Applying Farming Principles To The Service Drive To Harvest Customer Retention with Nick Shaffer of TVI-MarketPro3

Paul J Daly: 0:00

Cirilo wearing a polo shirt. For the first time ever on an auto cup Auto Collabs Podcast. I'm pretty sure this is a first

‍Unknown: 0:14

this is Auto Collabs

Paul J Daly: 0:16

no glasses. Oh, and sunglasses. It's it's Cirilo Miami. That's my new thing. I just put the word Miami at the end of someone's last name and it makes it like cool. Miami.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:30

No, it's real low Miami. real low Miami.

Paul J Daly: 0:33

Miami is better. Sure. Kind of hip hop this what kind of hip hop does Michael Cirillo deliver?

Michael Cirillo: 0:40

Guys, there's this one episode of Paw Patrols

Kyle Mountsier: 0:47

you couldn't have given me those two words. No, I think it's like live and me known in like three years have guessed that?

Paul J Daly: 0:55

No, I mean, like, pivoting off the Canadian thing. It's like, Have you ever heard like French hip hop? It's amazing. But that's that's what Michaels that's what real low Miami delivers. French, French Canadian hip hop.

Michael Cirillo: 1:09

Every song would be titled May I go to the bathroom, please. Because that's the only phrase I took out of all my years learning French in high school.

Paul J Daly: 1:20

I have no idea how we're going to talk about today's guests after that intro

Michael Cirillo: 1:26

album where every song is the same chord progression but in a different key. It isn't

Paul J Daly: 1:30

that every Green Day album.

Michael Cirillo: 1:32

Yeah,

Paul J Daly: 1:32

that's true. That that Green Day album. It's every Green Day. Oh my gosh, today we're seeing that with somebody new for us. I mean, not like we've never met before, but we've never had them on any continent. I believe Nick Shaffer a TVI. Market MarketPro gotta sit down talk marketing. I'm gonna ask him about his recent move, because I know there was one. So we'll get into that. We hope you enjoyed this interview with Nick Shaffer. All right, Nick, here we are. You're all the way in Texas. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Nick Shaffer: 2:07

Thank you for having me.

Paul J Daly: 2:08

You know, one of the one of the topics of conversation is that you've had a recent move from one part of the country to another was a bit of a holiday distressed region at the moment. Yeah.

Nick Shaffer: 2:21

Used to be used in a bad way. But I'll tell you what, now that I've experienced both, I'll still take hurricanes, hurricanes or earthquakes, they at least you know, they're cool.

Kyle Mountsier: 2:31

Right, buddy? All day.

Nick Shaffer: 2:33

So yeah, just moved to Houston from Northern California. And enjoyed being here so far. That's

Paul J Daly: 2:39

great. So, you know, you mentioned that we asked questions sometimes in the pre show notes. And it says you love to mountain bike. Yep. And Texas probably is not like really well known for mountain biking enthusiast.

Nick Shaffer: 2:51

No, no. And, you know, I kind of in the back of my mind, I thought, Okay, I'm gonna get there. I'm gonna bring my bikes, I'm gonna give it a shot. Worst case scenario, it doesn't work out. I can sell my bikes and buy a road bike like it would break my heart to do it. No offense to any roadies out there. But road biking here doesn't appear to be a thing because there's no bike lanes. And and yeah, they're out there coexisting with cars on frontage roads, and I'm not sure I'm done with that. So and

Paul J Daly: 3:19

there's no one to sell a mountain bike to either.

Nick Shaffer: 3:21

That's that's a fact.

Michael Cirillo: 3:23

I mean, there's just got to just go one step further from road bike and get an A man's bike. And then we'll go cruise. Yeah, yeah.

Unknown: 3:34

Okay,

Paul J Daly: 3:35

I know, I just now that we're going in this direction, let's get back to business. You've have you've have quite an extensive history, especially on the fixed ops side of the auto industry. So I love it that like, we can introduce you to some new people. And we love it when there's actual dealer experience. We think that's the most valuable just to establish the fact that like I have been on the front line, so why don't you give us a little background? Quick, 62nd flyover for sure.

