Dealer Insights Podcast

Vin Micciche explores the transformative role of service BDCs in retaining loyal customers. He discusses strategies for managing appointment overflow, reducing advisor burnout through empathetic call handling, and using CSI-focused follow-ups to mitigate negative surveys. Vin highlights how missed calls directly correlate with customer defection to competitors. Key takeaway: “Answering a service call in under three rings isn’t just polite-it’s revenue protection.” Learn more about how Strolid helps dealerships Never Miss opportunities for dealers at https://www.strolid.com.

Chapters

00:00 - Introduction to Service BDC Impact  
01:23 - Core BDC Retention Principles  
06:20 - 3-Ring Revenue Protection  
09:12 - Advisor Burnout Realities  
17:15 - Tire Service Case Study  
22:47 - CSI Mitigation Strategies  
31:15 - API Integration Failures  
37:30 - Empathy Training Framework  
42:00 - Equity Review Tactics  
47:00 - Future of Customer Retention  
50:01 - Key Takeaways & Action Steps  

Creators and Guests

Host
Michael Donovan
Michael Donovan is the Vice President of Marketing at Business Development Center (BDC) Strolid, Inc., where he leverages two decades of automotive industry expertise to drive growth through innovative digital marketing strategies and AI technology integration.
Guest
Vin Micciche
CEO Vin Micciche founded Business Development Center (BDC) Strolid, Inc. in 2014 after accumulating more than 25 years of industry experience, including leadership roles at Group 1 Automotive, where his team secured the #1 position in the Wards eDealer 100 rankings for 2011.

What is Dealer Insights Podcast?

Interviews with Strolid CEO and Founder Vin Micciche, BDC industry icon and veteran

good morning good afternoon or good
evening and thanks for tuning in to the
dealer
dealer where we go under the hood Bumper
to Bumper in just about everywhere in
between discussing topics important to
dealers of all types and sizes your time
is valuable so thanks for riding along
for this episode of
welcome back to dealer insights today
well it's a big treat you guys special
guest perhaps somebody that will be able
to encourage to be on dealer insights
with a little more frequency we'll just
have to see but today I want to
introduce you to somebody who is not a
stranger to the car business but Mr Josh
sack from strawid you might not have met
before so hey Josh welcome to dealer
insights
appreciate it yeah for sure so before we
get too far down the road tell the
audience a little bit about uh when did
you get into the car business I've known
you for a long time we've been friends
for a long time but uh for the audience
uh when did you get into it
um and I know this but share a little
bit about the fact that you've gone from
retail experience all the way into
service provider
um share a little bit about that yeah so
I I started uh with the Bernardi Auto
Group back in 1998 came in as a
salesperson went in for an interview was
uh I handed a stapler and told sell me
this stapler and I guess I uh I guess I
did a good enough job because they hired
me there on the spot I was a young 22
year old kid looking to light the world
on fire and sell some cars uh which I
did must have done okay because I worked
there for pretty much my entire retail
Automotive career I was a salesperson uh
sales manager BDC person BDC manager
moved in as a BDC director and then an
internet sales director managing
internet leads from a sales desk with a
team of about 14 people so uh I was with
Bernardi Auto Group till about 2011. so
I've been in automotive for 25 years now
wow so I thought just because we've
known each other for a bit that you'd
been in this 15 20 but 25 doesn't it
just creep up on you you're like it does
I was just doing the math today when we
were talking and realized it's been 25
years
it's amazing well congratulations on
that that's like uh that's a significant
accomplishment I will tell you and you
heard me say it before I think it's one
of the uh
maybe one of my favorite uh elements of
astrology is how much retail experience
exists and was injected into well does
this make sense as a business model
instead of just helping you know a
couple of dealerships where these people
reside and they do their thing you know
Vinnie with group one for so many years
you with Bernardi that it now you're
helping like hundreds of dealerships uh
with those kind of same principles that
you learned on the retail side which I
love that it must make you feel good
that's like man look at what an effect
we're starting to have and you guys just
keep growing like crazy yeah you know
every every year we look back a little
bit and where we started and uh where we
are now and uh we always we have this
little joke that we say if we knew what
it would have taken to get here we may
not have done it yeah we're here and
we're growing and uh we've done really
well and I think we've grown at the
right pace which doesn't always happen
as we all know in automotive uh so we're
pretty proud of that the level of uh
experience for our dealerships and their
uh their customers as well uh has been
really what we focused on yeah well hey
uh for the audience we're going to talk
uh we're gonna talk a little bit about
service BDC with Josh today which is
kind of an interesting topic only that I
for a long time loved that you guys
moved into being kind of a Everything
Under the Tent BBC sales service but I
don't know that uh it makes to me that
it doesn't make a lot of sense to ask
you a little bit about
uh why strala decided or when was that
kind of uh pivot point where it was like
Hey we're doing all this with the sales
BDC side of things but the service
department also needs attention uh can
you share a little bit about the back
story of like when you guys have thought
hey we got to go service and maybe why
yeah a couple of years ago uh we had
many of our dealers that were currently
working with on the sales BDC side
um just asking regularly asking our team
members asking us in management asking
Vinnie our owner and CEO hey can you
take on my service BDC can you help me
out with service BDC and you know we
thought about it for a long time we were
referring other BDC companies because we
wanted to help our dealers we just
didn't have the means at that time and
it just got to the point where we
discussed it internally and said hey you
