Your Daily Report Isn't Managing Your Service Department

Why are managers writing reports at nine in the morning? 0:00

Steve Shaw: Here we are again, Dave Rogers. I don't even know what day it is anymore. Probably somewhere around episode 90, I don't know. We're going to hit the century mark here pretty soon. But the last time we were talking, we left off on a topic, and I've got to bring it back up. You were talking about AI. So my question to you is: why are we making managers write reports at nine o'clock every morning?

Dave Rogers: You know, it's funny. I walk into a store at seven-thirty, eight o'clock, eight-thirty in the morning, and there's the service manager with his face in his PC. He has no idea what's going on in the service drive, no idea that there's a service advisor out there basically beating up and knuckling up at a customer. And there he is with his Google Sheet, plugging in all these numbers somebody makes him plug in.

Or even worse, if one of the owners is coming in that day. I talked to somebody this morning, it was about nine o'clock, and I could hear all the noise in the background. "What are you guys doing?" "We're preparing for the meeting. One of the owners is on his way." I'm like, my God. You know the chaos that develops from it.

You're right. I understand it to a certain extent. You want your people to know where they are. But to waste the first two hours of every day plugging numbers into a Google Doc defeats the purpose. It really does.

Steve Shaw: It is ridiculous anymore, right? "Get out on the drive." "No, I've got to do a report. I've got to have a report done." I was working at a store in St. Louis where the service director would come in at about nine o'clock. Whatever, I don't care. But the point is, the production manager had to have a sticky note on the service manager's door, so the service manager's work was done for him. When he walked in at whatever time, there was a sticky note on his door that said, "This is how many hours we flagged yesterday." That way the service manager was done. He knew everything. He didn't have to do it himself. I was like, there you go, bro. You're the chief of staff.

Dave Rogers: Delegation, man. Delegation. That's good. I like it.

Running the numbers before the doors open 2:07

Dave Rogers: I was always one of those guys who got in early. I got in at six, six-thirty, and I used to run my numbers before the action happened, so I could be up and out of my office when the action happened. This store was pretty big. I'd get there around six-thirty, the doors opened at seven, and we let people in early.

My first half hour, I would run my reports. I'd run my dock. I would run my open ROs. I would run my work in process to get an idea of what was going on there, and then I would run my available loaners. Then I would spend the next fifteen minutes trying to see if we had enough loaners for the day based on all the appointments. And scrambling: we're going to need this many rental cars, or are there some loaners that weren't checked in?

But I wound up being out on the drive, in the mix. Then after it died down, I'd go back to my office and work on my tracker. I only needed four reports for my tracker. That's all I needed. I had a shop foreman and a service manager who would run the tech hours for me.

And listen, this was ten years ago. Things have become a lot more complicated. There's a lot more shit to manage, and there are a lot more nuances to this business. But the same thing goes: why are we sitting there running all these numbers when we should have some kind of mechanism to put these numbers on a screen for you or spit them out? Can't you look at them late in the day, or midday? Can you look at them at one o'clock when everyone else is having their lunch? That's really when you could look at them.

"Where are we?" Knowing your flat-rate hours 3:40

Steve Shaw: It's true. At my last really big job, the guy I worked for, Jeff, would call me on the intercom: "Shaw, where are we?" And I would go, "Thirty-two hundred hours, boss. Two hundred fifty hours for the day." We would intercom each other. And if seconds went by and I didn't page him back with the number of flat-rate hours we had for the day, I was getting a second page. "Shaw." He wanted to know exactly, within a very short period of time.

There was no third page. I knew better. I'd better get over to the phone. I could page from anywhere, but I'd better know the number of flat-rate hours we had produced at 12:32, or he was going to kick my ass. So it wasn't about the report. It was, do you know? I know. And there was never a third call, I promise.

Dave Rogers: I used to run the daily sales summary fifteen times a day. Fifteen times a day. "Where are we at? Where are we at?" And I had a GM I worked for, it was ADP, CDK, whatever, and in sales there were these reports called eight-and-nine reports. I think it was a special routine. I don't even know what function he went into to do it, though I think I used to run it too when I was a GM.

The GM used to sit at the desk next to the general sales manager, and every time a deal was done and somebody left finance, he'd run the eight-and-nines again, just to see where the gross was. All day long. That's all he would do. Ed would just run that eight-and-nine report all day long. It was the most hysterical thing. And then you'd hear him go, "Uh-oh, finance did something to that deal. We lost a thousand dollars. We weren't supposed to lose a thousand." Somebody booked the cost out wrong, or backwards.

And this was a three-hundred-car store. He did it all day long, every single day. It was crazy. I know Ed's not listening. He's retired now, on a golf course somewhere in South Carolina. But if he were, he could probably have used AI.

