Service Drive Revolution, the #1 fixed ops podcast, hosted by Chris "Bulldog" Collins since 2013 with 360+ episodes helps Service Advisors, Service Managers, dealership leaders, and independent shop owners build more profitable Service Departments.
Service Advisor Training. Service Manager Coaching & Automotive Fixed Ops drawing on 25+ years of experience, Chris shares practical systems for customer communication, technician hiring, retention, leadership, and Service Drive performance. Learn how to improve Effective Labor Rate (ELR), Hours Per Repair Order (HPRO), Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI), and customer-pay sales.
Explore episodes, interviews & actionable training clips. Chris Collins Inc. offers dealership coaching, books like Millionaire Service Advisor, and SDR Academy: 700+ on-demand videos courses & live classes with Q&A from Automotive Fixed Ops professionals.
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How To Drive More Traffic To Your Service Drive | SDR #379
Season 3 · Episode 379
Monday, October 12, 2026 • Duration 01:00:31
Does your Service Department really need more traffic—or are you paying to acquire customers your existing process will lose?
In Service Drive Revolution #378, Chris "Bulldog" Collins, Hogi and Adam break down how dealerships and independent repair shops can increase repair-order traffic without relying on ineffective blanket coupons or expensive advertising.
The team explains why retention should come before acquisition, especially when many dealerships lose customers after the warranty period. They cover appointment reminders, declined-work follow-up, lost-customer campaigns, social media storytelling, local events, AEO visibility and the strategic role of a properly managed Service BDC.
Chris also explains why Service Departments should stop posting generic vehicle content and start telling stories about customers, lifestyles and vehicle ownership. Plus: How to track marketing with dedicated op codes, why BDC employees should be compensated for customers who actually show up and why a great customer experience remains the most powerful traffic strategy.
🔥 KEY TAKEAWAYS
Retention Before Acquisition: Keeping an existing customer is easier and less expensive than purchasing another one through advertising.
Fix the Experience First: More traffic only exposes a broken phone process, long appointment delays, weak communication or poor customer experience.
Use Multiple Reminder Channels: Schedule the next visit before the customer leaves, then use stickers, email, direct mail and phone calls.
Recover Lost Opportunities: Call customers with declined work, missed appointments and overdue maintenance.
Tell Stories on Social Media: Lifestyle, personality, expertise and real customer stories outperform generic vehicle photos and promotional posts.
Prepare for AI Search: AEO helps dealerships and repair shops become visible when customers ask ChatGPT and other AI platforms for recommendations.
Use Events to Build Relationships: Car-care clinics and partnerships with complementary local businesses create traffic, loyalty and vehicle-sales opportunities.
Turn the BDC Into a Force Multiplier: Compensate BDC representatives for completed shows—not appointments—and use them for outbound campaigns and no-show recovery.
Track Every Campaign: Dedicated op codes reveal whether incentives and promotions generated incremental traffic or merely discounted existing customers.
Stop Blanket Discounting: A coupon redeemed by someone who already needed a tow did not create the repair order.
FAQ
Q: How can a dealership increase Service Department traffic? A: Start with retention, reminders, declined-work calls, lost-customer campaigns, social media, local events, AI visibility and a properly managed Service BDC.
Q: Why is customer retention better than advertising? A: Acquiring a new service customer can be expensive. If the experience remains poor, the dealership pays for a customer who visits once and leaves again.
Q: What customers should a Service BDC contact? A: No-shows, customers with declined work, overdue maintenance customers, lost customers and owners who have not used prepaid services.
Q: Should BDC employees be paid for appointments? A: Chris recommends rewarding completed shows. An appointment has little value if the customer never arrives.
Q: How should a Service Department use social media? A: Share useful expertise, customer stories, vehicle lifestyles and the people behind the department—not only promotions and delivery photos.
Q: What is AEO? A: Answer Engine Optimization helps a business become understandable, verifiable and recommendable when customers search through AI platforms.
Q: Why don't generic service coupons work? A: Many are redeemed by customers who were already coming in, meaning the dealership discounts work without generating incremental traffic.
Q: What is the best way to increase repair-order count? A: Make service easy, answer the phone, reduce appointment delays, communicate consistently and give customers an experience worth returning to.
0:00 How to Drive More Service Traffic 2:50 Repair-Order Disclaimers and Vehicle Damage 4:53 Why Customer Relationships Beat Being Right 8:02 What Top Dealerships Do Differently 10:01 The Energy of a High-Performing Service Drive 12:15 Broken Windows and Broken Businesses 14:17 Top Dog 2026 Preview 22:14 SDR Academy and Consistent CSI 23:14 Why Service Traffic Is Declining 25:22 Retention vs. Customer Acquisition 26:24 Appointment and Maintenance Reminders 28:02 Declined Work and Lost-Customer Calls 29:04 Social Media for Service Departments 34:14 Tell Stories Instead of Posting Promotions 36:05 SEO, AEO and the Future of AI Search 38:34 Events and Car-Care Clinics 39:12 Fix the Customer Experience First 42:41 Service Advisors vs. the BDC 45:00 Recovering No-Shows 46:21 Turning Monthly Losses Into Daily RO Goals 48:12 BDC Phone Training and Role-Playing 51:30 Tracking Campaigns With Dedicated Op Codes 53:21 Why Blanket Coupons Fail 56:09 The Most Effective Traffic Strategy 59:23 Final Thoughts
📞 GOT A QUESTION OF YOUR OWN? Call 833-3-ASK-SDR—we answer on the show!
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Best Service Advisor Training Has... | SDR Live #378
Season 3 · Episode 378
Monday, October 5, 2026 • Duration 49:57
In this episode of Service Drive Revolution, Chris "Bulldog" Collins, Hogi, and Adam expose why traditional sales-heavy coaching fails, and prove why our proven approach defines the gold standard for Service Advisor Training.
Discover why treating advisors like high-pressure retail salespeople alienates customers, and learn how true Service Advisor Training focuses on consumer psychology, building lifelong trust, and treating your desk as a business inside of a business. The team also breaks down the brutal realities of making the jump from advisor to manager, major industry shifts like Amazon's entry into new car sales, and what it really takes to master fixed operations leadership.
🔥 KEY TAKEAWAYS - True Service Advisor Training proves that service advisors are not traditional salespeople; their real power lies in building trust, making friends, and collecting long-term "key throwers". - Conventional, sales-heavy Service Advisor Training that forces heavy-handed closing techniques and objection-handling creates an adversarial relationship that drives customers away. - The absolute best Service Advisor Training must be backed by an operational system designed to support advisors without overwhelming shop capacity and workflow. - Moving from an advisor to a service manager is not an easier path, it demands entirely different leadership skills, high mental bandwidth, and a toolbox built for team motivation. - New managers must avoid the trap of working harder themselves instead of coaching, inspiring, and scaling performance across their entire team. - The ultimate measures of a successful service department under top-tier Service Advisor Training are sustained profitability and a world-class customer experience.
FAQ Q: What makes our approach the gold standard for Service Advisor Training? A: Our Service Advisor Training focuses on customer psychology, long-term retention, and building a business inside of a business, rather than pushing aggressive, outdated sales tactics. Q: Why do most third-party Service Advisor Training programs fail? A: Most programs fail because they are designed by generic sales trainers who have never written an RO, and they are implemented without adjusting the underlying shop workflow or capacity. Q: Is transitioning from a service advisor to a service manager a good career move? A: It is a massive shift that requires deep leadership and operational oversight. Effective Service Advisor Training helps bridge the gap, but management brings heavy responsibilities as a mentor, therapist, and problem-solver. Q: What are the primary focus areas of elite Service Advisor Training? A: Elite Service Advisor Training prioritizes seamless start-to-finish customer care, transparent communication, and symbiotic technician relations to maximize net profit and customer trust.
You Don't Need Advisor Training | SDR #377
Season 3 · Episode 377
Monday, September 21, 2026 • Duration 57:49
In this episode of Service Drive Revolution, Chris "Bulldog" Collins, Hogi and Adam explain why training advisors before fixing the operating system can make a service drive worse. If advisors sell more work but the shop cannot complete it, repair orders stall, promise times slip, customers become frustrated and advisors quickly stop presenting additional work.
Why won't service advisor training fix an underperforming dealership service department? Because weak sales, poor communication, low CSI and declining profitability are often symptoms of broken processes, insufficient shop capacity and inconsistent workflow—not a lack of sales technique.
The team breaks down what dealership owners, general managers, fixed operations directors and service managers should examine first: appointment spacing, advisor-to-technician ratios, shop loading, declined work, customer communication, technician efficiency, compensation, financial visibility and one standardized process from appointment through vehicle delivery.
🔥 KEY TAKEAWAYS • Diagnose the system before blaming or retraining the service advisors. • Many "declined" services were never clearly presented, were not understood or were offered after the customer arrived to collect the vehicle. • Additional sales create bigger problems when technician capacity and workflow cannot absorb the work. • Six advisors should not be operating six different service processes. • A successful advisor cannot overcome a broken appointment, dispatch or communication system. • Service department performance should be measured by customer trust and a healthy, profitable net—not gross sales alone. • Service managers need access to financial statements and net-to-gross performance to manage the business effectively. • Standardized processes protect customers and employees from daily chaos and inconsistent expectations.
FAQ Q: Does service advisor training increase hours per repair order? A: It can improve sales technique and hours per RO, but that gain may not improve net profit or customer experience if the shop lacks capacity, workflow discipline or a consistent operating process.
Avoiding Socialism in the Service Drive | SDR #376
Season 3 · Episode 376
Monday, September 14, 2026 • Duration 54:33
Socialism in the service drive starts the same way every time: top performers get capped, weak performers get carried, and the whole shop drifts toward the middle.
In this episode of Service Drive Revolution, Chris Collins, Adam Krey, and Hogi break down how to spot it early and what to do strategically to keep your service department on the capitalist side of the coin. This is the follow-up to last week's episode, which sparked a huge conversation in the comments — so this one is a live Q&A. Questions from dealers, service managers, and advisors get answered on air.
What is "socialism in the service drive"? It's when pay, work distribution, and recognition get flattened so that effort and results no longer determine outcome. Hours get spread evenly instead of earned. Underperformers are protected. Your best advisors and techs subsidize everyone else — and eventually they leave.
Why does it matter? Your top 20% drive the majority of your gross. The moment they realize their production is being redistributed, you lose them to the store down the street. Fixed operations lives or dies on retaining high performers.
What you'll learn in this episode: - The warning signs that your service drive is drifting toward a socialist structure - How pay plans quietly reward mediocrity and punish production - Why "fairness" and "equality" are not the same thing on a service drive - Strategic moves to protect your top performers and your gross - Live answers to viewer questions from the Q&A
Who this is for: Service managers, fixed operations directors, dealer principals, service advisors, and technicians at franchised dealerships in the US and Canada.
