oil change. And then you approach them in our lobby with a $3,000 estimate for things that they don't care about or didn't know they needed or don't believe that they need. And I watched this exercise go on for so long, and I'm just like, you know, this is absolutely the definition of insanity.
Dave Krukowski [00:18:37]:
Every review we would get that was negative was describing what I just said. So, you know, I thought to myself, I mean, I didn't have anything compared to. Right. I didn't. I didn't know any other automotive repair shop. I just knew ours. And I thought to myself, you know, we have to do something drastically different. And really, I think it starts at the intake process.
Dave Krukowski [00:19:02]:
So, you know, I kind of just taught myself to ask what I thought were qualifying questions when people come into the shop. Right. You know, my favorites, even to this day, are, you know, do you follow the factory maintenance schedule? You know, where do you take your car when you need repairs? How long do you plan to keep the car? And I assume these are questions that everybody asks or something along those lines. And then I also figured out that asking questions after receiving the information from the technician became critical. Right. Because I love to use my dad as an example, as an auto repair customer. As I mentioned before, my dad has never changed brake fluid on any vehicle he has ever owned, nor will he ever. And if he comes into our shop ten times for an oil change and I try to sell him a brake fluid flush every time, I have failed.
Dave Krukowski [00:19:59]:
Right. Because is it, is it really my job to keep trying to force information upon him that he doesn't want? Or is it my job to understand how he wants us to help him take care of his car?
Jimmy Purdy [00:20:11]:
Right, right.
Dave Krukowski [00:20:12]:
You know, and I think you have repair customers and then you have maintenance customers, and there's a really obvious line in the sand between those two, in my opinion.
Jimmy Purdy [00:20:25]:
Yeah, you gotta, you gotta give them what they want. I mean, at the end of the day, there's a lot of the talk of, like, that's not my client. Right. I mean, I'm guilty of it, you know, when we fire, fire customers or fire clients, but I feel like there is a difference between, and not good or bad, but when you go from the one location to MSo, right, there's, there's a difference in what works and, and what you have to change. And I think as, as a one man show, you have a lot of flexibility as far as, like, what you can, what you want in the door. Right? Like, you can say no a lot. Like pretty much anything. You, you know, you can really, like, whittle it down and you're like, cool.
Jimmy Purdy [00:21:07]:
This is all I work on. And you get kind of this ego of like, oh, look at me, I'm mister badass, you know? And then you start getting yourself booked two, three weeks out, and you're like, what do you mean? You're slow. I don't get it. But between that, and then you go to, like, four or five locations. I'm nowhere near that. Right. I'm in the process now of getting a second shop set up. So I'm really diving in and sinking my teeth into these different practices and realizing that, okay, so the way we operated and for the last five, six years has not, has to change drastically, but we have to start implementing different things.
Jimmy Purdy [00:21:41]:
And like you said, there's the different types of clients. There's, there's going to be the preventative maintenance ones and then the repair. You can't. And you can't have both with the same tactics, if that makes sense.
Dave Krukowski [00:21:57]:
Of course. No, I absolutely agree. And, you know, so, I mean, that's, you know, that's an area that I struggle with. You know, based on what I just kind of described to you, our business model is to attract a very, very, you know, relatively speaking, high volume of cars. Right. And my company floods the market with discount oil changes. We flood the market with, you know, discount break coupons. And, you know, I think in return, I mean, we have to accept what that's going to yield.
Dave Krukowski [00:22:32]:
Right. That is not going to yield 1000 of our ideal clients. That's going to yield probably, frankly a small fraction of our ideal clients. Right. And you know, in saying that, well, just kind of blank there, how does.
Jimmy Purdy [00:22:54]:
Your intake process go? Do you. I mean, so you have two different types of clients, right? And you obviously want to try to give the same experience for everybody. But as you're saying that there, you have to divide and conquer, I guess if you want to put it that way. As far as like you have your oil change clients and then you have your other clients that want to fix everything. Is there a process that you use to kind of split those up? Is that something the service advisors deal with? You just kind of have a blanket sop for every vehicle that comes in.
Dave Krukowski [00:23:27]:
Well, it is a blanket sop and we have a check in form. And by the way, I don't use it, but I mean, we have it. And you know what it is, it's a safeguard for, you know, the people that are less experienced. Right. It's a safeguard for your weakest link and, you know, it entails some basic stuff. Right. Obviously your name, your email, your phone number. You know, I tweaked it at some point to kind of try to promote some of the things we have.
Dave Krukowski [00:23:58]:
Loyalty program. You know, I basically would ask a question, do you know about our loyalty program? Right. You're kind of forcing a conversation to take place there. You know, we would ask them, you know, things like where's your, does it have a wheel lock key? Where's it located? But I think that the key to that check in form is where we allow the customer to write out their concern. Right? Now, when I say I don't use it, I think it has a lesson. Personal touch, obviously, right? If somebody's been to our shop 15 times and I know them by their first name and I know their kids and I know, you know, they just had a softball game yesterday, do I really want them to fill out this form in front of me and write down their name again? Like, no, I think that that gives a very impersonal touch. But at the same time, as I kind of just said, it is a safeguard for, for a week links, right? It's a safeguard for, for people who may not ask the right questions, you know, and it really is actually a double edged sword, because, you know, we're in Virginia and Maryland and Virginia requires an annual safety inspection. And one of the questions that we added to the form was, you know, does your vehicle require safety or emissions? Now I didn't choose to add that.
Dave Krukowski [00:25:19]:
One of my counterparts did. And the reason he chose to add it is because we miss them at times. Right. We might miss that the inspections do. And of course it's our duty to remind people of that. But I think the logic in actually adding that type of question to the form doesn't make sense to me because the reason we did it is as a safeguard. Meaning, well, if we still miss your inspection, you didn't ask for it. Well that's not helpful, right? I mean, you're not going to, you're not going to go back to this person, say, here, look at this form.
Dave Krukowski [00:25:53]:
You didn't, you didn't ask for it. I mean, I don't feel like that solves any problem. Right. But not to get stuck in the weeds. Not to get stuck in the weeds on that, you know, there's definitely obviously a benefit to something like that. But there's again, the obvious downside of I don't want Mister Smith, who was just here yesterday to have to tell me who he is again. Right. So I say I don't use it because, you know, I know that I'm going to interview the customer properly.
Dave Krukowski [00:26:19]:
I know that I'm going to ask them the right questions. But it is definitely helpful for some folks who are, you know, maybe green and may not do the same well.
Jimmy Purdy [00:26:28]:
And on your, on, like having sops and having, you know, multiple locations, you obviously want to make sure that those questions are being asked of especially new clients that are coming in. So you don't want to, you don't want to miss that. Right. But if you're there, if you're there running the counter, you have a seasoned staff that you've trained. You know, those, those types of questions are going to get handled, right. You know, you're going to set expectations correctly, but without having something written down, it's really hard to even standardize that to begin with. So, yeah, I mean it's, and it kind of goes back to the DVis too, is like when you, when you present all this information, it's, it's overwhelming to anyone if they're not expecting it, you know, and sure, pictures are great, but who says that's the picture of their car? No one's ever seen the underside of their car. So how, how do they even know, it's theirs, right.
Jimmy Purdy [00:27:21]:
So there's that. All that information that's out there that really, it's transparent, but it still leaves a lot on the table to be misinterpreted. And I mean, that, I mean, that's part of the problem with that too, is overwhelming and not setting expectations, not saying, hey, so when you bring your car in, in about an hour, we're going to send you this report with a whole lot of information on it. So be prepared, you know, and just want to let you know you don't have to do this stuff, but you need to be aware of it, you know? And I think that's just the communication part of it and setting that experience up correctly. Because I, if I went into an old oil change shop and I wouldn't know anything, and I've been there before when I was younger and take my vehicle in to get smogged or before I did any repairs myself, I can only imagine if they came out to me with $3,000 worth of stuff. I'm like, hold on a second. I had to save up this $150 for this oil change. I don't have that kind of money.