Nick Shaffer: 4:00

So gotten an automotive retail in 2005. It's great time to get in the automobile business, worked in retail for 11 years. 10 of those 11 years was with the Hendrick Automotive Group, fantastic organization, great culture, great reputation. And I'm proud to have managed service departments for Mr. Hendrick. I started off writing service became a service manager director over three stores. And when I left automotive retail to come to work for TBI market pro three, I was a fixed operations director over an 11 store group in Northern California.

Kyle Mountsier: 4:33

Very cool. That's what what was the like? Did you had you always dreamed about being a service advisor or being in the auto industry? Or was that kind of like ah no, let's do service right service like a

Nick Shaffer: 4:46

lot of like a lot of people I found the automobile business kind of by accident. I was working out every morning in a gym next to the gentleman who was the general manager of the auto mall that I first you know earned employee I met with him. And every morning, we would just have banter back and forth. And over the course of six months, we developed a good friendship and a mutual respect. And I perceived him to be someone who was wildly bright and motivated and talented. And he saw something in me and asked me if I would

Kyle Mountsier: 5:16

come to work for him. Okay, cool. So I, you know, one of the things that I think our industry doesn't get enough is conversations more broadly with people that have expertise on the on the fixed ops side, it's, you know, a lot of conferences or content is derived from variable and marketing, right? Like, those are the places where there's not a lot of HR, there's not a lot of fixed ops, there's not a lot of accounting in the kind of like, content ecosystem. And so learning from people that are even just like taking the experiences that you had there and putting them into your current work. When when you think of like, now that you get to see a much more broad spectrum of the entire retail industry, what maybe like, can you point to one or two things that you think fixed Ops is doing that, or that you were doing that maybe the rest of the, the, the industry, especially from, like, the different portions of the dealership could potentially learn from like that mode of operating?

Nick Shaffer: 6:23

Absolutely. So there's been a pivot in fixed operations in automotive retail, over the last, depending on the manufacturer, one to 10 years, where previously, retail dealers were really, really focused on measuring customer satisfaction, and come to find out customer satisfaction, or how a client filled out a survey wasn't necessarily a leading indicator as to whether or not they would come back and transact business again, with that dealership. So there's been a pivot from focusing on customer satisfaction to focusing on how do we actually measure whether or not we're actively retaining this client? And I think that that's a very smart pivot. But it only seems to be a focus in fixed operations. Does someone you know, do business with me on a service repair order? And if so, do they come back? If not, why? And what can we learn from it? I think that that's an important thing to look at that should be focused on in any business, quite frankly, especially retail. But I don't see a similar focus on the variable side of things. If somebody bought a car from me, why didn't they buy their next car from me? Now I get that it's a much longer sales cycle. So it's harder to measure with a gajillion variables. But anyways, from from a fixed ops perspective, that's a focus the industry is taking that I appreciate and hope it continues. And I think it's in the best interest of both the dealer and the client dealer focused on providing the client a better experience fair pricing and being transparent. And in return, the dealer earns the loyalty, which is, of course, going to be financially beneficial. Yeah,

Kyle Mountsier: 8:01

and not just that, but as a percentage, the number of people that fill out a survey, whether it telling you whether or not they enjoyed their experience, compared to the overall volume of people that are continuing to return is dramatically disparate for a fraction of a fraction of a fraction. And so if you're focusing on that larger majority of like, Are these people coming back in? And am I retaining them? Do they want to do business with me again, I that is a massive shift. And I think that shift is not just happening practically from the OEM perspective. But over the last two and three years, especially the volume of times that I've heard, lifetime value of a customer or retention marketing, or one to one service or sales marketing that, like, is intended to bring someone back has like risen at the same time. Are you seeing that? Yes. You're like, absolutely done.

Paul J Daly: 9:02

I mean, like a part of that conversation, just like, it gets me back to a conversation we've been having broadly marketing amongst us is Net Promoter Score. And it's like, it's so much simpler than people make it I think, and sometimes the other stuff drives the wrong behavior, and ignores a big a big part of like, are you going to come back? And are you going to tell your friends this is a good place? Yes.