⏱️ CHAPTERS 00:00 — Welcome to Service Drive Revolution + today's topic 02:22 — Why we banned Kindles (you don't actually own the book) 06:14 — Adam finally joins the Apple ecosystem 09:14 — Forgotten towns: Cairo, Illinois and the Rust Belt 11:25 — Why aren't factories going where people want to work? 14:11 — No housing, no retail, no comeback 17:35 — The Bentonville blueprint for reviving a town 18:19 — The redevelopment playbook: retail first, then apartments 21:27 — Marketing lesson: go young to sell the older buyer 24:46 — Manufacturing is skipping the towns that need it most 25:31 — Q&A: Technician minimum standards with too many techs 26:19 — Guarantee opportunity, not pay 27:29 — Pay plans that reward mediocrity 27:51 — The 80% warranty / 20% customer pay trap 28:15 — Warranty reimbursement laws and why techs want hourly 30:11 — Is your advisor pay plan too complicated? 31:00 — "How many techs will follow you?" — the best interview question 32:31 — Why only 2 or 3 of 12 techs are high performers 34:07 — Q&A: Are dealers pushing for socialism? 35:18 — Why the car business runs on self-agency 36:30 — Career path: the #1 reason techs quit early 38:34 — The ASR closing percentage trap 40:29 — Chasing metrics that look good vs. make money 41:14 — Hire disciplined: look for assassins, not resumes 42:25 — Techs can already name their price 43:59 — The vocational school gap 46:43 — Dealers recruiting straight out of high schools 49:02 — Dealerships as the fabric of the community 49:46 — Older techs vs. younger techs in the shop 52:00 — The industry has to evolve or get left behind
Socialism In The Service Drive | SDR #375
Season 3 · Episode 375
Monday, September 7, 2026 • Duration 55:58
Is socialism coming to your service drive? In this episode of Service Drive Revolution, Chris Collins, Chris Hogland, and Adam Krey dig into one of the biggest conversations building inside fixed operations: technician pay, flat rate vs. hourly, student debt, apprenticeship programs, entitlement, leadership, and why dealerships have to stop ignoring the people who actually produce the labor.
The team also answers a live fixed ops question about labor gross percentage, posted labor rate, and Effective Labor Rate. Chris explains why posted labor rate is one of the least important numbers in the service department, why ELR is the number that actually matters, and how smart dealerships separate labor into categories like competitive labor, maintenance labor, repair labor, diagnosis, diesel, and heavy-duty labor.
If you are a service manager, fixed ops director, dealer principal, general manager, technician, or advisor, this episode is about the future of your service department.
CHAPTERS: 00:00 Welcome to Service Drive Revolution 01:05 SDR Live Academy and weekly live training 03:00 Top Dog 2026 and transcending the service drive 09:30 Why service managers should think bigger 13:20 Listener question: labor gross, door rate, and ELR 16:45 Why posted labor rate does not matter as much as ELR 21:00 Competitive labor, maintenance labor, repair labor, and diagnosis 25:30 How smart pricing strategy increases ELR 30:00 Is socialism coming to the service drive? 35:30 Student debt, college, trades, and workforce problems 42:00 Why the technician shortage is bigger than pay 47:00 Flat rate vs. hourly technician pay 52:30 Heavy-truck shops, car dealerships, and productivity gaps 58:00 Technician frustration and the future of fixed ops 1:05:00 Why dealerships need better systems for technicians 1:10:00 Final thoughts and SDR Live Academy invitation
KEY FIXED OPS LESSON: Your service department does not make money because your posted labor rate looks good on the wall. It makes money when your advisors, technicians, managers, pricing strategy, inspection process, and leadership system work together. Effective Labor Rate, Hours Per RO, technician productivity, advisor communication, customer trust, and shop flow are all connected.
SDR #374: Fixed Ops Should Carry Dealerships
Season 3 · Episode 374
Monday, August 31, 2026 • Duration 01:02:12
Why isn't Fixed Ops saving dealerships while vehicle sales and front-end gross are falling?
In Service Drive Revolution #374, Chris, Hogi and Adam examine why service and parts departments are remaining flat when they should be carrying dealership overhead. Customers are keeping vehicles longer and driving more, yet many stores are booked out for weeks, losing customer-pay work and allowing independent shops to capture market share.
The team identifies technician capacity as the primary constraint. When warranty repair orders begin matching or exceeding customer-pay ROs, it may reveal that customers who have a choice are going elsewhere. Chris explains why dealers must add technicians before the shop feels ready, price labor correctly and stop waiting for the mythical "unicorn" tech.
They also challenge leaders to mystery-shop their own appointment process, reinvest in customer experience and replace systems that have barely evolved in a century. Plus: Is the AI bubble finally popping? The crew discusses failed AI phone systems, advisor kiosks and why AI works best as a tool that amplifies expertise—not as a replacement for human relationships.
KEY TAKEAWAYS * Fixed Ops Should Carry the Store: When sales decline, service and parts should protect dealership profitability. * Capacity Is the Constraint: Being booked out sends urgent customer-pay work to competitors. * Watch the RO Mix: Warranty ROs exceeding customer-pay ROs can reveal technician shortages and lost retention. * Hire Before It Feels Comfortable: More technicians can improve work distribution, efficiency and available capacity. * Price Labor for Reality: Labor rates should reflect technician compensation, demand and the cost of timely service. * AI Should Amplify Talent: It can accelerate research, coding & internal systems, but cannot replace customer connection. * Mystery-Shop the Process: Leaders often don't know how difficult their own BDC & appointment experience has become.
FAQ Q: Why isn't Fixed Ops saving struggling dealerships? A: Many departments lack technician capacity, lose customer-pay work, use outdated systems and underinvest in retention and customer experience.
SDR #373: 5 Things Great Service Managers Do
Season 3
Monday, August 24, 2026 • Duration 52:35
Great service managers don't simply survive the month—they build stronger teams, improve the customer experience and create consistently profitable service departments.
In this episode of Service Drive Revolution, automotive fixed operations expert Chris Collins reveals five overlooked habits that separate great dealership service managers from average ones.
Great service managers:
1. Reject the status quo and continually improve their processes.
2. Know their numbers and understand how to change them.
3. Become "people collectors" who constantly recruit, develop and retain talented employees.
4. Make the customer experience easy, trustworthy and worth returning for.
5. Find coaches and mentors who challenge them to keep learning.
Chris explains why dealership service departments are closed-loop systems, how tribal knowledge keeps managers trapped in outdated processes and why exceptional performance can actually make a manager's job easier—not harder.
The conversation also examines service department profitability, net-to-gross, unproductive wages, CSI, NPS, technician recruiting, service advisor performance and customer retention. You'll learn why sales scripts and objection handling cannot replace customer trust, why technology such as video multipoint inspections cannot fix a broken process and why successful service managers are always recruiting.
Chris also discusses former CIA intelligence officer Andrew Bustamante and his book Outsmart Everyone: Spy Skills to Gain an Unfair Advantage in Work and Life. The team explores charisma, vulnerability, intentional leadership, parenting and the ability to make genuine connections with people.
This episode is for: Dealer principals General managers Fixed operations directors Service managers Parts managers Service advisors Automotive technicians Dealership and repair-shop leaders.
If you want a healthier, more profitable automotive service operation, this episode provides a practical leadership framework you can immediately apply. 🛑 SDR Live Academy Online Training For Huge Results: 🛑 Book your Profit Gap Analysis Now: 🛑 Best Selling books on making Fixed Ops a money printer: 🛑 Got a question? Call us at 1-833-3-ASK-SDR 🛑 Want to work with the best? 🛑 Chris' Top-Selling Leadership Book I AM LEADER: Chapters: 0:00 Introduction — Five Things Great Service Managers Do 1:02 Andrew Bustamante's New Book and CIA Wisdom 7:35 The Jason Kelce Lookalike Story 14:06 Team Travel and the Airbnb Debate 18:00 Credit Card Roulette 21:38 The Five Traits Great Service Managers Share 22:17 #1: They Reject the Status Quo 28:18 #2: They Know Their Numbers 30:20 #3: They're People Collectors 34:09 #4: They Make the Customer Experience Easy 40:57 #5: They Have Coaches and Mentors 46:10 Real Dealership Results and Momentum 50:23 Recap: All Five Traits 51:02 SDR Academy and Closing
SDR #372: BDC: AI or Humans - What's Better?
Season 3
Monday, August 17, 2026 • Duration 50:36
Should your dealership replace its human BDC with AI? Not so fast. In SDR #372, Chris Collins, Hogi, and Adam break down what AI phone systems can—and still can't—do inside a dealership service department. Drawing on experience inside hundreds of dealerships, the team compares AI and human BDCs based on the outcome that actually matters: loading the shop, retaining customers, and creating a better service experience.
AI can be a useful tool, but it doesn't know when a technician calls out, when a repair becomes a holdover, when the shop runs out of work, or when a customer's situation requires judgment and empathy. A trained BDC employee can react in real time, build relationships, recover missed opportunities, and become part of your dealership's future advisor bench.
In this episode:
• Why dealerships are rushing into AI-powered BDCs • The customer-service failures that expose AI's limitations • How one dealership chatbot reportedly agreed to sell a Tahoe for $1 • Why your BDC must understand what is happening inside the shop • How outbound calls recover declined work, no-shows, and lost customers • Why a human BDC can improve retention and manufacturer maintenance utilization • How the BDC develops your next generation of service advisors • Where AI belongs today—and why dealerships shouldn't go all-in yet
The question isn't simply whether AI costs less. The real question is whether you're trying to save a nickel today or build a stronger, more profitable customer base for the future.
CHAPTERS 00:00 Welcome to Service Drive Revolution 01:00 AI or humans: Which BDC is better? 02:11 Driverless cars and the limits of automation 05:25 Bill Nye and Books That Changed My Life 11:49 A $600 customer-service nightmare 16:38 When airline AI can't solve the problem 22:01 The chatbot that sold a Tahoe for $1 23:00 Why AI still requires human oversight 28:19 Companies bring human employees back 33:14 The dealership BDC debate begins 34:15 Why AI phone vendors are everywhere 35:25 Are you saving money or making money? 36:46 Customers still want a real person 37:06 What a service BDC should actually accomplish 38:53 Outbound calls, retention, and declined work 40:26 The advantage of an in-house human BDC 41:26 Your BDC is your future service-advisor bench 43:40 The verdict: Is AI ready to replace your BDC? 47:09 Join the SDR Academy
SDR #371 - Selling Cars From The Service Drive
Season 3 · Episode 371
Tuesday, August 11, 2026 • Duration 53:20
What if your service drive became one of your dealership's most powerful—and consistent—vehicle sales channels? In this episode of Service Drive Revolution, Chris Collins, Hogi, and Adam reveal how dealerships can turn everyday service appointments into organic sales and trade-in opportunities without making customers feel pressured. The key isn't occasionally sending a salesperson into the drive—it's building a dedicated system where sales and service operate as one team.
