Solutions You Didn't Know You Need with Tony Vigiletti and Shane Bell

Kyle Mountsier: 0:00One minute and 30 seconds.

‍Speaker 2: 0:08

This is auto collapse.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:10

Oh, you just missed getting over 90 seconds World record was coming in.

Paul J Daly: 0:13

It wasn't even validated World record.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:16

He was just balancing a bottle on his head of well, because I don't know if you guys know this about Paul, but Paul is particular and he's even particular about his water, actually more particular about his water than most I'm curious, tell me more.

Michael Cirillo: 0:33

You do. You drink posh water.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:36

He drinks fancy water from a can.

Paul J Daly: 0:38

Oh, there's still water here. Actually this is this is a company called open water and the water comes in these aluminum cans and the reason I got onto this is because we visited Magnolia the Magnolia silos in Austin and they had these really cool waters in like the place we rented and I was like I love this company, like the whole packaging is great.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:57

So now packaging is here at the studio.

Paul J Daly: 0:59

I found them, and now this is just cool water and it's refillable.

Michael Cirillo: 1:03

And it's a little water only for $5.

Paul J Daly: 1:06

No, it's not that much. It's like a dollar 20 for this thing and if you and if it was in a plastic water bottle, people would just take it and throw it away. But we have bottle fillers here at the office, so you get the feel. The fancy. What people literally clients come back. Hey, do you have that fancy water Legit?

Kyle Mountsier: 1:20

It's nice and if I can have someone feel that way out of it, it stays colder longer if you've had it in the fridge or anything I think is interesting about this water.

Michael Cirillo: 1:29

Not only are we mostly made up of it, it's all over the place and someone took. Now somebody somewhere was like we should get into water, and then they got backhanded. You know that Batman meme. They're like you, idiot. Everyone's in water, you know. And they were like but what if we put it in an aluminum can?

Paul J Daly: 1:48

I remember when people like when they started selling bottled water and there was a little bit of like, an outrage, like who would pay for bottled water, just like that At one point. That was the dumbest idea ever.

Michael Cirillo: 1:59

Dumbest idea ever, which shows you can actually reinvent. You can innovate inside of something that might seem saturated to others, like there's people that see opportunity, there's people that don't.

Kyle Mountsier: 2:10

I'm thinking about our guest for today, Guys you're going.

Paul J Daly: 2:13

That's unbelievable the fact that we got from balancing a water can on a head to there and what you don't understand, if you're listening or watching the show, is that when we started intro, we just started intro, like there's no grand coordination. All right, I'll do this no coordination. Literally. I started balancing this on my head and at some point somebody hit record and they started talking, so I knew we started. Nathan is now somebody.

Michael Cirillo: 2:37

We should bring Nathan in for a brief second. Yes, he feels about being called somebody.

Paul J Daly: 2:42

Somebody out there, it's fine Somebody.

Kyle Mountsier: 2:49

Oh man Well hey, we've got a couple of some buddies that all of that conversation wrapped up into beautifully and nicely, hopefully, from Michael Cirillo. We've got Tony vigiletti and Shane Bell with connection and we're just excited to share this conversation with you that we get to have with them. So enjoy the conversation.

Paul J Daly: 3:13

All right, here we are with Shane and Tony from connection. I love conversations where I don't really know a lot about our guests because I have no idea what's coming down the pike. Gentlemen, thanks for joining us today on Auto Collapse, thank you for having us.

Shane Bell: 3:27

Yeah, thanks for having us.

Paul J Daly: 3:29

Okay, so let me ask you this, Tony and Shane you're right behind them because this is a question we love to ask on everybody, because on the show we like to get the get the details on the person. Tony, how did you end up in the auto industry to begin with?

Tony Vigiletti: 3:42

Ah well, so back in 2011. I was working at a local bank in Detroit position but I kind of went away and I was finishing on my MBA and there was a one of the partners in my class had a connection at GM and so I started working on star in 2011. It completely Living in Detroit my whole life.

Paul J Daly: 4:05

You know, I wouldn't know, anyone in my family didn't work in the auto industry, but Wait, you said you were the only one who didn't work in the auto industry at the time in my family. Yeah, who really? What are some of the other? What are the some of the other roles that your family fills in the auto industry?

Tony Vigiletti: 4:20

There were even engineers somewhere to factory. My dad actually grew up with a rental car industry. He had a company here in excuse me In Michigan. So I grew up in the rental car industry and then transitioned over to GM Wow.

