How To Improve Customer Service Without Spending a Dime

Daniel Govaer: 0:00

Give us the scoop. What's it gonna be? It's not a leaping Jaguar. It

‍Michael Wood: 0:03

isn't a restlessness script Jaguar now and it matches the same script of all four houses of the brand. So Range Rover, Discovery defender and Jaguar all have the same script logo. And the even the round lope oval for Land Rover is going to be diminished in 2026 Moving forward, I'm

Daniel Govaer: 0:19

sorry, I asked. That was actually even more boring of an answer than I thought it was going to be.

Michael Wood: 0:24

That's why you bring me on the board you Dan obviously

Daniel Govaer: 0:32

welcome back, everybody to another action packed episode of the wheelhouse the wheelhouse fast casual, kind of like Applebee's for the automotive news industry. But with better drink specials on Fridays. And joining us on this episode today, going around the horn here we've got Michael Wood GM at check the pack Auto Group, Jen Suzuki president at E dealer solutions, Erica Bruno head of marketing and brand engagement at global SUV who I thought of specifically when we started talking about the subject of things you can do to improve your client and employee experience won't even cost you a thing from something you said in one of our previous episodes. So thank you for that. And Kyle Mountsier, CEO of a so do I think you have a conference coming up? At some point, Kyle, is that you're gonna do

Kyle Mountsier: 1:11

one of those things. Okay. Yeah,

Daniel Govaer: 1:12

is it we're gonna something in bulk

Kyle Mountsier: 1:14

few days of people at the same place in Baltimore, and may, you know, should be there.

Daniel Govaer: 1:19

That's, you know what I think? All right, I think I will.

Kyle Mountsier: 1:23

All right, perfect. All

Daniel Govaer: 1:24

right. And and just right, before we get started, just remember that we are on wheelhouse represent our own views, and they are that of ourselves, not of our employers or companies that we may be affiliated with. And that way we can free up for free discussions of that actually matter. So alright, let me just go around the horn. And how did February line up from what you're seeing in your corner of the industry? Was it what you thought it would be better or worse, what you would plan for? How did that make sense from what you would plan to what you actually saw? And just from even whatever cornering the industry, you're at what it looked like? So Michael will go ahead and start with you.

Michael Wood: 1:57

You know, I mean, there was a little bit down as far as fixed operations, which, you know, I'm hearing that across the board, that is just the the count and repair orders are just down. You know, as far as our effective labor rate, everything's looking great. We're just not getting as many bodies through the shop as we'd like to, you know, a year and a half ago, we probably had a four month wait to get in for service, we can do diag to that, you know, so it's definitely not just the proficiency of the department that has increased, it's also something going on with the actual economy when it comes to fix offs, variable operations still going great. You know, VW, it's a little bit tighter. Major margin margin compression, as we said last time, but JLR, it's still going rock strong, you know, with the Range Rover, Range Rover Sport filling in the big needs right now.

Daniel Govaer: 2:41

All right, I think maybe what you're seeing in fixed ops, I'd suggest that maybe that's a little bit localized. In that part of the country, it's not the same as what we're

Michael Wood: 2:50

Yeah, we were talking with a couple of guys from like, Dealer Tire and stuff like that. And they're telling us that in the Hampton Roads market and down in Raleigh, that's what he was seeing as well. But it's definitely it's been frustrating it definitely across our entire platform, we saw the same level of decrease, which was not fun. All right,

Daniel Govaer: 3:05

Jen, you travel almost almost every day, if not every week, and tell me what you're seeing what February look like, based off what you were thinking it was gonna be?

Jen Suzuki: 3:14

Um, I think that was like a traditional, I didn't see anything like, you know, I didn't see like big superstar months. I didn't feel that they were below average. I just thought it was, you know, regular February,

Daniel Govaer: 3:27

was the energy there.

Jen Suzuki: 3:29

You think it's all the energy is there because people are worried, you know, more than anything I see. People are worried about the team and not performing and losing opportunities. You know, people always say this, and they say it all the time, you know, our salespeople don't know how to sell and so they're still saying that. So, you know, it's

Daniel Govaer: 3:51

always as long as they keep saying at least are consistent.

Kyle Mountsier: 3:55

Stop calling them salespeople, then there's something I don't know. 30 seconds.