know what we really have the blueprint
for this we've talked about doing it
before it just makes sense to take it on
because our ultimate goal at straw it is
really trying to help our dealers out
and we felt like we had enough
information and data to be able to say
this is how it should be done above and
beyond what's happening in the
dealership as well as what's happening
out there all around because there are
certain things that we wanted to change
and we wanted to implement to create a
better customer experience and a better
dealership experience because those are
really the two most important things to
us everybody's always talking about
customer experience but a lot of times
it's forgotten about what happens to the
advisors the BDC managers the managers
the sales people when customers walk in
and it's not set up properly that
experience needs to be a focus as well
and specifically us not being on site
those are the things we need to focus on
when we implement the programs
those are great points uh do you find
that a lot of your sales BDC uh
customers that those dealers
um also end up saying you know what we
need to go Sales and Service it just
makes sense yeah and so they'll end up
with with you guys with both sides of
the coin
yeah a lot of them will start with one
or the other
um and then they'll just gradually move
into the next service which is either
the outbound sales outbound service sale
BDC service BDC because
um having your BDC whether sales or
service off-site can be scary it it can
be understood as a or expected as a loss
of control our goal is to give that
control to the dealership through
process and making sure we roll it out
properly and really set the expectation
not just for the customer but for the
dealership as well we make sure we have
them understand what's expected of them
what's expected of us and that's what
creates a really good working
relationship and that's why the whole
what we call strawid process does work
extremely well uh for the dealerships
that we work with that embrace it and
eventually we hear this regularly on my
team on the client success team which is
you know I never thought this was going
to work and quite frankly if I was in
the store and somebody told me to bring
my BDC off site I would be very hesitant
too but now knowing what I know and
seeing it work so well and the
efficiencies that it brings and the
customer experience that can be had it's
almost a no-brainer because of the cost
savings and the savings of experience of
everybody in the store and the customer
as well
yeah you know I've asked dealerships uh
especially in the last few years because
the service department has just you know
really seen a lot of growth
um you know people hanging on cars a lot
of people servicing before they'll
they'll buy that I've told a lot of
dealers like hey you should do kind of
your own Mystery Shop Yourself by
calling your service department trying
to reach your service device advisors at
like four o'clock or 4 30 especially
like on a Friday yeah it's a nightmare
and that that nightmare is cascading
into customer experience as you
mentioned that you don't want to be
providing because it's it's really one
I'd love to know your thoughts on this I
have always thought that providing a bad
experience in the service department is
actually more lethal than providing a
bad experience from the sales department
and I have some thoughts on that but do
you think there there's any any truth in
that or do you what do you yeah there
you know there's something to be said
about First Impressions so it's why oems
have the surveys right to make sure that
they're
um following up with the dealerships are
following up with their customers making
sure that they get in front of any
problems that are had but on the service
side yeah those customers are returning
customers service will sales will see
those customers every three years maybe
once every five years maybe longer these
days because we know customers are
holding on to their cars longer so that
it makes all the sense in the world to
really focus on that customer experience
and making sure that you're staying in
touch with those customers on the
service side as well because they're
going to get their car serviced it's
just a matter of where they do it it's
at our dealerships dealerships or
somewhere else and we need to make sure
that it's happening at our dealerships
yeah that's a great point I I love to
tell dealers like why do you want to
spend so much money to attract you know
the potential customer to get him to a
place where they feel comfortable saying
I I'm interested in your vehicles and
then win the business sell them the
vehicle and then when they return lose
them because the service experience was
so terrible because I feel like if they
won your business you bought the car and
then you give them the opportunity to
try to service and then they lose it
there I feel like that's potentially a
lost customer forever because now you've
compromised maybe that trust that the
service department builds yeah you know
everybody out there these days more more
so than ever is talking about customer
experience you need to focus on customer
experience we focus on how do we provide
a better customer experience how do we
provide efficiencies for our dealerships
so that we can create those better
customer experiences
well that that leads me to something I
want to dig in a little bit on this
episode where we're talking
service BDC uh some of the areas that I
think and you're the expert I'm not here
some of the areas that I really feel
like dealers should consider
service BDC one big one is around
appointment scheduling it I know that a
lot of dealers use service schedulers
and I know that's probably part of
onboarding and getting synced up and
integrated with with you guys as a
service but in general can you kind of
speak to the importance of the service
BDC appointment scheduling and just
improving efficiency because that
certainly does have an effect on the
experience provided to the customer
right just just getting it scheduled so
there's a couple of things there's
scheduling the appointment making sure
that that happens making sure that the
capacities are set properly in the
service schedulers these are some of the
first things that our onboarding team
will go in and look at I just recently