Nick Shaffer: 9:27

Yes. Well, I'm, I mean, just being completely honest, I think that there are some dealers out there that embrace the retention focus. And I think there are a lot that are doing it half heartedly. They realize it's important to the manufacturer, therefore, it's important to me, and if I do well at it, then my business does well, but I as a marketing partner, we have had several dealer partners in the past that thought that they could just push the easy button and pay a marketing company to just market to their client Intel in a way that would bring them back. But really, they kind of wash the hands of the responsibility of operating a business that had a transparent experience with low turnover. And, and unfortunately, there's there is no easy button for you know, for retaining your clients, it requires everybody to do the right things at every step. And the dealers that are that understand that and are fully vested in doing the right thing at every step. They're definitely reaping reaping the rewards of their efforts collectively, but those that are trying to push the easy button and pay a vendor or a consultant to fix it for them. There's no, there's no easy fix.

Michael Cirillo: 10:43

You know, this is interesting what you just said, Because isn't that where the disconnect is? Yes, most companies intention is I'm bringing you in to fix it. That company knows intentionally, they don't fix things. They're not a fixer company, they do a thing. But it never gets talked about. And so now right out of the gates relationship is destined for failure, because they know what they do. Or they know what their expectation is. They know what they do, which is not the expectation. And and here we have this perpetual issue that arises in our industry,

Nick Shaffer: 11:23

without a doubt, without a doubt. And at the end of the day, it takes a village, right. So our most successful dealers with client retention are those that understand that it takes a village. And they make sure that they develop open lines of communication with all of their employees, all of their vendors, everybody partners together and gets in the boat and rows in the same direction. And it just works so much better in that kind of culture, compared to when there are silos throughout, you've got a marketing company that sending offers out to clientele. But the service advisors have never seen the offers and don't know how they're strategically intended to touch customers. Or you've got, you know, in a larger automotive organization, you have a marketing department that's in some building somewhere that's not attached to a dealership, pushing buttons and pulling levers that aren't getting communicated to the store. Or even if there is communication, sometimes there's such a high level of turnover, it makes it very, very difficult to keep the message and the vision and the goals forefront and the staffs mind because the staff is different this month than it was last month. So there's a lot of challenges. But the the common thread seems to be the dealers that understand that it takes a village, it takes vision and focus and discipline. And it's not just I need to do one thing one time, it's kind of like farming, you know, if you plant the seeds, and so the so the field and water it every day and sing to it every day, and make sure the conditions are right, and you do the right things every day for 12 months, you might have a crop next year. Might might. And that's

Kyle Mountsier: 13:04

why I was never good at farming, because I never say

Paul J Daly: 13:09

never fully crap because you're a music major,

Unknown: 13:12

you're totally safe.

Paul J Daly: 13:14

But that doesn't.

Nick Shaffer: 13:16

That's a big adjustment for car dealers because most car dealers didn't grow up as farmers they grew up as hunters. They grew up in an environment where it's like today, I'm going to go to work. I'm going to kill something I'm going to eat. And I'm gonna do it again tomorrow. It's a completely different mentality.

Kyle Mountsier: 13:35

He went farmers, not hunters, hunters gatherers. It's

Paul J Daly: 13:38

like that is a very clear, like sales and service mentality.

Nick Shaffer: 13:43

Yes.

Michael Cirillo: 13:45

But think about but it also ties perfectly into what you said earlier, which is it requires a village because in the months that the hunter can't eat because there was nothing to kill. They rely on what the farmer sowed in the field 12 months ago, you got to go and sang to Yeah.

Paul J Daly: 14:04

The implications of this metaphor, I know, I love it. I know you never know when that's gonna come up. It just kind of happened. Not only

Michael Cirillo: 14:12

that, we just pleased to very diverse demographics, both agriculturalists. And sales people are like, they were like, they were both like, Yeah, we're gonna get a bunch of like Dutch potato farmers tuning into us right now, where they all come from? Well, what,

Nick Shaffer: 14:30

what I'm looking forward to is when anybody who knows me and knows me well watches this. They know that I am just full of lame analogies and it's a matter of minutes, not hours before one comes out in conversation. So I'm sure that

Paul J Daly: 14:45

I've never heard that word in my life. The lame analogy that's amazing.