Jimmy Purdy [00:28:14]:
So it makes, it makes you feel like they're, like they're taking advantage of you. And that's like the whole problem with the industry is that we're all crooks and we're all trying to take advantage of somebody. And then you present something like that and it just enforces that thought, in my opinion, anyway. That's what it seems like.
Dave Krukowski [00:28:30]:
No, I agree. I agree. And, you know, I mean, I can't, as I talked about being high volume, again, I use that term relatively. But, you know, what I can say is I've certainly operated and worked in numerous of our facilities. One great problem we have is the phones ring off the hook. Right. Because we do a lot of marketing, you know, and I used to when I, you know, I guess I would say was most effective or I shouldn't say that when I had a staff, more of a staff that maybe would allow those conversations that in, you know, those first touches to go last longer. I used to ask exactly kind of what you just saying, right.
Dave Krukowski [00:29:15]:
I would set the phone, set the expectations up over the phone. Right. I still try to do that, but I can tell you, you know, it can get hard if you're understaffed or, you know, things are rocking and rolling. Right. And your phones are going crazy. Maybe you don't have three minutes to spend on every phone call when somebody that makes sense. But I do think that that's probably one of the number one ways to positively impact the initial touch point with the customer. Right.
Dave Krukowski [00:29:46]:
When somebody calls and says, hi, I'd like to get an oil change. And I'm like, okay, do you want 09:00 or 10:00 tomorrow? And they're like, 10:00 and I hang up the phone like, that's not ideal, right? Do I know if the person's been there? Well, I mean, technology allows us to kind of work on the fly and figure that out and run their phone number in the database or, you know, maybe, you know who the person is by the name of the caller id or whatever it may be. But, you know, for me, the most logical way to field an incoming appointment request is to say the same exact things that you're going to talk about when they walk in. Right. You know, again, it's just when you think about efficiency, is that really practical? You know? But I can tell you one of my favorite things to ask customers when they, when they call for an appointment, or I shouldn't even say, ask them to let them know, is that okay? You want an oil change? Great. I'm going to sign you up for an oil change and a multi point inspection. We're going to give your vehicle a good once over. And I love to ask them, is there any complaints or concerns that you have with the vehicle? And I can't tell you how many times somebody doesn't give you any feedback, but then they walk in after they thought about it for the past 4 hours or the past two days, and then they let you know some information that they weren't going to initially.
Dave Krukowski [00:31:01]:
You know, I think that's a, that's definitely a good way to kind of break through, you know, and I also think kind of to back up to what I was saying before about the Groupon concept, or forget the Groupon concept, just the high volume of oil changes concept. It's so easy to take the path of least resistance, right? It's easy when the person walks in, oh, hey, Mister Smith, you're here for an oil change. Great. It's going to be about an hour. I'll let you know as soon as it's ready. Right? I mean, I don't, you know, whether he's been there ten times or never been there for me, we have to ask the qualifying questions. We have to mention the multipoint inspection. And I think that is something that is just taken for granted.
Dave Krukowski [00:31:45]:
Like, I don't assume that any customer walking into our doors knows anything that we're about to do to their car. Okay. Yeah. You want an oil change? Sure. We're going to change your oil in your filter. Let's assume that's a given. Do they know that you're going to check their brakes? And I can also tell you by talking about that, that has helped us kind of draw the line between some of the customers that don't want the information that you have to present. Right.
Dave Krukowski [00:32:14]:
So many times I mentioned to people, we're going to do a multi point inspection, and they say they don't want it. Now, you know, the question I ask you because I realize, you know, maybe you're not in the same atmosphere with the high volume of low dollar tickets, but, you know, if somebody said to you they don't want your DVI or they don't want you to do a multipoint inspection, do you just send them packing at that moment in time or do you service the car?
Jimmy Purdy [00:32:42]:
Honestly, typically, yeah. I mean, and to that point, what I was, that was kind of drawn me to was, was our process and our processes to, was really to get the vehicle. And being a transmission specialist, we were looking at big, big tickets, high arrow, high hpro. And that's what I wanted. I wanted these vehicles to come in to be on the rack for at least a day. Technicians are busy for a day. I knew each car was going to be at least eight to 10 hours, and that was how I've built. Our process is based around that.
Jimmy Purdy [00:33:20]:
And that started with, okay, well, it's coming in because it needs a transmission that's right off the bat, 8 hours minimum. Right. And that's if we're just doing a swap, that's not, if I'm pulling it out, I'm rebuilding and putting it back in. Right. So I already had this thought of like, okay, so every vehicle that comes is probably going to tie up the rack for eight to 10 hours. But I also want to make sure when we're done, because we don't get to drive these things when they come in, that when we let it off the rack and we drive off the water pumps, not leak in the rear differentials, not making noise, you know, the. There's not a bunch of problems. So I implemented the fact that when it comes in, we're going to do a full sweep and we're going to charge you for that because I don't have time to deal with that on the back end.
Jimmy Purdy [00:34:01]:
And that was kind of my thought, like, look, if you're going to spend six or $7,000 with me on this vehicle, and you leave and you have multiple leaks or you got a wheel bearing bad, you're going to be pretty upset that you have to come back and spend more money. So let's all get it captured at one time. And for that, I'm going to charge you for this upfront 1 hour inspection. And we're going to go through everything. We'll make sure everything's good so there's no problems. And that really came down because of the issues that I had before, you know, that that's what would happen. It'd come in, all right, get it on the rack and get it pulled out. Let's get it built and get it back in off the road and then text to come back, hey, this thing's got a bunch of noise coming out of the, you know, and there's something going on.
Jimmy Purdy [00:34:41]:
And now it's like that just hung the whole process up. So as we evolved over time, I've taken that inspection process and molded it into, okay, if you want to come in, play ball with us, I need to know that you're willing to maintenance your vehicle. And so I need to know that you're willing to allow us to look it over and find everything that it needs and then get you, you know, not hard sell you, but at least get you a list of everything that it needs and say, look, so you're in here today because your check engine lights on, but I also need you to know that your water pumps leaking and, you know, your differential fluids bad and whatever else it is. And that way we're all on the same page and it just kind of like, I guess, cost of entry, if you want to call it that. And so, yeah, to your question, if they came in and they don't want to do that inspection, it's like, okay, well, then I have three other shops I can send you to. What are you looking to do? And I mean, that's. That's realistically how we operate day to day to this point right now. And that's something that I'm actively looking into.
Jimmy Purdy [00:35:38]:
How do we. How do we capture these lost sales that we're getting? Because they're not all bad, you know, and you think a lot of people think, oh, the oil change people, the discount oil change people, they're the bottom feeders, right? It's like, no, I mean, some of them are just intelligent enough to fix a lot of stuff on their own. Maybe they are, you know, they have a dad that can help them or whatever. It is. And they just want the convenience. And if we can get them in and show them our process for, you know, for that discounted in quotes rate and it's like we might capture future business. So I definitely see the hole that I've created. And that's why it's interesting to hear these other takes, especially from a high volume shop, because it's like, well, how do we implement some of this stuff to capture what we're missing, you know, if that makes sense.
Dave Krukowski [00:36:26]:
Yeah, it does. And, you know, I think that, you know, giving, I have this, this, this thought at all times, you know, in terms of what we do. And it's basically, like I said before, it's giving people information that they want. Now, of course there's an ethical side of that, right? Like, but if, you know, so we attract a high volume of cars. If I have somebody that walks in and says they just want this coupon oil change and they don't want us to check out their car, well, then I can tell you what we do. I kill the MPI off the ticket and I write the same statement every time and it says oil change and check safety items only. Right. Because that's basically my way of relating to the technician.
Dave Krukowski [00:37:22]:
Well, we're still going to service this car, right. But we're not going to tell him his 30, 60, 90k service. We're not going to tell him anything other than what I would consider to be safety requirements. And why? Well, I think the reason is kind of obvious, right. You know, the reason is it's just kind of our CYA. Right. I mean, you know, and to me, I'm constantly torn on those types of people. But I can tell you that we are also in the game of reputation management.
