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Vin Micciche breaks down the operational intricacies of modern service departments. The episode covers Strolid’s eight-page onboarding process for aligning BDC agents with dealer-specific workflows, optimizing scheduler capacity to reduce “declined appointment” rates, and bridging communication gaps between sales and service teams. A case study reveals how proactive recall management campaigns can boost warranty revenue by 25%. Key insight: “Every ‘we’re fully booked’ response is a missed chance to build lifetime customer value.” Learn more about how Strolid helps dealerships Never Miss opportunities for dealers at https://www.strolid.com.
Chapters
00:00 - Introduction to Service BDC Complexities
04:26 - 8-Page Onboarding Deep Dive
07:51 - Scheduler Capacity Optimization
16:07 - Recall Management Case Study
22:47 - Bridging Sales-Service Gaps
31:15 - Declined Appointment Strategies
42:00 - EV Service Challenges
51:20 - Future of Service BDC
58:30 - Key Takeaways & Action Steps
Chapters
00:00 - Introduction to Service BDC Complexities
04:26 - 8-Page Onboarding Deep Dive
07:51 - Scheduler Capacity Optimization
16:07 - Recall Management Case Study
22:47 - Bridging Sales-Service Gaps
31:15 - Declined Appointment Strategies
42:00 - EV Service Challenges
51:20 - Future of Service BDC
58:30 - Key Takeaways & Action Steps
Creators and Guests
Host
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
and welcome back to another episode of
dealer inside say Vinnie how you doing
good how are you Sean I'm doing well I'm
excited about this episode Vinnie
because we've only we you and I have on
previous episodes have talked and
addressed a little bit but only a very
little bit the service side of BDC and
we did record an uh episode with uh with
Josh on service BDC but I really think
that just kind of opened the box if you
will so
um I I wanted to kind of start with you
just general thoughts
on BBC for the service department I
think it's a super big deal because I
think if you make a a lot of wrong
decisions and bad moves in the service
department you might lose somebody for
life I think it's critical
um but I'd love to just get your
thoughts right at the top of the episode
on why it's really important to make
sure that you have this consideration
for service
yeah so
um
you know see I I always used to think
Sales and Service were completely
different and they are there's a lot
there's a lot of obvious differences
between you know sales BDC and service
BDC but um you know I was talking to
Thomas this morning about
the line I came up with
um a couple years ago it all starts with
the lead
and I don't think everybody understands
the deep meaning behind that like the
way I do
like the whole business churns starting
with the lead and so on the server side
most of the leads are phone calls
whereas on the sales side most of the
leads are lead form submissions from and
vendors that send leads to dealers and
their website lead form submissions and
they still get sales calls on the sales
side but the service side dominates you
know it's dominant the sale you know
I think customers have started using
online scheduling tools more and more
but they still tend to want to call up
uh so with that said I mean we started
years ago as a sales BDC and um
over time one of the funny things about
why I got into sales PDC I mean service
BDC is because
our dealers tend to not pick up the
phone in service so customers will call
back hang up call back and press one for
sales instead of two for service so just
to get somebody to talk to so when a
service department was getting you know
bogged down we'd get an overflow of
service calls and we'd have to call oh
other you know the service advisors are
on lunch or
whatever
so they have the calls and some of the
dealers would default the calls to us so
I'm like them
anyway I as you know
through the years of um in the in my
past I've run a dealership so I have a
really good strong understanding of
fixed operations and the importance uh
to a dealership's bottom line and uh but
it is you know it's complex in its own
ways sales has its own complexities
service has its own complexities and I
think with the service side we've been
able to develop process around uh and
develop you know systems around ways
to make it really easy for a dealership
to want to do business with us to handle
you know sales uh BBC
to include outbound as well we do
outbound Services as well but I mean
yeah
what makes it really what makes service
really challenging is setting customer
expectations and explanations about the
internal processes
um
so that's where my guys and girls do a
great job right of I think we haven't we
started off when we started service we
started off with like a four-page
onboarding form
and now that's up to eight pages oh wow
yeah that information is fed to our
platform which gets fed to our agents
for each store we handle to to talk
about things like pricing
you know sublet service like glass and
body shop and Recon and towing recall
process handling night drop off all that
kind of stuff We Gather ahead of time uh
we actually do a lot of training on
things like just the Dealer's name
like Poughkeepsie we had to teach our
people how to say Poughkeepsie you don't
want them to learn how to say that on
the Fly for example especially if you're
talking to somebody
yeah yeah a lot of detailed uh little
little details that I'm sure
of
you know this this podcast could
potentially help dealers even you know
run their own operations better even if
they don't want to use a company like
ours so hopefully that's part of the
reason why we do these right yeah well
you know you mentioned a couple of
things there uh an eight page onboarding
document I think for some people would
sound whoa Overkill or that's daunting
but then as you explain what's just a
couple of the components of that those
are all extremely critical and I think a
lot when we when we're recording podcast
episodes I think a lot like I'm the
consumer when I am buying a car from a
dealership or in this case talking about
service
my service experiences and you mentioned
something about various services that
are sublet by the dealership and you
probably remember this because I shot a
YouTube video about it a true story uh
now several years ago but I was on a
trip to Arizona my mom wanted to buy a
new Camry and she wanted me to help her
and we literally went and bought her a
new camera that day and I had a big
scratch in the hood that was too deep to
be buffed and we took it back and they
anyway long story short they completely
muffed that they didn't tell her that it
was a sublet repair they didn't tell her
that they were going to have to drive
her car about 40 miles why they did that
and she caught all those things and then
she started to ask questions and they
were absolutely rude dismissive just
condescending and my mom never took her
to she literally drove all the way
across town to go to a different Toyota
dealership for the rest of her ownership
with that car because of that service
experience it's huge it's so important
to get it right there
yeah no question as a matter of fact
that's one similarity between Sales and
Service you know strong process solid
results the great Sean rains helped us
come up with that tagline the process
you know I was explaining to my son
who's going to be starting you know
University of New Hampshire in September
and he's going to be a business major
and I told him
