AutoFix AdvisorCast

Michael Doherty [00:00:00]:
This is the autofix Advisor Cast, powered by worldpac Service Advisor Nation. Welcome to another episode of the Autofix Advisor Cast. Thank you so much for tuning in. Hope everyone's doing well, Hope everyone's healthy. This particular episode, I wanted to talk about my personal experience at Vision Division High Tech Training and Expo that took place in Kansas City March 6th through the 9th. I was invited to attend that event and it was, it was really cool. The morning didn't start out too great of travel. I left out of Raleigh to a connecting flight and 20 minutes in to landing for that connecting flight, the plane was rerouted to Tennessee where we sat on the ground and awaited instruction.

Michael Doherty [00:01:00]:
And the Southwest team crew pilots, onboard personnel were very hospitable and patient. But sitting in a plane for 20 minutes not knowing what's going on isn't the best. Especially haven't been on a plane in a while. But we got back up in the air, headed to Tennessee, and I'm sorry, toward our destination. And when we got to our destination, we were told, people for connecting flights, obviously that wasn't going to happen and to please visit the ticket counter where a Southwest representative would help us expedite travels for the day. And I was rerouted from my destination, well, actually half of my destination to Texas and then Texas to St. Louis, which is where I originally was intending to head to get to. So I got to St.

Michael Doherty [00:01:48]:
Louis, probably, I would say it was late in the day, it was late in the night with the connecting flights to St. Louis and then on to Kansas City, but nonetheless got off the plane, very, very tired, got down to the baggage carousel and of course, you know, I'm the last man standing. And I'm just like, great, you know, from the four flights of interchange, my bag did not make it with me, and that's just great, you know. And then one more bag came out of the carousel and it was my bag. And I was like, okay, all right, we're good. So in any event, a full day of travel just really whipped me. I mean, just, you know, I didn't do anything, I sat on a plane. But man, it just sucks a life force out of you.

Michael Doherty [00:02:33]:
But the Southwest, again, if you guys have ever flown Southwest, they're pretty good. So they handled it very professionally and got everybody to their destination. But any event, heavy day of travel, getting to Vision, didn't know what to expect. I've been to some events before. SEMA show in Las Vegas, the ASTA event here in Raleigh, North Carolina. Vision's its own animal Talk about industry professionals. There are companies that, you know, shut down their shops for days. Bring the whole crew.

Michael Doherty [00:03:07]:
There are some owners that come out from shops that come to teach classes, participate in classes. They're in vendor booths. It's a. It's a really big event. But just, I mean, so much knowledge, so much just cool people, just, you know, getting to meet people in the industry, and really, everybody's as advertised. It's awesome. I mean, you know, I mean, just you hear about certain people and you think, hey, man, you know, is this person really that happy all the time? Is this person really that just kind of chill? Yeah, they are. It's just a bunch of industry professionals and a great time.

Michael Doherty [00:03:40]:
Great time. But through the three days, four days of the event, every morning they had a keynote speaker at breakfast. And on Friday, the keynote speaker was a lady named Brittany Hodak. Hodak didn't know about her, never seen her before, had no idea that she was going to be keynote speaker. But her vision for vision was really simple. It was all about customer experience. Right. How do we, you know, it doesn't only apply to service advisors.

Michael Doherty [00:04:16]:
I mean, just, you know, the industry in general. Right. Again, it's. It's. We're in the customer service business. We really are. And just, you know, reaffirming that, hearing that from somebody that's not even in really the automotive industry, but reaffirming that it is, you know, the automobile industry is a customer service business. And her take on it was really, really cool.

Michael Doherty [00:04:36]:
She developed and came up with what's called the super S U, P, E R, the supermodel. And the supermodel is this. So the S it's going to be start with your story. The U is understand your client's story. The P is personalize the client's experience. The E is exceed the client's expectations. And R is repeat. Repeat that process.