Dave Krukowski [00:37:58]:
If we choose that we are going to attract this high volume of clients, and not every customer wants to do business with us the way we want them to. We kind of have to accept that. Not only do we have to accept that, but we have to realize that just because the customer in front of me is a guy who's going to replace his own brake pads and rotors in his driveway on Sunday doesn't mean he doesn't have a friend. He might refer to us. Right. Doesn't mean he may not write us a good review. Right. And those are things that we have to consider.
Jimmy Purdy [00:38:34]:
Yeah. Tons of opportunities.
Dave Krukowski [00:38:36]:
Yeah. I will say where I do draw the line, and unfortunately, I've had this happen more times recently than I can recall ever in the past, where I do draw the line is where, you know, customers have a history that shows us that they're oil change only customers. Right. And we're gonna have those. But when there are very obvious safety infractions that I don't even think they should drive off a lot. Right. When I encounter that and, you know, and they don't even, they don't care or they're not interested or they have somebody always who's gonna do it cheaper, you know, those are the kind of people I try to separate from, mostly because, you know, I worry about the liability. Right.
Dave Krukowski [00:39:22]:
Like we just did your discount oil change for $20. And, you know, I'm telling you that your, your tie rod is, is loose enough that it's going to break if you make a sharp enough turn. And you don't care about that. Well, I do care about that, and I'm concerned what happens hereafter. Right. And of course, we know the horror stories of, you know, the, oh, you were the last people that worked on it. Right. Like, we changed your oil and your filter and we told you had a problem and now you broke down the side of the road and you think it's our fault.
Dave Krukowski [00:39:49]:
Right. So, I mean, you know, that that's, again, that's kind of the bad with the good scenario.
Jimmy Purdy [00:39:57]:
It's kind of like risk, risk management every time.
Dave Krukowski [00:40:00]:
Yeah, yeah, I agree. You know, so I actually, I have a hard time even relating to the, you know, the higher end european or even, you know, as you described, the transmission shop. Right. Because people are coming to you, like, for a specific problem that they know that you're gonna help them resolve. Right. And I don't know that. I've never been in that atmosphere. So I don't know that it's just as easy as one, two, three.
Dave Krukowski [00:40:30]:
And, you know, they trust everything you say and they're ecstatic about the price. I mean, tell me about that because.
Jimmy Purdy [00:40:38]:
I want to think, I think for the, for the most part, and that's hard too, because it's like, don't give prices over the phone. And it's like, well, hold on a second here. And, and I think it's, it's funny you brought that up because I've noticed euro shops and transmission shops, and I'm sure there's other ones in the mix there, but those two really have a lot of similarities when it comes to processes because the prices are the same generally as far as, like, your ticket order and that kind of stuff. So there's a lot of similarities. I've found talking to, I don't do euro work at all, but it seems to be pretty similar. But yeah, they call around, they want a price. And so typically, before the vehicle is brought in on the, on the hook, they got a pretty good idea what they're going to be spending. I mean, it's pretty common that they're going to be calling around.
Jimmy Purdy [00:41:25]:
You know, most, most people aren't going to just say, oh, it's seven grand, sounds good. When can you do it? They got a pretty good idea of what the price should be. Pretty rarely they get toed in on the hook and they're wondering. That's what I try to talk them into, though. Cause I can't tell you how many times they've been convinced that it needs a transmission. They've done, you know, they've done their shopping around, and I'm like, look, just get it in here. Let me look at it. And ends up being something, you know, not with the transmission at all or something that we can repair without having to remove the transit of the vehicle.
Jimmy Purdy [00:41:57]:
So there's that part of it, too, where you gotta kind of talk them into it, talk down their anxiety and say, look, just get in here, spend a couple bucks with me, and let's see if we can get this thing on the road without spending that kind of money. And I think once they call around and see what they're looking to spend, that makes them feel a little bit more, okay, I'll give you a chance. I'll let you see what else you can maybe find on it. But to the point of, like, the ticket at the end and dealing with that high volume, that's when it really takes time to talk to them and, like, slow everything down. You know, I worked as a smog technician right out of high school, so I'm very familiar with the high volume style shop. Um, I didn't own it then. I worked at a smog shop, but we did between 30 and 40 smogs a day. Uh, it's probably the same as safety inspections on your side.
Jimmy Purdy [00:42:47]:
In California, we have. Yeah, okay. So, yeah, yeah, we, we would, we roll about 40. It was basically four an hour that we would be rolling through. So I was, like, very familiar with get them in, get them out, get a process in and make sure, like, everything's moving, everything's moving, everything's moving. And then that, that went from there to the transmission shop, and it was like a totally different atmosphere. Totally different. Slows everything down.
Jimmy Purdy [00:43:12]:
We're focusing on one person, and that's, I was like, I like that that was, like, more my pace. You know, we can, like, establish this relationship. I get to know who they are. But obviously, over the years now, I've realized that our client base is pretty small, and that's because of, you know, we're spending a lot of time with each client, and then they go, and they go to a discount oil change, or they. And then they end up finding a general repair shop that's not transmission specialist. And then, and then we're losing that client, because then once they're there, then they get sold everything else. And if it needs a transmission in the future, most general auto can replace, you know, do a trans swap. So it's, it's, it's a, it's tough.
Jimmy Purdy [00:43:54]:
It's definitely tough. And I don't think there's one right way or another. It's just my experience through the years, you know, how do you, so, I.
Dave Krukowski [00:44:02]:
Mean, do you do any marketing or how do you, you know, attract?
Jimmy Purdy [00:44:06]:
Yeah, yeah, marketing. Marketing in the early ages, stages was like shop to shop. I mean, that's basically how to get a lot of referrals from other shops. And then word of mouth. Um, lately, I've been really diving into marketing, and I've had a lot of, a lot of learning, like, trying to deal with different marketing companies and then just started doing mailers. I do, I do a radio show that helps a little bit. Um, but, man, marketing's tough. I, that is, I'm intrigued by it.
Jimmy Purdy [00:44:40]:
I like the idea of coming up with, like, creative ideas and, like, ads and. But I've never been a coupon style marketer where I'm like, oh, $50 off. Come on in. I just, I don't like that. It just feels like we're discounting our. Just to anybody. If they come in and they're a return client, I got no problem. Like, I'll help you out.
Jimmy Purdy [00:45:01]:
You know, this, that, and the other thing. You got everything together, and you got a combined labor discount or something like that. But just to, like, for the masses, throw out a discounted price. It's hard for me to wrap my head around that.
Dave Krukowski [00:45:17]:
Yeah, well, so, I mean, how many cars do you work on an average month?
Jimmy Purdy [00:45:25]:
Car counts probably between 40 and 60 a month.
Dave Krukowski [00:45:29]:
So these are still all transmission jobs? Are mostly all transmission jobs, no, yeah.
Jimmy Purdy [00:45:34]:
We'Ve definitely pitted, pivoted, probably about. We're probably close to 70 30 at this point. 70% being general.
Dave Krukowski [00:45:44]:
Yeah. You know, I mean, I think, you know, marketing for me is just about, you know, identifying. What does your ideal client look like. Right. And of course your marketing strategy is going to be light years different than what ours is. Right. And we've been doing, that's a great.
Jimmy Purdy [00:46:00]:
That'S a, that's a great point to bring up too because I think a lot of us look for help and then try to see what other, other shops are doing and. Oh I'll do that. But like you said, it's totally different, right?
Dave Krukowski [00:46:11]:
Yeah. I mean it's not even comparable. And I'll tell you something, I was heavily involved in producing our marketing and by that I mean direct mail pieces which we flood our surrounding areas with direct mail. And when I say we flood the surrounding area, I mean, I know you told me you're at Central Coast, California. I can't picture in my head what population looks like there. But I can tell you in the DC Metro, you know when we have a shop in Alexandria that I think within 1 mile radius there's probably 100,000 people. Right. I mean it's insane you know, so I mean our method, you know, going back in time when I had a pretty, you know, good, a pretty significant hand in creating our marketing pieces, I was more about trying to sell our brand.