you can't manage without a process
I mean you can't try but that's where
you pull your hair out of your head you
know your people need to really
understand the expectations of what you
want what you want uh the process to be
and how you want it to flow and uh I
mean it takes good management leadership
to oversee that to make sure that all
that is being adhered to so like with
dealerships holding the people
accountable to the service process is
just as important as holding a you know
and developing a process for for sales
so for example we we schedule a lot of
service appointments for dealers uh it's
their job on their end to to make sure
they're ready for those customers before
they come in
um so they know who's coming in and
ahead of time right and having advisors
do what they're supposed to do
um like you know go over uh an estimate
or call to check in with the customer or
so now now there's technology to send
pictures and all that uh to let the
customer know what you're working on
what you found all that kind of stuff
and and what's really interesting Sean
is we have some great dealers that do
that really well on the service side and
what we try to do is bring that type of
information to our new dealers that
maybe aren't as dialed in to try to help
them get to that point because I mean
it's not rocket science but the dealers
that follow process in the service
department uh have happier customers
better CSI you know
um yeah
do you find that when you're scheduling
uh that most dealers these days are
using scheduling tools and so part of
your onboarding is you'll help because
one of the things I I think is dealers
listen to an episode like this and
they're thinking well we have a service
scheduler and maybe they feel like well
hey that's that's super helpful which it
is but I'm asking because you guys have
the experience whether a dealer has a
service scheduling tool or not there's
still a pretty significant reason why
especially when their volumes are up and
you've got a lot of people wanting to
come in for service that they still need
help with scheduling but do a lot of
most of them use a tool and then if so
you guys probably help them on behalf
so as you know Sean I'm a retail guy
so I've been in retail my whole life and
I consider myself to still be in retail
and
um I think at the end of the day service
writers want to write service and techs
want to fix cars
um and a lot of times as these
Technologies get lost in the shuffle and
I don't think it's intentional although
funny stories when I when I read my my
my story we uh I was at a Nissan store
and we we're using a schedule called
time Highway and
it took me about two or three months to
start digging into service because I had
a mess on my hands when I started that
store in sales and and the service
manager is a good guy but when I dug
into the into the service department the
first one of the first things I looked
at was this this capacities and
scheduling and I went on to our
scheduling tool and
the times were
there were no times available after
three o'clock in the afternoon
um and we were open till six I think at
the time I think we extended it to eight
or something which
is another you know conversation we
could have about
um it's hard to find text my
brother-in-law is a Master Tech for
Honda dealership and uh
he could go anywhere he wants and get a
job right now because it's so hard to
find
he's young and he's he's hungry and he's
a good guy and he works hard and it's
like where do you find people like that
nowadays it's hard that people you know
but at the end of the day um I asked
someone like why three o'clock and he's
like well
we usually have other work we can do and
stuff like that and like no no
no no like I'm my job as the general
manager is to drive as much revenue as I
can unless you can show me that you have
other work that it should be somehow
factored in yes but every day yeah well
we use it for internals and we had a
little back and forth going but at the
end of the day I do I do need to respect
him for being a service manager he was
also a dispatcher which is kind of
interesting
um meaning he dispatched the work
obviously he's given good work to his
good guys and you know how all that that
stuff works like so but my point is they
want to they want to work it so we do a
lot of times when we go into a new
dealer we'll look at that scheduling
tool just like we look at the CRM on the
sales side and we we help them
streamline
and look for you know errors and
mistakes and sometimes they have pricing
sometimes they don't so you know and
then I think we work with about seven or
eight different scheduling tools now uh
some of them good some of them uh are
limited
uh but at the end of the day they're a
scheduling tool they're tied in the DMS
and they're there to look for open slots
to be able to schedule and book times
uh to come in so this is you just
mentioned another thing where I you know
thinking like a consumer but also
thinking like a dealer
I think it's an extremely valuable point
and I know that this came up when you
guys were building kind of your your
dominance around uh sales BDC as a
service but you you guys at one point
it's been a while now you guys went to
the ability to be able to service
dealers 24 7 365 where that became a
extremely valuable Big Value Point for a
dealer to say
even if uh I'm closed on the weekend or
at night
um you guys are still providing this
great service no matter what but it made
me think about the service department as
you guys would be helping scheduling
whether they have a scheduler tool or
not
you have somebody who's like hey I'm
changing my schedule to be I'm not
taking in any more you know Ros or not
starting anything new at three o'clock
the same thing applies for service
imagine being able to you know extend
those hours for high quality service
appointment scheduling and all of that
where you guys I'm guessing would say
well hey you guys show that your service
department closes at five o'clock uh why
wouldn't you extend that to six or seven
at least with phone ability do you guys
have dealers like that because I'm
thinking if it were you know it's funny
as you're talking I just wrote a note
down
like why don't we offer extended hours
for scheduling appointments huge right
Emergency Services yeah yeah you can and
we get calls obviously in service being
in service we get calls from consumers
who are looking that are in emergency
situation and we have a process
developed for every one of our dealers
on how to handle those situations
whether it be roadside assistance or
offer a towing company or or what have
you
so we do that but you know I mean
my people probably not be too happy with
me but we probably should offer extended
hours for service now that you're
bringing it up thank you for sales there
is probably a couple of things in there
that uh
one of the challenges with service right
and why dealers struggle to do it there
needs to be a blend of work that you can
do because from seven o'clock in the
morning till nine nine thirty is when
everyone's calling then it Peaks again
around noon time to one two o'clock
because people are on lunch or whatever
and then from three to like six o'clock
it gets busy again but there's some down
times with service right but we're Coast
to Coast so we kind of have that figured
out now with all the phone systems
although like this morning
um I had a dealer call me
um because he had a customer complaint
that they were on hold for a couple
minutes so I checked into it and I'm