Michael Doherty [00:05:02]:
So again, the supermodel. S U, P, E, R. Start with your story, understand your client's story, personalize their experience, exceed their expectations, and repeat. And she really dove into that. And it was such a cool presentation, to be honest. It was very interactive. Within the first five minutes, she threw up a QR code on a big screen, and, you know, it got to an app, and everybody had interaction. She was asking questions.

Michael Doherty [00:05:31]:
So, I mean, you're literally right there, you know, on your smartphone, just, you know, answering questions, and it's popping up on the screen behind her, and she's answering questions and getting input. It was very interactive. I've never seen A presentation like that. So. So Brittany, you know, my hat's off to you. Honestly, it was so cool to meet you and just have that experience also. And the reason I say that is it just gets you charged up right before an event, before the day starts. Like again, hearing about all that good stuff.

Michael Doherty [00:05:59]:
And she had some, she had a really cool statistic actually. 61% of customers say most companies treat them like a number and not a customer. And you know, I kind of knew that existed, but I didn't know the statistic, the percentage. But again, 61% of customers say most companies treat them like a number. And then she went into talking about again her version called it the supermodel and doing the best you can because you know, she said, you know, and I agree, you know, your customers always have options, you know, they don't, they're not always going to come back to you if you don't treat them right. And really just honing in on the customer service experience. So, you know, I know primarily that's for us service advisors. You know, we're the first, you know, first ones they see when they come in the door, typically where the last line of defense, everything in between, with communication, et cetera, but just really honing in on that, you know, hearing that statistic, you know, 61% of customers say most companies treat them like a number.

Michael Doherty [00:07:05]:
And I know, and I know you service advisors out there are not doing that. I know you're doing better than that. But again, keeping in the back of your mind, you know, that customer always has other options. So do your best, you know, under, under promise, over deliver, listen to them. And I know sometimes it's annoying because people kind of go on tangents, but again, you're just in that moment. Let's follow the rule, you know, we got two ears, one mouth, you know, let's, let's, let's, let's do it that way. And also part of that vision experience, I was invited by actually the company that sponsors me for this podcast, which also is worldpack, but the sponsorship with autofix Auto shop coaching, Chris Cotton, who started autofix and he had asked me to come out to this event and co teach a class with him. We did a Service Advisor A to Z class.

Michael Doherty [00:08:06]:
He had hit me up maybe toward the end of December, maybe it was even November, and asked me to put my take on the course. He would not send me his input. He said, you know, just you, you know, you do what you want, come up with something. So I literally, I took you know, the Alphabet A to Z and designed, you know, what I wanted to talk about. And it kind of morphed into what we wanted to talk about. And it was a fantastic class. I have never taught a class before. I've never co.

Michael Doherty [00:08:35]:
Teached a class with somebody before. And this was just so cool. The experience. The class started at 1:45pm I walked in, there was maybe five or six people sitting down, and I was like, okay. You know, I didn't know what to expect. And you know, we got 15 minutes now before class starts and people just start pouring in, pouring in, pouring in, pouring in. I honestly didn't take a headcount, but if I had to make a educated guess, There were probably 50 people in there. And I thought honestly that my stomach was going to be churning, I was going to be nervous, I was going to be sweating.

Michael Doherty [00:09:13]:
Chris was so just cool to calm me down and say, hey man, you got this, you know how to do this, you got the knowledge base. Let's go do this. And it was just so awesome. The crowd participation, the in class participation was exceptional. Everybody, you know, asked questions. There was collaboration. So we, we did the class for about two hours. We did a 15 minute break and after that we did it for about another hour and a half.

Michael Doherty [00:09:44]:
And we only got from A to, I want to say it was S or T and we didn't get all the way through, but people got to take home workbooks and things like that. But it was awesome. And time flew by. You know, I, I really big proponent of, like, if you do what you like, if you do what you love, you know, it just. The day goes by, right? So I think for me that was just a really cool experience. And Chris, if you're listening, thank you. And also to your wife, Kimberly, she was in the back and had also put her touch on that class, kind of doing the slides for the projector and things of that nature. And funny fact, you know, I've never been miked up before, not like in a podcast like I am right now.