Dave Krukowski [00:47:12]:
Right. So we would come up with these entire, you know, eight by eleven or whatever the size is like a whole full sheet of paper postcard and we would dedicate one side to education. And you know I thought that that was pretty valuable and pretty impactful. But it's hard to measure that, right. Because it's just impressions, right? Nobody is walking in with this and saying here, I just learned about how the air conditioning system works in the car and I'd like to do business with you, right. But really that happened. And so it's funny for me when I look back and look at what we used to create kind of in house and you know, versus where we are now, I think, you know, it's hard for me to quantify a number because I don't know the exact number. But I would just say that, you know, probably more than 50% of our business is based on retention marketing.
Dave Krukowski [00:48:13]:
Right. And even though we're in a very transient area where I think the population, you know, literally turns over every seven years. But you know, we came up with, you know, I mean it's not rocket science. We came up with the oil change reminder, the inspection reminder, the BG service every two year reminder, the, you know, the tire reminder based on the mileage you drive and how long the tires are supposed to last and you know, the alignment once a year and, you know, your brakes were done 30,000 miles ago. I mean, basic stuff. There's no, there's no we to reinvent here, right? It's at least I don't think there is. I think that there's those core services that drive our business that we are going to be able to predict when people need them and hopefully get better at predicting when people need them and provide insight that's valuable, that drives them back into our shop. But when you think about that concept, right, again, it's mostly impression based.
Dave Krukowski [00:49:19]:
Right. And I don't think, you know, if I go back in time, I'd say, you know, ten years ago we would, you know, maybe it was a decline service or it was, you know, we had done a break job previously and we would send them a coupon for their, you know, what we anticipated was their next break job, and people would come in and say, hey, I got this coupon. I'd like you to check my breaks and so on. Now, it's, it's so much less of that. And I have to believe it's the same across our industry. Whereas, you know, we're just, we're giving people valuable information, but there isn't necessarily an offer attached to it or there isn't necessarily an offer that they act upon. But somewhere along the line, we reminded them, you know, two or three or four times that their breaks are coming due and they're not walking in and saying they need breaks, but it just keeps us fresh in their mind. Right.
Dave Krukowski [00:50:13]:
And I think that that's, you know, that the customer retention piece is, you know, it is, it's hard to measure. Right. But, I mean, it's, again, when you think about, you know, a place, you know, like our flagship location that could do 1000 or 1100 cars in a month, I mean, that's absolutely critical. And of course, you know, you can measure it just by comparing to yourself. Right. I imagine in a, you know, in a setting where, you know, you're, you're specialized in transmissions or you say 70% of the cars come in for transmission work. You know, there's, that's a whole different ball of wax in terms of, you know, how you market to people. And in my mind, I mean, I don't know, direct mailers, you know, again, that would have to be impression based because you think about the amount of cars on the road and the amount of people that are, the amount of drivers that there are.
Dave Krukowski [00:51:09]:
And just how often does someone need a transmission replaced, right.
Jimmy Purdy [00:51:13]:
It's not very often it's a different mindset they have. You know, it's, it's not, they're not scheduling their next service. They're something, something catastrophic happened and they're on, on the phone, online, on the side of the road. Where do I take my car right now? And if you're not top of mind, you better be top of Google. And that's kind of like, I mean, that, that was, that's basically it. I mean, that's, that's, there's no way around saying anything other than that. And I think it makes it tough for retention because of the amount of pain they go through when they come in. And I think that circles back to like the 300% rule in the DVI inspection.
Jimmy Purdy [00:51:52]:
And if every time your client comes in, they're spending 3000 or $3,500, they don't really want to come in anymore. You know, if they go to another shop and they spend two dollar 300 every time they go there, it doesn't, it's tough because I'm trying to provide the right thing. I'm trying to tell them the right thing. You know, you don't want their tie rod to break off. You want to make sure it's safe. You want to make sure you're. Yeah, there's the sales point. So we want to make sure you're capturing everything so the next shop doesn't, you know, capture it and become the hero.
Jimmy Purdy [00:52:24]:
But also you want to make sure it's safe and you want to make sure, hey, you know, there's clients out there that really want every single drip to be fixed. They don't want anything with their car. They don't want anything to worry about. And, and it's hard to know who's going to be who, you know? So you just say, you know what, I'll just blanket everything. Everything gets the 300% rule. We're just going to do the db on everything. But then they come in and they spend $2,500 or $3,000 and you're like, man, every year I come in, it's this huge bill. I go to this other shop and he, and it's an oil change.
Jimmy Purdy [00:52:55]:
And maybe he tells me I need breaks and that's it, you know, and he doesn't, they don't go through the air filter, the cabin air filter or check the, you know, power steering flush, brake fluid flush, they don't add all that stuff on there. And I think it just changes, um, for one client, expectations. Now they feel like, well, that's all my car really needed. So that other shop must have been ripping me off, right? Uh, I think, I think that's part of the problem too. And that makes it really hard. Cause I, I mean, if I go to, every time we go to the dentist, it sucks, right? So we don't like going to the dentist. But if you went and all I did was a cleaning and it wasn't uncomfortable, you're like, oh, that wasn't that bad, I'd probably go there again. It doesn't really matter how much you got charged.
Jimmy Purdy [00:53:33]:
It's the fact that like it was uncomfortable for you, you know?
Dave Krukowski [00:53:36]:
Sure. You're kind of hitting me in a sweet spot there because, you know, there's an unwritten rule, at least in my mind, in our industry. No, it's a written rule for me. Right. I. If you has the service center up the street makes a recommendation to a customer, right. And they come to me for a second opinion, don't you? We are dying. We're dying to tell them that they don't need that, right? They don't need it, right.
Dave Krukowski [00:54:14]:
That guy was lying to you. And, you know, and that exists so much, so often, you know, it. It's like self defeating, right? And by the way, I mean, you know, if a customer comes into my shop with a leaking oil pan gasket as an example, I mean, it's my job to assess a severity, right? Call it a one to ten or whatever you want to, but it's almost like when they come to our shop after someone else pinpointed this, that one to ten scale, like wants to change a little bit, right?
Jimmy Purdy [00:54:54]:
Oh, yeah. Tech to tech, shop to shop. I mean, you can, you could have a team of ten technicians all do a DVI and they're going to have ten different outcomes. So you go to another shop and it's like the. Yeah, the level of severity and then what's in your mind and do you need it? What do you mean by do you need it? It's like when's the next time you're planning on being at an auto shop? Because if, if it's in two years, then you need it today, but if it's in six months, you can probably wait, you know, so it's, there's that. Right?
Dave Krukowski [00:55:26]:
I love, I love. Well, I actually, I hate the word need. I really hate it because again, I can, I can circle, circle back to my dad a million times over when I think about the worst auto repair customer you could have. What does need mean? Right? Cause my dad would tell you if he drove his car and he doesn't need anything. Right.
Jimmy Purdy [00:55:48]:
That's fair.
Dave Krukowski [00:55:49]:
And obviously, you know, it's up to us to decipher that and relay that in a way that makes sense. But, you know, I really don't, like, ever use that word. I don't ever use the word need because I feel like, you know, that's like a pressure word. That's a pressure tactic and you know, it. I mean, I don't know.
Jimmy Purdy [00:56:14]:
No, I get it. Yeah. You don't need it. I'm just recommending it.
Dave Krukowski [00:56:17]:
Right. And it's like, it's like, you know, also when, when someone asks you, you know, you tell them, you know, again, your oil pan gaskets leaking. Well, how long do I have? Like, I don't know, until you're on the side of the road with a tow truck.
Jimmy Purdy [00:56:31]:
You know, you run out of oil, tell it stops leaking because then you're out.