like and Shawna pulled up the you know
our dashboard and it showed three of my
people were on wrap up
and we have like 35 people on three were
unwrapable
one of them was on wrap up pretty long
anyway managing that is the the Ebbs and
flows is challenging I can tell you that
like I would never promise a dealer that
would never give you a whole time at all
ever ever ever obviously our goal is to
pick up the phone in like one ring but
you know it's kind of like the in the on
the sales side the GM third party leads
just get all thumped on you all in one
day of like 50 leads and you're like
what the heck happened yeah well hand
raiser leads I should say yeah and
they're not even in Market customers but
they'll you know they don't understand
that there's somebody behind the scenes
that now is you've just raised their
anxiety level yeah so we we have um but
we have a really good handle on
peak times and things like that like for
example we have a group in Canada and uh
in the fall
they have this thing called Tire season
where every Canadian resident is
required to change their tires
so they're all frantic from like
mid-september all the way to like
mid-november to like schedule an
appointment because they only have till
December 1st to change their tires or
something I don't even know
yeah they're going to their winter tires
but I mean how do they handle how do
they handle that with with a small staff
if they didn't have us to know that
that's coming and that we can you know
adjust and prepare for stuff like that
too so it's pretty it's a pretty good
relationship they really help they
really appreciated our help during that
season last fall yeah it's coming around
again so
yeah well so another thing not to not to
go too uh you know left field here it's
still very much service but something
that I think we've talked about this not
on a podcast before I don't think but
the service department is also one of
the best places to
um help your sales department like there
are so many cross-selling if you will uh
intersections they I think these days
most people would say yeah it's kind of
obvious why do you think more dealers
don't do that though that they know that
they're not using the service department
for cross-sell potential uh it just
seems like a no-brainer
yeah the simple answer is getting
someone to do it consistently is a hard
thing for the sales people we offer a
lead generation outbound campaign called
service to sales where we can
pull the appointment list from the for
the next day and call those customers
and now we have the ability well we're
going to have better abilities in the
future but we have the ability to know
how long they've owned the vehicle stuff
like that and offer them a sales
appointment right while they're coming
in for service so that can work but
again it requires process whether it be
the sales department has its process the
service department has a process and all
these outbound campaigns have have a
process as well so I'll give you another
example would be recalls some dealers
have capacity
um and they have a process internally
to know what parts are available how
many recalls they can handle at one time
and
um you know and then we feed them
appointments some of them will call them
make sure the customer is interested in
come in and then contact
the dealership to make sure that they're
ready and have the available parts and
things like that so there's there's a
lot of situational stuff in service
but at the end of the day I know this is
kind of weird off track little
service
employees are completely different than
the sales and plays to deal with oh yeah
um yeah
they're happy we're here and they're
grateful that we're taking this off and
that we can provide them with a
streamline communication whereas the
sales side I mean they're just not as
easy to deal with to be quite Frank and
I'm a sales guy so I put myself in that
same boat you know yeah
um you know and so in service customers
believe it or not
um they're happier than the sales
customers
even though they're coming in to spend
money uh to fix their car now when they
get upset is when you don't have
available times which isn't the Dealer's
fault necessarily I mean good for them
if they're completely full at capacity
um
but service customers you know they're
just happy to talk to somebody and
schedule a time that they can come in
and get their work done on their car
that they need kind of like to your
point about when you had to go in and
get a scratch removed like you just want
to be able to talk to somebody make sure
that somebody's going to be there to
handle your request when you come in
yeah yeah it's it's uh it's not rocket
science I you know I'm a Toyota guy I'm
on my second Tundra I probably love it
too much almost as much as my kids I
just love the truck
um putting it through its faces this
summer for sure well
um I bought the you know the Toyota Care
Package I'd never done that before and
now when I pull up to the dealership you
know they they come out you know scan
the barcode okay yep you're gonna wait
with it you know it it's such a seamless
experience it's just really great but I
want to contrast that with something and
get your comments on it so
um
I have recently uh seen my sister
Bittersweet uh reasons why our families
get been Gathering here recently but I
was talking to her just last week she
has been a loyal Honda customer for as
long as I can remember and they took one
of their Hondas in for service well she
took it in and they to get a repair
quoted and it they my brother-in-law and
my sister thought that seems really way
way off like there was some dishonesty
happening so they took it to get a
second opinion and the guy with the
second opinion mechanic literally was
like I've maybe never seen something so
like this is a total rip-off is about a
500 not necessary and I am a former
service writer so I have sympathy for
the sir and I love the service
department but the reason why I'm
telling you this story is it so bothered
them that
um
it changed their mind about whether they
wanted to do the service they ended up
uh
selling the car having having a service
done by a different shop selling the car
and they bought a Lexus and then they
contrasted their Lexus Service
experiences and I know part of that is
the dealership who is servicing the
products that they're selling but they
they almost was like you need to stop
telling me how amazing this Lexus
service department is because my sister
said so we have this terrible haunted
experience it so bothers me that I'm
literally like I'm oh the door opened
for me to like you know what I'm gonna
I'm gonna I like the looks of this Lexus
she buys a Lexus this summer it's been
hot as hell in Texas she calls the Lexus
dealer like hey my elect my new Lexus my
few week old Lexus won't start they're
like could be one of those hot you know
summers in Texas where your battery's
toast don't go anywhere they came to her
she never pulled it out of her garage oh
yeah it's a bad battery they brought one
with their with them put it in her car
and they're over the moon about it they
couldn't stop talking to me about it
they wanted to tell me the story so
badly and I'm like I'm going to use this
on on a podcast coming up soon because
you know and I know we talk about it and
every dealer and everybody in the car
business that might be watching or
listening to this whole episode or or
just a clip of it
service retention brand defection all of
these things are so important not just
to the dealership to the manufacturer