Steve Shaw: I can tell you, along those lines, my buddy would not only know his numbers in sales, he would know the region's numbers. Literally every day he was checking, "How am I doing?" Then he would call around and find out how everybody else was doing. He probably made the same call ten times a day to every store in town. "Where do we compare to everybody else?" We weren't missing a beat. That was just Jeff's mentality: "We're going to be the best, we're going to outsell everybody, we're going to flag more than everybody, and I'm going to make sure of it every minute, every day." That was the deal.

Heads in the computer, customers in the drive 6:10

Dave Rogers: I guess you just answered the question. That's why you do it: so you look like you're on top of your game, constantly running your numbers. I just think there's more to this business. It's probably one of the reasons we have a hard time with retention. Our heads are so far up our ass in the computers, running reports, doing all this other stuff and answering emails, that we keep forgetting about the customers who are walking in the door and getting ignored, or the phones that aren't getting answered. Because that's really what's going to make things happen.

Steve Shaw: Well, I do agree with you that you can take it too far. We played a game, and we were both on top of our shit, so we knew what was happening. But I think the difference is that back then we were on top of our game, we knew it, we did it for fun and we wanted to know. But the other stuff wasn't getting left behind. Like you said, I was working the service drive. I'm the highest-paid porter ever.

Even today, when I'm in a store, I will move cars on the drive, because I want to see and hear and be a part of that activity. As the fixed ops director, I moved cars. I didn't even know how to drive a Ferrari, and I was moving a Ferrari out of the service drive, because I wanted to be out there with the guys while they were talking to customers.

There's a time and a place for everything, but there's no reason a manager can't be on top of their game if they really choose to. And then again, like we said in our last episode, does somebody train him what to do? Because I can tell you right now, and I'm not going to say the name of this store, I have a Ford service manager who got sat down in his chair without a clue. They don't do multi-points, and they sat this person down in a chair. He has zero idea of what to do.

Dave Rogers: The Earn as You Learn program, man. That's the way it works.

Steve Shaw: That's it. And the guy they promoted to fixed ops director, same thing. He's drinking out of a fire hose right now. He has really no clue what's going on. So now I've got a guy in a store and a guy above him who have no clue what to do, and the other stores are left to their own devices. We are propagating this failure, and it's insanity.

All hands on deck, like a good hotel 8:19

Dave Rogers: I use this example all the time. Go to a casino in Las Vegas. It's a perfect example. When you go to check in at three o'clock in the afternoon, every one of those podiums has somebody at it. Every single one. There's the head of housekeeping, there's the general manager. These people checking guests in don't do that for a living. But during the rush, when there's a line of people trying to check in, it's all hands on deck to do what? To get everybody checked into their hotel rooms. Same thing in the morning at checkout time. You'll see a lot of people there. And when they're all done, they take their jackets off and go back to housekeeping, back to their jobs.

For some reason, in the car business we don't do that. We're going to sit in our office and run reports. No, get out there. Be the maître d', be the chef, be the general manager. Get out there and move cars, like you said, talk to customers, keep them busy if they're in line to see an advisor. That's what you've got to do. It's got to be customer-facing, and that's what gets forgotten in all of this.

Last time we talked about employees not getting an update or getting recognition. How about the customers? You're ignoring them. They're sitting there in line, and they don't even know what they're waiting in line for, because you only have three advisors on, two guys decided to go visit parts for no reason, and one decided to go in the back to have a snack. It's the middle of rush hour, you've got two advisors up and ten people waiting. How often do you see that happen? It's ridiculous.

Steve Shaw: You know, there's a smoothie named after me at a hotel in Tampa, the Tampa Westshore Marriott. When I first started training and traveling, I would go to this hotel. It's an old hotel, right in Westshore, Tampa. Small, but it's clean and it's beautiful. It's certainly not the newest place in town, but it is beautiful. And they did exactly what you said.

At 7 a.m., if I was headed out to work, I would stop by and get my smoothie, and I'd have them make me a double yogurt with the oatmeal, blah, blah, blah. I did that all the time. Finally, the person in charge of the restaurants, the restaurant manager, goes, "I see you asking for that every day." I worked over in Tampa for a long time. They asked, "What's your name?" I said, "Steve Shaw," and they literally put "Steve Shaw Smoothie" on the menu. It was double yogurt and double oatmeal in the smoothie.

That's how well they knew their guests. They were just there, out there. And then at three or four o'clock when you came back, just like you said, they were all standing out there greeting you, waiting on you, "How you doing?" It's absolutely beautiful. I just wish we could do a better job of doing stuff like that as managers in our world.