Paul J Daly: 4:37

That's it, I mean.

Kyle Mountsier: 4:38

I've got a question, but we're gonna go to shame. I got a question about something you said in there, but we're gonna go to Shane, shane, what? How'd you get you started in the old auto industry?

Shane Bell: 4:49

Yeah, I mean so I've worked in software for many years and then I kind of just stumbled upon a provider and that you know the retail automotive space, and then I had a mentor that you know worked for two years, for many years, and both you know the retail side, the rental side, and, yeah, I know far more about you know all of the programs, depending on the brand, and I ever thought that I would. So, yeah, All right.

Kyle Mountsier: 5:25

So, tony, now you got, now you got my question. All right, you got my question so Back in 2011, which isn't that too terribly long ago, but still you were with on star in 2011. Talk to me about on star in 2011, because on star in 2011 was, I remember. Actually, I started selling cars in 2009 and in 2011 on star was still like Sometimes you press the button and it worked, sometimes you press the button and it wouldn't work, and sometimes you just didn't even know why you wanted to press the button at all. Right, like what was it like in the? I mean, that was an absolute like dead set early. You know, it was like I think it was like mid-2000s that on star kind of hit the scene. But what was it like? Kind of being a part of the early, the start of, like, connected technology inside me?

Tony Vigiletti: 6:17

Yeah, that's actually really the exciting part is, you know, once I got into kind of the position I was in was kind of a sales operations type role, but, is you know, I kind of got more in depth of what on star was. I got really impressed about the technology side of it. So I kind of stayed on the technology side with the fleet. You know, vehicle data. It was part of a lot of cool things like we got to. You know, we were building in vehicle applications. We're building, you know, selling data to third parties to you know, minister, fleets, and so it was kind of a lot of different programs that we were kind of building there. It's actually highly my connection. When I was at GM I was building a fleet product, you know, using the embedded on-star telematics to kind of manage your landscapers floors to your drivers. You know, without using devices, how do you track those vehicles, how do you know what they're speeding, how you know where the cars are, if they're being driven out? You know, outside of ours, you know all that information. So we were actually building one at GM to have it, you know, branded the GM and we realized that we probably couldn't build it the software side on our own. So we went out to suppliers and, as a way, my connection, and Years later I came full circle and I decided you know, join the team and help grow.

Kyle Mountsier: 7:33

There you go. Very cool, that's like I'm. I'm just imagining being in some of these meetings like, alright, we could either build this on our own or we could go find some software people out there that know what they're doing. Right, like that, it's a tough go building a car and building technology to meet it and Understanding the customer demand and doing all the R&D around like how does this technology work? Is it gonna work for customers? Where did you see, like, the biggest gap that you feel like customers were asking for along the way, going, hey, we don't have access to this, but we need that. Or like this is a gap in the industry that we're solved, like with particular features as they were coming out.

Tony Vigiletti: 8:15

Yeah, that's actually kind of. The unique piece is, the customers that we were Selling to didn't know they needed this solution right, and so it's something that we see always makes it easy to sell. Exactly right Tellmatics are. And then you're like oh, by the way, we can also manage your vehicle with the telematics, and you know it's, it's a very different. You know sales pitch, I guess right. So there was a lot of education and we knew that. You know, even though customers, there is a need because we know, you know, the Coca-Cola's, the world, they have these solutions Right fleet customers.

Paul J Daly: 8:46

get it right away.

Tony Vigiletti: 8:47

Yeah, you're right, but you know you're small business owner who has five or six trucks, doesn't see themselves as a fleet owner, right, they just themselves that. Just that's the card that I need to do to you know, get you the transportation to the job they reviewed as a fleet and you know you're not gonna hire a fleet manager to you know I oversee your operations when you're only running a couple trucks. So it was kind of we were solving a need that they don't know they need it, and so you know it was kind of a, it was kind of the hassle, right, and so it was definitely interesting. You know we had that program, I think for a couple years. It was called the Commercial Link. It was based on, you know, the connection platform that we had today, and then over there is when we transitioned to building Outtrack for GM, which is kind of the basis of our mobility platform now.

Kyle Mountsier: 9:35

Yeah, now, shane, you're working with. You were telling us beforehand that you're working with a lot of the larger groups. That connection is integrated with and through Outtrack and all that. How, like, how have you seen that change over the last couple years in like the dealers or the OEM communicating with the customer about all of these advanced technologies? Because it is, it's like it's definitely something new? You know we've been connected through devices back since you know the late 90s really was when, like, the big connectivity started coming in through all of our devices. But telematics are still fairly new as, like educated customer and a dealer and everybody what's possible. How are you seeing that education map to results and to like good customer loyalty and all of that?