You'll discover how to:
• Embed dedicated salespeople inside the service department
• Use equity mining to identify the right opportunities
• Incentivize advisors to facilitate strong customer handoffs
• Introduce trade-in conversations before the appointment
• Acquire valuable used inventory without relying on auctions
• Use maintenance programs to create familiarity, trust, and retention
• Build toward the future "portfolio manager" model—one person managing the customer's entire ownership journey
The team also breaks down leadership lessons from Hard Knocks, explains why attention reveals a leader's true priorities, and explores how great systems make exceptional performance repeatable. If your dealership has "tried selling from the service drive" before and it didn't work, this episode will show you what was probably missing. #ServiceDriveRevolution #FixedOps #AutomotiveLeadership #AutomotiveSales #ServiceDrive #DealershipTraining
🛑 Best Selling books on making Fixed Ops a money printer:
How to Sell Vehicles From the Service Drive Summary Key Takeaways How to Sell Vehicles From the Service Drive Summary Key Takeaways Opening: Hard Knocks as Leadership Training Why leadership shows up on camera Housekeeping: Academy and Top Dog Follow-Up: The Fake Forum Post Main Topic: Selling Vehicles From the Service Drive 1. Dedicate salespeople to service 2. Compensate the advisors 3. Understand the equity math 4. Lead with acquisition, not the sale 5. Make them part of the department, not visitors 6. Flag the equity customers in your hat system 7. Have salespeople make the confirmation call The Portfolio Manager Model Audience Q&A Q: Focus on the handoff, or focus on the relationship with the service team? Q: What is your opinion of new vehicle service package programs? Q: How often do dealerships actually sell from the drive intentionally? The Commercial Truck Parallel Wrap About Service Drive Revolution Terms Used in This Episode
SDR #370: How To Reduce Parts Obsolesence
Season 3 · Episode 370
Monday, August 3, 2026 • Duration 45:18
Chris, Hogi, and Adam address a bizarre, viral forum post targeting Chris Collins Performance on a competitor's platform. The team breaks down the obvious inconsistencies in the post—from fake claims about techs quitting to misinformed takes on labor grids and parts pricing—and explains why real service advisors who understand business profitability actually thrive under proper operational systems.
The guys also answer a direct hotline question comparing automotive parts departments to heavy-duty truck parts operations. They break down the fundamental differences between B2C car dealerships and B2B truck dealerships, how wholesale operations drive millions in outside revenue, and the exact process needed to stop special order parts bleeding before cleaning up obsolescence.
Plus: Adam checks in live from his hot Florida vacation with 15 family members, detailing their annual family drink competition, fish boils, golfing in 106-degree heat, and the team's weekly workouts at Planet Fitness. (Note: SDR Live Academy returns next week on Zoom, where Hogi leads an interactive workshop on building and mapping high-performance service drive systems!)
KEY TAKEAWAYS - Debunking Online Forum Drama: An unfiltered breakdown of a fake forum post, addressing why right-sizing labor rates and pricing matrices is essential for shop survival. - The "Mom Test" for Maintenance: Why advisor integrity means never selling a client something you wouldn't sell to your own mother. - B2C vs. B2B Parts Operations: How auto parts departments rely on internal service drive volume, while heavy-duty truck parts departments generate millions in outside fleet and municipality sales. - Stopping the Obsolescence Bleed: Why cleaning up old inventory fails if you haven't fixed your prepaid special order parts processes and technician returns first. - The Planet Fitness Business Model: A funny look at how low-cost gym memberships rely on members never showing up—and what happens when everyone actually does. - SDR Academy Systems Preview: A look at Hogi's upcoming workshop on outlining and executing a seamless operational blueprint.
GOT A QUESTION OF YOUR OWN? Call 833-3-ASK-SDR — we answer on the show! Get special deals on our books and training at offers.chriscollinsinc.com
Truck Parts vs. Auto Parts — and Answering a Fake Forum Attack In This Episode Opening Roommates, Fish Boils, and Planet Fitness Listener Question: Truck Parts vs. Auto Parts B2C vs. B2B Why wholesale dominates Obsolescence: Stop the Bleeding First Responding to the Forum Post The post Why pricing changes Is this a fight? Wrap About Service Drive Revolution
Q: Why are service advisors not selling recommended work? A: Advisors may be unable to reach customers, may present work too late, or may know the shop cannot complete additional repairs within the promised time. The cause is often operational rather than motivational.
Q: What should a dealership fix before training service advisors? A: Review appointment spacing, shop capacity, technician staffing, advisor-to-technician ratios, dispatch, communication, declined-work follow-up and the complete customer process from arrival through delivery.
Q: Why can advisor training make a service department worse? A: Better selling creates more work. If the shop cannot process that work, delays and broken promises increase. Advisors then abandon the training because using it repeatedly creates unhappy customers.
Q: What should fixed operations leaders prioritize? A: Build a repeatable process that produces two outcomes: customers who trust the dealership and want to return, and a service department that is consistently profitable.
Q: Should service managers receive dealership financial statements? A: Yes. Service managers need financial visibility to understand whether labor gross is creating a healthy net profit and whether spending is eroding department performance.
CHAPTERS 0:00 Why You Don't Need Service Advisor Training 1:40 Chicago Bears, Football and Fan Loyalty 7:19 The Seattle Homeless Story 9:34 Chaos During the Los Angeles Boot Camp 13:36 Andrew Bustamante and the Top Dog Event 15:01 Tesla Self-Driving and the Future of Commuting 21:06 Can Legacy Automakers Compete With Tesla and BYD? 28:10 What Will Fully Autonomous Cars Look Like? 32:14 Why Service Advisor Training Is Usually the Wrong Fix 35:27 What Declined Service Work Really Means 38:25 Customer Experience and Service Department Profitability 38:59 Shop Capacity, Loading and Technician Efficiency 40:06 Paying Advisors on Warranty and Internal Work 42:50 Systems First, People Second 44:34 Why Profitability Must Come Before Training 48:27 Does Your Service Drive Have a Standardized Process? 50:05 Six Advisors Shouldn't Have Six Different Processes 51:18 The Fundamentals That Actually Increase Service Sales 53:53 Why Service Managers Need Financial Visibility 56:35 Final Thoughts and Closing
📞 GOT A QUESTION OF YOUR OWN? Call 833-3-ASK-SDR—we answer on the show!
FAQ: What is Effective Labor Rate? Effective Labor Rate, or ELR, is the actual labor revenue your service department collects per flagged technician hour. It is different from the posted labor rate because it reflects the real money collected after maintenance pricing, repair pricing, warranty, internal labor, discounts, and labor mix.
Why does Chris Collins say posted labor rate does not matter? The posted labor rate is only one number. Customers care more about the outcome, the repair, the trust, and the experience. A dealership can have a high posted rate and still have weak ELR if the pricing strategy, advisor process, and labor mix are broken.
How can a dealership improve ELR? A dealership can improve ELR by separating labor categories, improving advisor communication, reducing unnecessary discounting, selling maintenance consistently, inspecting every vehicle properly, tracking labor mix, and holding the team accountable to the right KPIs.
Is flat rate good or bad for technicians? Flat rate can be powerful for productive technicians because it gives them more control over their income. But if the shop is poorly dispatched, badly managed, under-supplied, or unfair with warranty time, flat rate can feel broken. The pay plan is only as good as the system around it.
Why are technicians leaving the automotive industry? Technicians often leave because of workflow problems, pay frustration, lack of respect, poor leadership, warranty time issues, weak career paths, and shop cultures that treat technicians as an afterthought.
What is SDR Live Academy? SDR Live Academy is the live fixed ops training community from Chris Collins Inc., built for service managers, advisors, fixed ops leaders, and operators who want real-time coaching, practical systems, and ongoing training.
Ready to train your service drive? Join SDR Live Academy and get access to live fixed ops training, Service Advisor training, Service Manager University, technician recruiting systems, BDC training, OnDemand courses, and the Top Dog Underground
Q: What does it mean when warranty ROs exceed customer-pay ROs? A: Warranty customers must return to the brand, while customer-pay clients can leave. A rising warranty mix may mean customers with choices are defecting.
Q: Should a dealership hire technicians before its current techs are fully efficient? A: Yes. Additional capacity can improve workflow and efficiency while allowing the dealership to capture more work.
Q: Should higher technician pay reduce service gross? A: It does not have to. Labor rates can be adjusted to reflect technician wages, market demand and the cost of timely service.
Q: Can AI replace Service Advisors or the BDC? A: The team says current AI is better used as support. Advisors create trust, validation and relationships that automation cannot reproduce.
Chapters 0:00 Live From Indiana 1:45 Why Isn't Fixed Ops Saving Dealerships? 2:35 Summer, Boats and Power-Sports Dealers 8:30 Buying Without a Test Drive 9:25 The Power-Sports Technician Shortage 1 0:20 Seasonal Service and Motorcycle Storage 17:55 Power-Sports Absorption 19:20 Parts and Service Between Two Flames 22:35 Is the AI Bubble Popping? 24:00 Tablets, Kiosks and Digital Inspection Hype 26:35 Why AI Phone Systems Are Failing 27:20 Where AI Actually Saves Time 30:40 AI vs. Human Customer Service 33:20 Use AI to Amplify Expertise 36:50 AI Is Changing Search 37:50 Why Fixed Ops Historically Carried Dealerships 40:55 Falling Sales and Flat Fixed Ops 44:00 Technician Capacity Is the First Problem 44:30 Warranty vs. Customer-Pay ROs 46:00 Add Capacity Before the Constraint 47:00 Why Independents Are Gaining Market Share 48:40 Mystery-Shop Your Dealership 50:40 Paying More for Technicians 53:25 Antiquated Dealership Systems 54:00 Consolidation and Customer Experience 57:20 Fixed Ops as a Force Multiplier 59:00 Dealership Leadership Needs Fixed Ops Experience 1:00:40 Final Thoughts
📞 GOT A QUESTION OF YOUR OWN? Call 833-3-ASK-SDR — we answer on the show!
Service Drive Revolution - Episode #371 Transcript
Service Drive Revolution — Chris Collins, Inc.
Hosts: Chris Collins, Hogi, Adam Craig
Chris Collins, Hogi, and Adam Craig explain how franchised car dealerships can consistently sell vehicles out of the service drive. The core argument: dealerships that succeed at this dedicate salespeople to service full-time rather than rotating them in occasionally. The episode covers compensation structures for advisors, equity mining inside the service scheduling process, using salespeople for appointment confirmation calls, and why Chris believes dealerships will eventually merge the service advisor and salesperson roles into a single "portfolio manager." The show also answers audience questions on new-vehicle maintenance packages and covers a fake forum post attacking the CCI program.