and if you have somebody who's been
loyal to Honda like my sister for
decades I mean decades
um
and you lost that customer it Lexus
makes a great car and my sister is the
kind of person who will be loyal for
decades calculate the value of that and
then contrast that to the things that
you and I talk about the customer life
cycle center making sure that you're not
screwing up because to your point in the
service department sometimes in sales
too people are people they realize that
none of us are perfect and they'll give
you a mulligan but if you so badly mess
it up that you you completely lose the
customer for your dealership you lost
them for your brand
that that happens all the time but it
could be fixed if you had a service BDC
making sure that you had a consistent
strong process solid results all the
time you're almost playing a smart
defensive strategy too right oh yeah
yeah so I mean it's all remember I just
said at the beginning of the podcast all
starts with a lead right it starts with
a phone call
with service you're hopefully dealing
with people who purchase cars from you
but I mean there's challenges in the
service department
um just like there's challenges in the
sales department there's challenges with
every business trying to work together
is what we do with our dealers to try to
minimize those those hiccups right as
best we can however you know
we used to make fun of when I when you
first started selling cars it was a
giant Toyota store here I think we were
number seven in the country at one point
um we used to make fun of the Lexus
dealership that was right next to us
because they had bagels and coffee and
all this other stuff like and the Toyota
store did it right like that's like the
experience you're also paying for when
you buy a Highline card so to speak like
yeah driving out to the car and putting
a battery in the car that's pretty
amazing
um service yeah can it be done sure
um what we're seeing is
um
a lot of dealerships are at capacity and
two weeks out for service and so if you
don't have a service like ours how are
your service writers going to react to
those customers that are calling in when
they know they can't they're gonna
they're gonna get you know potentially
upset customer you're gonna you know be
understanding and you gotta train like
our training is always been focused
around we don't hire people and train
them to be nice we hire nice people and
and on people that can listen to a
customer vent and be upset and things
like that because a lot of times on the
sales and or service side it's not
always uh you know well 99 of the time
it's not the person answering the call
it's the it's the situation like we
don't have the car available or we don't
have a service appointment available and
the customer wants that so they get
frustrated right yeah um and so how do
you handle those situations you know uh
without you know deteriorating your your
customer base to what you were talking
about I mean that that's obviously
extremely extremely important when you
start off by being a human being and be
an understanding and trying to help the
customer elevating escalating really
heat and hot customers to the right
people at the dealership so they
understand and can look at the situation
like I'm not gonna lie to you but one of
the things we used to do in the sales
department and I'm sure sales teams all
over the country do this is when you're
low on inventory and someone wants to
buy a car a new car that you have in
stock in there three or four hours away
from you
you're not really that excited about
selling it to them
because you're not going to get their
service business
you know yeah yeah
um but um a lot of challenges in in
services like well one specific
challenge in relation to that is you
know handling
um different makes
we have dealers that just turn down
well but I bought you know five cars
from you and I have a different car but
I want to use you for service uh they
have so some of them have capacity
issues so they don't want to handle
different makes now which is kind of
strange or people who bought cars from
other dealers and then come and service
it with you over the customer like Sean
that's been coming in that's starting to
happen right now and a lot of that has
to do with capacity you know issues and
then you have other dealers on the flip
side that would kill for that business
because they have open bays and they
need more business so it's like
you know we do an assessment of that
when we sign up a dealer yep I'll give
you an example in the beginning of July
you know we have the sentiment
um robot Food Channel now yeah um so we
get to see frustrated customers through
our phone calls I look at those calls
and we had a call we had a dealer I
don't even name the make but um it was
one frustration after another after
another after another in that channel
and I'm like reading them and it was all
because
it was early July and
every we were telling customers that hey
had to wait till August to get their car
serviced
wow yeah
wow now obviously emergency situations
and things like that that come up breaks
you know you you got your brakes are
grinding you need to come in right away
stuff like that they're gonna they're
gonna talk to the customer but if it's
for maintenance and oil changes and
things like that I mean they were
putting them off three or four weeks
and now that's just one example but it
you know this is why I laugh when people
think like digital retailing is going to
take over the world and you just throw
up an appointment scheduler on your
website that's going to solve all your
customers problems you got to listen to
the calls that we listen to before you
make that uh assumption you know because
there are a lot of trickiness and we
have I feel like now we we started off
like I said with four pages of
onboarding information we're up to eight
or nine now because of all these these
things that happen that when we onboard
a dealer we ask them you know
um like loaner cars right now because of
the inventory issue a lot of dealers
um don't have
loner cars available like they used to
um believe it or not we have dealers
using Uber and Lyft now for customers
they're paying for the customer's ride
which is really interesting because the
shuttle might only go out you know 15
miles or 10 miles away from the
dealership so in the in the in the
customers 30 miles away I mean there's a
lot of transformation that's happened
you know recently because of all the
chip shortage and all that kind of stuff
the service departments are also more
full than they used to be because people
are holding on to their cars longer
you know you mentioned something there's
so many variables here
um um I'm sorry
that's the point I was trying to get at
this just yeah
then it takes someone like Frank and his
team to like really understand the
dealership and have a good onboarding
and Josh and Will to talk to them about
all these things prior to us launching
you know so we know how to answer all
these questions yeah I would say to
dealers that are in Industry Pros that
are listening to uh this episode
um don't take for granted all the nuance
and variables really in service because
most of the time I think people think
you know this type of of help for a
service department is at it's it's just
basic you're just gonna pick up the
phone and schedule appointments for us
or whatever but it's really there's a
lot more to it and and the thing that I
wanted to do a little follow-up with
