Promise Times Are Non-Negotiable

Call at the time you promised 0:00

Steve Shaw: Dave, welcome. What's happening today? What's on your mind?

Dave Rogers: All kinds of stuff on my mind. Crazy day, as always, in the car business. But I was thinking about the last time we were on together. I think you had a parting remark there, maybe a little tease, Steve, about promise times.

Steve Shaw: Promise times. Well, promise times are always near and dear to my heart. I'm of the opinion that we should schedule a promise time with the customer. Set an appointment with the customer and agree on that promise time: "Is it okay? What's a good time for me to call you back?" And I've always said, if it's 10 o'clock, and I make the appointment with you at 10, then call me at 10. Don't call me at 9:59 and don't call me at 10:01. We've agreed on a time.

I've always lived by that, and I always, always get pushback from people. They'll say, "Well, this is a car dealership, and we can't make those times. I don't even know if the car is going to be done." This could become my rant. I get all those different reasons why you cannot call a customer at a specific time. Sometimes I throw my hands up in the air and walk away: "Okay, well, if you can't, you can't. But if you can, you can."

Anyway, fast forward to recently. I make an appointment with somebody, because I wanted to check out a particular system. I made the appointment online for 12 o'clock. The guy says yes, call at 12, Zoom call, everything's all set up. At 10:45 I get a call from the company, and the guy says, "Hey, this is your 12 o'clock call." I'm looking at my phone, and I said, "We have a call at 12?" He said, "Yeah." And I go, "Well, it's 10:45 right now." He says, "Yeah, I just want to know if you have any questions about your call." And I said, "My question is, why are you calling me at 10:45 if we have a call scheduled at noon?" I said, "I'll tell you what, call me back at 12. In fact, don't call me back at 12, because you've made me so mad I don't even want to learn about your product or your program."

Live by the calendar 2:47

Steve Shaw: So that's my rant about promise times. Excuse me, I need one of those cough buttons. But what it led me to, and I was talking to a gentleman at the store where I was this week, is how many people live by their Google calendar? You made appointments at the convention, and you were trying to hit them as you walked around the expo. I shied away from it for years, but more and more now, if it's not on my calendar, if I don't set an appointment with you, I've got other things to do, or I'll forget. And this technology we have in our hands on our phones is absolutely amazing.

So I guess the point of my whole rant is that I think it's important we start looking at that from a dealership perspective, a service perspective. We have to be more respectful of people's time. If I bring my car to you, I'm firmly of the belief that we should be scheduling a time when we can call you and get the approvals or talk to you about your car. And there's technology for it, and it's called Google. It's been there for how many years? We've had the ability to use a Google type of thing just to make an appointment with the customer. If I put it on my calendar as an advisor and sent it to the customer, wow, what a great thing that would be. What do you think about my rant?

Ask when to call, and when they need the car 4:01

Dave Rogers: No, I think you're right. We all have to have our rants. Something about this business has always been that way. People think it starts in sales too. You have a BDC, you have salesmen trying to make an appointment with customers, and the customers blow you off. They don't think it's important. You make an appointment with a customer at 10 o'clock in the morning, they stroll in at two in the afternoon and act like they did you a favor.

And we schedule people for eight o'clock in the morning. Meanwhile, we scheduled 15 people at eight o'clock, so we're backed up. But you're right. If I'm writing you up and we're discussing your car, my question has always been, "Steve, what's a good time for me to call you and give you an update on your vehicle?" Because you could be a school teacher who says, "Listen, I'm on break from 11 to 12," or "from one to two," whatever the case may be. Maybe you've got lunch, maybe you're an executive with meetings scheduled. You're right, people look at their calendar more now than probably ever in the past.

I think it's important we establish that time when we write you up. That doesn't mean your car's going to be done at 10, and you have to explain that to people. It's all in the words you use. "When you bring your vehicle in, you have a scheduled appointment to meet our advisor. When I call you at 10, it's to give you an update on your vehicle." I might ask, "Hey Steve, when do you need the car back?" And you say, "Listen, Dave, I don't give a shit. You give me a loaner car, you can keep it as long as you want." Or, "I've got an Uber picking me up and I'm flying out of town." I think people should ask that too: when do you need the car back?

"I don't know. I'm taking an Uber to the airport after I leave here and I'm flying out of town." Okay, so when's a good time to call you, because it sounds like you're going to be on an airplane for the next four hours? We just don't have those conversations, or we don't have them enough. And you're right, it's commitment and confidence, and people believe in that process. It boils down to common courtesy. They say common courtesy and common sense are the two least common things on the planet. It really just boils down to common sense and common courtesy: "When's a good time for me to call you, Steve, to give you an update on your car?"