Shane Bell: 10:28

Yeah, I mean I feel like you know, we're starting to see more and more across like several OEMs, like, for example, like Toyota and like CIS, are very good at sort of marketing, like the whole connectivity thing and like kind of selling it to the customer and like whether it be like an app or like, hey, you can unlock your, you know you can use your phone as your key, and like things like that. I mean I feel like certain brands are a little bit more sophisticated than others and kind of being creative in how they sell it, you know, to the consumer. But yeah, for sure, I mean it's becoming more and more popular. I don't really see groups sort of selling the whole like telematics thing yet, but definitely I feel like OEMs are starting to kind of hop on that trend.

Paul J Daly: 11:20

So what are the like? You know you're obviously in touch with a lot of people, like on the ground, as you count, exec, what do you see as like the biggest, the biggest need or request, you know the biggest use cases where people are really leaning into it and really seeing some, you know, positive results.

Shane Bell: 11:40

Yeah. So I mean like like me myself, like I mean I drove Audis for a few years and right now I don't have one, but I definitely enjoyed the whole. Like being able to unlock, like use my phone as a key is a really good example that sounds good.

Paul J Daly: 12:01

I can't wait to get that feature Now. I just saw what was it the Hyundai commercial that just featured it on their new like return to work commercial. I was like I want that so bad.

Shane Bell: 12:11

Oh, yeah, yeah. And there's a Genesis commercial that I keep seeing, where they unlock the car in the commercial with a phone and I'm like that's so genius, you know. And it can get as granular as like even knowing whether or not you left a window roll down is another really good example. So there's some really cool stuff going on, for sure.

Tony Vigiletti: 12:37

There's a better feature in Michigan than the remote start when you land a plane and you can use your phone and you know, remote start your car. So it's nice and toasty when you get there. It's perfect in January.

Paul J Daly: 12:48

Yeah, oh, I live in upstate New York. I love that feature.

Tony Vigiletti: 12:51

As soon as you get to start the car.

Paul J Daly: 12:53

Start the car.

Kyle Mountsier: 12:54

Yeah absolutely. You guys have obviously see a lot of data. Are you seeing increased adoption across customers in using the telematics that you're connected to Like I know you deal with a lot of rental and fleet and stuff like that but are consumers adopting this as it's available by the OEMs and the dealers?

Tony Vigiletti: 13:14

Yeah, they're adopting it and they're expecting it. That's part of it as well, you know, is that a lot of OEMs weren't, at you know, anywhere near the take rate of, you know, implementing these telematics into the cars that you know GM was. I've seen almost every OEM, you know they're, they're getting it Above 70% type you know connectivity. So they're, they're starting to really adapt it and, again, customers are expecting Wow.

Kyle Mountsier: 13:38

Yeah, I think that that's key because, like, when you go through everything else, you just like I mean Paul Paul knows how I feel about if you don't accept Apple pay at a place like I get a full, it's bad right and so you just expect these technologies to be integrated into everything. And so I think customers are expecting that with their vehicle ownership or with their, like even their service process or their rental process. Now, shane, you were saying, like I'm not seeing dealers educate their customers on this. Have you, have you seen any do that or do that well? Or is there, like, is there a new expectation or need for us, as for the dealer network, to be working to educate their customers, not just post sale? Because you see, like, that's why, like, a lot of these OEMs are getting these high 70% connection connectivity, downloads and things like that, because the dealer is selling the car, then supporting that play into the market. But do you see a need for dealers to do preeducation on some of these items?

Shane Bell: 14:41

Yeah, I mean, I mean I work with probably, I'd say, roughly 50 of the top automotive groups in the US and right now I can say honestly that I don't see at the group level that they're sort of leveraging the telematics and kind of like selling that. There's a multitude of ways that they could be doing that.

Paul J Daly: 15:06

Yeah, give us some of those examples actually because yeah, that might help unlock some people's thinking like, oh, I could do that and I don't.

Shane Bell: 15:13

So yeah, I think it should really come from the OEM educating the group on how to do that. I mean, I want to be careful in what I say, oh.

Paul J Daly: 15:28

OK, yeah.

Michael Cirillo: 15:30

I got it.