because you mentioned this a few minutes
back was
um you know nowadays service departments
yeah there's a lot of them that use
schedulers but some of them are using
the tools that allow them to have an
enhanced level of communication with uh
with their customer for example
um it's quite a bit different when you
hear from the service department uh and
they sent you something on your phone
that shows you that your brake pads are
basically down metal to metal versus hey
you need new brake pads and your brake
jobs by the way going to be 580
um as opposed to like sending them the
picture like literally these are the
brake pads are you finding that the
dealers that you're working with more
and more are using tools like that as
well to help okay because that's to me I
think that's yet another thing where I'd
be like man I'd be talking to somebody
that could help me with service BDC for
uh my dealership because of the level of
communication today is at least 10 times
more complex and variable than it was 20
years ago 10 years ago mm-hmm yeah that
that's that's what Technology's sports
right right it's it's to look for the
the chat the challenging inefficient
areas and find a way to make it more
efficient so yeah in the past yeah
you wanna
sell me breaks I'm not sure I trust you
but if you send me a picture of the
brake pads down to like
you know a tenth of a millimeter or
whatever the hell the readings are
um it's hard for me to argue with you
that you need breaks right yeah or
you're showing an engine oil leak or
something to that effect
um yeah so the technology has been is
fantastic I like I said though that
that's more in their wheelhouse is we're
fixing cars right
and communicating that uh obviously
services like sales where you want to
upsell
other things that they need as well
um but at the end of the day they want
to fix cars
and they want to sell service
um all these Technologies is you know
get in the way sometimes but I think
that one that you just mentioned where
you're taking pictures and and sending
them to customers or giving them updates
on their car through text or whatever
are huge because one of the biggest
problems uh with dealers that don't have
the Technologies customers call back
through us we have a really in-depth
reporting Sean so every single call that
comes through to us we can we
disposition them so we can tell we can
give the dealer a report this is all the
calls you sent us and this is how many
actually called for service and this is
how many we scheduled for service and
this is how many called back called to
cancel the service appointment this is
how many people call and rescheduled an
appointment this is how many people
called and we had to transfer to sales
or these are how many escalations we
call them that we sent down to the
dealership because the the customer
asked to speak to somebody at the
dealership which doesn't happen much but
we we have a we have a Communication
channel built into that so again
um unless you have a really good beat
service BDC uh it's funny the service
BDC actually is a lot cheaper than the
sales BDC too we could and and it's
really hard for you to put people in a
dealership and do it for Less anywhere
near is the cost that we we do it for as
a matter of fact Shameless plug here um
I think every dealership in the country
if they don't have a service BDC should
use this for at least backup because
backup is like a no-brainer if someone
didn't pick up the phone at the three
rings at the service drive then it
bounces to us which is very inexpensive
and
um and it makes I mean it's very
expensive if if you're not setting all
your calls to us I actually had one
service manager tell me uh I'm not going
to do that because then my my guys will
know you're there and they'll stop
answering the phone
and I want them to handle the cost oh my
goodness that's
no that's the wrong that's the wrong
approach man uh yeah yeah I love the
idea of uh a backstop for the dealership
I mean it's been it's been a minute
since I was writing service but boy oh
boy if I would have had well I've got at
least a backstop or you know just
overflow like
um that would be huge if I had the
ability to you know take pictures and
send them to people when I I use this
example all the time because it was one
of my favorites but I just it became
common when I was writing service for
certain brands Honda was one of them
when people would come in like yeah I
got a 93 Accord my water pump's leaking
okay great I knew every time I was like
I'm gonna recommend that you put a
timing belt on it and you're gonna ask
me why because your timing belt isn't
failing or it's not quite to be time for
it to be replaced I'm telling you
because we're taking it off your car to
replace your water pump with the brand
new water pump and it would just be
another 45 dollars to put a brand new
timing belt back on seeing how we're
taking your existing one off and then
imagine back then if I could have sent
them a picture and they they would have
we didn't even have these uh phones and
it explains that to people there are a
lot of different things here on this
episode I think we're going to end up
doing a a handful episodes on service
because there's too much to unpack even
as we talk through it there's some areas
where I'd like to go in and stay on that
the whole thing so I like that we're
getting a broad overview here
but a backstop for a busy service
department right now when we've come
through inventory shortages some brands
have come back a little stronger than
others some are still struggling a
little bit but as that's coming back and
now dealers are like oh my goodness all
the pressure to sell all these stupid
electric cars sorry I mean these cool
electric cars they get all this pressure
to do all of that
um you're still in the thick of it with
with service so how how could a
dealership not stop and think Hmm at
least a backstop for what we're doing is
going to improve the experience again we
talked about this DX this customer and I
have Shameless plug for us on customer
experience at the end of the episode uh
coming up in October but we talk about
customer experience all the time and
gosh if it isn't more critical in
service this is a pretty good example of
why you want to fortify that part of
your your operation so that you don't
have those service defection issues use
like it it is there a pro I guess next
thing I would want to ask is is there a
process where either you guys can tell
when a dealer comes to you asking about
service or something because I know you
guys will do an assessment on the sales
BDC side
before you start the eight page
onboarding document are there a few
things that you can ask and qualify the
dealer to find out if oh my goodness you
guys really need service help and if so
like what would a couple of those things
be
yeah so
it's funny you bring that up
um
when I have a deal a friend or a
relationship that calls me directly and
says hey do you guys do service I'm
I go right to the onboarding Forum and
show it to their service manager and the
service manager immediately like gets
that we know what we're doing like it's
like
okay
that's what I wanted to hear because
their biggest fear is turning over phone
calls to somebody that can't answer a
question
yeah
and we so we get that's why it's been
now that that's why it's nine pages now
that all gets uploaded into a knowledge
base into our platform so when a phone
rings for ABC Motors all the information
from ABC Motors that we want the agent
to know or feel is important