Key topics: selling cars from the service drive · dedicated service-drive salespeople · advisor bird-dog compensation · equity mining · trade-in acquisition · new vehicle maintenance packages · the portfolio manager model
Dedicated salespeople are the single biggest factor. A salesperson assigned to service full-time — present at the 6:45 AM shift meeting before a 7:00 AM service open — works. Rotating salespeople through service a few days a month does not.
Top-performing dealerships convert about 4–5% of RO count into vehicle sales. That's a handful of cars a day out of the drive.
Compensate the advisor. An advisor loses the RO when a customer buys a vehicle. Without a bird-dog or bonus, they have no reason to want the sale.
Lead with acquisition, not sales. "Your vehicle is in high demand and we need it on our used car lot" outperforms "do you want a new car."
Have salespeople make the appointment confirmation call. It creates a warm, casual introduction rather than a predatory one.
Stores that sell well from the drive also acquire well from the drive — sourcing used inventory outside the auction is a major competitive advantage in the current market.
Maintenance packages aren't the enemy — the one-item RO is. Add declined multi-point items to those tickets before judging profitability.
50–60% of customers never use their free oil changes. Phone calls, not emails, are what get them in.
Service Drive Revolution — Chris Collins, Inc.
Hosts: Chris Collins, Hogi, Adam Krey
Chris Collins, Hogi, and Adam Krey explain how franchised car dealerships can consistently sell vehicles out of the service drive. The core argument: dealerships that succeed at this dedicate salespeople to service full-time rather than rotating them in occasionally. The episode covers compensation structures for advisors, equity mining inside the service scheduling process, using salespeople for appointment confirmation calls, and why Chris believes dealerships will eventually merge the service advisor and salesperson roles into a single "portfolio manager." The show also answers audience questions on new-vehicle maintenance packages and covers a fake forum post attacking the CCI program.
Key topics: selling cars from the service drive · dedicated service-drive salespeople · advisor bird-dog compensation · equity mining · trade-in acquisition · new vehicle maintenance packages · the portfolio manager model
Dedicated salespeople are the single biggest factor. A salesperson assigned to service full-time — present at the 6:45 AM shift meeting before a 7:00 AM service open — works. Rotating salespeople through service a few days a month does not.
Top-performing dealerships convert about 4–5% of RO count into vehicle sales. That's a handful of cars a day out of the drive.
Compensate the advisor. An advisor loses the RO when a customer buys a vehicle. Without a bird-dog or bonus, they have no reason to want the sale.
Lead with acquisition, not sales. "Your vehicle is in high demand and we need it on our used car lot" outperforms "do you want a new car."
Have salespeople make the appointment confirmation call. It creates a warm, casual introduction rather than a predatory one.
Stores that sell well from the drive also acquire well from the drive — sourcing used inventory outside the auction is a major competitive advantage in the current market.
Maintenance packages aren't the enemy — the one-item RO is. Add declined multi-point items to those tickets before judging profitability.
50–60% of customers never use their free oil changes. Phone calls, not emails, are what get them in.
Chris Collins: Welcome everybody to Service Drive Revolution. Hope you're having a great morning. I'm Chris Collins. Hogi is here. Adam — what's up, everybody?
We have a great show for you today. Should we start off talking about Hard Knocks? Anybody watch the greatest leadership training available today?
Hogi: I did. I watched it on the plane last night.
Chris: Adam, you hate leadership?
Adam Krey: I don't hate leadership. I just missed the episode.
Chris: It's good. Hard Knocks is really, really fun. It's the Seattle Seahawks this year.
The NFL dropped the rule — they used to have a rule that if you made the playoffs you could pass on Hard Knocks. In the new collective bargaining agreement, I think they changed that, and they picked the Super Bowl champions. The Seattle Seahawks, Super Bowl champions, on Hard Knocks.
It's an interesting thing to see a team coming off winning the Super Bowl now trying to figure out how to get back there. I think it's harder to get back there than it is to get there, in a lot of ways. Don't you guys agree?
Adam: Yeah, totally agree. Not too many do it.
Chris: Your team, Hogi — the Chiefs have done it. But it's not common.
Hogi: One of my favorite things with that episode was there's just a vibe coming off a Super Bowl win. Those rings are pretty awesome. Whoever designed their Super Bowl rings — they had some cool surprises with it. They hit that little button and it opens up into a stadium.
Chris: When we go to Cut in the Beverly Wilshire in Beverly Hills, that jewelry store is in there — Jason of Beverly Hills. When Adam and I went there a few weeks ago, they didn't have it for sale yet. They have one they'll sell to fans. It's like $20,000 and it has real diamonds. It's not the one the players get, but you do get your name on it, and your number is 12, which is the number for the fans. Then they have another one with Swarovski crystal or something that's about $1,500, which doesn't look that cool.
Adam: What's the reasoning that you don't get it, Chris?
Chris: There are a bunch of reasons, Adam. I know you made the comment that if the Bears won it, you'd buy one — and then I think you kind of backtracked.
I'm not going to spend $20,000 on a ring I didn't earn. I don't do anything as a fan.
Adam: You were here at our Super Bowl party.
Chris: I did nothing. I ate and smoked a cigar. I did nothing but yell at the screen.
Football's the best. I'm so excited football's back. It's so nostalgic for me. Football reminds me of my grandpa. I was born a Seahawks fan — my grandpa was so excited when Seattle got a football team. They were an expansion team. I think the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Seahawks came in at the same time, and they never won through my whole youth.
I played Pop Warner football and got to play at halftime at a Seahawks game, meet the team, sit on the sidelines. It was such a connection between my grandfather and me. He'd take me to the games, and Mariners games too. The Mariners have never won a World Series, but he would fall asleep listening to Dave Niehaus, a legendary broadcaster in Seattle who called the Mariners games.
I still can't believe the Seahawks won the Super Bowl. I love our coach.
Chris: I'd recommend everybody watch Hard Knocks just from a leadership side. You can look at the teams that have been on Hard Knocks before that didn't win, that didn't make the playoffs — you could tell why by paying attention to the mannerisms and the behaviors.
There was an interesting clip I saw the other day of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger doing their annual shareholder meeting. They take questions, and one of them was: how do you avoid getting ripped off in business?
Buffett says a lot of people get ripped off — he sees it quite often. And he says they have this way of doing things where they pay attention to what people say, what they're interested in, how they behave, how they act. If you're really paying attention to that, it tells you who somebody is.
One of the red flags for them: if they're going to buy a business and the owner says it's easy to run the business, they're out. They're not buying it. Because nobody who runs a successful business long-term ever says anything is easy. If they say it's easy, they know they're just trying to sell something. Their model is to buy out the owner, make them the CEO, give them a bunch of stock and the resources to grow it — they want the owner to stay around. And if somebody says "business is easy," they're not honest. Because it's not easy.
Watching Hard Knocks — I think it was last year, maybe the year before — it was the New York Giants. You see the head coach at the combine talking about doing the 40 and foot racing, and he's on his phone the whole time. He's not talking football. He's not engaged in what he's doing. He's not even watching the people on the field doing drills. He's just messing around. He thinks everything is funny.
He's gone. He's fired. You can tell by where he's spending his attention.
If you think about attention as commerce — as a source of revenue or money — you're spending your attention. You're spending your money by where you put it. He was goofing off. You're at the combine for a week. Your goal is to figure out who the players are that you want to take in the draft. Even if that decision is made by the general manager, you want to be involved in it. You want to be part of it as a head coach.
So as a fan of football and leadership, it can be very insightful.
Adam: I want to watch it. The clip you played for the running backs coach has got me intrigued. If there was a commercial, they should just play pieces of that.
Chris: Thomas Hammock is the running backs coach. In pre-production I was playing it for Adam because it's so good and so funny.
Adam: He's from Illinois, right? He's from NIU, and he took them to a bowl game where Notre Dame — that was their only regular season loss. That's a huge deal for NIU, the Huskies.
He reminds me of one of my football line coaches, and I won't repeat what he said, but it was very similar. You put your beep into the dirt and you just keep fighting. I keep envisioning the lineman drills with the chutes. I'm having a little bit of trauma flashbacks, but I'm going to try to somehow get a recording of that and make it my ringtone in the morning. I just want him to yell at me. I want to wake up to him yelling at me about "don't wait for the hole to open up."
Chris: It would be great if we could do something with our coaches where we break that down, like how we do book reports.
Hogi: When you're listening to it from a leadership standpoint, try to unpack what he's building. He's calling out the obvious right away. He's firing up their emotions right away. He's immediately coming with how their brand — which is really the Seahawks brand — is to be physical. No part of what he was saying was just emotion. It all had functionality and purpose with it.
He didn't write down that speech five minutes before he walked into that room. He was prepared. It had a pathway and an intention. He'd been waiting to give that speech for a minute.
Chris: There's a lot of pent-up energy there.
Adam: It gets me excited for November 2nd.
Chris: For anybody listening, Adam wants me to go to Seattle to watch the Seahawks beat the Bears at home on November 2nd. I won't go — because I'm not going to sit there with somebody in a Bears jersey in Seattle. All my fellow Seahawks fans going, "You brought this guy?"
Adam, we should be able to talk about someone else's team without you bringing up the Bears.
Adam: It's worse than Cowboys, because I wasn't alive when we went to the Super Bowl.
Chris: Do we have a Cowboys fan on our team right now? Is this the best team of coaches we've ever had? Best coaching team we've ever had, and we don't have one Cowboys fan.
Adam: I just want to be part of the championship club, guys. I connect dots. That's what I do.
Chris: There's one other one-on-one in there that Coach Mike does with number three — our phenom safety-linebacker who's hurt. He just had surgery on his foot. The kid's kind of depressed, going through rehab, wants to be out on the field, and then Coach is talking about all these things people are saying about him in the media, and he takes that and turns it around. It's a pretty cool intimate one-on-one that we get to see into.
Adam: That's what I like about that show. It really brings the human element to leadership.
Chris: They've said in press conferences that after two days they forget the camera is there and they're just functioning normally. Which is the best. That's what I want to see.
Chris: Today on SDR Academy, Hogi is going to be teaching the secret weapon of systems, and coming out of that we're going to go into specific systems. Just about every one of these systems we're going to teach you is worth $50,000 a month in additional sales. You could directly tie a number to each one.
If you're not in Service Drive Academy, go to chriscollinsinc.com, sign up for OnDemand, and you'll get a link. Every other week we're going through and teaching you how to be the best leader in the service drive.
Have we ever told the audience that we have Jefferson Fischer coming to Top Dog this year as a speaker?
Hogi: No, I don't believe so.