Nick Shaffer: 14:50

So at some point in the future people that know me, well, they're gonna look at this and laugh a little bit. Sounds

Michael Cirillo: 14:54

like a Jamiroquai song. Lame analogy. This

Paul J Daly: 14:58

is not about that, but And guy, I've just shown my son that

Kyle Mountsier: 15:02

video, you know, you were, like, just in conversation and in a couple of messages, you've kind of shared that. You know, you're always you're always kind of like trying to stay on the bleeding edge of what's going on next. And I'm sure that serves your company very well. But you were mentioning to us that you wanted to kind of chat through something that you're seeing specifically with people that are kind of looking at this mobile service drive as an opportunity opportunity for retention, because well, and when I think about mobile service, I think of it as the dealer's opportunity to own retention, where we've historically been relying on the client to be very, very, like in the driver's seat of whether or not we get to retain them, right. And mobile service has the other effect, because we get the opportunity to be the pursuer instead of, you know, kind of waiting for someone to come. So what are you seeing in that that arena? That's kind of like shifting the game right now?

Nick Shaffer: 16:02

Yep. So you're right to say Cal that we try to stay at the bleeding edge of technology. But I always come back full circle to something that I truly believe in my heart. And I believe it's so much that it's in my email signature, and it says, The greatest successes were built on the greatest fundamentals. And oftentimes, fundamentals aren't sexy to talk about because they're not whiz bang. So let me answer your question by telling you a story about someone that I met actually at the most recent ASOTU CON. So there was a keynote speaker that is the fixed ops director of a big Ford store with a very successful mobile service program that was out there talking about how he does it, where it started, where it grew to, but that

Paul J Daly: 16:47

narrows it down to specifically one person, this entire industry.

Nick Shaffer: 16:54

So I was fascinated, okay. And after his keynote was over, I was first in line to talk to the guy. And anyways, I asked him, you know, as a marketing partner to our dealers, I wanted to know, what did he do to market that department? How did he get the word out? How did he build it through awareness? And I was expecting some sort of extravagant, intricate marketing campaign that we just haven't been thinking about yet. And it wasn't any of that it was the most refreshingly fundamental answer. He said, neck, we got the handoff, right? From the sales department to the service department at the time that the vehicle is sold. And I thought to myself, hey, if you've got that, right, you're in the fraction of the fraction of a percent because it's amazing. So many dealers have tried to get that right and either did and then lost the discipline or just never got it right to begin with. But it's really simple. A client buys a car from us. And they are brought over to the service department. And I have a dedicated space in my service department where my mobile van I have one of my mobile vans, on display with technicians constantly doing a maintenance on some sort of vehicle, usually a used car, for the clients to just watch the process. And oh my goodness, wow, in the service department, and the expectation is just said, Hey, Mr. Customer, when you're due for your first service, here's how we're going to take care of you. We're going to come up to your work or your home. And this is Billy, he's the technician that's probably going to service you we have a team Billy so it might not be Billy but it's going to be someone that looks like us walks like us and talks like us and you can trust him or her and we're gonna do a great job for you. And the client got to see it and experience it and envision it being convenient for them to use adding value. It's literally okay.

Kyle Mountsier: 18:49

That's extremely fundament fundamental but also extremely radical all at the same time. Right? Since I've been in the car business I got in in 2009. Every single training that I've ever gone into has been when you're delivering the car, part of your delivery is the is the post post sale service walk, introduce the service advisor show the person how to drive in, basically put their mind in how do they engage with the service department. But now you've got this mobile thing that they can't really dream up. And you just basically create this Oh, my It's right there in front of all of us and

Unknown: 19:28

who?

Kyle Mountsier: 19:31

I'm speechless. Well, this, this is what why would you not do

Michael Cirillo: 19:35

what I love about the concept of innovation because it's available to everybody? Everyone could do this right now. Yeah. And and in so doing, it creates this it becomes I wrote down it becomes part of the experience of purchasing a vehicle. It does demo on the service side, no

Nick Shaffer: 19:55

different than going on the test strip. I mean, why does the sales manager want the salesperson to get the Customer the car to test drive it, it's so that they can envision their life in that car no differently than you take them out to watch the mobile service process at work. It's so they can actually see and envision that happening and benefiting their life. And then, of course, you know, the next thing that the salesperson does is, hey, let's go over to muddy soul. She's one of our service advisors, she's going to go ahead and book your first mobile appointment for six months from now. So

Michael Cirillo: 20:26

what are we just talking about this with? We're like, you don't go to the dentist. You can't leave the dentist without booking. Was it not? You guys must have telling you

Paul J Daly: 20:36

it's not my dentist that is dialed in. Man. That's the that make a lot of money in the car business.