"Waiter" means nothing to the shop 6:25

Steve Shaw: Absolutely. I know I'm old, and I know we're in the electronic age with repair orders and so on. But if I'm teaching, I still want you to write it on the repair order with a big Sharpie: "diag promise time." I would let the technician know I need a diagnosis by this time, and then when I call the customer, I'll come back and give an updated completion time, something along those lines. If it's an oil change, then I'm going to put the customer's promise time.

Anybody can put a W and say it's a waiter. I don't really care that it's a waiter. I can remember as a technician, they'd say, "Hey Steve, this is a waiter." I'd go, "Okay, let them wait. What does that mean to me? Let me know when you want the car done and I can complete it." And my world-famous thing, because Steve Shaw grew up in the Saturn world: I worked at Saturn, and back in the good old days we would put people's engines in their car while they waited all day long. We'd feed them breakfast, we'd feed them lunch and give them a snack in the afternoon, and they'd be the happiest people, just chilling out in our showroom. They'd wait all day and drive away with a brand-new engine in their car. Life was pretty good.

So what does it mean if you're a waiter? Nothing. And I go back to the dispatchers as well. How can I dispatch a ticket if it just says "waiter," or just says five o'clock on the ticket? That means absolutely nothing to me. And you're right, it's not courteous. Quite frankly, it sucks for the customer. I did a report in college one time on all these acronyms and terms, and we called it the sunshine treatment. You put "waiter" or five o'clock on the ticket, and the car sits out in the sun all day long. Who really cares?

The update call and the loaner car 8:23

Dave Rogers: Right. But overall, I think the business has gotten better than it used to be. Years ago it was terrible, and you didn't have the tools we have now. Setting the promise time to get back to the customer, making sure we have an agreed-upon time. I used to do the same thing. I'd write on my tickets "wait 10 o'clock," "wait 9:30," whatever it was. "Call by two," that's what I used to write if I had to call the customer by two, so the tech knew to get the car in the shop and get it diagnosed before two o'clock.

And the big picture people miss, the next step of thinking, is that if I tell you I'm going to call you at two and give you an update, that car could need $5,000 worth of work. That doesn't mean the car is going to get done today. I'm going to call you at two and explain what's wrong with the car. I'm going to give you the good news: "Hey, this is covered under warranty." I'm going to give you the news you don't want to hear: "This is not. It's going to be $1,000," or whatever the case may be. And then we're going to come up with a new agreed-upon delivery time. That's where I think people fail: "Oh, no, the car's got to be done today." No, it doesn't. I've got to call Steve at two. That's what I know. Everything after that is going to vary depending on the information.

Steve Shaw: And you might call me and tell me, "Hey Steve, we haven't even looked at your car yet. However, this is what's going on." Thank you. I'm good.

Dave Rogers: Right, exactly. "I haven't looked at your car yet. I want to let you know we're a little backed up today. You're in the loaner car. Worst-case scenario, I'll call you by five. But don't worry about getting home. Just keep the loaner car and I'll call you when it's done." Now you've taken away their anxiety. That's what everyone fails to realize: there's a customer sitting at home twiddling their thumbs, waiting for you to call. "How am I getting home? What am I doing?"

And we put so many rules on these things. "Steve, if I give you the car, make sure you don't go out of town. You can't drive more than 25 miles. Make sure you pay the E-ZPass. Make sure you put gas in." And all this stuff. You're afraid to drive the damn car.

Steve Shaw: I took my car into a dealership, and they're like, "Can I see your insurance?" I said, sure. And then, "We need to know your policy limits. We need to know this. And by the way, you cannot put your dog in the car." And I'm like, well, as my dog walks through the background right there, you've restricted everything I can possibly do. Why would I even want your car?

Dave Rogers: There are OEs where the loaner car is a program through the OE, where they lease them to you or insure them. Within the last year, we had one of them tell us that the customer had to have full coverage to get a loaner car. Now, we own the cars. Technically we're paying for the cars and everything else, and they're dictating the customer's insurance to us. They don't have to deal with this shit. That's what drives me crazy. "Let's make a crazy-ass rule that you have to have pink hair and all this other stuff to get one of our cars." And they're not the ones dealing with the fallout.

But when you look at the times, I think people get confused. What time are they going to meet the advisor? What's going to happen next? Take two minutes and explain it: "We're going to write you up in the morning. We might not get the car in the shop until 10 or 11 o'clock." That's why I always use Frank at the Volkswagen store as the example. He's very clear-cut. He says, "Don't call me before two. I will call you at two." He stands by his promise. He's very blunt that way.