Dave Rogers: The hospitality industry is a great industry to take a look at and see what they're doing, because they've always had it dialed in. I don't know if it's the same today, but the five-star places don't mess around. It's customer first. And I always look at them and go, how do they afford to have all these people? Well, because they charge full pop to give good service. A lot of these places aren't cheap. They ask for all the money, but they give good service. And you'll go back just to get your Steve Shaw smoothie, right? They named a smoothie after you.

Hospitality fees and resort fees 11:43

Steve Shaw: Exactly. Well, you know what? Why don't we just make a fee? Why don't we just have a hospitality fee? We'll put it on the ticket, and that way we get our full pop, we get our labor rate, and then we'll have a fee that pays all of our support staff for standing out in the drive.

Dave Rogers: I recently saw two or three advertisements for casinos and hotels in Vegas, because of course I was there, so now I'm getting spammed on all social media. A lot of these places are waiving the resort fees. They're getting rid of the fees to try to get people in, because tourism's down in Vegas right now. You can gamble anywhere. You don't need to be in Vegas anymore. So they're doing all these little things, getting rid of the fees, to try to attract your business. Somebody told me when I was out there that the Sphere, I think it was, had rooms for as little as fifteen dollars a night. Fifteen dollars a night. Can you imagine that? It's crazy.

Steve Shaw: I can't believe that. Yet they won't do that for NADA.

Dave Rogers: No, no. NADA is in Orlando this year. I can't wait. I'll go down and see the grandkids.

Steve Shaw: I know, I'm looking forward to it. That'll be an easy one for me. But speaking of fees, by the time this airs, next Thursday I think, I will have posted my article on LinkedIn about my experience with the fees on buying a car. I didn't get a chance to do it today, so I'm going to post it on Thursday. So we can report back on the feedback about my buying experience.

Dave Rogers: I just talked to one of our vendor friends. He had asked me last week where he could buy a Honda, so I gave him the name of our store in Langhorne and the sales manager's name, and he knew him. He said within twenty-four hours the Honda was sitting in his driveway. He never went to the dealership. He did everything online, boom, boom, boom. He said it was the smoothest transaction ever. I'm thinking to myself, wow. I knew they'd take care of him price-wise, but I didn't know it was going to go that smooth.

Steve Shaw: That's amazing. That's awesome.

Costanza syndrome 13:57

Dave Rogers: I think when you boil some of this stuff down, again, if your head is stuck in a computer, I call it bureaucratic procrastination: sitting at your desk. It's for people who don't know what to do, so they keep themselves busy with to-do things. And thinking about it after we talked about this, that's probably what a lot of people do. They don't know how to manage. They don't know what to do. They watched the boss whose job they took, who did the same thing and sat in his office all day.

I remember George Costanza talking to the gang one time, and he said you just have to look aggravated, and then they leave you alone. You just pretend you're busy. And that's kind of what you see in a lot of these stores.

Steve Shaw: That's my term. I call it Costanza syndrome. I agree with you, man. That's absolutely it. I like the episode where Kramer was working. He's got his briefcase, he's going to work, and Jerry goes, "What's in your briefcase?" And he goes, "Crackers." He looked good. He gets on the train, he goes to work, and then he gets fired, and the owner says, "You have absolutely no training whatsoever."

Dave Rogers: And he says, "I don't even work here." And the guy goes, "Yeah, that's what's making it so hard." He fired a guy who doesn't even work there.

Steve Shaw: Hey, that could have been you. "I don't even work here."

Dave Rogers: It's pretty funny when you think about it. But how much of that stuff is based on real life? People doing stupid shit.

Let AI do the reporting and listen to the calls 15:30

Dave Rogers: I did mention last time that we should be utilizing AI for things like this, to ping you, to let you know. I think that's where the real benefit is going to come in, if you really want to invest in it a little bit or figure out a way to do it. It's not just to answer phone calls and answer your email leads. Figure out a way for it to do your reporting. Figure out a way for it to give you an idea of what's going on.

One of the stores I was talking to today told me their AI listens to all the phone calls, inbound and outbound, and he gets pinged if the sentiment is negative. So you can intercept these things as they're going on. One person hung up on it: "I don't talk to no MF AI." So what do you do? You pick up the phone and call the guy. That's what you should be spending your time doing, and that's a great use for AI.

Now, I did ask him, "This program you have: when the service advisor is calling the customer to sell the work, does it grade that transaction? Does it let you know that the service advisor didn't tell them about the two-year roadside, or didn't tell them about our buy-three-get-one-free?" And he goes, "No, not yet." I said, well, that's something it really should do. If it's going to monitor the calls, let's get something that monitors the calls and sharpens the skills.