Kyle Mountsier: 20:43

telling you if everybody got that, right, it's the retention playbook schedule the next service appointment. And if you're doing it mobile service, you get to own the appointment. Yep. So 1000 house, yeah, because you don't have to worry about that person having to like, break their day to come find you

Nick Shaffer: 20:58

know what, what needs what needs to be said is that obviously this dealership is investing in the future of mobile service, because they're choosing to have two technicians changing oil in the service drive, not in a customer's driveway, but in the service drive, just so that they can help customers envision what that process looks like. I mean, that's an expense right? Now granted, if you're doing it on a used car, someone was going to have to change the oil on it anyways. But someone could argue that those technicians time is better spent doing something else but not not this operator. So I applauded his vision and his investment in that, Nick,

Kyle Mountsier: 21:35

I'm telling you, what, between farmers and hunters and the value that you dropped on, like what to do on a service drive, and then the thought process of moving from, you know, CSI to lifetime value. I think that this has been of if someone's listened to this and didn't get like three things again right now. Go back, try again.

Unknown: 22:01

Appreciate it. Thank you.

Kyle Mountsier: 22:03

Absolutely a pleasure to hang out with you. And on behalf of all of us thanks for joining us on Auto Collabs

Nick Shaffer: 22:09

pleasures been mine thank you so much

Kyle Mountsier: 22:15

before it before we get into it just because we record the this separately than having the interview just now. You have to know that after we recorded the intro our our trusty Production Manager fact checked us on the Michael Cirillo wears polo first time on Auto Collabs it seems as though the very first Auto Collabs recording that we ever did. No had Michael Cirillo in a polo. That's true done money.

Michael Cirillo: 22:50

Or we'll does accounting him on for a second.

Paul J Daly: 22:52

We literally just rolled it in the intro on that so fast.

Unknown: 22:57

Oh, I had a hunch. And so I just went with my hunch. And we're

Paul J Daly: 23:05

gonna put the picture up on this now you just created more work for yourself, because now we have to show the people what you mean. So there you go. Now you got to put the photo up. Or you could just go to the YouTube version of this video and watch the intro where there's video evidence. Michael Cirillo. All right, fine. Mr. hunch.

Michael Cirillo: 23:27

The funny thing is, I think this might actually be the same polo that I'm wearing in that first episode. The bag here is a little bit it fits me like a Moon Moon now. too cheap to buy new clothes. Oh, no. He's speaking out. Speaking of going out and hunting for new things like clothes, but maybe growth and opportunity. The

Paul J Daly: 23:52

hunting gathering thing was on point, right? It

Kyle Mountsier: 23:54

was it was on? Yeah, right. I like had to get stopped in the middle of it. Yeah. Yeah. I

Paul J Daly: 24:01

mean, that's it. Go ahead.

Michael Cirillo: 24:02

I've been just thinking like my mind's been spinning on. You need both. But usually, if you're one or the other. If you're if you're a farmer, in this scenario, then you think you somehow you're prone to thinking you are more valuable than the hunter. And if you're the hunter in this scenario, you're prone to think that you're more valuable than the farmer but the reality is you need them both.

Paul J Daly: 24:28

If you want steak, if you want to eat steak fruits, you certainly do.

Michael Cirillo: 24:32

Right? Well, and if you want to eat grain fed beef, you need the farmer. There you go. Well, hey,

Kyle Mountsier: 24:39

you know, I think that this is a valuable lesson for us. That is just hey, look, we need different types of partners, different types of people that are engaging in the auto industry that understand what it takes to farm and cultivate relationship, what it takes to hunt and go out there and do the diligent thing on a day to day basis to go find the next thing. So hey, Nick, thanks for giving us that little nudge. Get and thank you for hanging out with us on behalf of Paul J. Daly, Michael Cirillo, and myself Kyle Mountsier Thanks for joining us on Auto Collabs. We will see you next time. Drop averse MC Go ahead, phone

Unknown: 25:16

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