Daniel Govaer: 4:01

Erica Bruno.

Erica Bruno: 4:04

It's ironic that you had this because it literally my entire weekend, were these type of conversations. Were basically you know, February was decent, you know, parents have a Toyota Hyundai store sales was decent actually service starting to see profit, you know, go down a little bit but still having the volume there. And then some of the other dealers that like I talked to all the time. It's been mixed. It's been a little bit of again, I think we've had some of this you know, now we're getting more inventory. And customers are starting to go okay, well, I really want this or do I really need this and you got to you got to create that energy you got to create that need.

Daniel Govaer: 4:45

All right. 30 seconds, Kyle.

Kyle Mountsier: 4:47

Yeah, I mean, the being a marketer, I'll speak to that side I work with and track. A lot of dealers and their website traffic as well as lead traffic And we saw in the last seven to eight days of February, a definite increase across the board almost, at least on the ones that I'm tracking. So seems like it seems like pace of engagement at least online, which typically has about a 30 to 60 day timeline to see what we see in the showroom is already pacing up. So that's a good sign into March and April. You know, first half of the month was down over January, but then second half of the month, rebounded that because of that last seven, eight days, so I'm excited about that.

Daniel Govaer: 5:34

All right, we're gonna get into a couple of headlines also that we've seen here within the within the last day or so first of all, coming out of Kelley Blue Book, Tesla grabs the top spot for brand loyalty and for conquest, which I don't think the conquest portion is new. Honestly, I think if Katy Perry were to redo that song, it might sound like I bought a Tesla, not necessarily kissed the girl. But what is you know, so between them winning that for loyalty and for conquest? What are we looking for? Does this mean anything in the used car market? Does this any information we can use in the stores? More surprising? I thought in Tesla on that same article, Lincoln grabbing so many spots on there, and biggest dealer loyalty goes to Nissan that might not have been the actual title of that award. But go ahead and take it away. And who's got what?

Erica Bruno: 6:19

Yeah, I mean, I'll jump in and say that, because I worked for Nissan for years, I'm not surprised with the dealer loyalty, I think Nissan does a really good job of trying to engage their customers and bring them back through the showroom, both on the sales side and through financing. So I wasn't overly surprised. And plus, once you get into a row, it's really hard to get out of a row. Because it's not, I think you have

Kyle Mountsier: 6:45

to struggle as far as a personal problem.

Jen Suzuki: 6:48

I think their price right, though, for what's happening with affordability and people having a hard time, you know, getting into, you know, a lower car payment, Nissan does have a product for that market.

Erica Bruno: 7:01

And I think the other part of that, too, is like, it's showing that there's a demand for these alternative fuel vehicles, you know, whether it's a third car, second car, whatever. So if I was a dealer, I would be going okay, what's it doing in my market, per se? And how do I, you know, train my salespeople to not lose out to those opportunities either?

Michael Wood: 7:22

Yeah, I have to agree. I think the loyalty thing was a little surprising, like the conquest. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. But, you know, take my brand. For instance, Range Rover is not synonymous with being at the highest quality, but the customer just keeps coming back and back and back. And that's because the brand equity of the brand has, and it's interested in, excuse me, interesting to see how quickly Tesla has been able to get that kind of brand equity that's synonymous with like a Range Rover or Mercedes, or Nike or whatever. It is interesting to see the loyalty because I personally don't think that the quality is all that great with the product. It's, it's not like it's hitting homeruns it's just it's the Range Rover of Evie. It's weird.

Jen Suzuki: 8:01

Can I ask you something? Yeah, I think this is the first time we've seen like a car maker, like so public, you know, out there and social media. And I think that he brings a lot of awareness. My kids, they're young. They know who Elon Musk is. They do not know who, you know, Ford is they do not know who the who's running General Motors. I just wonder if that has a part.