posted something on LinkedIn because I
found something in a couple of our
dealerships when I went in and looked
that
try and schedule an oil change three
weeks out and then I'd call the
dealership and find out hey you know
what um you don't have a capacity for
three weeks on your website scheduler
can you take a look he said I have I
have capacity today at 3 P.M so we're
finding that the service scheduler was
not set up probably so I'm immediately
you know those are some of the things
that we want to bring to the table and
make sure that everything is set up
properly right because to schedule an
appointment you have to have
availability so once we once we get all
the technical pieces set up
um then what we'll do is we'll make sure
that our team is trained on the service
scheduler we work with a lot of the big
ones like X time my karma we can work
off websites schedulers where the um you
know where they're scheduling out of the
DMS that it's not available off of
um if it's not available off of uh
something that is not web-based so we
have workarounds for pretty much
everything but it's really important to
make sure everything's set up properly
at first so we'll schedule those
appointments will make sure that the
capacities are set up we'll go through
the entire process we'll pretty much
build out a learning center for our team
internally which our trainers we have
roughly about eight trainers that will
train on these Learning Centers and just
I'll kind of take you through the
process and how it works so our
dealership will sign up with us we'll
check out all the capacities look at the
website make sure everything's set up
we'll send them what we call our
e-action item form it's a little
daunting because it's eight pages and
I've had a couple of dealers say why do
I have to fill out this eight page piece
of information right so I look at it as
this is a learning center for our team
so the minute that they fill that out it
goes into this technology that we built
which is the Learning Center it tells
them everything from is there a night
drop box do we send the customer in to
see the service advisor are they driving
in through the service Lane when the
customer calls in and they want to have
rims done glass Body Shop all those kind
of abnormal miscellaneous sublets that
are looked at we want to make sure that
we know where to direct them and make
sure that if they're a heavy duty truck
store a service store
can we service 250s can we service the
the 350s the 450 some stores don't even
have those capacities they don't have
the lanes or The Bays to be able to do
those we need to be able to convey that
to the customers and make sure they
understand the availability as well make
sure that if we are booking out long in
advance
we need to make sure that we let the
dealership know that those capacities
may be filled and they need to be maybe
open up those capacities as well we have
uh dealerships that are finding out that
after three o'clock they have absolutely
no appointment schedule that's because a
lot of times they start people start
clocking out at three o'clock and
there's no the capacities are actually
shut off around three o'clock so
everybody get out of there early so
immediately when we turn when we have
our dealers turn that on and they have
the people to work those hours they gain
immediate hours and it's Revenue that
could could have possibly been lost
yeah that's so just talking about the
scheduling side within service BDC there
are so many factors right so many
variables
um and again I think it's
such a like a jewel in the crown of of
strollid that there's so much retail
experience with your company
so that's amazing we're just talking
about the scheduling part and there are
so many variables but
for me I immediately start thinking
about wow if I'm going to do that I hope
the company that I'm going to use has
the amount of retail experience that you
guys do right that that you've probably
even heard me say it I think anybody
that's
subjected themselves to listening to me
more than they should have maybe heard
me say that experience is often the
biggest differentiating point or the
biggest differentiator and in the case
of you guys that experience to me makes
all the sense because you just shared
some of the details about how important
it is to be in sync with the dealer and
the dealer could have some apprehension
about I don't know but gosh I don't know
if I would feel any better than what you
just described if those different
points of
you know hey yeah we have a we have a
document a healthy document to make sure
that we're aligned with getting all the
stuff right we're setting up a Learning
Center where you know the way we're
going to communicate with you back and
forth there's just so much to it so it
kind of sets up the next thing I want to
ask in this which is around
communication so service BDC obviously
there's a communication back and forth
sales or service on the service side
I know that when dealers are especially
uh you know kind of struggling to keep
up with the phone call activity that
that that compromises their ability to
provide a great experience of just
communicating back and forth with a
customer around service do you guys find
that that ends up being something that
the dealer says oh my goodness that just
lifted a heavy burden just the
communication piece alone yeah so that
that's a great point so I uh you know I
had a personal experience about a month
ago where I was in a shop
um and I needed for new tires for my car
and I went in there and I'm talking to
the guy and he's great he's killing it
he's answering all my questions
um extremely cordial great guy
um definitely knows his stuff the phone
rings and he says excuse me for a minute
he picks the phone up and I'm thinking
because I'm a customer service guy right
I'm a client success guy the first thing
I'm thinking is oh my goodness this
guy's actually going to take a call and
schedule an appointment
while I'm standing in front of him and
he's going to blow the whole thing well
he doesn't what he does though is he
picks up the phone and tells the
customer hey I'm just with somebody
right now can you hold on a minute and
puts the phone down so he goes back into
helping me and and he's still doing
great but in the back of my head as
right the client success guy I'm
thinking oh my goodness that guy's
sitting on the phone that customer is