Dave Krukowski [00:56:35]:
But, I mean, you know, it's one of those things, like, you know, I I don't know. I just, I despise that. I despise the word because it's dangerous, you know, and using, you know, to me, it's just about relaying the information. And so, you know, that leads me to want to talk about digital inspections. And, you know, I think I actually, you know, I either linked up with you or, you know, saw maybe something you posted in one of the groups on social media, and I've started partaking in them because I really want to see, you know, what other people are doing. At some points in time. I feel like we've got it all figured out, and at some points in time, I realize we don't. And I like to talk about the digital inspection because I have a very specific process that, of course, I think it's the best.
Dave Krukowski [00:57:34]:
Right. I think it's the best. I have a hard time understanding if anyone does not understand my process. Right. So my process for the digital inspection is this, number one. Well, number one would be, you know, just basically once the technician completes the digital inspection, I want to have a phone call with the customer, right. And my phone call is just simply to touch on the highlights of that. I do believe there's a lot of shops out there that, you know, maybe prepare the customer at drop off or whatever it might be and then just kind of fire off that information.
Dave Krukowski [00:58:22]:
But for me, that's not advising. Right? At that point, you're not advising. You're just kind of, you're giving them a bunch of information and letting them decide what's most important, right? That's number one. Number two, I am firmly set in an information only setting. I am not going to build up a bunch of estimates and attach it to every line item on that DVI and send it off to a customer. Why? Because I want their buy in on that. Right. I want to talk to you and, okay, so you've got 120,000 miles and, you know, you haven't followed the factory maintenance schedule for ten years.
Dave Krukowski [00:59:05]:
And, you know, you quote unquote, need spark plugs and you need struts, you need tires, you need brakes, or all these things are recommended by the technician. I want to get feedback from the customer to determine what they care about. Right. And I think that, you know, if you do a quality digital inspection on an older vehicle that has not been well maintained, it is easy to write estimates totaling five or seven or $10,000 and just completely baffle somebody and blow them out of the water. So for me, I just want to share information only. So my process is I get the inspection back from the technician, of course, I review it, I edit it, right, to, number one, align with the service history, not only in our system, but in Carfax to make valid mileage and time based recommendations. I, of course, clean up the verbiage. As you know, the technicians don't like to write the best sentences and statements.
Dave Krukowski [01:00:16]:
But more importantly, I want to talk to the customer. I want them to review that information, and I want to talk about what our game plan is going to be. Does that make sense to you? 100% of estimates at all?
Jimmy Purdy [01:00:32]:
Yeah, I mean, and that brings up a good point with, depending on who the client is and trying to have a process so that I am not or my wife's not involved with every single, you know, vehicle. Not to say that it's, you know, like, we're too good for it. It's not what I mean. I just mean, when you have another rider service advisor that's working, you want to make sure that they're delivering the same expectations that we did. And some people love that online you have shopware, right? So this, I mean, I've had such a huge amount of success and a lot of positive feedback from that when they send them the portal and they're like, oh, it was so, that was so nice. I clicked the link. I, I could look through what I wanted to do, I could click what I wanted, what I didn't want. And I think that gives them time to kind of in their own mind, you know, with their own thoughts, figure out what they want to do or go talk to their significant other or their dad or whoever is mechanically inclined and be able to say, hey, what is, you know, they can just make the decision on their own without any sort of outside influence.
Jimmy Purdy [01:01:34]:
And then we make the phone call, you know, after we see, because, you know, you can see when they open it up. So we wait ten or 15 minutes, we give them a call, and then we can have the conversation. Hey, we saw you open it up. What do you think? Like, what are you. Any questions about anything? And so, yeah, obviously we got to have that conversation. We do it post, post that. Obviously we go through and make sure the DVI looks clean. And there isn't words like, hey, so I'm in the can right now.
Jimmy Purdy [01:01:58]:
I'll finish it when I'm done or whatever. So, yeah, yeah, you got to clean it up and polish it a little bit and then send it out. But, yeah, we just send them out, and then we wait for the replies. In fact, at the end of the day, sometimes, you know, that's what we'll do. Hey, we're going to send you over a DVI. We're out for the day. Your vehicle is going to be inside. It's locked up.
Jimmy Purdy [01:02:16]:
Everything's good. You don't need it back. Okay, good. So we're going to send you over the inspection, go through it over, you know, this evening, and we'll talk in the morning. And that's it. That's just our touch point. We don't really call then say, hey, so these are the things we found, because I've come to find that they want. They want prices right away, and.
Jimmy Purdy [01:02:34]:
And then they, you know, I'm not gonna hold you to it, but what do you think it's gonna cost, right? It's like, well, if you're not gonna hold me to it, I don't really want. I don't know. Like, oh, and then. And then you look kind of ignorant, right? Like, oh, you don't know what it's gonna cost to do a transmission service on that truck. It's like, no, not off the top of my head. I'm sorry, but that's the expectation.
Dave Krukowski [01:02:56]:
Yeah, but that. That, for me, that comes back to a basic fundamental of controlling the conversation. Right?
Jimmy Purdy [01:03:01]:
Yeah.
Dave Krukowski [01:03:02]:
And, you know, again, for me, you know, one thing that I learned early on in my time in this field was, you know, when everything was just a phone call, there was no digital inspection. Everything was a phone call to not give prices as you go. Right? And here's why? I mean, there's a reason why if you sit down in a restaurant, I mean, sure, the prices are probably listed on the menu 99.9% of time, but do you ask the server for a salad? And then they're like, well, that's going to be $12.99 just so you know. Right. And can I get a lemonade? Well, just, you know, that's going to be $4. Right. There's a reason they don't do that and that's basically what we're doing in a sense. So I learned this and it stuck with me forever.
Dave Krukowski [01:03:55]:
And, you know, when I would call a client to discuss 4512 things, I know the first thing they're going to ask me after I tell them, number one, you need ball joints. They ask how much it is. I say, you know what, I don't have the prices in front of me. Let me go through this information with you and then we'll talk about the prices because what happens? They stop listening. Right. You tell somebody you want to tell them twelve things about their car and the first thing is 1200 bucks. They're not listening anymore. Right.
Dave Krukowski [01:04:25]:
They're literally just focused on the price. And so I've tried to kind of parallel that to the digital inspection process. So are you saying that when you send over the digital inspection, they've already got all the estimates included? Right.
Jimmy Purdy [01:04:39]:
Correct. Yeah.
Dave Krukowski [01:04:40]:
So I mean, you know, I love talking about this subject because I am so set in the idea that I want to relay information before I relay prices. Now, I also can say there's a big difference here, right. If you came in on a hook, right. And you need a transmission, like I'm not going to send you a digital inspection that says you need a transmission and then wait for you to communicate with me, I'm going to give you the estimate. But I guess I'm talking about the idea that, you know, we are doing high volume oil changes and high volume touches and I don't just want to share unwanted information. Right. And so, you know, and I've not argued, but I mean, I've scoff at the responses. I've gotten to this in a public setting in some of these groups because, you know, I posted a question and I forget what group it was.
Dave Krukowski [01:05:37]:
And my question was, do you give customers estimates that they don't want. Right. And what I mean is if someone, if my dad makes it clear to me that he doesn't ever want to change his brake fluid, should I send him an estimate to change his brake fluid? Because I think he's going to think to himself, they're not listening to me, right. They're not paying attention to everything I've told them the last twelve visits. Right. So, I mean, I guess there's the mindset of also, you know, well, he's never going to buy it if you don't present to him. But I don't know, I think that me giving my dad an estimate to change his brake fluid when he's told me every visit, he's not interested in doing that. That's kind of a disservice.
Dave Krukowski [01:06:23]:
And I think, who knows where that falls on the DVI list. But I mean, if, God forbid, that's the first thing he sees, he's probably not listening to anything else I say. It's a dicey subject, but it's something I believe pretty strongly in. And I think that, you know, the DVI also, depending how much verbiage you put into it, really dismisses the idea of advising. Right? Again, I'm trying in my head to parallel your business to ours. Right.
Jimmy Purdy [01:07:04]:
Ours. Yeah, I said. And like, to your point of like, with your dad coming in and then you have the people screaming right now, like, well, then send that client out. You know, if he ain't gonna. If he ain't gonna follow our rules and he doesn't wanna spend money here and all he does is come in for an oil change, then he's not who we want in the door anyway. Okay, cool. Well, think about this. Your pops is pretty well educated and he probably helps a lot of other people in the neighborhood with their vehicles.