Chris: Adam and I had the honor of seeing him. I actually got to have dinner with him at an event last year. If you're not familiar with him, go to YouTube and type in Jefferson Fischer. He's an attorney from Texas who really digs into how you can word things, how you can overcome objections, how you can neutralize a bully or a negotiation.
He's really smart and has a great way of nicely changing somebody's perspective in a way that doesn't create resistance but still makes your point.
Adam: What helps in digesting that is his facial expressions as well, along with the message. He's grown up on a lot of different platforms, and I don't know many people now who haven't heard of him.
Chris: He's a good get. He'll be at Top Dog this year, and we're working on some other fun stuff for Top Dog.
Chris: We talked last week about this fake-news service advisor forum on Facebook that had a critique of us — of me, but of us basically — that is totally fake. It's some sort of plant. It's a Jeff Cowan forum, so the forum is run by Jeff Cowan.
I don't believe Jeff Cowan would be doing that on purpose, but it's so fake and odd that it's hard not to think that maybe he is. I don't know.
Adam went into the forum and looked around. Do you think it's a plant from Jeff Cowan, or a random person making up the post?
Adam: I think it's a random person. But when you read it, there are a couple hundred different postings back and forth.
Honestly, I love the back and forth of all the other various people. There are more people telling them, "Please stay away from my operations — if you're like this, I don't want you working for me." So we don't have to do much.
There's a little bit of a realization, of looking in the mirror. With change, there's always going to be some sort of resistance. I don't know if it's him or one of the folks who work with him. It could be.
Is there any truth to "any publicity is good publicity"? The truth is going to come out in the fact of people going back and forth. It's actually kind of an interesting community that has the discussions, because there are a lot of people with common sense. Nobody goes in there and starts raising everything just for the fact of not having a value behind it. And there are people going to bat for us as well, ironing out the truth.
Chris: How many comments are on it?
Adam: There are like a couple hundred. Back and forth. It's a series. I've been out of the Facebook game for a while, so it's just like — oh, man. A lot of thumbs up, a lot of thumbs down, smiley faces, the little emojis, people laughing.
There are a lot of anonymous posts that go in there. How can you be anonymous on Facebook? I don't understand that. I got out of that whole thing a long time ago, so to see this just makes me shake my head. Sometimes people just want to be heard in silos.
I keep thinking of the angry kid in mommy and daddy's basement who wants to drum up some sort of drama. But then again, there are some cool discussions on there of people actually trying to help people. That's what should be happening in those types of forums — not just a complaining fest.
Chris: Jeff should just moderate it. If Jeff isn't the one doing it, he should moderate. If we had one of those, we would moderate it for sure.
If you can be anonymous online, you can be very opinionated and make up all kinds of stories. What do they call that — trolling?
Chris: Let's talk about the subject we wanted to highlight today, and that is how you sell vehicles from the service drive.
One thing we need to do in fixed ops is run a really good department that's consistent month in and month out — and we need to help the other departments. We need to transcend our department and help other departments prosper in these times, because a lot of dealerships are struggling with sales on the front end, and there's a lot of opportunity in the service drive.
At Top Dog this year I was thinking about asking somebody we know whose dealerships convert about 4% of their RO count into car sales in the drive. Four to five percent is doing a really, really good job — you're selling a handful of cars a day out of the service drive.
I want to talk about what I've seen work, and at Top Dog we'll probably go deeper into this and have a real step-by-step guide. It's time for us to start embracing this and not waiting for sales to come and try to do it — go out and seek it out and help.
Most of the time what happens is sales starts selling in the drive and then it goes away. It only lasts a month or two, because you have to staff it differently.
Chris: The first thing on my list of what makes it work: you have to dedicate salespeople. They have to be dedicated to service. That's their job.
They're there Monday through Saturday, or Monday through Friday, whatever it is. They're in the drive. They're there. So they'd be at the shift meeting at 6:45 in the morning — if service opens at 7:00, which it does in most places, that salesperson is in the shift meeting at 6:45, ready to go, communicating with the advisors, talking about what's coming in, highlighting customers they want to make sure they get face time with. It's a planned thing.
They're dedicated. That is their world. They live in service. Not this "hey, we'll schedule a salesperson in service every once in a while" — that never works, because sales usually runs at a different time. Sales opens at 9:00. Service has been going for two hours. It's a completely different business.
The really big stores will also dedicate a manager.
Chris: The service manager and advisors should be part of that. If I'm devising it, I'd have some sort of bonus for the advisors for their customers who bought a vehicle — some sort of bird dog. And maybe some sort of override for the manager, just to get the attention and the focus going that way.
But the advisors for sure. Because if you think about it, an advisor loses the job if somebody buys a vehicle — and they're not getting paid. You want to make sure they're compensated in a way that makes them look forward to it, so they're excited about somebody buying a vehicle.
The other part is understanding that you're getting the customer back, which is the circle of life. Whenever sales sells them another vehicle, we get them again in service. The trade cycle is usually three years or so — it's even longer lately — but getting them back. So compensating them on that.
Chris: There's a bunch of stuff on the sales side that if I was a service manager, I'd want to understand.
Depending on what software they're running, they have the ability to look at the cars coming in and see where they are equity-wise compared to the value of the vehicle they have, and what sort of terms there are on models. Is there a vehicle where they can have the same payment without much down? Are there new programs? Sometimes manufacturers will do pull-ahead programs where there's a bonus that makes that sort of deal work.
Understand how that math works. Really understand it.
Chris: A lot of the scripts they'll use aren't so much about selling them another vehicle. What they'll talk about is: we need your car on our used car lot because it's in high demand.
That's the thing they'll say — hey, your vehicle is in high demand, it'd be a great time if you want to trade it in, because we really need it. Which makes the customer perceive that they're getting more value for their trade-in.
So a lot of times the conversation starts with "we need the vehicle on the used car lot" versus "hey, do you want to get a new car?"
Hogi: Today, more than ever, that's pulling really well. People are shocked at how much their car is worth today. People who bought a new car a few years ago, close to COVID, don't know what that thing is worth today. That piece pulls really well.
Hogi: When you see this work very effectively — part of having dedicated salespeople, being part of the shift meeting, all of those things — they become part of the service department.
If it's somebody where you're rotating a schedule and a salesperson just has to work service three days out of the month, they're still coming over to the dark side from the other side, and both sides view it as an inconvenience at best.
When they're part of the department — our service scheduling process, I've seen several people use equity mining within it. The advisors have a process called pregame where they're going over their ROs, looking at the opportunities, checking history. There ends up being a pregame for the salespeople in service also, whether it's equity mining or looking at the vehicle they have and preparing for that.
When there's that level of preparation on the service drive, the engagement with the customers is way more organic. It's a weird thing to come in for service, if you don't set it up right, and have me try to sell you a car. There can be a level of that little voice in the customer's head — when they go to a car dealership there's that little thing of skepticism, and it gets louder when they feel like they're being sold to. There's a way to make that whole process very organic.
But if it's something you're just going to try, and you're going to make salespeople go over there every so often — that's where a lot of people get it wrong.
Chris: You make a really important point, Hogi. When Dealer Tire has somebody dedicated in the drive, we sell more tires. When we have a body shop that has somebody dedicated in the drive, we sell more bodywork, checking windshields. The focus and that human connection makes the sales go up. It never doesn't. It's 100% that that works. It's the same sort of thing.
Chris: We have this system in the drive where we're hatting customers' vehicles. The color of the hat is the advisor they're for; the time on the hat is the time of their appointment. It's a system that takes away decision-making for the customers and is very organized. The advisors come out and meet the customers at the vehicle.
One thing I've seen work really well a couple of times: we pre-mark those pre-writes of the customers the salespeople have tagged as the ones who have equity and might be interested in a trade-in. You can put a different colored hat beside the other hat so they know that's them and the salespeople can greet them also. Or you can put a little flag on the hat — there are these little flags you can get.
Just marking them so we know they're one of the customers the salespeople need to talk to, and the advisor facilitates that introduction.
Chris: It helps a lot in the customer's experience if the person calling to confirm the appointment — if you have a BDC calling to confirm appointments, that's great, but on the vehicles that have equity, having the salesperson call and confirm the appointment and then mention it.
"Hey, your car is one that we've highlighted to have equity, and it's something we're looking for on our lot that we have interest in. I want to meet you tomorrow when you come in. You're coming in at 8, I'll be around. My name is Chris."
So those customers get their confirmation call from the salespeople, which is a nice warm introduction under the premise of reminding you about your appointment tomorrow. It's very casual versus predatory. A lot of times you get this "whoa, I'm being sold something" versus "oh, they're trying to help me."
Using the salespeople to do the confirmation calls is a really good way of softballing that and making a friend.
Those are the biggest ones on my list. Like anything, if you dedicate people to it, you're going to learn and get better over time. But it doesn't take that long — it's a pretty linear process. The opportunity is coming in every day, and it really is unbelievable that we're not doing this.
Chris: I believe — and I've said this for a very long time — that car dealerships in the future will not have salespeople and will not have service advisors. They will have portfolio managers.
You'll have somebody who has 200 customers assigned to them. They handle their trade when their trade cycle is done and they want another vehicle. They handle the service appointments and writing up the service. All one person doing all of it.
It's one relationship. The thing we run into is we have different relationships. If they like the salesperson but they don't like the advisor, that dramatically diminishes our chances of getting them to buy another vehicle from us.
I ran into this when I was a service advisor. I would introduce a customer who really shouldn't be doing the repairs on the car — the repairs they need to keep that car functioning the way it should exceed the value of the car, or it's very close. So you'd tell the customer, "Hey, it needs $6,000 worth of work, and that kind of exceeds what the car is worth. What I'd suggest is talk to somebody in sales and trade it in and get something new. If you use the $6,000 you'd spend on this as a down payment, you'd just be in a much better situation."
And I would introduce them to a salesperson — and then the vehicle would get towed out. They didn't sell them the car, and I didn't get the work.
That relationship is so important. If you have a salesperson who's at the shift meetings every morning and is basically part of the service department, and if we're tracking how many cars we're selling out of the drive and everybody is vested in that in some way — even if it's tiny — that makes the world of difference.
That's where I see this becoming portfolio managers. Because it isn't that hard to write service in today's world, and it isn't that hard to sell a car. They're kind of the same thing.
If you just think about what an advisor produces in gross and what a salesperson produces in gross — if that's one person, you'd have somebody producing a tremendous amount of gross.
You have these scenarios on the front end where there's not enough gross in the cars or enough volume for salespeople to really make the kind of living they used to make at certain brands. So you have tons of turnover, and you don't have the career salespeople you used to have. They still exist, but there aren't a lot of younger kids coming in and becoming that like they used to.