sitting on the phone waiting and it goes
three minutes it goes three minutes and
I hear it ringing back and he's totally
ignoring it that customer's gone that
customer could have needed a brake job
tire rotation an engine job they might
have just been someone that might have
got transferred over to service and
might have been a new car deal so having
the phone picked up by straw lid in
between one and three rings
answering the customer making sure that
we're getting them what they need uh if
we can't answer a question we have a
direct communication line down to the
dealership we are a slack company we've
implemented a training for all of our
team as well as our dealers when we
onboard them whereas if we can't get the
customer what they're looking for we're
going to message down to the store
through slack and someone there part of
the expectation that's set with that
service dealer we're working with is
that they're going to get back to us and
either let us know the information that
we need to get back to the customer or
they're going to take it over 99 of them
take it over because that service
director or that Portman appointment
coordinator wants that deal right they
want those service hours and they're
getting back out getting back to the
customer I mean we think about how much
business is potentially lost on a daily
basis just by the sheer fact of not
picking the phone up forget about the
next step of actually having the person
trained properly to handle objections to
be able to schedule the service
appointment properly use the technology
and the software follow up check status
checks all these little things that go
into service on a daily basis
yeah that's um so so critical makes me
also think
there's got to be uh
probably
I don't know
maybe on a weekly perhaps a daily basis
amazing opportunities to upsell
cross-sell like yeah of course we speak
a little bit too like do you guys
Identify some of those things and how
does that work with how you work with a
dealership yeah so that that's a great
question because that's something that
comes up regularly so one of the things
that we look for and and we have get
into this a little bit I'm sure you have
some questions on this later about
um you know reporting but part of our
reporting gives us some basic level of
understanding of what are the
dealership's capacities so when we start
seeing declined appointments we need to
find out why is it something that we
said or is it nine times out of ten what
we find is there's not a capacity
available I mean we have some stores
right now just because they don't have
the text available that are booking out
legitimately three weeks in advance for
an oil change
some service directors don't necessarily
know that we can let them know they can
open up their capacities when they get
to the point of they need to you know
increase their staff but they may not
know they need to increase their staff
so we'll give them a heads up that
listen you're one of your top
um dispositions that we're showing you
are declined appointments and here's 15
examples of customers who wanted a tire
rotation or an oil change and they
weren't able to get in and they probably
went somewhere else so that's a really
important piece the reporting side to
identify opportunities so on the other
side of that where we see capacities
that are filled and open I see a lot of
messages through our slack channel to to
my team our client success team saying
Hey listen I have appointments open for
the next two weeks let's fill the
scheduler well we can't fill the
scheduler if we're not talking to
anybody and we're not getting calls it
may be a matter if they need to up their
marketing offer some service specials to
their primary market area or it could be
something where stroller needs to jump
in with our outbound campaigns and start
making calls to customers a list of
customers that have you know a warranty
headlight assembly that's due or
something where you know people that um
you know in the last six months have
rejected work that may need that work
done there's all kinds of outbound
opportunities that we can provide
anything from just a simple CSI service
call to something that is a very heavy
let's say uh frame uh type of problem
which we know are some of the the Honda
the Honda
vehicles uh that are experiencing right
now where they have a list of those
customers that's a pretty big job we
make calls and if they have the capacity
then get those cars in and those
customers done immediate revenue and
everybody loves warranty work right
because it's paid for by the OEM
manufacturer sure yeah
yeah the I don't do you think that
dealers are putting a proper amount of
attention on uh the opportunities to
cross-sell and to upsell out of the
service department I mean what you're
kind of laying out it's been there
forever but once you actually put
something in place
where you're actually looking for you're
you're mining the ground if you will for
those options to say like you gave the
example of like maybe it was a service
that they declined previously but it was
one that you know they let it go for a
too long of a period of time and it
becomes something where it's not just
hey you don't need to do it now you can
do it later it becomes like you need to
do it now or your car is no longer safe
um do you think dealers in that area
just upsell cross-sell like they're what
would you give them an A or an F or a b
or a c like what is it that it's kind of
a load of questions so it's it's tough
because there's dealerships out there
I've gone into service departments that
are just run like a well-oiled machine
and they do a great job and the customer
experience is great so there's there's a
lot of dealerships out there that do a
great job
um with
filling their capacities
with customer experience but I'd say for
the majority out there uh I think that
there's always going to be room for
improvement that room for improvement
could be huge or it could just be in
little increments right and one of the
things that we can do is help in small
increments because you're never going to
blow up a service department in a good
way right with uh increased work because
they're not going to have that
especially these days with trying to get
taxed they're not and service advisors
they're not necessarily going to be able
to increase the volume of work right