Daniel Govaer: 8:21

Right both ways, though. I mean, it's there. It's been shown that he also can like figuring my stock price has always been tech stock price. Yeah, he can he impact stock price that in itself is unique. You really don't have your right you don't have anyone that's like one in the head and body of the company that affects the stock price of their company they work for and Kyle, I saw you had something I want to cut you off. Yeah,

Kyle Mountsier: 8:40

I, I need someone to fact check me on this, maybe we can do this post show. But I believe the Tesla owner loyalty was actually down 3% year over year, according to the s&p Global Report, which is what this market watch report is that we have in the shownotes. So the like just as a as a key piece of information here is the segment competitors are very, very small for Tesla. And so you kind of have a forced brand loyalty to early electric vehicle adopters. So just watch that to change as we get new market competitors in that segment. Because if you look across the other segments, and especially like the same report, the s&p report that this points to showed that even though truck buyers were the most loyal to trucks, they were not extremely brand loyal. And so when you see high competition, in a market segment, you typically see a lot of movement within makes, not particularly and knowing that people are staying like segment loyal, maybe not make oil. So that's just like something I think we should track as an industry over time to understand where people are going. Are they simply going to Tesla because it's Tesla or because it's the only thing available in the segment? No,

Daniel Govaer: 9:58

I think well two things. One I The beginning Yeah, first of all, yeah, it wasn't s&p Global Report. Sorry, it was clickable if they picked it up, it was an s&p Global Mobility Global Report. I think Tesla's market share hasn't necessarily Tesla's market share hasn't dipped to reflect either of those other numbers, meaning one group is coming up higher than the other internally, because they're still, they still own their own market. And I truly do still believe that Tesla has its own market, I'll just my final thought on that. If you if you're at a traditional dealership right now, and you want and you're so pissed off, when you walk out and you're like, That's it, I'm buying a Tesla, or leasing a Tesla, you can go on your app, you can go on Tesla's website, and you will know when your car is going to be delivered to you and lock into your payment right then in there. And it won't take you more than two minutes to put down the deposit and order the car and select where you want to pick it up from. And so how so this may be actually as much as Tesla isn't necessarily an emotional car. I'm curious how much emotion is actually driving the purchase experience because it's so easy. It's literally in the moment of rage. You can walk out of your dealer, turn in your lease and go ahead and get a Tesla. Speaking of speaking of Tesla's first the first flipped Tesla cybertruck not flipped like it went off roading not flipped like it was a Corvette exiting and Carson coffee no flipped like the guy bought it and then sent it to an auction and sold it. And that first Tesla cybertruck That happened to is just listed for sale at the dealership and normally this wouldn't even be news if it wasn't for automotive news pointing out how much that car was sold for at auction and it's now listed at the Porsche dealer dealership that bought it listed for sale at what dollar amount and then also calculating for everybody what the estimated markup would be for that is this is are we seeing the first instance of a vehicle being doxxed from the minute it was purchased at auction to sold at the dealership? Or is this should be the level of attention we pay to all cars or is this is this true this fall in line with the idea of transparent pricing? And I'm not exactly sure but helped me make up my mind

Kyle Mountsier: 11:49

you know what's interesting couple of things on this one is it was out on social media well before Automotive News picked it up so interesting that someone that was actually in the auction shared that I believe on LinkedIn or maybe it was Reddit first. so wild that like someone internally an auto is willing to kind of like make that move. The the other pieces is I think the the seller was actually through consignment through and I can't remember the name of the company but it's a company we would all know the last piece is is actually a week before this happened. I don't know if you guys know Alex Lawrence, he runs Evie auto it's an Eevee only dealership he actually posted a seven minute video walking all the way through his like V auto appraisal into into the Manheim auto auction watching the auto bids come live all the way into so like this level of transparency I believe is probably going to hit the market in a in a massive wave. So as an industry we're gonna be we're gonna have to like live up to the proof of why pay profit margin and that the profit margin is almost on display on used cars which we've always kind of had the you know, the in our back pocket.

Jen Suzuki: 13:14

I've actually been watching this guy on Tik Tok he, you know has really blown up his used car lot business in the last I don't know year strictly off a tick tock. Are you following Him? George dibela Interesting. So same, same thing. I watched him, you know, bring people in to show up show, you know, their Highline luxury cars, he's buying them. And he showing them everything, you know, going through every single book value. Every, every every insider thing that we would never share with somebody and just hitting them with it. And this guy's acquiring, you know, a lot of I mean, I'm impressed. I like watching this guy. But to your point, you know, I think we're gonna start to see more of that. How do you

Michael Wood: 13:55

you came from a negotiation free background, right, Kyle? I mean, when you made the switch and your team leaders were all of a sudden just being like here, you can take them the invoice. I mean, I remember doing that the first couple times for some of our product specialists and we're like, I can actually show that to them. I mean, yes, absolutely. You want on a percentage show it's because our presenter price and here you go. Yeah.