um comes up so I mean you know loaner
cars
um do they have a body shop you know
um do you know do they do glass or do
they have a towing company do they
whatever all that kind of stuff I mean
there's so much I could go on and on and
on recall process you know um so we want
to be think of it this way Sean it's not
rocket science right would would you
rather let your phone ring 28 times and
then no one pick it up and the customer
hangs up and it's frustrated or would
you rather have somebody answer the
phone
that can do
maybe not as good a job as your service
or advisor at explaining the intricate
details about service
um but enough to be able to schedule an
appointment and give them the
information they want but picking up the
phone
like I am um
I always say my IQ isn't as high as my
EQ you know
um I I have this like emotional
like feeling for customers when I think
about because I'm a customer just like
you said and when
someone's not picking up the phone
you're basically delivering a message
that says you're not that important to
me
yeah if you deliver that too often yeah
right now your service Drive might be
full but one of the challenges dealers
are going to have in the next couple
years because new car sales have dropped
significantly three years in a row is
having
uh as much business in the future
you know where these Independents
understand you know I mean let's face it
Sean when your car gets eight or nine
years old
you go to a Jiffy Lube you go to a place
that can do a a cheaper brake job or
whatever because you don't know how long
the car is going to last you know yeah
um yeah that first year to you know five
or six years you know that's where you
want your customers to make sure you
don't lose any of them they don't
defects well a lot of I think the
average age of a used car right now is
12 years
yeah the average age of a car I I could
be wrong I'm pretty sure I heard that
stat
but 12 let's say it's 10. that's a long
time to own a car yeah yeah I I'm one of
those people that typically keeps we
keep our cars for a long time until yeah
there's not much or any life left in
them and part of that is because of the
brand that I am loyal to in Toyota is uh
I like to have a vehicle that lasts a
long time and it does all the things
that I wanted to do and so I would
imagine that as as car manufacturers
have improved their quality year over
year for many years that a lot of people
fall into that category especially you
know when the con economy is tough and
last few years have been really rough
inflation and as you know I've been
doing some traveling this summer here in
the month of July and it's astonishing
like gas prices are two dollars more
expensive in the Pacific Northwest
specifically in Washington state than
they were in Texas when I left and
actually still in Texas so there's a lot
of factors there I did want to ask you
um and again this is we we've opened
Pandora's Box on service BDC but
I think there's also something to be
said for the data that you collect here
and then data that would be relevant to
be collected and kept in the Dealer's
CRM and I don't know how well dealers
are doing that today if they are pretty
meticulous
in putting service related notes
perhaps a note that's relative to hey
Sean rains was in having a a service
done on his 2019 Tundra
um we let him go drive around in a 2023
uh to go grab some lunch because he was
here for a couple hours uh just Mark
that maybe assign that over to somebody
in the GSM would know to keep me in Loop
of hey what'd you think of the 2023 blah
you have any questions on it I know you
tow with your 2019. there's just so much
that can be done that I feel like
dealers either need the encouragement
because they're not doing it enough are
you guys also finding opportunities
there to help them with data collection
around from service into potentially
lifetime value of the customer yeah well
yes and no
um we will that's where we're moving
towards right is you get that picture of
of of your customer throughout their
life cycle right throughout the journey
it's kind of fragmented like it starts
with the lead and goes through the sales
BDC then we can do CSI calls we can do
um inbound obviously as we're talking
about service appointments
um outbound CSI calls on service we can
do
um
retention calls so customers who reject
it or left and not using your service
department after you know eight 10 12
months we can make calls on to those
customers uh to get them to come back
recalls as we talked about and then
service to sales where they're coming in
for a service appointment we can get
them so the goal in the long run is to
tie all that together into one you know
dashboard and cxm is going to be
probably the the hub for it all
um since we already have that platform
um and you know more about some of the
tech we're working on so without boring
or not boring I we could talk about that
for just an hour in itself but
ultimately yes we have all the data
points for all the different types of
services we offer to help make sense of
what's happening at your dealership so
for example if we're getting a lot of
customers calling to check on their
status we can let them know that their
service writers are getting back or
don't have maybe need the technology to
other customers throughout the you know
I don't know about you but you you bring
car in for service it's kind of like
going to the doctor and having tests and
you have to wait for the results it's
very nerve-wracking
um having somebody check in with them
and we can tell you if that's not
happening if people aren't picking up
the phone in Parts you know we we can
tell them that because we're getting a
lot of parts calls uh we get
um you know a high number of rejected
appointments because we're telling
people that they now have to wait till
September to get an appointment to come
in for their service you know yeah just
things like that yeah you we and will is
heads up our service compound client
success so he deals with all of us
service managers and general managers in
regards to service to go over all this
information and you know will could
probably do a better job now at
explaining some of the stuff he finds
through the data that we collect and
really it comes down to just
dispositioning each call properly did I
get an appointment or not well and if
you're getting you know it's just like
sales if you're not getting a lot of
appointments you know
on the sales side they want to blame the
BDC
um
it's not like that in service which is a
good thing yeah but they do want to know
why and you know through our
transcriptions and our conversations
that we're now transcribing and we're
getting the sentiment Channel like I
told you
um we're able to see what the real
frustrations are from the customers and
why you know you know it's great I was
talking to my dad the other day we call
it Papa in a box because my dad
obviously listens to lots of phone calls
for us and he said to me the best thing
about that channel is uh it always says
our people who do a good job
even in the frustration Channel
so what does that tell you yeah but so
those are problems that the dealership
really needs to hear
and try their best to fix it some of
them are unfixable right like if you've
got 10 bays and you got you know
50 customers a day or whatever it is
that fills those Bays like you only have
a certain amount of capacity which is a
great problem to have
yeah but you still need someone to talk
to your customers you can't ignore the