away so our goal is to help them slowly
if they don't have the staff right now
identify that they need to increase
staff so that they can grow their
service department and in small
increments right so they don't get
overloaded and then customer experience
gets affected and or if they do have the
capacity they've got Tech sitting around
doing doing nothing which I don't think
there's a lot of going around these days
days but if they do have that situation
then we may can make a lot of outbound
calls and try and fill the base and fill
the capacities with whatever they need
if they need if they want they get lists
of warranty work we can do that one of
the most important ones these days is
just making sure that you're focusing on
your primary market area uh and making
sure that if you have customers that
either have let's say a prepaid type of
service program that they're actually
utilizing because there's upsell in
there of course and then from there
making sure that we're offering um you
know a very positive customer experience
and and adding in any other type of work
do when we call the customer they might
have an oil change that's been due and
way over to one of the things we've
heard when we've made some of those
calls to customers is oh yeah I totally
forgot about it you know what scheduled
me for this time but one of the things
that we do above and beyond what uh some
of the um other companies out there do
or even the dealerships alone is uh
internally is we will send the text
message as well to the customer and just
let them know hey please call us it
looks like if a service due we can
schedule that at your convenience and a
lot of times it's just the fact that
they forgot about it they get busy in
life everything else going on more
people are working remote they're not
traveling as much there's still people
doing that so what's really important is
making sure that you're you're getting
in touch with those customers and
letting them know they have that service
that's the easiest service to to fulfill
yeah
yeah that's I I love that that's
excellent I I want to go back a little
bit you you did mention that you thought
I might ask about reporting a little bit
more I do want to ask a little bit
because I know previously you and I are
having some conversations and you were
talking about disposition reporting and
some things that I'd never really even
thought about as it relates to service
BDC and so I guess instead of very
specifically let me just let you kind of
take that in the direction of uh for a
dealer who is watching listening seeing
some of this
foreign
what's one of the things that they may
not be thinking about in terms of
reporting that comes out of service BDC
work that's that's critical and it
doesn't have to be one thing but one or
as many things about why that's really
actually a critical part of success for
service BDC yeah so a couple of things
that my team the client success team
looks for is what are the highest
dispositions we review them the highest
volume of dispositions typically the top
three or four and where we know there's
a potential problem we're going to see
as I was talking about before declines
right declined work
um status checks status check means if
we're getting loaded with those calls it
typically means the advisor is not
getting back to the customer and letting
them know their vehicle is available and
ready after the work's been done I know
I've experienced that myself and I know
my guy at my local service department
when I go in there I know he's jammed
and busy all day long I see him when I
walk in there he's got three people
lined up because he's been there for 25
years very similar to how long I've been
in the business but he stayed in the
retail side of it so he has people that
only want to work with him but those
phone calls and I've called him before
and my my calls A lot of times go to
voicemail and there's times where he
doesn't call me back in a day I know to
just show up I'm a car guy most people
don't know that that can significantly
affect a service so the status checks
are big we can identify those as
problems as I was telling you before the
declines
um if we know that there's lots of
declines we need to find out why is it
something our people are saying but the
majority of time it's just because the
capacity is not there we can explain we
can explain to our dealerships that you
know you it makes sense for you to
increase your capacities and a lot of
times we will hear I just don't have the
capacities I don't have the texts well
you know what
it's time to hire start putting the
hiring out there some dealerships are
very happy with where they're at and the
amount of the work they have and they
don't want to hire because they don't
actually have the room in the shop to be
able to handle it so at that point what
they care about is just somebody picking
the phone up and letting them know hey
you know what no problem your advisor is
super busy right now we're going to have
him call you back if there's something
to be said about having a live Human
answering that phone rather than it
going to a voicemail or a voicemail box
that's not set up or the wrong voicemail
box and then again CSI is affected and
we know in certain manufacturers with
certain manufacturers CSI can mean a lot
of money right yeah so that's something
that needs to absolutely be a focus
um we do offer CSI as well and it's a
good piece to talk about when we're
talking about reporting because when we
do make a phone call to a dealership for
CSI whether it's sales or service we ask
them the real simple question were you
completely satisfied with your recent
service visit okay if the customer says
yes we remind them that they're going to
be getting a manufacturer survey and to
please fill it out so sometimes it's
just making sure you're reminding the
customer to fill it out because one of
the biggest challenges that our
dealerships have on the serve on the CSI
is that one bad survey will crush you if
you don't have enough good ones so our
focus is to not only identify if there's
a problem but on top of that remind the
customer that when they did have a good
experience please tell the OEM tell the
manufacturer because that's the one that
nobody we always we know this about
reviews we know this about survey is
people who are happy don't tell anybody
people that are unhappy will tell