Kyle Mountsier: 14:16

All right.

Daniel Govaer: 14:16

I just first of all, I'm gonna pitch this idea now but I can't wait for us to bring back like an American gladiator type series except it's just all of these people and Brian Kramer and they have to appraise and buy as many cars as they can. And we're gonna go to new or we'll just put them on on like consecutive avenues Right? Like this one's on third. This one's on Fifth. This one's on eight like we'll just have them just run down and see how many cars they can buy. And then I just want to crown the top winner from that but moving on to our next quick story here Jaguar, the the carbon check, you know them as the other people at a at a Range Rover store. They are making their final run for both and then what a double whammy here ice SUVs are are done. And that's going to be it. And from then on all they're going to make our Evie SUVs that's all. I, I'm struggling again, because I'm not battery. No one's ever said that battery electric in its current form is going to be the most sustainable type of fully electric vehicle that we're going to have. But someone at Jaguar has decided, this is why this is what we're going to do. And and Michael, you can feel free to abstain from this if you you know, feel that or if you'd like to represent since you're going to have to deal with I mean, sell these cars. And golf first, I

Michael Wood: 15:34

think I can provide a little bit of insight. So last year, when I was at the Global retailer conference, they kind of, you know, open the curtain give us an idea of where we're heading in the world of Jaguar reimagined. And the idea like in America, we usually sell about 12,500 jaguars, with the new ones coming out for the model year 2026, the intent is to sell around seven to seven and a half 7000 to seven a half 1000 Excuse me. And so they're trying to lower their market share when it comes to it, but we're going to substantially upstream the price point. So when they come to market with the new ones, they're going to be around $150,000. Now, the big difference here is we're going away from this idea of a mass production luxury vehicle that we're not. And going back to the heritage of what we are, which is leading edge when it comes to design, pushing the edge when it comes to the drivability aspect, you know, the new ones that are coming out when we go fully electric zero to 80% charge on the first model the GT four door in 16 or 16 minutes, it'll have a foreigner in 30 mile range. Zero to 60 in about 2.2 seconds is what they've told us. There'll be no metal, no plastics, no leather in the entire vehicle. It's got its eye on sustainability. So I think what we're seeing with Jaguar is recognizing that there is some power and not being volume. And if you want to tie your hat on this whole Evie thing, then make it a niche BV. Make it that Evie that isn't your daily driver, but it speaks to that client that has 3456 cars, and then they want to take their wife or their husband out for a nice dinner and show off. That's what this car is going to be because I saw them in person. And I mean, they're ridiculously beautiful. They're gonna be polarizing.

Daniel Govaer: 17:11

So I got from that. So half the amount of cars. That's a good way to do it. Okay. No, I mean, that's

Kyle Mountsier: 17:19

double the price all the way.

Michael Wood: 17:21

So we were about$55,000 average price point 250. So tripled the price after cars.

Daniel Govaer: 17:28

Ladies and gentlemen, we're also going to my question is,

Kyle Mountsier: 17:31

can they

Daniel Govaer: 17:33

write on a pier one imports?

Kyle Mountsier: 17:35

Can they really get the brand? The brand there? Yeah. You know, if they were, like you said they were like, they would have to do something better than toys r us this time?

Jen Suzuki: 17:50

They would I mean, look, it's been done before. So we'll give them a little hope. But they fallen off. I don't even know who Jaguar is. I don't know anybody that drives a jaguar, you know, so to be able to build that brand value back up to 150. K. I mean, I hope that the brand, you know, advocates are as eager as you because I feel what you're saying I feel the energy. You know, it's just that brand has it was like a Buick, you know, it died and it needs a rebirth. But you have to do some I don't know who that market is, you know anymore, but

Michael Wood: 18:21

I think that we'll see. You know, because originally they were talking

Kyle Mountsier: 18:26

after a Gen Z. I think they're gonna have to go after a Gen Z like, Yeah, ya know,