phone calls because you you know you
you're booked up it's like you can't
ignore your leads just because you don't
have inventory you know yeah you could
have too many people not that that's I
mean it's a good problem to have but you
could have too many people consistently
needing service five available bays and
two and a half texts or you know because
the that you were talking about your
your brother in uh Honda tech he could
go anywhere right now so there are these
layers of complexity that that can make
it a little challenging yeah some of the
capacity some of the capacity issue
isn't just because they're full and some
of it is they don't have enough texts
yeah it's a labor issue for sure and so
that would be a great like
um
I I think I'm gonna do that I'm gonna
start talking to my dealers more and try
to understand where the challenges
really are like is it a capacity thing
is it by brand is it by region is it by
make and and so that's another thing
that like
um our Tech is going to be able to
understand more
is because you know is it a capacity
issue or is it do you just not have
enough texts right like if if it's a if
it's a Personnel issue
um you'd want to know that if it's
capacity issue you'd want to know that
and I think maybe the very best dealers
maybe would say yeah we we track that we
keep we but I you and I both know that
there are a lot that don't and they
could greatly benefit from a service
that would help with that and one of the
things I love about when we record these
episodes is
it's not uncommon that as we talk about
very helpful information
uh for our core audience of Car Dealers
that we think of things that can even
make it better that have are at least
underserved or haven't been addressed at
all and how to improve that going
forward and I have a I guess another
question for you
um do you think that there are many
dealers right now who are assessing the
percentage percentage of their existing
service customer base that are using and
I hate saying ice they're just a gas
powered car but whatever internal
combustion engine Vehicles compared to
the electric models that their brand may
or may not be selling because obviously
the service for EVS is gonna already is
uh changing the game a bit I literally
drove by a whole bunch of EVS just
sitting there waiting for their stupid I
mean they're really cool cars to charge
up uh on a long road uh trip but do you
think that do you think that dealers
right now if they're not they should be
uh Hey 89 or 97 of our service business
today is in a internal combustion engine
vehicle but but boy why wouldn't I use
straw lid to put an outbound campaign
out to those people that's just a
general hey have you checked out any of
our electric vehicles to try to get
sentiment on what percentage of those
people you could do a forecast on might
go into because you could take the
national numbers of hey X percentage are
probably going to end up EV within the
next five years how's that going to
change our service business I think
there's a lot to be considering right
now not just because you know sales
always gets so much time and
consideration service needs to be
thinking about those same things that we
talked to any dealers that are doing it
or anything they better get busy and
start thinking about it it's gonna it's
gonna evolve Sean it's not gonna be a
revolution it's not going to change
overnight right so I think it's kind of
like AI right
anyone who rushed in to build an AI
engine
wasted their money and time it's like
digital retailing tools
everyone went out there built there's
like 50 of them now why because they're
easy to build the data is there you just
need someone to write code and build the
tool right yeah but they rush out and
and and go oh we got to build all this
stuff just relax and wait and see how it
plays out because if you build an AI
engine
right
um now they're free
yep so like what did you do like you
know why did you waste your time in Dev
dollars on building an AI engine when
you got you know this anyway it's going
to get more uh and don't get me wrong
some companies need them and everything
else but it's like the EV
you don't know what's coming this
hydrogen is hybrid there's new elections
there's a lot that can change and
there's no way I I I put my
my reputation on it there's no way we're
going from zero to a hundred percent
electric vehicles in the next 10 years
it's just not going to happen
yes yeah I mean the United Auto union
workers are pushing back and threatening
to go on strike because of EV uh they're
they're saying hey we're going to lose
our jobs in the future because you're
building all these vehicles that don't
need any parts in the you know whatever
um but I don't know if you follow Joe
Rogan
much I mean I agree with them on most
stuff but a lot of things that don't
agree with them on but one of the things
he was saying the other day was
most of the missions challenges in the
world are coming from brake dust
and not
a lot of it the black brake dust when
you step on the brakes and it causes
that I don't know how true it is what he
was saying but let's say he's factual
well I believe from what I'm hearing EVS
use the same brakes
so yeah if that's the case
he's a Tesla he has a Tesla oh whatever
I I all I'm trying to say is like I
think we just
this
I mean I don't even want to get into it
on this call but there's definitely
reasons why we're moving towards
electric vehicles that aren't always
about necessarily you know saving the
planet and they you know there was talk
that in the extreme Heats you only get
an 80 of your battery life and extreme
colds I'm sure it's no different because
in New England and probably in Minnesota
and other cold places in the world
Buffalo uh when it gets really cold our
batteries die
yes yes uh so like I don't know how that
all plays out do you I mean I I think
everyone thinks it's they got it figured
out I don't think it's figured out yet
and by the way I'm a consumer first
there's like a 10 of a population that's
early adopters I think it's actually
like eight percent in every Market
that's how it works but to get over 20
you got to be pretty compelling
I think we'd have to take my thoughts on
um EVS Eevee insanity and record up an
episode of my podcast what's going on
with Sean and you can be a guest because
then we could be free to to maybe not
overly upset people in our industry I'll
say this is my I would probably buy one
by the way
I wouldn't object to buying one if I
knew like a little bit more right
um sometimes I travel big fan of uh of
hybrid technology I I could see myself
buying a hybrid long before I would buy
an electric vehicle I don't like the
fact that you still have to own and
operate and drive that electric vehicle
for a long time not months years before
you get to zero emissions just based on
what it costs to make that vehicle right
and I don't argue anyone argue that
there's not some question about it is is
totally full of baloney yeah they don't
like how the batteries are the people
who own them yeah what's that I don't
like how the batteries are made and what
that means to what's going on in other
countries because we don't want to see
it in America because we think our hands
are clean but it's disgusting and nobody
likes to talk about it but so I don't
like how the batteries are made I don't
like that I haven't heard anybody talk
about how once we start disposing of
these giant batteries like what's that
look like where are they going to go
right because all kinds of questions