Combining those two jobs creates a scenario where you can make a really good living, take really good care of your customers, have a portfolio of clients you're serving, feel really good about what you do every day, and produce gross in a way that benefits the customer — because they don't have to go to two different places. It benefits the dealership tremendously, and it benefits you, because you can make a really good living doing that.
So I believe that's where it's going to go.
Hogi: I think part of the answer is what you mentioned about having the salespeople make the appointment reminder call. But I think it's both.
Chris: It's both for sure. That's why those salespeople — when we've seen it work really well, and it's mostly high-volume dealerships that do this, which is a shame — those salespeople are in service. They're part of the service department. It's where they live. They exist there.
Think about it in terms of: if you were a customer, how would you want it to be? If you have a relationship with your advisor and your advisor is making the introduction, that's probably better.
If the salesperson is calling and saying, "Hey, I just want to remind you we have you tomorrow at 8:30 coming in for service and you're with Hogi." Customer confirms. "And just one other little thing I want to mention — my name is Chris, and I've seen that your car is in high demand on our used car lot. I don't know if you've thought about selling it or trading it in, but I'm going to say hi to you tomorrow. Just think about that."
A light little touch on it. No pressure. You don't have to make a decision now. Let it start working. Let it start cooking. What they're thinking is, "Oh, how much is it worth?" You could even say it's worth more than you think.
Hogi: The people who are doing this well — it's probably another whole topic that's equally important to anybody operating a store today — the people who are selling well out of the service drive are also acquiring very well out of the service drive.
With what you're paying for used cars today, you just can't afford to get them at the auction anymore, hardly. It's a racket. There are stores doing this very effectively, and it just so happens that there are stores out there sourcing all their cars externally and not through the auction right now. It puts them in a crazy competitive advantage.
Chris: When I'm buying a new car, I'm buying an oil change package or a maintenance package, something like that.
I've been counter to most of the opinions out there, which is normal. I started working in a service drive where customers were not making appointments for advisors — it was an open floor. What I have always tried to set up is forced relationships with customers, where I'm having the BDC check who the previous advisor was and putting the customer back with that advisor, because it creates familiarity.
If you see the same person over and over again — even if it's not some love match or overwhelming chemistry — you get familiar, and you start to trust the person. And in service, trust is the thing we want more than anything else. So forcing that familiarity is the secret to it.
The reason I said the thing about familiarity is that those new service packages create familiarity. If you have two or three free oil changes, it's going to entice you to come in and use those. Then you're familiar with the service department. All of the stats tell you that if you get them to come in a couple of times, you're going to be the place they come.
So oil changes are really, really effective.
The thing we miss as an industry, which is terrible: one, we miss the introduction to service. It's rare that anybody does that well. But we also forget that when somebody buys a car, there's so much going on. You could tell them, "Hey, you have three free oil changes, this is worth $300, and you call this number to make an appointment." You could be really thorough in going through that in finance. They will still forget, because there's just so much going on — and then they've got their new car and the new car smell, and they don't remember.
I've seen stats where 50% of customers don't use those things. Even the free oil change. As high as 60%.
The way to make it effective: you have to have somebody calling them and reminding them they have it. As soon as they buy the vehicle, send them some sort of email. This works especially in dealerships that sell trucks or vehicles people are going to modify with wheels or lift kits. Say, "Hey, I'm from service, I'm your liaison. Remember, you have those free oil changes."
And then have somebody call. Let's say it's a store where customers are due for oil changes six months or 6,000 miles out from buying it. At five months I'd be calling them, making an appointment for the next month, and reminding them.
Don't leave it to chance. Run everybody we sold five months ago, and we should be calling them this month reminding them about next month.
Emails are good, but phone calls are better. Emails go to spam. That's a good first line of defense, but your closing ratio and open rate on those is going to be less than 50%.
Hogi: When I get that question, it's often "the maintenance programs don't pay well, they're hurting us."
Take 25 customer-pay ROs that have those maintenance packages on them, go look at the declines from your multi-point inspections, add one or two of those items to the ticket — and then see if that ticket looks like a winner or a loser at that point.
The maintenance programs aren't the enemy. I know a lot of times they don't pay what we want them to pay. But they're not the enemy. The one-item RO is the enemy.
Chris: Good point, Hogi.
Adam: Coming more from the commercial side — is it just "we try this and then it gets thrown out"? Or are there a lot of groups or stores doing this and they just don't do it consistently, or they wait until issues arise, like currently in the market where sales are down?
Chris: We have a lot of clients who ask us for help with sales, because of what we do in service.
The difficulty of running a sales department is having a manager who's good with process and systems, which is very rare. Second is finding salespeople — because salespeople don't make a lot of money in this current setup. They could work 60 hours, and there isn't a lot of gross in the cars, so it's a hard gig. A lot of dealerships are paying salary now, and they're not making the kind of money they used to make.
So it's hard to dedicate salespeople to the service drive when you can't cover your floor.
A parallel would be: we want to dedicate technicians to internal, but we're backlogged in the shop right now. How are we going to pull two techs out and dedicate them to internal when we can't get techs to work on customer vehicles?
Same sort of thing. It's a leadership thing. The managers in sales aren't always that good at process and systems and holding people accountable, and salespeople are coming and going with a lot of turnover. It's really hard to then dedicate somebody and focus on that.
You have to have a really strong system in sales, and then add this on it. If you don't have a strong system and you try this, it just becomes an afterthought. You're just shifting salespeople over there when you can — and it's not a "when you can" thing. It's every day. That's your job. Today, you're looking at what's coming in tomorrow.
Hogi: It's pretty polarizing — the places where it works and where it doesn't. If you bring it up, a lot of people are like, "Yeah, we tried that once, it didn't work."
Adam: With you guys reviewing this — it's like a bridge within the commercial truck world. There are mostly fleets. You were talking, Chris, about owning that entire relationship and having that portfolio manager. We'd call them a customer or client manager on the commercial truck side.
I've been in so many situations where service helps sell the next truck. That might be a statement that gets made — but no, I actually saw it where there was intentionality behind it, because of the particular owner or the number of vehicles. If it was a fleet, it's probably better to get it out with an earlier trade with the residuals that were happening.
I saw the bridge between both sides, because there are ways to definitely sell the next vehicle in the customer's best interest.
If you're trying to get a mom with a family out of a high-mileage vehicle that has a really costly repair, into something safe and reliable — I know Hogi says a lot when it comes to the maintenance piece. But if those repairs are very costly, get them into something more safe, dependable, and reliable, and don't spend all that money.
It's the same thing within truck. If the residuals and the repairs are so costly, having that sales mentality on the service side — actually working with them and partnering — can be a really good selling point.
Chris: On the other side, the thing we miss is: the guy's got a Corvette from two years ago, but the new one came out and it has more horsepower. I experienced that a lot running a BMW store — they want the new M5. There's a handful of people who just want the latest and greatest, and they're not even aware it's out until you tell them or they drive it.
On the heavy truck side, the parallel is what we hear from parts: a lot of people won't come here for service because the service department does a terrible job, but they're still buying their parts from the parts department.
And how many times does a fleet sales manager have to go back into service and intervene and get a truck to the front of the line? Imagine if that bridge was closed. Those fleet managers aren't going to buy another thousand trucks from us if nobody's called them back for two days.
That's where we miss the customer experience. Because to us in our industry they're two completely separate departments — but to the customer, it's one experience. That's where we miss it.
Chris: Thanks everybody for hanging out with us today. We're going to shift over now to the Academy. Hogi is going to be teaching about systems. I'm excited about this — it's going to go for a few sessions, going into specific systems you can leverage in your drive.
I encourage everybody to watch Hard Knocks, and we will see you next time on Service Drive Revolution.
I know from experience that a lot of dealer owners won't invest in training for fixed ops. But eight service managers in our coaching group have been promoted to general manager — something that doesn't happen enough in our industry. Proof that when you're given the right tools and the right mentorship, you can do amazing things.
I'd like to personally invite you to something that should already exist, but unfortunately doesn't: a live fixed ops academy, a mentorship, a community. But what it really is, is a service drive revolution. Anybody can afford it. Anybody who wants to invest in themselves.
We're going to teach what we know about running a healthy fixed ops service business. Our average coaching client performs well above the industry average, and a handful of them are in a league completely their own. In fact, if I told you their numbers, you wouldn't even believe it. They're so good.
Service Drive Revolution - Episode #370 Transcript
Service Drive Revolution
Hosts: Chris Collins, Hogi, Adam Krey
Why a heavy-truck parts department is a completely different business than an automotive one
How wholesale drives truck parts volume — and why inventories run so much higher
The right order of operations for killing obsolescence (stop the bleeding first)
Special-order parts processes, prepay contingencies, and "just in case" tech orders
Chris responds to an anonymous forum post attacking CCI's program
Chris Collins: Good morning everybody. Welcome to the big show, Service Drive Revolution. Happy Wednesday. I hope everybody's having as much fun as we are.
We have a great show for you today. We're going to talk about a forum post from an advisor — it's a very negative post in a Jeff Cowan forum. I'm going to read it, and then we're going to talk about it. That'll be a lot of fun.
We also have a question from the Service Drive Academy that we thought we'd answer here on this show. If you're not familiar with the Academy, every other week we get on and we teach how to maximize your potential in fixed ops. We've been going over financials recently. Last week Hogi went over mindset.
What are you doing next week, Hogi?
Hogi: We're doing systems — the importance of a system, and kind of outlining it. Letting everybody do an exercise where they outline what the overview of their system should be.
Chris: Normally we'd answer questions live in there, but this one was called into the hotline, so we're going to play it and answer it here. The question is basically: what's the difference between parts in a truck dealership versus an automotive dealership? There are some big differences. Great question.
Adam Krey: Yeah, really good question.
Chris: We thought it would be better for the whole world — even though I think the intention was that we'd answer it in the Academy.
So, I'm Chris Collins. You just heard from the Oklahoma Smoke Show, Hogi. And Adam Krey is here in beautiful Florida on vacation. We wanted him on the beach when he did this, but it was too noisy, so he's inside. Are you in an Airbnb?
Adam: Yes. We rented a house. I'm actually in one of the bungalows for the kids — I commandeered it for now. It's almost naptime.
Chris: Last week we were all together in Indiana having a blast working — we were doing a pilot in a heavy-duty truck group. There was a lot of drama leading up to this vacation for Adam, and it feels like there's no drama now that you're there.
Adam: It's very anticlimactic, I think. You hit that climax and now you're just here and whatever happens happens.
Chris: How many adults in the house?
Adam: Like seven.
Chris: How many kids?
Adam: Eight.
Chris: One thing that's funny — I won't stay in an Airbnb with our team. I want to stay in a hotel. I want my own room, my own bathroom. I don't want to wait for Adam to get done with his hour-long shower where he uses all the hot water.