Erica Bruno: 18:32

after much beyond my garb with Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, much younger, you got to implement social media influencers, you gotta have the right people at the right time. And that's the thing that I think a lot of OEMs all of a sudden, it's like, they're waking up, you know, from like, a, you know, sleepy dream of like, Oh, now we've got to, you know, play in this realm. And it's like, you probably should have played in that room three years ago. But yeah, let's do this. Yeah,

Daniel Govaer: 18:58

these are all great slogans. I feel like coming out for for Jaguar out of the show, and they should contact us if they want to use any of them. Right? Like, especially for that if that's the demographic they're gonna like Jaguar. Mid, no more. Right? And then like, that'll make sense to like, who needs to buy it and then like, they'll just work from there. But I do like also, Jen, I'll give you credit on this one, the British Buick like that a lot.

Michael Wood: 19:20

I think the one sad thing that comes out of this unfortunately, in the in the new marketing is the leaping Jaguar logo goes away, which is kind of for me, it's a little

Erica Bruno: 19:30

iconic. Like why can you

Daniel Govaer: 19:33

go back? We're gonna go back to the heritage guys. There's a whole new brand marquee coming. What does it

Michael Wood: 19:40

mean a manufacturer that can talk out of both sides of their mouths?

Daniel Govaer: 19:43

What is it? What is it? Whoa, wait, what's give us the scoop? What's it gonna be? It's not a leaping Jaguar. It isn't a restlessness script

Michael Wood: 19:52

Jaguar now and it matches the same script of all four houses of the brand. So Range Rover, Discovery defender and Jaguar all have the same script logo And the even the round low oval for Land Rover is going to be diminished in 2026. Moving forward,

Daniel Govaer: 20:06

I'm sorry, I asked that was actually even more boring of an answer than I could have thought.

Michael Wood: 20:12

That's what you bring me on the board you Dan obviously

Daniel Govaer: 20:17

wrapping up our headline section, Motor Trend, I know they have car of the year and I didn't know that they did Person of the Year. So correct me if I'm wrong, but apparently they do. And this year, the winner and I would love to know who the contestants were, or at least the finalists, the winner this year is none other than President of the UAW, Shawn Vane, who we might remember from everything else earlier this year. Does anyone know were there any other were there? Who did he beat out? Generally speaking, like, Who did he beat for that spot? Or is this the Motor Trend? Did you guys just come up with this like right now? And then you just needed a person of the year and that the first year ever? You're doing this and you gave it to him?

Kyle Mountsier: 20:58

I mean, though, like when it comes to auto, who's Okay, so I guess the qualifier is, what is Person of the Year mean? But as far as like, influential? On top of the news, the person that got talked about the most the person who influenced the major market players in the US the most? Absolutely true. I think yeah, I don't know how, okay,

Erica Bruno: 21:23

all right. I was gonna say whether you love him or hate him, you have to give him credit that he like he didn't play by the rules that he's broken. And broken. GFT got done. Crazy,

Jen Suzuki: 21:36

remarkable things, really. I mean, he didn't.

Erica Bruno: 21:40

He'd leverage social media. He leveraged, you know, the people. And I think that's something where, you know, he was a leader who saw his opportunity, and he took his opportunity, we'll see how that

Michael Wood: 21:53

will end up being is, you know, do any of the Toyota facility the manufacturing facilities? Do they end up signing cards? And if they do, then I fully agree with this title. Because if he's able to move the needle and get Toyota manufacturing to unionize, when I've kind of always felt like, they've kind of been the litmus test for how to do it. Right. You know, they kind of look forward and say, How can we prevent our employees from having to unionize? Well, by providing a phenomenal work environment, if he's able to convince that workforce to unionize, he deserves the title.

Kyle Mountsier: 22:23

And I didn't even have just looked at this is crazy. The three previous years, we're all CEOs of OEMs. So kind of landmark there, at least in the last four years. Because

Erica Bruno: 22:34

she was able to control the OEMs. I mean, like, think about it, who in the last few years, dictate the OEMs?