everybody they can and that's you know
that's kind of cliche but it's it is the
truth so our focus is to make sure that
we let those make sure that those
customers are letting the OEM know
they're happy
yeah that's an interesting point I I um
I get bombarded by the Toyota dealership
where I take my Tundra for service
um and you know being in the business
and I didn't work retail I only did that
for a couple years so I can't even hold
a candle to you but
um I will tell you I know enough about
that operation I've been working with
dealers long enough that I will respond
because I know that that's a part of
their business and if they've done a
good job I you know I want to make sure
that the right people know
but the general public doesn't know that
as much and so to have a service like
you guys provide to where it's even
helping it's right that uh benefit of
actually doing something proactive and
having something as part of your
services to protect
um to encourage and try to pull out the
best you possibly can from from your
customer satisfaction uh index is so
important and some people like they've
moved on like I asked a group of dealers
this last year in a presentation
um
I said relative to your service
department is CSI not still important I
mean it's still important right and it's
almost like yeah like sometimes we get
in the the uh the rut of oh no inventory
levels are down supply chain issues you
know getting through the pandemic I mean
our industry's been through a lot in the
last few years so is it a surprise that
you know when they're trying to keep
their eye on so many different you know
balls yeah like now you have to remind
yourself of some of those foundational
things that are really critical to your
business CSI is one of them yeah for
some of the oems
um
service the the service of the the CSI
side of things has not been a main focus
through the pandemic uh but it's coming
back and it's coming back fast and
there's a lot more focus on it so you
know those positive customer surveys are
important to let the customer know to
fill out the OEM survey but also getting
in front of the problems so if a
customer tells our team uh who's making
that call that they weren't completely
satisfied a lot of the times just will
help de-escalate that situation
sometimes people just need to be able to
tell somebody what happened and that
will help de-escalate things they get it
off their chest and they're able to tell
us what happened well all of that
information We Gather goes immediately
real time right down to the dealership
and we let the dealership know we're
going to immediately have somebody
contact you so we can help rectify the
situation there are times where the
customer says
um no you know what I'm okay I'm all set
and it's just because they were able to
get it off their chest and it's the
escalated but if it's a new car it's
very a newer car where they can survey I
think it's like 2014 and up for most
manufacturers what's really important is
getting that customer back in front of
the dealership so they can resolve the
problem not only for retention so the
customer wants to come back and not
defect but also just to make sure that
they resolve the issue and the customer
has a good feeling before they get that
OEM survey and they can actually say on
the survey you know what at first
experience sucked but you know what they
fixed it that's my favorite kind of
survey to see not just a great survey
but it's the one where one was fixed
that's the one that warms my heart where
our people were just allowing somebody
to vent and then getting that down to
the dealership and then them taking care
of it that means not only did our people
do a good job but the dealership did a
great job of getting in front of the
problem and resolving it I don't think
there's anything more important than
that right there other than revenue of
course
yeah no but those are great points
um and not enough people well I should
say it's possible that you might be a
little bit uh
asleep around looking at some of those
finer points and those comments on those
surveys they are uh over the years I've
seen more and more where I'm like man
um I would really be paying attention to
that I yeah somewhat recently a Nissan
dealer friend of mine shared with me
something out of his CSI reporting where
a customer who was saying wonderful
things about them
at the same in the same breath called
out another Nissan dealer by name so
he's this this person was praising
you know this friend of mine in his
store like check this out but he mainly
was sending it to me to say look at how
they're like I've never been uh treated
so well like this by this other
dealership and I'll never go back to
them that was in the CSI comments I was
like yeah dang you might see that in a
Google review but you don't want your
manufacturer seeing
a customer saying I love this dealership
and I hate this dealership and they're
both your brand like right not good no
no I mean it it's really it's just you
know I could say it till I'm blue in the
face but focusing on that customer
experience
um when the customer has a better
experience your people in your store
will have a better experience as well
and vice versa as long as there's a
process around everything to be set up
to be done a certain way there's going
to be variations you know there's going
to be
um you know there's going to be certain
ones that don't happen exactly the way
that you want them but as long as
everybody walks away happy at the end of
the day with their vehicle and with the
revenue generated by the customer then I
think it's a win-win yeah I was going to
ask you this actually several minutes
ago yeah maybe towards the Top If you
were to try to summarize what you think
might be top I don't know two or three
reasons why dealer there's
really need to consider a service BDC
what do you and really maybe even from
the dealers that you work with or the
ones that you talk to a lot about
service BBC what are the top few driving
factors where like yeah we that we gotta
have this yeah I mean a lot of the
dealerships that come to us it's
Staffing problems and then restaffing
trying to hold on to people and not just
that you get a person in there a warm
body who's training them how often do
dealerships unless they're a large Auto
Group and sometimes they don't either
have a have an actual person who's