Jimmy Purdy [01:07:30]:
You think if you treat him right and you listen to him, you quit telling him he needs a brake fluid flush. Maybe he's gonna start recommending his friends that he helps out to your shop because, hey, these guys listen to me, right? And maybe that floods your shop with a bunch of people you don't want, but it's still opportunity either way. So I think that's important to kind of think about too. Like it's, I mean, especially for me. Like, instead of saying, you know what, you don't want to, you know, spend this hundred dollars, then you're not, you're not coming into the shop. Like, that's not how we play ball. You don't want to get on, you don't want to play with us. So that's fine, go somewhere else.
Jimmy Purdy [01:08:02]:
But then I'm missing all these opportunities of people like your dad that probably have a lot of educated friends, or maybe that he helps them out and he can recommend them to the shop. So it's definitely missed opportunities, for sure.
Dave Krukowski [01:08:15]:
Yeah. And, I mean, I mentioned that a little earlier because, you know, the fact is, I have customers, like, often that come into our shop and we find out that, you know, they were referred by someone who, you know, came to us one time five years ago, and it's like, how did. How'd this come about? Right. How did that happen? No idea. But the fact is, you know, it. We obviously treated them right. And we did, you know, we gave them what they asked for. Right.
Dave Krukowski [01:08:49]:
And again, like I said, I hate to, but I like to continue to use my dad as an example. If I give him what he's asking for, right. And of course, I have to satisfy our minimum requirements. Right. If I see obvious safety infractions, I have to report them. But, you know, what I don't have to do is invest 30 minutes of my time, you know, 20 minutes of my time. Maybe even waste 30 minutes of his time creating all these estimates for services that he's not interested in. Right.
Dave Krukowski [01:09:20]:
And I think that that's, you know, that is absolutely paramount to me. You know, and again, I might find out someday that I'm. I've got this all wrong, but I just. When I look at the high volume play, you know, you have to listen to people's needs or wants and treat them accordingly, in my opinion.
Jimmy Purdy [01:09:44]:
I think you're right. I think there's two sides of the spectrum. I think you're more. More of that old school kind of feel, which is making, I think, a lot more strides right now, because there's so much technology, and people are clients in particular, coming in, and they kind of want that old feel of, like, they walk in and they're comforted. It's not all just automated everything. You know, they want a little bit of interaction with someone who seems knowledgeable, that seems like their dad, right, that they come in like, oh, okay. I feel like he's gonna. He's gonna take care of me, you know? And.
Jimmy Purdy [01:10:20]:
And the two sides of the spectrum is you have the ones that don't look at anything. It's in here. Just the water leak. Just look at the coolant leak. That's all we're worried about. Don't worry about the rest of the vehicle. We don't want to, you know, and then you have the other side of where it's like, we're going to nitpick this car until there is nothing left, no stone left unturned, and we're going to give this huge, you know, $5,000 estimate. And I think there's.
Jimmy Purdy [01:10:41]:
There's a sweet spot right there in the middle. And it's really difficult to just make. Make a blanket statement and just say, this is what you have to do with every vehicle because there's that, that spectrum in the middle there. And then you have the client that might want to have it a little bit heavy on one side or a little heavy on the other side. And it's hard to say who's. Who's right and who's wrong because everybody's so damn different, you know, who knows? But the important thing is to be able to change, you know? And I think that's the most important thing, is to be able to pivot and say, okay, we're getting a little heavy here. It's time to cut it back a little bit. And for me, especially having a heavy aro and moving that, you know, and we don't, I guess the percentage there, I was saying we're definitely more heavy into general repair now.
Jimmy Purdy [01:11:27]:
So we've definitely made a huge pivot in the last year. And that's kind of the numbers that we're getting now is basically just general auto repair. And I see the potential there. But then I'm also a little nervous using that kind of, what do you call it? Template that we've been running in the general auto repair. Because then I talked to you and with, with, you know, multiple shops, and it's like, whoa, you're doing what? With what? Like, I don't know, is this bad? Am I, like, building a house of cards right now? You know what I mean? Like, does this, does that high aro ticket model really transition into the general service side? That's where I'm at.
Dave Krukowski [01:12:08]:
Well, since I know you edit this, by the way, please tell me to shut up at any point because I can literally talk for hours. Okay. But, you know, I posed another question to one of the groups, right? And I said, and again, this is a loaded question. I said, would you rather have 500 cars with a dollar 600 average arro or 600 cars with a dollar 500 average arrl? Now, I already know the answer that almost every single person is going to give. Of course you want the less cards with the higher average. Right? But that answer is contingent upon other things, like, where's your business? Right? What is your business model? Right? So for us, again, transient area, turnover in population every seven years. The whole population. Do I want 500 or 600 clients? I think I want 600.
Dave Krukowski [01:13:05]:
Right? I'm pretty sure of it. You know, maybe I have that wrong. I mean, but I think that, I don't know, I just, sorry.
Jimmy Purdy [01:13:17]:
It depends on your, on how your shots shop is set up and if you can handle that and, and all that. But that's an interesting concept to think about is instead of looking at money and dollars, look at the people and maybe, you know, touching more people, you know, well that sounded bad saying it like that. But you know, it's getting more people.
Dave Krukowski [01:13:43]:
It's building a pipeline. Right.
Jimmy Purdy [01:13:45]:
Right.
Dave Krukowski [01:13:45]:
And, you know, and for me, you know, I mean think about the other things that you don't track. Right? The, the word of mouth referrals or the reviews. Right. Well guess what? If, if I work on 600 cars instead of 500 and I do a great job on all of them, assuming I'm going to get more positive reviews out of 600 cars and 500. Right. I want to get more word of mouth referrals out of 605 hundred, I'm going to get more chances that your son or your daughter is going to bring your car to us when they need something. If I work on 600 and not 500. Right.
Dave Krukowski [01:14:22]:
I mean those are just things that are obvious to me. Um.
Jimmy Purdy [01:14:30]:
Those are, yeah, those are, I mean it's, it's a good, it's something to wrap your mind around when you're talking about marketing. So I think, like you said, when it comes to marketing and you have the agency or your marketer ask you, hey, what is it your goal is? Oh, well, I want to, you know, up my arrow. So I want to market to the, to the rich neighborhoods and I want to get the expensive cars in here. And I mean that's what we want. We want the highest return on investment. And what is that in your mind? In my mind is, well, you want to be able to have a vehicle come in and have them spend twelve to $1,500 on every visit. That's your fastest return on investment. I mean, maybe I'm wrong there, but I think looking at the bigger picture and like you said, if you can get maybe 50 more cars a month, and even though those tickets are maybe half of that, maybe they're 500 or 600, you still have way more opportunity and then you can lower your marketing budget because now you have more referrals going out.
Jimmy Purdy [01:15:30]:
It's definitely a positive thing.
Dave Krukowski [01:15:32]:
There's two more things I want to touch on, if that's okay.
Jimmy Purdy [01:15:34]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Dave Krukowski [01:15:36]:
So number one is the God almighty, terrible, terrible concept. The, you know, I want to use the word side work, but it's not really side work. It's just like backdoor deals, right? That, that, that our industry inherited and encourages, right? At some point, I don't know where or when this all came about, but I bring this up for a reason. I have, you know, I mean, I'm a golfer. I belong to a club. I have probably a group of 60 friends, right, that are all members of the club. And I mention that because, you know, if there was ever people that you wanted to support your industry, support what you're doing, it's, you know, that's a good sector of people. The good sector being people that have enough expendable income that they belong to a country club, right? I mean, that's a great clientele to have.