Daniel Govaer: 22:42

Well, to the big three to make the right I mean, which, which are sort of like the the largest big three at the moment, right. But also, I think, taking point about Toyota. So there is actually an article, I didn't have it for the show, but Toyota off a record breaking profits is now also giving, helping out their suppliers, improvement and giving them grants to improve their working and manufacturing conditions truly to they can keep up with the production demand that Toyota is gonna be giving them as Toyota is continuing on record breaking pace, but for them to also be essentially subsidizing not just incentivizing but subsidizing their supplier network. Somewhere along the lines, I'm wondering if that's not just, that's true, but that's not also just Toyota armoring up against unions inside of its supply chain, in which case, obviously, then I took my eye to them even further. There's another great article. Also, the Wall Street as an opinion article on Business Insider that Wall Street actually probably owes Toyota an apology for for all the times that people said they were lagging behind in EV technology that they're actually going to wind up being one of the smarter ones in the room. But we're going to move on let's let's go to our in depth discussion. And we've got a perfect panel for this. So a lot of times we're talking about things that could be an investment in resources, and we want to make our dealerships better. Give me something that costs me nothing but time and effort that will improve the guest experience the client experience in my dealership, they will cost me absolutely not$1 and I can start tomorrow. Give me at least one item like that. Go ahead, whoever's got it.

Jen Suzuki: 24:10

I would say remember people, you know, that's, that's that's one of the biggest challenges I see in the sales process. And it's because there's a lot of sales BDC, for example, who was initiating the relationships and then the customers were coming in off their driving forces to follow up with people they find out all the deets on people, they they they build a really they are the relief. They're the first impression of the brand. And then there's no warm transfer to the person that's going to be working with them. And a lot of times that, you know, just the dealerships devalued. And the in the in the business model is, you know, it's just fallen short. So remember people

Michael Wood: 24:48

you know, one of the ones I would focus on, which we're trying to do right now is informality isn't formal, like you have to earn it and, you know, with all of our clients that are coming in, I'm asking my staff to stop calling a mic. You know, it's Mr. Wood or Mrs. Wood, and only at that point at the point in which they allow you to call them by the first name, should you pivot to it? You know, I was brought up that way my dad was a Marine, and you just don't see it that way that happening that often anymore. And there's a lot of power in calling them Mr. And Mrs. As opposed to just assuming that you have the right to call them by their first name.

Erica Bruno: 25:21

I love it. That's an interesting topic. Yeah.

Jen Suzuki: 25:25

Military area as well, though, too, right?

Michael Wood: 25:27

Yeah.

Jen Suzuki: 25:31

I mean, it's gonna face the military. I always want to dress people this way. But in general, that's not how I do it.

Erica Bruno: 25:39

I was gonna say it's empathetic discipline, meaning, you know, you are training your staff to ask the right questions. I feel like that's a huge thing I've been hearing lately, where people are like, I don't know what to say on the phone. As simple as hey, Mr. Smith, what do you like about your, you know, 2017 row? Did it come with formats? Did it come with this, like asking the questions and being diligent about it, so that way, you can bring them into another car that all of a sudden, hey, you got the all weather floor mats that I told you about? Of course, Mr. Smith, I listened to you, you know, and being disciplined enough, exactly like Michael said, of like, you earn that respect, you earn their business. And I think that's something where I know for me, like all the conversations I've been having the last week is like, I worry about anybody who maybe didn't have phone skills, or didn't have that type of training prior, because they're really going to be struggling as we start to get into a more compressed market. True.

Kyle Mountsier: 26:34

Alright, I'm gonna give, I'm gonna give a little bit of one that might not make sense. But hopefully it does, in the end is clean the corners. So this is like a literal, physical cleaning, have the corners of every corner in the dealership, like, like, deep into, like, if you see a corner in the dealership, make sure it's clean, of dust of paper of anything, like, if it's a corner, it's under a desk, and it's a corner of a desk, find that spot, clean that spot. It will teach your customers and your employees that that level of attention to detail is extremely important to you. And so it actually enhances the guests experience when they're in the store, because that's the first place you look. But it also enhances the employee experience, because they feel great about the place that they work. And then it teaches your employees that if you're that meticulous about the corners of the dealership, that you're probably that meticulous about everything else that they're doing in a given day. So cleaning corners, and

Daniel Govaer: 27:39

luxury is in the details, right? I mean, I Patrick, I'd be retired, they could sell anything. And the brand is almost irrelevant, because they understand like, that's exactly what they do is like the details that they pay attention to the level in which they pay attention to it. And I like what you said also about the trade I was wondering favorite things to do is be like, What did you like? Most? You said yes to a salesperson at some point and you bought your trade? What did you like? What did you like? What was the thing that drew you to it? What do you like the most about it?