coming in training we have a we have a
group of trainers eight trainers that
are consistently training our people the
first thing that our people
um go under for training it's it's we
call it empathy training it's just
understanding what the customer is going
through a special especially right after
covid where they can't get right in for
service the vehicle is on the sales side
the vehicle is not available the
vehicle's five thousand dollars over
MSRP because of Chip shortages and
issues so being empathetic with that
customer just off the bat is really
important our people are all trained up
on that so a reason why a dealership
would want to work with us that's you
know number one but not just on
answering the phones which we'll do is
if the phones don't get answered on the
first three rings we actually do backup
as well we believe that every single
dealership in the country could use a
backup for service because even if it's
10 calls a month that don't get picked
up that's something that you could have
a fully staffed service team at six to
seven days a week pick up the phone and
be able to schedule a serviced
appointment or de-escalate a situation
and get it down to the dealership so
that that customer is not lost CSI is
not affected so those are just I mean
they kind of sound like basic reasons
right Staffing and customer experience
um not losing not losing primary market
area for your low local customers I mean
how many customers defect because number
one they can't get in touch with
somebody they didn't pick the phone up
and that could be one day right dealers
may say yep that was just on Tuesday
where we had three people out and so and
so wasn't around well that one Tuesday
could be that three or four customers
that normally schedule or call on a
Tuesday because it's their day off or
their one day where they have a break to
make that call and now they've lost not
just that one basic oil change business
but it's all the future business because
someone just got fed up and decided to
go somewhere else and the other
dealership
they you know they they provided a okay
experience but they picked the phone up
right away so right there is picking the
phone up is probably number one and then
everything else in between is really
important on top of that but picking up
the phone is where any dealership could
really use strolling yeah well those are
all good points and I to me they're not
trivial at all I mean common themes but
those are the areas where dealers
oftentimes need a lot of help like so
they can just shine and do their thing
it's like hey Staffing whether you're
trying to staff up enough sales people
your service technicians your service
advisors all of those things uh you know
before long you realize oh my goodness
like it never ends you mentioned
training in that too right it's like
who's going to keep getting those people
trained all of which are extremely
important you know another thing I
wanted to ask you Josh was the
relationship between sales and service
especially in the BDC World a few years
ago actually several years ago I heard
somebody say that they had designated a
person that works in the service
department but has like a crossover roll
of sales and they call them a renewal
manager and they I remember asking this
guy I'm like why do you call him a
renewal manager and they said well it's
because
we have this uh process that we want to
look at every single customer case to
find out if they're in the right
criteria to perhaps maybe move and the
the example that they were giving was I
think the probably the most obvious one
which was hey I see you're in getting
service on your Tundra but you know that
new version came out in 2022 and we
could actually get you in a brand new
one at a lesser payment like they're
always putting together so is there is
there a crossover type of relationship
yeah that's a that's a great that's a
great question and it's just changed a
little bit
um because anybody that's in you know an
18 to 20 is typically in an equity
position but it doesn't necessarily mean
that their payments going to be lower so
the way that we handle that is we'll get
a list of the appointments uh we pull
them right from the DMS get a list of
appointments from the night before the
day before and we will call the customer
we'll text them and let them know we'll
use the terminology Equity review so we
let the customer know hey I see you're
driving that 2018 I'm calling to confirm
your appointment for tomorrow and hey
you know what while you're here we'd
love to do an equity review on your
vehicle we'd have a life you could have
you come over to the service department
have one of our sales managers take a
look at your vehicle because we'd be
very interested in potentially
purchasing it and we could have one of
our sales associates show you all the
brand new features that are in the next
model in the 2023. is there a time that
would be best for you to stop over I
know you're dropping off your car but
you could always come over and see us
while your car is in service so at that
point we'll set that appointment with
one of the sales managers we'll alert
them that that customer's coming over
from service and you got a shot at that
customers the easiest appointment to set
right you've already got that customer
coming into the showroom and it's just
planting the seed a lot of times we're
not going to set the appointment but
while that customer's there potentially
waiting or dropping their car off
waiting for a shuttle to get out of
there or waiting for a lower car they're
Mosey on over the service department I'm
sorry the sales department and they'll
say hey uh you know I was told to ask
for John the sales manager and might be
able to have my car looked at and now
you have a customer opportunity in your
showroom so a lot of times it's it's
just planting the seat
um it's just like it's just like
anything it's like calling on
um a lead that may never respond to you
as long as you're leaving a good
voicemail as long as you're sending
emails communicating with them regular a
lot of times they're going to walk right
into the store because you provide a
good customer experience you've
responded quickly you've left messages
letting them know who you are where
you're from and now there's an
opportunity in the showroom so that's a
really important piece part of what