I figured this out very early. When I was 18 I moved into a house with my band. We all lived together, and I figured out very quickly that I don't like roommates. I was the only one in the band with a full-time job — I was a porter at a car dealership. So I had money, they didn't, clearly, because they didn't work. They'd eat all my food. It was a disaster.
So it comes up all the time: "Hey, could we stay at an Airbnb in this city when I'm tagging along?" And I'm always like, you guys can, but I'm staying at the hotel. Seven adults in an Airbnb would be a nightmare for me. The kids are probably more fun. The adults would be the problem.
What sort of events have happened so far?
Adam: We had a fish boil last night. Crab, a bunch of seafood — and you know me and seafood, I'm a take-it-or-leave-it kind of guy. We had that with corn and potatoes. It was really good, though. The corn is the best. The corn takes that Creole spice and just locks it in.
We went golfing yesterday. We did best ball — I always team up with my father-in-law, and we beat my two brothers-in-law. First win in many times of golfing. We shot about nine over par overall, so not too bad. Had a few decent shots, just enough to keep you going.
We also started this last year — a drink competition. Whoever can make the best drink, and there's a rating scale to it. We haven't gone yet, but I think ours is going to be some sort of mojito. That Cosmopolitan we tried last year went horrible, so that's definitely not the choice this year.
Chris: Does Bob participate in the drink competition?
Adam: He did last year.
Chris: Bob is Adam's father-in-law, who makes the incredible jerky. If he can put the jerky together and he understands mixology, I think he'd have a head start on the drinks.
Tell him thank you again — when we were in Indiana, Adam brought a bunch and it doesn't last long. It goes quick.
Adam: I definitely found the remnants of wrappers in the wagon.
Chris: I offered to take it with me when I got out at the airport and you were like, "No, just leave it."
Last week we went to Planet Fitness and worked out most days. Planet Fitness is funny — the whole business model is interesting. They charge $10 a month and they're counting on nobody coming. Their business strategy is to sell a lot of memberships on the understanding that people who buy a gym membership usually don't go. But unfortunately a lot of people do go, so it's always really crowded. It was fun, though. I felt better at the end of the week.
Caller: I'm calling because I have a question about the similarities and differences between the parts department and the parts operation in a car dealership versus the trucking business.
I have in-laws — kind of family friends — who own a trucking company, and they're having some issues with their parts department that they told me about. I'm the parts director for my auto group, so I'm wanting to help them. I suggested they look into you guys, because I think you're really good at what you do. But in the meantime, I don't know how actively they're going to do that, so I was also going to look at it myself.
For example, with obsolescence, I'm confident about all the exit strategies and preventative strategies and systems to put in place to prevent and remove obsolescence in a dealership. But I was hoping to get some insight from you all about how similar that is — not just obsolescence but the whole thing, even going into technicians, because I know they pay their technicians hourly. I'd like to get some more insight on what the trucking business looks like so I can help my friends. And hopefully they'll check you guys out too.
Chris: Nice that he's saying that. Also, we've had so many referrals from factory guys lately, which is unbelievable — usually the factory guys aren't paying attention. But it's been really nice that they've seen the dramatic change, mostly in CSI. Right, Hogi?
Hogi: Yeah, it's more about customer satisfaction.
Chris: People are just calling in and saying, "Hey, my factory guy said you blew the doors off over here, and I'm struggling with my service department. Can we set up a call?" Which is very nice.
Let me lay a foundation we can build on in answering this question.
The biggest difference between a car dealership and a heavy truck dealership is that one is B2C — business to consumer. You're servicing a consumer. Truck dealerships are more B2B — business to business.
Now, a parts department in a car dealership is in a sense B2B, because you do sell stuff on the retail counter. But for the most part, the bulk of your business in parts is going to be through the service department. So you're kind of at the mercy of the service department. If the service department is running really well — they're doing good with their inspections, they're selling a lot of repair labor — you're going to sell a lot of parts.
In a truck dealership, a lot of the business in parts comes from the outside, not the inside. Their numbers for the most part come from selling to outside businesses.
In the truck world, a lot of these fleets — imagine a school district, or Amazon — these businesses have buses or trucks and their own technicians, but they don't have their own parts department. So they buy their parts from the dealership.
You'll see a parts department in a truck dealership doing $400,000 a month to the service department and $2 million a month to the outside. Their wholesale sales are by far and away the bulk of their business.
So parts departments in a truck dealership have people out there selling. They have teams — you'll see a room of people just taking incoming calls for parts, where in a car dealership you'd just have the counter people or maybe the front counter taking those calls. It'd be like ten people in a truck dealership versus one or two in a car dealership.
Municipalities have their own technicians. All sorts of fleets have their own techs, and they're buying the parts from the dealership.
You also have more competition, because there are other vendors out there that will sell parts to them. So it's all about the service. It's about delivering, and it's about inventory. The inventories will be much higher in a truck dealership, because they have to have it in order to sell it.
How did I do, Adam?
Adam: That was awesome. I'm trying to think of ways to insert any sort of little gaps, but that was a really good overarching answer.
Chris: It's fascinating. We're fans of businesses and models and how things work, and that one has always been fascinating to me. If you've spent a lot of time in a car dealership, the parts department in a heavy truck dealership is a completely different animal.
When we were working with International, I would go around and visit dealerships. There would be dealerships that didn't even have a drive. They were like a warehouse, and the parts would be functioning in cubicles, totally disconnected from the dealership — and they were doing humongous numbers. Like four million.
There's one dealer I know of in the Midwest that was doing about $2 million a month in parts wholesaling, because he'd buy a lot of the parts by the truckload from the manufacturers of the parts. He'd go to Bosch and say, "Hey, these alternators for Suburbans — whatever you have left over after you fulfill Chevy's order, I'll buy those." He'd buy the overruns, and he was doing huge numbers. That's the only time I've ever seen anybody on the car side do any sort of numbers like truck dealerships do in parts.
It's a completely different animal. The margins are a different thing too — they're very competitive. It's a harder game.
Adam: I always look at it as there's a lot of opportunity in that truck parts realm too, because of all those different vendors.
Chris: For sure. We have a couple little secret things we're trying that I don't think we want to talk about on here — but they're missing some things too. Just like on the automotive side, they're missing some things. Not really building a strong wholesale business. So we could learn from each other.
Chris: What would you guys say about how to avoid obsolescence on the truck side — keeping track of lost sales?
Hogi: I think with obsolescence, they usually get it out of order. In my experience, no matter whether it's car or truck, they try to go clean it up first.
They realize they have a big number over 12 months, and over 9 months no-sale, and they say, "Okay, let's pull these numbers. Let's go find different creative ways to get rid of them."
You're way better off to stop the bleeding first. Go figure out your special-order parts process. Your returns process — is it being utilized? What does the special-order shelf look like? Really nailing down those processes. The truth of the matter is they're just avoiding that. You can walk and chew gum at the same time — you can do both at once. It's just that the processes involve a lot of conversations with a lot of people.
If you take a sample size of obsolescence and look at what's in there, you're going to find techs returning stuff they didn't need. The classic "I got it just in case." And diagnosis — "Hey, we tried all these different things, maybe even the tech line told us to get one of these and we're trying it," or whatever the thing is. And they end up returning it.
So with obsolescence, you've got to stop the bleeding and figure out: what is your special-order parts process? Are you allowing people to order special orders without prepaying? If so, what are the contingencies? Are you allowing techs to order stuff just in case? If so, what are those contingencies?
Chris: Prepaying is way more common on the truck side than on the automotive side.
Hogi: Yeah. I don't think you have to take a very big sample size. Depending on their setup, their obsolescence may come from a different place, but it's usually just one of three things — and it doesn't usually take a very big sample to figure out what it is.
Then you've got to go have conversations. Whether a lot of it's coming internally from your own shop or from outside customers — are we letting people order and return? And then just sitting down and deciding what the processes are going to be.
For whatever reason, people like to go clean it up and avoid cleaning up their process. And then as soon as you get it cleaned up, you have that same amount in obsolescence all over again, because you didn't stop the bleeding.
Adam: I like that, Hogi. One of the pieces you mentioned is special-ordered parts.
The most recent one I did — a back parts counter had shelving, and they didn't go through all the orders that they had on the shelves. When they started going over six months and going back, the RO was closed and the part was just there. Nobody goes back and restocks it, and they didn't have a system in place to do the prepay. So they were just stuck with the part, and then "we'll sell it to the next one," and then they just kind of forgot it. And when they do an annual inventory, they know they have all these obsolete parts.
I'd like to double down on the system you just said. And also — this is kind of what Chris was saying a little bit ago about all these different vendors. If they go to these other vendors and have these special-ordered parts but they can't get it from the factory, now you've got two other issues, because it's easier to track it with an RO attached to it. It's not necessarily that easy to attach it when it's just an outside vendor where we wanted a special-ordered part and didn't put somebody else on the hook for it.
So you're 100% right on getting back into those processes and reviewing them. What would you say, Hogi — is it a monthly basis that you're reviewing those special-ordered parts that are missed?
Hogi: Yeah, probably. And I think getting everybody on the same page and agreeing on what it is and why.
The bigger conversation is how much all the departments affect each other. If you have a big wholesale business, whoever your biggest customer is — whether it's wholesale or the shop internally — your ability to serve them is dependent on those processes being good.
A lot of times we think we're not holding people's feet to the fire on adhering to those processes, what they can return and what they can't. But if it makes your obsolescence higher, your first-time fill rate is going to go way down, and it really inhibits your ability to serve those clients. So it really is a situation of "help me help you."
It's very similar to automotive. It's not different. You've got to be on it. You've got to look at it every month. All the processes are the same. It's just that on the truck side there are more parts.
Adam: And the dollar side can be very expensive too.
Chris: The average part is going to be way higher. It's good. Great question.
Chris: Now let's get into this — "this advisor hates me," and I'm setting this up.
This is something that was sent to me that's in a forum on Facebook. I'm not in the forum. I'm not even on Facebook — if you interact with us on Facebook, it's our team, it's not me. So I'm not super familiar with this and how it works, but it's a forum run by Jeff Cowan.
I'll say that my relationship with Jeff Cowan has always been very cordial. I've invited him to stuff. I've always been of the opinion that working together and collaborating is better for the industry. I don't think we even really step on each other's toes with what we offer, because at the heart of what we do, we're not advisor training. We're fixing the business, and we'll train the advisors in that process. But we don't compete one-on-one — if somebody calls us and they just want advisor training, we don't do it.
We've talked about that for a long time. It's a stream of revenue we're missing by not just doing advisor training. But my concern is that when we did just do advisor training, we made it worse. We can sell people advisor training, but their CSI gets worse and their numbers go down, because really you've got to be able to hire techs, you've got to have systems in place.