Erica Bruno: 28:03

And not being afraid to you know, if they didn't have a good experience? Or they didn't like something about it? Talk to me about what could we improve on straight from the customers?

Daniel Govaer: 28:12

Yeah, encourage actual conversation, like encouraging. Talk to each other. That's

Jen Suzuki: 28:18

so that's so necessary. I mean, I totally agree with you. You know, I'll tell you one last thing that that seems to like have, it's continued to be a problem, but it can make all the difference. And I just say no sounds so basic it is, but people should smile more and they should bring a little bit more energy to the to the sales process because people are just low energy vibes in a lot of places and I really truly mean this from even like a service department perspective. You know, a lot of people are not smiling. They don't remember people are coming in, they don't remember their past business. They don't remember their declined work. You know, it's not just the handoff from PDC to sales by everybody, you know, plays a part in making that customer feel welcomed and valued and appreciated.

Daniel Govaer: 29:00

Right and show that they're appreciated. All right, well, right. Right. I got it. I want I'd like to see your face. I'd like to actually I'd like to see everyone's face on here. Like when I'm when I was just talking to somebody the other day and they told me like don't worry my internet process buttoned down. I had ready. I have great templates. Oh that's roughly what I thought it was gonna be. Fortunately, I'm much more professional and politically correct. So I didn't handle it that way, but

Michael Wood: 29:35

still to

Erica Bruno: 29:38

get in the way.

Daniel Govaer: 29:40

All right, we're gonna move on into a recurring segment we're starting here because we know that dating is such an important thing and relationship advice is one of the biggest, biggest topics anywhere. I don't we still have the intro music for this or that was that just for the first episode?

Unknown: 29:58

Like a game show or All right, well, it's

Daniel Govaer: 30:00

not it's, it's more about the dating game. So we're gonna go around the horn right and give me and if you have more than one, give me a couple and then we'll wait to come back around but some signs that maybe your dealership just isn't that into you. And these could also be some red flags that you could see as a dealership team member, salesperson or otherwise, then maybe it's time for me to look for another relationship. All right, so Kyle, I know you're bursting at the seams. So let's go ahead and start with

Kyle Mountsier: 30:27

Yeah, if your lunch or if your break room coffee is Folgers, your dealership? Probably just isn't that into you.

Jen Suzuki: 30:35

From Starbucks by now.

Kyle Mountsier: 30:37

Minimum. Okay. Erica,

Erica Bruno: 30:40

if everyone looks the same, acts the same thing? Probably not for you, babe.

Jen Suzuki: 30:50

Jen, I think you really have to focus on caring about people I say it all the time, care about your customers care about your team members. It always like strikes me as odd when leadership doesn't know people in the organization doesn't remember things about them, you know, doesn't ask them about their family. And then they're probably not doing one on ones with people either. But people really need one on ones today. And they like it when you ask about their family or you remember, you know a health crisis or you remember something about them. If you don't in leadership doesn't remember who you are. They're not doing one on one coaching. I would say that's a red flag.

Unknown: 31:28

All right, Michael.

Michael Wood: 31:30

I'd say if your dealership doesn't have like a roadmap for your future or success and or you don't see anybody else around you with a roadmap for either future success that's probably not the right dealership for you. Excellent.

Daniel Govaer: 31:42

I'll add one is it's auto show season if if you worked on auto show shifts over the weekend. And no manager came to check on you. You need to just go look for another boy if you only got assigned to shift but no one brought you coffee or or food or even just came to see just how you doing or anything. And they just let you work that Sunday to to close shift on the last day the Auto Show. Go go see what's out there. There's people that are hiring good talent.