I'm sure there's training out there that does that. I've heard of some different ones. But it's so funny how these programs focus on one thing or another and don't incorporate all of it. Because how much time savings would that be?

Steve Shaw: Well, I will give my friends at Zurich a plug, because I know they do that in finance now, where they have the AI that listens. In fact, we were talking about that for service today: can that AI listen to those calls? I literally got a phone call this morning at about nine-thirty saying, "Hey, we want to incorporate your stuff into the AI." And I'm like, I've been asking for that forever. I just don't have the bandwidth to do it. But having the ability to incorporate our training into that AI, I think that is super powerful.

Dave Rogers: There was one vendor I saw a demo from where you had to leave a cell phone down, recording the service advisor talking to the customer, and then it would grade that conversation. I'm just not sure how well that will go over with customers: "I'm going to record this." I think it has to be built into the environment. It can't be something you turn on and off. And in this state you have to let both people know you're recording, too.

But for training, if you could figure out a way to do that and sharpen people's skills where they don't take offense to it, I think it'd be a great tool. Now you know which employee to concentrate your time on, instead of just running reports and finding out somebody sucks at their closing percentage, or has low hours per RO, low margins, high discounts, whatever the case may be.

Listen, that is a valid reason to run reports, to see where the holes are in your operation. But it shouldn't be the majority of your time. You should know who sucks and who doesn't suck just by walking around. You really should.

Steve Shaw: Right. When we teach, it's, "Did you hear X? Did you hear Y?" If you didn't hear X or Y, then you know you've got an issue. That's generally what Craig or Bob or somebody will do on the drive. They're listening. Did you say the words we said you were supposed to say?

I think I told you this, but I had Cindy one time, and the dealer let us tap into their cameras, and we performed an evaluation over the internet. We didn't have the audio, but Cindy wrote an evaluation based on watching their cameras in the service drive for one full day. It was freaking comedy. The big fat guy would not get off his ass, and he would send people out to the drive to walk around cars. She wrote up this whole report. Then the manager and the dealer were having a talk, and the manager goes, "How do you know all of this?" And the dealer says, "I paid somebody to watch you for eight hours." That's all it took.

Cameras, guardrails and the GM tip 19:35

Dave Rogers: There's software out there, I think it's called Sky Vision, that you can tap into your cameras, and it will track your employees and tell you how productive they are, how many cigarette breaks they took and how many times they were standing around bullshitting. I saw it a few years ago at NADA, and one of my owners saw it too. He's like, "That looks interesting." I said, "Yeah, that's really interesting until you try to put it in, and then all your employees quit." Because Big Brother's watching.

Steve Shaw: Well, here's the thing. I was reading this yesterday in some of my research. They were talking about cameras, about "you can do this and you can't do this, and if you get over the line, you're going to have a problem." People are more productive when they have guardrails. Once they get past "I'm on camera," they go, "Someone's watching. I guess I'm not going to stand out here and smoke a cigarette. I'd better not do that."

Life is good, because now they know someone is actually watching and paying attention. There's going to be a report, and you're going to get asked about it. And if we don't ask, then what's accountability without any kind of action? I like it more and more, especially the more research I do about it.

Dave Rogers: I thought it was neat technology. I liked it. I just think in the wrong hands, I could see how it would be a detriment to employees and to retention. If I owned a store, I'd probably put it in, because I think it would be a great tool. You're right, the guardrails are a perfect analogy for that. Everybody knows where they stand.

But going back to the original topic, most people can't manage well and can't coach well. They just don't know how to do it, or they've never been trained to do it. It's going to be used as a weapon more than it's going to be used as a coaching tool. That's the biggest problem with these things. There are great ideas and great intentions for this stuff. It's the execution that fails. That's usually where these things crumble.

Steve Shaw: I must use my powers for good instead of evil. You'd better give us a GM tip of the day.

Dave Rogers: The GM tip of the day is: let's try to find a way to make your managers' jobs a little easier and a little less reliant on plugging numbers into a Google Doc, if you can. If there's a way to utilize AI, use it. Maybe there's an hourly person who isn't doing anything for the first two hours of the day who can compile things and run the reports for you. Your frontline managers need to be on the front line, dealing with employees and customers first thing in the morning.

So I challenge the general managers to come up with answers on this, not just the guys caught in the trenches, because they're really just following orders. They're doing what they think they're supposed to do, and whether they agree with it or not, they're just trying to keep their jobs. That's a GM's job. They've got to start looking at these things and figure out a way to make their people more productive at the things that matter, not the things that don't matter.

Steve Shaw: Awesome. All right, I'll catch up with you next week. Later.

Dave Rogers: Yes, sir. Talk to you later.