I don't know how much Jeff gets into that, but from what I've seen coming in behind him, that isn't what they're doing. They're mostly just doing on-the-drive training.
So I've always been very cordial. I've invited Jeff to stuff. He's always declined, but I have no animosity toward him. So it surprises me — I don't know if he's picking a fight with us. Do you guys feel like he's picking a fight with us?
Hogi: I don't know. It seemed like the comments were coming from advisors.
Chris: When I first read this, I thought it was real. And then the more we dig into it, it's completely fake.
This person who posted it doesn't have a real profile. They're not a real person. Second of all, the things they say in there aren't true. We launch maybe two clients a month at the most. We're very familiar with the clients we're launching and what's going on in those stores.
This was only brought to my attention this week. Hogi, when was it brought to your attention?
Hogi: I think I saw it last week for the first time.
Chris: The one store you thought it could be — you called the general manager, and he said there's no way, none of this applies.
So it's a fiction of the imagination, but I'll read it to everybody and then we can go through it. I originally wanted to address it like it was real, because there are some things in there that I think advisors could benefit from understanding — why we do things the way we do.
The subject line is "Chris Collins…" and it says:
"My dealership just started using Chris Collins consulting guy. I've heard of him, and no, I never read his book. But here's the changes since implemented. Every tech now flat rate. Four good techs walked out because of it."
Chris: I'm not aware of any automotive dealership we've gone into where the techs aren't flat rate. On the truck side it's very common for them not to be flat rate, but we haven't gotten there — we haven't done that. So there are no clients we have where the techs weren't already flat rate.
And we have no dealerships where four techs have walked out — let alone one or two — this year for sure. So that's a complete fabrication.
It's interesting that that would be the thing they'd say, because if techs were walking out, that would be a big deal. The other part is there's no client we've gone into where we're not adding techs also.
Then it says:
"Menu items messed with. Flagged flat rate hours dropped and labor went up. Techs getting screwed. Customers are really noticing price increases. Aggressive parts price matrix in place. Labor grid pricing. Pushing wallet flushes heavily and charging way more than they are worth, to the point I'm not comfortable selling them. If it was my mother, I'd tell her to take it elsewhere for the same service."
Chris: Unpacking that — I say in all of our advisor training that if you wouldn't sell it to your mother, don't sell it. That's what I believe.
If we're going to debate the value of maintenance — which would be a hard thing for anybody to disagree with, that maintenance isn't a good idea — we don't want to sell people things they don't need, and we don't want to play with the intervals to the point that it doesn't benefit the customer. The "mom" thing is an analogy that I use. Clearly they're aware of that, even though they've never read my book. Somehow they're aware of it, which is kind of funny.
We never put in an aggressive parts matrix anywhere. That doesn't happen. The labor grids — yes, sometimes we put in a labor grid.
The bigger point is this. If you're a service advisor and we come into your dealership and we change the pricing, the reason we're changing the pricing is because your service department is losing money with your old pricing. We're right-sizing it — like water has to find even ground. We're right-sizing the pricing so the service department is profitable in what they sell.
A lot of times when we go in, things haven't changed. We'll literally have service departments where the pricing is the same as it was in the '90s. We're paying the techs more, we're in a new building, rent has gone up — all kinds of things have changed, but our pricing hasn't. So we figure out where our break-even point is on selling an hour of labor, and we fix the pricing. We do that with the leadership. We walk them through it and train them on it.
If you're a service advisor working for someone who's losing money and you're okay with that, I would really question your integrity and the idea of entitlement. You're so entitled that you think the dealership doesn't have the right to be profitable — and your role is to ensure the dealership is profitable. It doesn't even make logical sense that you'd work for somebody and not want them to be profitable and demonstrate the value to the customer. That's the whole reason you're there as a service advisor.
So if a real service advisor wrote this — which clearly they didn't — I'd encourage you to try to understand the business and understand why the pricing is the way it is.
Then it says:
"I don't know. I'm ready to start looking elsewhere, but I know the grass isn't always greener on the other side. It's just hard working at a dealership for so many years and developing trustworthy relationships with customers, and now I seriously feel like we're getting ripped off. I'm doing my best to look at the business perspective, but the whole thing just feels unethical."
Chris: That's the funniest thing to me. In politics, or any sort of debate with people who understand psychology — if you can't beat somebody on the facts, then challenge it with ethics. And the contradiction here is that I say don't sell it if you wouldn't sell it to your mother, and then you're still making it about ethics.
Hogi: As you look at repair orders in these stores, there's so much opportunity. There's zero reason to sell anybody anything they don't need.
One thing I go through in boot camp is that the dealer is in kind of a tough spot. The manufacturer says, you know, lifetime transmission fluid. And then if you're with a chemical company, they want the intervals to be super quick. So you're in the middle of that. You're the one who actually has to talk to the customer as the dealer and figure all of that out and come up with product that makes sense for you.
And then to your point, Chris, we have to have product that's profitable. I think that's where a lot of the communication breaks down. I can't tell you how many advisors I've told that the department's not profitable and they don't believe it. They're like, "What? That doesn't make any sense. Do you see all the money?" All they see is those big tickets going through there — and to think that the department only makes a little bit of money for every hour it sells, or possibly is even losing money.
Chris: Then it says: "Anyone have experience with this program? Is this only to benefit the owners and screw over the advisors, techs, and customers?"
Like building a wall between ownership and everybody else — that the owners don't care about their employees and that the customers aren't the ones driving all of this. If the customers aren't happy, we don't have anything. For the most part, our intention when we go in is that the advisors and techs are having more fun, and that's contagious to the customers. But the customers drive everything.
Chris: So back to it — do we think Jeff Cowan's picking a fight with us?
Hogi: I don't think so. It's clearly a fabrication.
Chris: By the way, "AlphaDog739" is the person's profile, which is blank. It's not even a real person.
Adam: It's AI.
Chris: I don't think this is written by AI. This is clearly a person who is semi-familiar with our program. They're not really familiar with it, or they haven't experienced it firsthand, because there are a lot of inconsistencies with what we do.
Adam: Whether there's a fight or not, we're very intentional in educating people and in what we're trying to drive as a desired outcome for our clients. That's what I think is very contradictory to this. A lot of times our advisors are being educated on what it means to sell, and that value.
Chris: There's nothing about that in here. If this advisor really worked in a service drive we were in, he would have gone through things that would have taught him some stuff.
Adam: Perception value.
Chris: He'd have a deeper understanding of what it is we're trying to do, instead of this superficial tone.
Hogi: The ones who sometimes default to Charlie Brown comments like this — and I've seen this taking our program to hundreds of stores over the years — are the ones who don't have a belief in customer service, or that they can control it, so they don't want to buy into the systems and methods that get those outcomes.
If you're committed to that thing where CSI is a farce and it's unobtainable and customers are crazy — one, that means we failed you, because one of our primary focuses is bending mindset on that and showing how systems and structures can set you up for success in an area where the industry has typically failed the advisor.
And we're doing that, and gamification, and a couple of other things. They also don't talk about the games in here.
Chris: If you'd really experienced our program, there's a whole thing you're missing that you wouldn't leave out. There's no way you'd leave that out. Even if you made fun of it, you wouldn't leave it out.
So — this is a deliberate attack. And here's how we're going to fight back. Are you guys ready?
We're just going to keep doing what we do.
I don't think it's good for the industry for us to be fighting with anybody. And we're not perfect — we're always trying to get better. These sorts of attacks surprise me. It would be punching down for us to go on the attack. I don't feel good about myself when I inflict pain on others. It's not my deal.
Like I said, I've tried to collaborate with Jeff a couple of times and he's just not into it. And that's okay. I've invited him out — I know he likes wine, so I've invited him out to dinner.
Hogi: You say that to the team from time to time — the punching-down thing. The industry affords us plenty of opportunities in the marketplace to punch down, if you will. If you're just results-oriented and you're looking for great customer experience and great profitability, there's a straight line to those things in our industry that the industry turns a blind eye to. It's almost comical. But we're pretty careful about not punching down.
Chris: Our energy is better spent on us getting better at what we do. We have so much opportunity out there to help our industry, to help the trucking industry, to become better. That's a full-time job.
If Jeff wants to do this sort of thing and attack us, it's fine. I would hope that our clients who are in this forum are sticking up for us. I haven't been in the forum and I haven't read any of that, but there are going to be a lot of people who say this is a joke.
Hogi: Even in the screenshots that were sent to me, there are people in there who are like, "This doesn't sound like him. Have you ever read his book?"
Chris: Which is funny, because it says "I never read his book" at the top. By the way, the book is an easy read. It's a two-cup-of-coffee book.
Hogi: Whether it's fake or real, I think everybody understands there are just some keyboard warriors — and most of them are Charlie Browns who, instead of spending their time focusing on how to make themselves better and on all the opportunity, get into an echo chamber of some sort. I try not to give it too much thought, honestly.
Chris: We're really trying to focus on getting better, on what works versus what doesn't, on how we can learn and grow and share that with others. How can we invite as many other people to the party as we can on this journey? That's where we want to put our focus.
I'm a big fan of the mirror. I'm just going to look in the mirror and try to fix the things we can do, and not go on the attack.
Chris: Adam looks super worried about it. Before you got on, Hogi, he's got this big bottle of whiskey — he's all excited about single barrel something. He's never been more concerned in his life than he is right now.
How hot is it there?
Adam: Hot. They said the heat warning is finally gone, which I don't even know what that means down here. It was 106 degrees yesterday. Now it's 95 and humid.
Chris: Don't go inland.
Adam: We're right on the beach, which is nice, so you get that sea breeze. I've been hanging out by the pool. We might try to do nine holes tomorrow night.
Chris: We'll let you get back to the fun. We loved hanging out with you today. Thanks everybody, and thanks for the question — that was great.
If you're not in our OnDemand, you can go to chriscollinsinc.com and sign up so you're there next week when Hogi is talking about systems. Beyond that, I just really hope everybody has a great week.
Adam: Look forward to seeing you guys next week. We had a ton of fun, a ton of great questions, and a ton of great takeaways last week. Excited to see everybody in Academy next week for sure. Come join us.
Chris: We'll see everybody next time on Service Drive Revolution.
I know from experience that a lot of dealer owners won't invest in training for fixed ops. But eight service managers in our coaching group have been promoted to general manager — something that doesn't happen enough in our industry. Proof that when you're given the right tools and the right mentorship, you can do amazing things.
I'd like to personally invite you to something that should already exist, but unfortunately doesn't: a live fixed ops academy, a mentorship, a community. But what it really is, is a service drive revolution. Anybody can afford it. Anybody who wants to invest in themselves.
We're going to teach what we know about running a healthy fixed ops service business. Our average coaching client performs well above the industry average, and a handful of them are in a league completely their own. In fact, if I told you their numbers, you wouldn't even believe it. They're so good.