Shane Bell: 15:31

Yeah, kind of careful in what I say, but I mean it could be as easy as you know, like the OEM, like how they're doing it, like selling it, like, oh, like you can use the whole your phone as a key and, like you know, monitor fuel and stuff like that from your device. I mean, like I lost my phone, like I'm just being candid right now, I lost my phone and it was like my whole world was in there until I had to get a new one. And so I think that like pushing things to mobile and like things being like in apps is very forward thinking, and I think that the OEMs are doing a really good job. I think that maybe they could work a little bit more closely with you know, maybe the Aspergerys and the automations of the world and kind of push a little bit more of that initiative.

Paul J Daly: 16:24

And there are probably. I would think that there are certain markets where adoption or importance of these features is just way higher. When you get closer to urban or tech sat, you know technologically advanced, like areas that have a lot of tech, a lot of young professionals, it seems like those areas even more so start leaning in on those where some rural environments would be like kind of a nice to have. But but like you said, like you drove an Audi which was your first exposure to the keyless you know using your phone to open your door. There's just a lot fewer Audi's in the country you know right.

Shane Bell: 16:57

Yeah, there's no.

Paul J Daly: 16:58

Audi dealers.

Shane Bell: 16:59

Yeah, yeah.

Kyle Mountsier: 17:01

Yeah, and telematics, like Tony, we've talked a little bit. You know we had a webinar last week. But telematics is not just about, like the app the consumer uses, but also what dealers have access to in, like you know, because telematics, like you said, with on start, like a lot of the origination came in fleet management and understanding where your fleets are, what they're doing, how much gas is in them. All of that, how can dealers right now be leveraging like all of these telematics in in their daily?

Tony Vigiletti: 17:32

operations? Yeah, and they're they're actually doing today right. So the platform that we have right now when you, you know you take the car out, we know the exact mileage is you know you're not having someone write a piece of paper, you're not having someone fat fingering things changes miles. Also, you know, like when you return a rental car, right, they look at kind of the needle and say we're going to charge you this much and with our system, with the telematics from the car, we know exactly the car left with 20 gallons. It came back with 18 gallons. Do you want to charge that customer the two gallons or do you want to wave it? You know it gives the dealership ownership, the, gives them the, at least the information of how they can, you know, of how they can manage that customer. So damage on it, the miles on it, fuel level, tire pressure, the car is in an accident, they can find that information out without having to reach out to the customer directly. So there's a lot of information that the vehicles can tell the dealership to come. Because either way you look at it, the dealership loaner cars or their fleet, it's still a fleet. So the same type of use case that your commercial red-toll operators have and the data just helps again, gives the dealership the information and they can then decide how they proceed.

Shane Bell: 18:45

Right and I kind of want to jump in. So, like with service and maintenance, I think is a really good space to where they could sort of push, you know, like a push notification, whether it be like, you know, like the Toyota One app or like the Lexus I think they're calling it the monogram app or something like that to kind of drive dealership based service, versus then going to say, like you know, I don't even know like pet boys or whatever you know, like saying like hey, like it looks like you're at however many miles, like it's time to check in with your service advisor, and then it would be a really white glove experience if they could.

Kyle Mountsier: 19:31

That's huge, because we've always had to do it based on time right Like three months after service four months after service. Oh, no, no, no, no, you're getting like within a hundred miles of what you need. Yeah, exactly, I would use that. I would use that the most.

Shane Bell: 19:44

I would, I would.

Kyle Mountsier: 19:45

I'd take it all the time.

Tony Vigiletti: 19:47

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's huge, that's huge, yeah, and that drives me to retention as well right, because if I get a postcard in the mail like you said right every three or four months saying, hey, maybe you need an oil change, or I get a message from you show me your car told us you need an oil change, come on in and we'll you know here's. You know schedule online right, have the availability to look right on my phone.

Kyle Mountsier: 20:07

Or or your car told us another you need an oil change. Should we drop off one of our loaners to you tomorrow or Thursday? We can't wait to pick up your vehicle and bring it in yes, sir no.

Shane Bell: 20:19

You have one of our cars I'm on now. Talk about retention. They'd say they'd be secrets. Hi, like save the secrets.

Kyle Mountsier: 20:27

No, that's good. I mean, look, retention and customer loyalty are at a necessity there, at an all time high. So, whether it be an ownership experience or a service experience or anything like that connected car allows for that, and so obviously connection and some of the manufacturers that are connected into those tools are doing that and I'm sure, like, if people want to find you, tony Shane, you guys are all over the LinkedIn and all that and can go to connection is itcom.