we've started doing
um recently helped Drive traffic to the
showroom because your your best leads
are already your current customers which
again sounds cliche but how many
dealerships are actually calling those
customers the day before and sending a
text message offering for them to come
in to do an equity review which I think
is the right terminology not over
promising that they're going to come in
for their VIP appointment and get into a
payment that's 200 lower because that's
kind of a thing of the past there's
certain situations that that can happen
but we just try and set it up where we
can have the customer come in and have
the evaluation done have them fall in
love with the new vehicle that they're
looking at or maybe pre-owned and take a
good piece of inventory and two that's
that's a huge win as well
uh that is huge a question follow up on
that I'm a dealer and that sounds really
good do
do I need to be working with you guys as
a sales BDC as well no but it definitely
helps um when you have the program set
up because we want to really focus on
and still installing the process for the
customer experience we have stores that
we're working with the service
department and the sales department we
have stores that we're just working with
the service department where we're
bringing those customers over it's just
really important for us to roll it out
properly to make sure if we are sending
that customer over that someone is
actually going to reciprocate and say
hey you know what I have uh your
information right here once you pull
your car around or I'll actually go over
to service while you're taking your
shuttle back home or to work we'll have
a look at and when you come back just
come see me we'll do a full Equity
review go over everything and
potentially see what we can do for you
yeah I love that Synergy but that that
makes so much sense and you know you've
you've mentioned uh on the episode that
the customer experience right we're kind
of beating that drum but
I mean does does it not make all the
sense in the world when you're trying to
provide a great customer experience to
be helping people understand I love the
equity review hey let's kind of figure
out where you're at there but then
presenting all these options that I mean
it goes to you know Vinnie has talked
about in episodes the customer life
cycle center these are points around
that you know that Center if you will of
making all these things work and it
includes hey Mr or Mrs customer here's
some great opportunities you may want to
take advantage of and you're going to
see them and they can be hot you can
highlight them and give them the
importance that they deserve when you
have you know that that type of service
in play yep it's huge
last thing I want to
um ask you about and we'll we'll bring
this kind of thing to a parking spot
um is on you know just continually
trying to make everything within the
dealership
um better and in the last couple of
years especially we've heard more and
more about retention
um whether people are talking about the
customer retention or the service
retention keeping people there
I think that the service department
plays such a massive role here because I
think well I don't think the data NATA
NADA themselves talk about how service
advisors on average are responsible for
more gross profit into a dealership than
your best sales people they're
responsible for making more of an
impression meaning they're tied more to
people who will become loyal or want to
do business with you customer experience
because they talk to more customers than
your sales people do right there's all
of these points of data around the
importance of the service department and
it's not
um I don't think talked about enough so
I want to get your kind of closing
thoughts on the episode around you know
continually improving the dealership but
the role that the service department
plays uh in in all of that and just some
closing thoughts on that yeah so my
thought is just like my experience when
I was getting the tires
um keep your advisors focus on the
customer in front of them right
um following up they can do follow-up if
they can't do the follow-up we can
always help but just really focusing on
that customer in front of you giving
them all of your undivided attention
making sure that they're not picking the
phone up in the middle of uh not picking
the phone up in the middle of uh working
with a customer uh also just the the
fact that a customer can hear all the
phones ringing you know Park on line
five right it just customers hear all
that it's loud
um it should be a really comfortable
experience when the customer walks into
the store uh it it's really important
that that customer is focused on by the
advisor when they're physically there
and we can help that happen by having
the phones picked up regularly and I
keep saying that and it sounds like the
very basic stuff but it doesn't happen
on the regular route there
um you know some places yes but not
regularly where the customer is just
always looking around like I was and
just saying uh just looking at and
seeing this is not the best customer
experience and they will quietly
sometimes defect and go somewhere else
if they feel that
I'm going to I love that that's a great
place to end this Josh uh it certainly
made me think of a couple of other store
real life stories that I want to tell
about service
but I'm Gonna Save it because we gotta
do another episode on service BDC yeah
especially at the customer service level
um you share a lot of great points and
this is uh this has been extremely
helpful and I think uh that the audience
is gonna agree that we probably need to
talk a little bit more about service BBC
so although we found a great part place
to park this episode I will tell the
audience hey if you like it you love it
or none of the above we'd still love to
hear from you this is the dealer
insights podcast it gets better when you
share some comments questions and
feedback even recommendations so drop
them in the comments section below
especially if you're watching this on
YouTube or if you're watching any of the
clips that we got from YouTube but you
can also email us you can do that at
info info at straw at
s-t-r-o-l-i-d.com until then stay strong
and solid and you'll never miss thanks
Josh
thank you
thank you
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