Kyle Mountsier: 32:12

Brutal. Kyle, did

Daniel Govaer: 32:13

you have one more that you wanted to? You said you had like a few I didn't want

Kyle Mountsier: 32:17

I mean, I got a lot. But I feel like that would be back on the show at some point. I'll get I'll give you my second one. If your sales manager tells someone to, to chase them, if their sales manager tells you to chase someone down in the parking lot instead of doing it themselves because they messed up. They're probably not that into you.

Daniel Govaer: 32:35

Yeah, absolutely. I think we'll also start including like phrases, right? Like we're gonna use exactly like relationship advice, right? Like red flags and freezes. Right? If your morning meeting consists of just being told to pound the phones, which is unpleasant as that sounds like that probably happens a lot of places like me need to sit somewhere else to go. Any any last ones. Anyone else want to throw one out there.

Jen Suzuki: 32:57

Negative culture, you know, that's a bad vibe. I see it happen, you know, enough, where it's like if the manager is coming in with neg vibes. And, you know, it's constantly like criticizing it's constant, like we're not doing enough. That's a tough place to work every day, especially when you gotta grind it out. You need a coach for your cheerleaders up in here. If

Kyle Mountsier: 33:21

you have to pay for your own business cards, by Felicia,

Michael Wood: 33:26

speaking for the ladies, if you show up to the dealership, and like I think Eric said earlier, there's no other females on the floor. Probably not the place for you.

Erica Bruno: 33:34

If you feel like you're an episode of madman, it is not the case for you.

Daniel Govaer: 33:41

Depends on who it is, though. Right? Like, oh,

Kyle Mountsier: 33:44

no, yeah, you know, there's some places that feel like that, but that's okay. I mean, maybe not for you, but somebody, right.

Daniel Govaer: 33:51

I mean, if you felt like if it's okay for you to be Roger, and your place of work, and that's good for I mean, you know, God bless. That's, I mean, we thought that that really was just a mythical character.

Erica Bruno: 34:00

I just wanted to go.

Jen Suzuki: 34:03

How about when managers tell you you need to go to training, but they don't show up to the training themselves? You know, like the

Erica Bruno: 34:10

higher Yes, absolutely. Real one, right. And then they're not that we've always done it. Yeah.

Jen Suzuki: 34:18

Oh, god, that's the worst. Yeah. Yeah. Or to, you know, to the point that was said earlier, you know, it's like, a lot of times people still are being on boarded, and they have no, nope, not only what you were saying, you know, what, like, they should have a career path, like, tell me what your goal is your next level. But how do we get there? We have, you know, what's the process to get there? How can we be successful in this organization? Show me how to do it. Right. So 20 years ago, nobody gave me a game plan. Still, there's not not a lot of game plans out there.

Erica Bruno: 34:49

Our industry is so starved for mentorship and training in general, that we talked about that a lot and will kind of just like, how do you find the right mentor? How do you Get the right mentor. And it's really, really critical, especially for females in this industry to have a champion and a mentor. So I would say can't find that in a dealership. That's definitely a red

Daniel Govaer: 35:10

flag. Yeah. And I'll, and I'll just, we'll save some, we'll save some All right?

Jen Suzuki: 35:20

Oh, no, I just, you know, he's just got me thinking, you know, a lot of the managers that are on the desk, it's easy to point fingers. But a lot of times they were salespeople that were really good. And then they got into these roles. And then we did leadership didn't show leadership, how to be a leader, which is expecting them to be mentors, like, they don't know how to be mentors. They don't know how to coach, they don't know how to train. So I do think there's a big gap in the industry for helping managers learn how to be, you know, that leader that we want them to be, you know,

Michael Wood: 35:48

one time when he promoted me, he said, you get to now be the manager that you want to work for, not the one that you have on tour. Like that was really helped me out because it helped me identify all the things that I hate, and I'm like, I'm never going to be that guy. And unfortunately, I wasn't the beginning. And it took a little while but you know,

Daniel Govaer: 36:05

right. So if you're out there and your talent that's wasting away in an organization, reach out. I mean, seriously, you can DM us you can leave a comment. We there are good dealers out there. That's the thing. Yes. There are good dealers out there. Most of them show up on the wheelhouse. So that's something to look forward to for the next step. See, somebody will see everybody else tweaks that right that way. There you go. We'll see everybody in another two weeks another episode of the wheelhouse. Thank you everyone for joining us. See you soon.

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