Dave Krukowski [01:16:39]:
But I mention that because I don't know any different. All I knew from day one is I want to promote this business and I want my friends to support me. And I think, you know, like, compared to any other field, I mean, you know, I don't know, you have a friend that works at an electronic store or, you know, some sort of high end store where you might make a large purchase, right? I think that you look to them for some sort of deal, right? I mean, of course we all want a friend who can hook us up, but for some reason in our field, I mean, again, and having large, high volume shops just make this makes this much more relevant for me. It's like there's always this concept that, you know, the technicians have got to do their friend's break job for nothing, right? And I struggle with this forever and ever because shouldn't your friends support what you're doing? Right. I mean, we are providing an atmosphere that allows, you know, a technician, hopefully, to flourish and to provide for his family and have a good life. And the end result is that he doesn't want to send his friend into the lobby, right, to check in as a normal customer, to allow us to service their car to the highest standard like we do with every other client. Instead, they have this. This notion that, you know, they want.
Dave Krukowski [01:18:13]:
People want something for free. And I brought that up because, well.
Jimmy Purdy [01:18:17]:
It feels like it's expected.
Dave Krukowski [01:18:20]:
Yeah, but think about, like, what other industry? I mean, I try to do a comparison if you want to, you know, I don't know if you want to put brake pads and rotors on your buddy's car that he bought or you bought for him and use the shop to do that. I mean, I don't want to have a fight about it. But what I do want to understand is the why, right? The why? Because you know, my comparison would be, you know, am I going to show up to a restaurant that my friend works at and either, number one, bring my steak and ask him to cook it for me because I like the ambience, but I don't want to pay the money to, to be there. Or better yet, I mean, am I going to ask him to just give me a steak and bring it outside the back door?
Jimmy Purdy [01:19:09]:
Right?
Dave Krukowski [01:19:09]:
Like, I don't understand that.
Jimmy Purdy [01:19:11]:
You know, I guess on that one, it'd be the same. Like, if they're hanging out at your house and you guys are having a couple beers and you're like, hey, bud, there's some steaks in the, in the fridge. You want to cook them for me? You know, like. And it's like, as awkward as that sounds, is like, that's the same thing, isn't it?
Dave Krukowski [01:19:28]:
But, I mean, tell me this. Do you have, you know, that experience within our industry? Because I have that every day of my life. And no matter how many policies we lay out, it's like people just, you know, technicians want to buck the system, right? And then I don't understand why, other than to say that we created it.
Jimmy Purdy [01:19:50]:
At some point, it fresh. I mean, it's frustrating. I've, and I've gotten to the point where I just kind of, I guess you could say, turn a blind eye to it or just accepted it for what it is. I mean, we allow, if they have their own car, their family cars, like, yeah, use the shop, man. Like, don't, you know, I don't want you getting hurt. Like, if I can help you with what we have here, like, just bring it in and do it. But it's like, even with the family, you would think with family, they should want to support the business as well because the business is supporting their children or their relatives are. Right, right.
Jimmy Purdy [01:20:21]:
Like, I totally get your point. And it's just, it's just really hard because if, if I don't offer the help, then they're just gonna, it's just gonna go somewhere else and figure it out, you know? And it's like, well, you know what? I'll just, I'd rather just help that situation than just fight about it, you know? But, yeah, every weekend they're going home, they got, you know, they're helping their neighbors out there. Whatever's going on, you know what? That's fine. Go make, go make the cash. And I guess it comes down to not experiencing, like, your level of high volume where I'm like, you know what doesn't really matter to me. We have our client base. I'm not really worried about it because if that's the money they want to spend and that's the level of service that they, that they want as a client, that I'm perfectly okay with that. I.
Jimmy Purdy [01:21:04]:
We're not here to provide that service, you know what I mean? If that makes any sense. So that's kind of like where I come from. And I can imagine getting to the point where you're servicing a thousand vehicles a month and then you see the numbers going down. It's like you're really starting to pay attention to every vehicle that's possibly being serviced by one of your own technicians, you know, on the, on the side, you know, and I get that, but I'm not there yet. But it's just tough. It's like, because what do you do? What can you say without causing friction? And that's the last thing I want to do is like, I want to help you, you know? So use the shop if you need it. That's kind of where I'm at.
Dave Krukowski [01:21:48]:
That makes sense. I mean, so, I mean, how many bays do you have?
Jimmy Purdy [01:21:52]:
Five. An alignment bay in four lifts.
Dave Krukowski [01:21:57]:
And so again, right, I mean, you know, you as a single, you know, owner, operator, you know, way different than eight locations, right? I mean, eight locations forces you to have things like policies and procedures, manual and, you know, standard operating procedures. And, you know, every time you think of something, you know, that is important to the organization, you have to share it and have people sign off on it and.
Jimmy Purdy [01:22:22]:
Oh, yeah, we have, we have, we have some similar protocols. We. I mean, everything, everything from an, you know, crank no start to a toe in to. I mean, everything has its own, you know, procedure that I want to make sure everyone's following so we're on the same page. So I'm. I'm that type of person, though. I like putting those procedures in. I like knowing that, you know, if there is an issue, I know where to step in and I know where they're going to be in that process because it's written down, hopefully.
Dave Krukowski [01:22:52]:
To that point. Do you have a written down policy for employee repairs?
Jimmy Purdy [01:22:58]:
I don't. That is not one that, that. Yeah, I guess. I guess trying to ignore that, I've ignored it.
Dave Krukowski [01:23:08]:
You know, sometimes the juice isn't worth the squeeze. Right. But again, I. I just approach this from an angle that we're good at what we do. Right. Number one, you're a tech, you know, you're the technician in our shop. Are we good at what we do. Yeah, we're checking that box.
Dave Krukowski [01:23:22]:
Okay, good. Number two, we're fair, right? Are we checking that box? Sure. Number three, we're a retail establishment, right? So, I mean, are we going to charge your friend more than if they did themselves? Obviously. Right. But guess what? You know, those three principles, you know, allow you to, you know, have a pretty good life, right? So I don't need to elaborate on that anymore. It's just I'm pretty passionate about that because, again, I know how I treat it, right. And I treat it as I want my friends and my family to support this business, and I want to stand behind what I do enough that I feel good about that. Right.
Dave Krukowski [01:24:06]:
I don't feel like I need to give away the farm every time you walk in. Right. So, yeah, the last thing that I want to talk about. So you use shopware as well, is that right?
Jimmy Purdy [01:24:19]:
Yep.
Dave Krukowski [01:24:19]:
Okay. And again, you know, clearly different atmospheres for us both. But I will tell you that I have a struggle, and my struggle is when vehicles have a, you know, somewhat lengthy decline history, right? So lots of past recommendations that haven't been done. I find that the technicians, you know, look at that and then change the way they evaluate a car, right. Because they have this preconceived notion that, well, this person's not gonna do what we say. So, you know, and I gotta be honest with you, I struggle with that because, you know, I just recently moved locations and or change locations. And from our kind of our flagship that we built up enough that could survive without me to a shop that needs some attention. And what I found is even though we've only been using shopware for a year and a half, there's a lot of bad data, right? And I say bad data.
Dave Krukowski [01:25:30]:
Like, okay, if a customer. If you recommended a coolant flush and a brake flush a year and a half ago, and then they declined it, that stays there. But then they came in again and you wrote a new estimate, and next thing you know, there's, like, these previous recommendations for the same services four times over. And, you know, it's just like, bad data in, bad data out. But I bring that up because I don't ever assume anything. I don't. You know, my. I think my mission, as it pertains to what I just said is basically to clean up that data, right.
Dave Krukowski [01:26:07]:
And figure out kind of what we've talked about. It's like, how do I figure out what this customer wants and how they want us to serve them? But it's. It is a constant struggle for me when somebody walks in, it's like, well, I guess if I want this car to get checked out properly, I better just delete all of these previous recommendations that are there, right? Because otherwise I'm going to get a, you know, a rubber stamp or the bare minimum because all, they're not going to do anything anyway. And, you know, I look at most interactions as an opportunity or to, you know, hopefully say something that, that resonates with someone or do something differently than we've done in the past. And I'm just curious, do you have, have you experienced what I'm saying at all? I mean, does that make sense to you or.