Steve Shaw: Absolutely. I love that. "Don't call me. I promise you I will be busy."

Dave Rogers: And he's earned the trust over the years. People who have been going to see Frank for 20-some years just believe him, and he always fulfills his promise.

Make an appointment with your technician 12:03

Steve Shaw: Yeah. It's the same thing. I was having this conversation with a service manager: make an appointment with your technician to go ask about the repairs. People hate it when I talk about that in our time management class. How dare you, as an advisor, walk out to your technician and bother this man or woman while they're working on a car, trying to make a living and trying to fix the car right? A service advisor goes out and interrupts him: "Hey, can you tell me about this car? Can you tell me about this car?"

The productivity loss, or call it efficiency loss, whatever term we're using these days, I guess it would be efficiency. You just bothered me and took me away from working on a car, and I find it abhorrent. And technicians love it when I tell people, "Do not go talk to your technician during the day. Make an appointment. This is your scheduled time, and I will make myself available to you."

Dave Rogers: That's great, as long as I don't walk out there and find them smoking a cigarette in the back, bullshitting with three other techs. Then I'll lose my shit. But I think you're right. You have to value their time. You don't want them talking on the phone while they're working on the car, and you certainly don't want them talking to another person. It's distracted driving. You need the guy paying attention.

I firmly believe I see more loose drain plugs and loose lug nuts than I've ever seen in my entire life, in 43 years in the car business. I have never seen it, and it's such an epidemic now. And I know damn well it's from distracted technicians. They've got their phone, they've got their earbuds, they're talking to somebody. The girlfriend or the wife is giving them a bunch of shit on the phone. Something's going on, and they're busy not working on the car. So you're right: make an agreed-upon time. "Hey, when can I come out and talk to you about this? How much time do you need before I come visit you?" Depending on who dispatches the job. It's a good point.

Steve Shaw: There are so many ways we can communicate with each other nowadays, whether it's Google or Siri, text messages or all the different kinds of apps. There's got to be something with AI we can do, a way to handle all this. A service advisor told me he visits his technician three times on a car: "Is it finished?" I said, "Bro, you're going to have problems, because you need to be on the drive, and this guy can't make a living with you out there." That would be absolutely terrible.

Loose lug nuts and distracted techs 14:34

Steve Shaw: And I can remember, how many people have you fired in your life for leaving off lug nuts? Today, if we fired somebody for leaving lug nuts loose, we'd be hard pressed to find a technician.

Dave Rogers: Yeah. For me, it's always dependent on the tech and where they are in their development, young kids, and depending on the story. If somebody loses a lug nut pulling out of the shop, all right, good, at least you're paying attention. But listen, I've seen some lawsuits with some serious money paid, and in some of them you really couldn't prove we left the lug nuts off. Unfortunately, we just happened to be the last people who worked on the car. The car could have been parked in Jersey City or Philly and subjected to somebody trying to steal the wheels. But they chase deep pockets. If it was a veteran technician, yeah, we used to fire them all the time.

We had a guy recently we were talking to, a really, really good tech, and he wanted to join us. He wound up staying where he was. But I was talking to one of the other guys, and they're like, "Yeah, he worked for us like 15 years ago." This guy's a master tech in his brand. I'm like, "What happened?" He goes, "When he was a kid, he left a lug nut off and the boss made me fire him." And the guy became a master tech. I'm sure it was probably the best thing that ever happened to him, because he probably never did that again. But now you don't fire him. Not the first time, anyway.

Steve Shaw: If you'd fired me for every lug nut or every nut or bolt I didn't put back on the car when I was growing up in the business, well, it probably wasn't that good.

Dave Rogers: I double-gasketed an oil filter once. That was my first mistake. I didn't know the gasket could stick to the engine. It never even occurred to me. I double-gasketed it, got my hand slapped, and never did that again, ever.

But listen, it's a lot worse than it was when I was younger. We didn't have cell phones. We weren't talking on the phone. If we were going to have a cigarette, we had to lean back against the workbench. We could smoke in the shop, but you couldn't be under the car smoking a cigarette. We were safety conscious. Now people are paying attention to everything but the car sometimes. It's ridiculous, and it's causing a lot of issues. So to go back to the point, they have to be working on the car, and you need them paying attention to it. You go interrupt the guy in the middle of a timing chain job, and that'll be the car he puts together off a tooth.

Accountability starts with a written process 17:33

Steve Shaw: Right. However you want to look at it, make an appointment with your technician to talk to him, and make an appointment with the customer. You said it best: common courtesy. We're all here to make a dollar. We want to be friends and make sure of all of that, but like you said, common sense, common courtesy. We need to adhere to that.