Tony Vigiletti: 20:59

Connectioncom.

Kyle Mountsier: 21:01

Connectioncom. Awesome and yeah, we'd love. If anyone wants to connect with them, please do. But, Tony Shane, it's been fun getting to know you guys, getting to know like what's out there in the world of telematics and really appreciate you joining us here on Autoclapse. We'll see you guys in a moment. Thanks for having us.

Michael Cirillo: 21:18

Yeah, all right, all right All right, all right, all right, all right, all right, all right. Now let's up the ante, see if we can do an open glass of water. Ok, for the whole outro.

Paul J Daly: 21:36

Oh, Michael now has an open glass of water balanced on his head and Kyle has a hat balanced on his head.

Kyle Mountsier: 21:44

I can't move my mouse, but like upside down it's not that it was more fancy than what you said. You were like, oh, just a hat, you know, because you put a hat upside down. Hey, look, here's the thing. When I think about the evolution of technology and automotive, there's so many times where technology precedes, like what customers are ready for. Oh yeah, and I think that automotive is a lot of times ahead. We're actually experiencing a lot of this right now, right With EVs, where the education has to come alongside the technology. So I love how Tony was talking about like hey, we were building on Star and part of that was actually educating the customer that this is something they could use and potentially, will actually feel the need for. And I mean now, you think about now if you didn't have some level of connection with your car, with an app or like the connected ideas of whether it be being just connected to simply to the navigation. It's something that we just can't even fathom. This is what I love, like you think about Steve Jobs.

Michael Cirillo: 22:49

he's been on my mind a lot today. For some reason. We talked about him at our team meeting this morning. I think about Steve Jobs, he goes. I better take this off, but I'm impressed with myself. He goes. Hey, here's the marketing pitch to customer general customer you can put 2,500 songs in your pocket. You know what they were probably saying internally we are going to inject a data collection device in the pocket of every human being on planet Earth and then, just a few years later, we're going to know where they go, where they go consistently. Oh, they go to Kroger three times a week after 5pm and people are afraid that Facebook's listening where I'm going with this is. Then, a few years later, they're like hey, automakers, you know, what'd be cool is if we injected that same data collection device and interfaced it with your vehicle. Got him Right, right, right. Travel diagnostics travel diagnostics, driving habits. Look at the progressive app. It can tell when you've opened your phone while the car is moving and it'll be like we perceive that you were on your phone while driving. Big problem, and I think about that in terms of this conversation, you know this guy. Does it do that? Yeah, the progressive app. Yeah, it detects, when you've unlocked your phone while the car is moving All of this to say, like you know, he's talking about fleet and how business owners, you know, maybe with five or six trucks don't think of them themselves as owning a fleet and the telematics and all of these different layers of connectivity. And he was really there in the beginning. And my whole summation of this point is the other day I'm visiting a client five hours from me. I drive old Tessie, the Tesla down and myself and my partner, business partner that I'm with, get curious. So we subscribe to auto, full autopilot, and that sucker drove us home and we were freaked out for the first five minutes and oh, so shocking how comfortable we got during that drive with this thing driving itself.

Tony Vigiletti: 24:56

Interesting.

Michael Cirillo: 24:57

All this to say you know, tony's seen the beginning with OnStar. I have to believe there were brains back then going. Wait until you see the level of connectivity that this is the catalyst for in the future. I thought it out.

Paul J Daly: 25:11

Gee. Well, look, we hope that this conversation he's putting the water back on his head. You know, michael, I avoided the whole and the Cosby has had upside down. Sometimes I wonder, I wonder about my decisions and who I do business with and who I get on podcasts with. This is one of those moments. But regardless, I hope we got you thinking a little more broadly about what's going on and how you can lean in to meeting the customers where they're at and not assuming they know what they should be doing, but educate them, walk them there. I'm going to try to walk Kyle and Michael Cirillo over to the urgent care as soon as we're off this podcast. So, on behalf of Kyle Pounce here, michael Cirillo and myself, thank you so much for joining us on AutoCalypse.

Speaker 2: 25:59

Sign up for our free and fun to read daily email for a free shot of relevant news and automotive retail media and pop culture. You can get it now at asotucom. That's asotucom. If you love this podcast, please leave us a review and share it with a friend. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you next time.

Shane Bell: 26:30

Welcome to AutoCalypse.

Paul J Daly: 26:34

Why are we recording? Yeah, we're rolling.

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