Jimmy Purdy [01:26:53]:
I do know what you're saying. I guess I haven't had that type of pain point with our technicians. As far as them thinking about the selling side of it, I think they're really more concerned in the safety of it. And if they see something that has been recommended before and it still needs to be done, it's more like, I can't believe they haven't done this yet and then, you know, they're recommending it. So, um, but also our process, we make sure that our technicians are paid productivity for the inspection every time. So if the vehicle's in more than once a year, we're not doing a reinspection, it's yearly inspection and, and then that's it. So then if twelve months go by, then we're doing a whole nother DVI on it. We're doing from, from, you know, from scratch up and they're paid.
Jimmy Purdy [01:27:47]:
Um, right now we got them at .6 for our standard basic and then we do a full 1 hour, which is our elite inspection, and they get one full hour for that, just for the inspection. And I think that helps a lot too. Even though the amount of detail that I expect it takes an hour. It does take an hour, but it's just an inspection. You're not really doing much. So as far as like manual labor, you're just looking at everything. So I think that helps too. Just making sure that, you know, we give them the time that they need to actually do the inspection.
Jimmy Purdy [01:28:27]:
But also for a shop where is fairly new, I think we got about four months into it. So that's probably another reason we don't have that much data collected yet. Let's just see how that's going to look on the backside. It's something I'm going to be checking out for though, because I'm not sure what that's going to look like.
Dave Krukowski [01:28:46]:
Well, you know, I think, you know, just to kind of go back to what we were talking about earlier, I mean, I, you know, I think the interviewing process as it pertains to that data, the previous recommendations, you know, is kind of critical. Right. Because you have to clean it up. Because if you don't, you know, I think what we like to forget is you send that digital inspection off to someone, it's. It's literally sending them not only what you recommend today, but every previous recommendation. And those quickly and easily lose their validity if someone had it done already. Right. And if we didn't ask the right questions when they walked in.
Jimmy Purdy [01:29:23]:
Interesting. Yeah, I don't. Yeah, I haven't seen. I guess the wrecks go out like that. Obviously, something that needs to be. Yeah, nobody wants that, you know, and. And to kind of circle back real quick on marketing, it's kind of like pushing ads and doing, you know, certain ad content that you might see on social media or on Google. Google Ads is like, I don't know how many times I've ever clicked on any of those ads that's really popped up, whether it be on Facebook or on Google.
Jimmy Purdy [01:29:52]:
And it's like, nobody likes that stuff, but yet it's pushed, you know, in marketing, like, do the ads, do the ads, do the ads. You're like, okay, I'm spending. I'll spend more money. And it's like, I'm not getting enough cards. What I do well up your ads budget. Okay, you got it. And I'm doing. And then.
Jimmy Purdy [01:30:06]:
But to look at it as, like, a consumer, I'm never clicking on those ads. It's an interesting thing to think about. And it's the same thing if you keep pushing these recommendations. Like, I don't want all these. I, like you said, I want a phone call. I want to talk to you. What do you think my vehicle needs? Right? Like, I got no problem spending some money. Like, I want to take care of my car, but I don't want to keep getting pushed.
Jimmy Purdy [01:30:26]:
All these, like, these, like, recommendations and quotes. Right? Like, I don't. I don't like that. I'd rather have a community, a call, and like, hey, so this is what I think about your car. This is what I would do if it was mine. Oh, that all sounds fantastic. Let's do that. But yet we're all pushed with this, this notion of, like, oh, send them the digital vehicle inspection and let them do it on their own.
Jimmy Purdy [01:30:47]:
And I know I'm, like, kind of back talking myself a little bit, but it's it's like, how exactly do you want it? As if you were the consumer. But then they're like, well, don't. You can't, you know, you can't spend your own money on someone else's car. You can't estimate vehicles based on what's in your pocket. So it's tough. It's tough to know what is expected.
Dave Krukowski [01:31:08]:
Well, again, I mean, what you're saying is. Exactly. What I said is it becomes less advising. Right? I'm not advising you. Right. I mean, today I had. And please, I hope you operate the same way. Maybe you don't, but, you know, are you the type of shop that, you know, you know, you're getting brakes.
Dave Krukowski [01:31:27]:
We're going to recommend a brake flush if it's due, I hope. That's probably real. Right? I mean, I love the add on fluid changes, right? Oh, you're getting a differential seal replaced. We're going to change differential fluid. And those are separate line items. But where that becomes problematic is, you know, I send off an estimate today and, you know, probably ten things on the estimate, and the guy chose to replace the differential seal, but didn't choose the front differential service. And I could, you know, we could argue whether or not that's real or, you know, for me, it's real. For me, it's a BG service.
Dave Krukowski [01:32:04]:
Now, you're part of the protection plan and whatnot. But I'm giving him a choice at that point. Right. Like what to choose from. And so what that's trained me to do, specifically relating to shopware, is to build jobs that contain more items. Right. Like, if I know that every time we replace the struts on this acadia, the sway bar links are noisy. Right.
Dave Krukowski [01:32:28]:
I'm not going to send you two separate estimates, one for the struts and one for the sway bar links. I'm just going to make one estimate right. Here it is. I mean, that's what it has to be. And.
Jimmy Purdy [01:32:39]:
Yeah. Like doing a water pump on a timing belt. Like, we're doing both. You don't get to choose just the water pump or hanging your own timing belt back on.
Dave Krukowski [01:32:46]:
Right. But that's what we promote. Right. I mean, to a point, to an.
Jimmy Purdy [01:32:50]:
Extent, yeah, I could see that, how.
Dave Krukowski [01:32:52]:
You build the jobs.
Jimmy Purdy [01:32:53]:
Right. I mean, the level, the competency of the advisor is. Has a big role of it, too. And the communication between the technician and the advisor that, I mean, with shopware in particular, I've noticed, really needs to be stepped up. I mean, that needs to be the next level because just like you said, I mean, most of us can look up a timing belt kit and the water pumps on there. But how do we know that the sway bar end links go bad? Because when we do the struts or selling the differential service with the pinion seal, you know, unless you're mechanically inclined, it's really difficult to know those until you have that problem. And then you create the system on the back end, which is what I think most of us do. You wait for a problem and then write it up.
Jimmy Purdy [01:33:37]:
But it doesn't always work that way.
Dave Krukowski [01:33:39]:
And to the point of what I just said, right? I mean, think about this. If I'm saying, you know, replace a front differential pinion seal, I could easily just loop into that well and change the differential gear oil. Now, why did we not do that? Because we have reminders set up based on those can jobs based on that differential service that once you do this, we're going to remind you in thirty k to do it again. Right. But the fact is, you know, I had to have a kind of call it an awkward conversation with a customer thereafter, like, hey, I saw what you approved, but, you know, we cannot do this differential service. I'm sorry, we have to do this differential service, you know, with the replacement of a seal. So you get my point. I mean, it's just, like I said, it becomes less advising and, you know, it's almost like part of me thinks it may be better just to send a digital inspection with no estimates then.
Dave Krukowski [01:34:37]:
Verbalized estimates. Right. And maybe I've got that wrong, but I just. I know that, you know, we are at an interesting time because the electronic communications, you know, limit our skills. Right? Limit our ability to advise people. And, you know, that presents to me a challenge if we rely 100% on digital communications. Right? And so.
Jimmy Purdy [01:35:03]:
Yeah, yeah. You're not ordering a cheeseburger with no ketchup and no pickles or whatever, right? Like, this stuff requires a detailed explanation. It really does. And even though it makes perfect sense to us, when we. When we get church up this little DVI and we send it over, who knows how that's interpreted on the other end. And I think it's important to think about it like that. For sure.
Dave Krukowski [01:35:26]:
Yeah. Cool, man. Well.
Jimmy Purdy [01:35:29]:
Well, this has been great. This is. Well, we got some good timing in this one.
Dave Krukowski [01:35:35]:
Listen, I told you, man, I can talk until I'm blue in the face.
Jimmy Purdy [01:35:39]:
I really appreciate you coming on and spending time with me.