there's a lot of questions and right now
infrastructure wise you know this I I
literally have been on this track where
I've driven from Texas up to Washington
State
um for my father and my mom we did a
little honorable mention for her to it
my dad's memorial and now we're driving
back to Texas I can't tell you how many
windmills my wife and I have driven by
and I would say right now right now and
it's been a pretty hot summer not just
in Texas
um more of them have not been spending
than have been spinning and then we're
talking fields of them they look like
robot crazy things from the future if
you've ever driven through you know
um it could be aliens yeah but um on
that stuff lately
a little bit yeah we could have a whole
episode on that too oh my goodness but
yeah uh you know it it's it's uh we we
get to a point where I understand
because I'm one of the same people like
if we can do better if we can if we can
operate in a way that's it's cleaner
it's better for I want to protect the
planet you want to like we don't want to
destroy the planet let me ask you a
question though my electric bill in the
Northeast in January doubled
doubled what does that mean why did it
double I don't know are we running out
of electricity
um why did it double
I mean we literally my my electric bill
in February in that huge office that I
used to have almost almost became as
much as my rent in the new office yeah
in electricity cost because it was
electric heat and electric air
conditioning so if if the cost of
electricity is on the rise does that
mean it's going to cost more to run on
electric field I have no idea to be
honest with you like I have no idea what
it costs to charge a car like how much
energy that uses from my house but I can
tell you my house electric electric bill
went way up this year too you actually
had an argument with a friend of mine
because he's telling me you've got to be
in the Summer with the air conditioning
and we have like a above ground pool up
back because you got to be like a
thousand a month I'm like there's no way
I'm paying a thousand dollars in
electricity and then I asked my wife
she's like 900 last month I'm like what
I don't even pay those bills so yeah
Skyrocket in Texas every summer for sure
I mean obviously the extremes uh of the
year and you're taxing your your
electricity costs but they're also we
have enough electricity to deal with all
of that well in Texas they started
including electric cars I mean yeah very
early on in Texas they were telling
people if you have electric cars so you
have a bigger uh uh Demand on
electricity uh please be mindful of that
because it's we're expecting a super hot
Texas summer and uh it could hurt the
urcot you know power grid that runs
Texas last year when uh the governor of
California is like we're going to be all
electric you can't even buy an electric
or a non-electric vehicle by 2030 and
like the very next week they're like you
know hey all California citizens if you
have electric cars maybe don't charge
them over a holiday weekend because it's
we uh otherwise we're gonna have rolling
blackouts so until they get to that
point and I know we're off track here
but until they get a lot of those things
fixed
um it's it's not going to be perfect
it's just we got to get a start but I
will say this I I'm gonna spend a little
bit of time uh digging in a little bit
on some of this stuff relative to
service because I think even for people
that are driving electric vehicles
they're going to get one in the future
dealerships are certainly going to be
selling them how many what's because the
demand is not quite as high as you know
what the government probably would I
gotta share some yeah go ahead but we
we'll talk about that a little bit in
the future too because EV service versus
Ice service and uh dealers making sure
that they understand the proportion or
the percentage of business in both of
those directions and forecasting for the
future that's actually that's an
important thing to talk about
so then you're gonna laugh at this I
just Googled it real quick the main
driver behind the increase in
electricity prices at New England is our
Reliance on fossil fuel specifically
Natural Gas
okay hold on explain that it says first
tighter supplies of of liquefied natural
gas which fuels more than one-third of
America's electricity
have raised costs for consumers
so it's like it it makes no sense we're
still using fossil fuels to run the
electrical grids like I don't know what
we're saving all this money and then Joe
Rogan says the brake dust is really the
culprit and the and the gas from the
cows by the way you can't forget that
yeah yep how farts and brake dust what
are we gonna do man I don't need to
laugh at it because it's actually pretty
sad that we we we have the whole entire
world changing
uh I'm not saying we don't need to
change to some different alternative
source and maybe
fossil fuels will run out and I'm not an
expert in any of this but what I am an
expert in is consumers and in the Auto
industry and I can tell you
um we're overwhelmingly seeing more
calls and leads on Ice cars than we are
electric cars and you know Steve
Greenfield just did a piece on
um Evie and he's saying that in six
months to a year we're gonna the dealers
are gonna be overrun with electric
vehicles and they're going to already
have to start discounting them and put
rebates on them to sell them so it
should be interesting
yeah all I know is we're very we adapt
well at strolling and we move we we duck
Bob and weave with the punches you know
as they come and keep going forward you
know that's all you can do yep that's
well that's a actually an important
trait right adapt overcome improvise you
know make it happen
um very important trait
um I'm too old to try and pretend I'm
too old to try and pretend that I know
everything anymore Sean I used to do
that when I was 20 and 30 but yeah I'm
same same here I'm with you on that
um and I think we found a good place to
park this episode I wanna before I do a
my normal outro uh tell everybody to
mark your calendars now for a digital
dealer in October uh I think it's the
16th through the 19th I think they're
back at the Mirage
um
I have spoken at that event so many
times I can't even remember
um but I'm super excited for this one
because I'm gonna host a panel that's
featuring uh some dealers it features a
couple of yours actually and uh Really
Gonna dig deep on uh customer experience
in a way that I don't think people
understand the real truth
um very much looking forward to that so
if you happen to me listen to the
episode uh come out to Vegas and uh hang
with us it's going to be great if
there's already a bunch of great
sessions that have been announced but uh
we'll be part of it and
would love to see you out there
um also that you know there's probably
going to be some karaoke at least one of
those nights but other than that hey
this uh great episode on service if if
you're watching if you're if you're
listening
um and you've got comments questions or
feedback hey we'd love to hear from you
uh this podcast gets better when we hear
from you and there have literally been
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people so we really appreciate that you
can send info by email to info info
strollwood which is spelled
s-t-r-o-l-i-d.com straw lid I know it
looks like stroll it but just think of a
straw and a lid that's how it sounds
until next time though stay strong and
solid and you'll never miss thanks Benny
thank you
foreign
thank you
foreign