And you know what that goes back to? I had a call today with a group, and they said, "Do you think you could talk to my people about coaching for accountability? Could you help my people be better at accountability?" And I said, "Absolutely. We have a coaching class. We could certainly talk about things like that." And like I do so often, I said, "Let me ask you a question. Did you document it? If we're going to talk accountability, do you have your processes written out? What's our process for follow-up? What's our process for promise times? How do you expect it to be done? Or is everybody allowed to do whatever the heck they want?" "I'll give you a call when I have an answer."

Dave Rogers: Right. And I think the overriding thing everyone has to realize is that it might not work the first couple of times, because you haven't built up the credibility with that customer. But if you start doing it, and you start today, I promise you in a year or two, after repeat business comes in, they're going to believe you, because you've backed it up and your word means something. If I write up Steve today and tell him, "Steve, I'm going to give you a call at two," and you call me at noon, it's because nobody's ever called you when they promised, and you've been doing business with our store for five years. I understand why you did it, and I've got to build some trust with you. I've got to build that rapport.

I think that's the other piece that's missing. We know some of those customers are going to be pains in the asses. We know some customers are not going to listen to what we say. Maybe the wife's going to call, maybe the husband's going to call. That's the other thing: a lot of times the advisor forgets to ask who they're going to call. "Should I call you about the status of the car, or is there someone else?" You've got to tiptoe on that, because you don't want to look like a chauvinist. You've got to be careful with that question. But it's important. You don't know unless you ask. You don't even know who you're calling.

Texting doesn't replace the human element 20:05

Steve Shaw: Well, and then they're going to throw this out: "Well, we use text in the drive. We text everybody." And I'm like, okay, that's good. I like the idea that you're texting. But it doesn't replace anything. There still has to be that human element. I get the whole thing: "We use text, and we're going to send you your video," and so on. But if you're going to send me a text message, you'd certainly better send it long before my expectation that you're going to give me a call.

I guess I would say it this way: if you're going to send me a text message, you might want to alert me to your process. How does this process work? What should I be on the lookout for? Not just, "We keep in touch with text messages." It doesn't work. Is it a cop-out? I think it's a cop-out. We've got to get that human element back in there.

Dave Rogers: Yeah. That's another question you'd ask the customer: what's the best way to let you know what's going on with your car? I've had customers say, "Email me." I'll date myself again. I remember when BlackBerrys first came out, everybody had their BlackBerrys, and they're like, "Listen, send me an email. I get my email on my phone." That was the way they wanted the estimates sent to them. They wanted everything done through email. And it was great, because then you have a paper trail.

There are customers who want to be texted. So you have the new technology, the service platform. You can send an estimate via text or email, and they can approve things right online. If that's what they want, that's great. There are some people who don't want to talk to you on the phone. But you've got to establish that. It goes back to asking the customer the question. I don't know why we always assume in this business. We just always do.

Steve Shaw: And as a consumer, I would want to know, at what point will you be sending me an email? At what point will I get that text? If you can establish that, now the technician knows the customer will be expecting a call at 10 or noon or two. Then the technician can make their decision: do I pull the car out, do I leave it on the rack, what has to happen? All that internal communication certainly goes a much longer way as well.

Dave Rogers: Agreed, 100%. It just boils down to the same basic question over and over again. Is there a process? Does everyone know it? You've got to know what it is.

Steve Shaw: Yeah, absolutely. So what's your tip of the day for Steve Shaw's rant?

Dave Rogers: I think the general manager, again, may not be quite sure what to make of this. I think it starts with sitting down with your service manager or service writers and maybe helping them write that process, putting something down on paper so everyone can follow it. Again, you're the GM. You should be setting the culture of the store. It should be your personality, the way you want the business to run. If you're a stickler on processes, then help your service manager write those processes out. When I was younger, I didn't know how to write out a process. I didn't know what that meant. You'd have a bunch of pieces of paper with six letters on them: "Call. Smile." So give them a chance, help them out and do the process. Because I do believe your little poster there: if it's not in writing, it doesn't exist. That would be my tip of the day.

Steve Shaw: Exactly. "Call. Smile." That's why we made so many acronyms when we were growing up. Awesome.

Dave Rogers: You used to do it, right? You used to have the little Post-it notes: "Call." "Make sure you smile." You had all these little Post-it notes, one-pagers, one-liners.

Steve Shaw: There you go. All right, man, I'll catch up with you later. See you.

Dave Rogers: All right, brother, I'll talk to you.