Michael Doherty [00:10:25]:
You know, Chris gave me kind of a little box. He said, hey, put this on your belt. You know, here's a microphone. At that point in the class, I nerded it out. I put on a shirt and tie, so had on a shirt and tie, put on my microphone. Chris goes, here's how you turn it on. And hey, do me a favor, when we go to break, if you need to go to the bathroom, don't forget to turn off your microphone. That is such great knowledge I would have never thought that I didn't have to use the bathroom.

Michael Doherty [00:10:53]:
But man, could you imagine having a microphone on right next door to the bathroom? Man, I don't know. So, you know, Chris, thanks for saving me the embarrassment of that if I had to go. But you know, again, just awesome class, awesome experience again. That was the Vision High Tech Training and Expo. They did a fantastic job putting things together and I definitely want to go back next year. So service advisors out there, you know, get that on your books, get it on your books for next year. I believe it's every March. I'd have to look into that.

Michael Doherty [00:11:25]:
But I think it's every merch and I think it's the same week, the 6th or the 9th, but again in Kansas City, Vision, Vision High Tech Training and Expo will not let you down. Also they had a humongous vendor area like most of the events do. But again, even with the vendors, everybody's just so as advertised, personable, willing to help, you know, not salesy, not pushy, they got show specials. Tech metric was out there, you know, the big names, you know, Bosch, etc and I mean just, you know, Auto Vital, I mean just so many cool experiences to at that event. And you know, again, just please get out there and check that out. But also one thing that was new to me to learn about and I think this will help service advisors out because you know, there's a lot of shops out there right now that are looking for technicians, right? Technician shortage. And I had no idea that this company existed. It's called Pro Motive.

Michael Doherty [00:12:29]:
So their website is go g o gopromotive.com and they offer full service offer auto staffing solutions. So technicians, service advisors. Check out their website again, gopromotive.com full service auto and staffing solutions. No, they're not paying me to advertise for them. I just think it's, you know, again, I'm just trying to drop some knowledge. I'm trying to get awareness out there, information out there. Again, you know, for a technician shortage. I checked out their website before I got on this podcast and yeah, I mean they've got people out there, they're looking for and, and submitting resumes.

Michael Doherty [00:13:10]:
So again, it might help your shop out if you're looking to grow your shop or you know, add another service advisor looking for a technician, you know, check that out. They had a really good program put together and I'm glad to just, you know, talk about that and get them out there because again, it's helping the industry, right? And that's what we're trying to do. It's educating, it's helping. I've kind of got the class bug now, to be honest. I want to do another class with Chris. I gotta get in touch with him and see when that's gonna be. But just it was so cool, honestly, just to be in the element, no expectations to myself. Just collaborate, you know, talk to people about.

Michael Doherty [00:13:49]:
And there's so many varieties of service advisors out there. There was people in that class that just started doing it. People have been doing it for a while. There were people in the class that weren't service advisors, there were owner shop owners in there, etc. But again, just such a great class and you know, I appreciate it. Chris with auto fix, you know, auto fix, auto shop coaching. So appreciate you. Worldpack.

Michael Doherty [00:14:14]:
Thank you too for your sponsorship. Although I didn't see a worldpac out there at this one. Maybe I just didn't get their booth. But also I lived on chicken tenders and french fries for probably three days during working the booth that I was at. And they were good, but I am chicken fingers and french fried out. I told myself on the way back, on the flight back that I'm going to pause on any of that stuff probably for about a week, kind of get it out of my system if I would. Got to get some salads back in there, etc. But you know, the, the food vendors were great.

Michael Doherty [00:14:50]:
It wasn't bad food, but I mean, you know, it just, it is what it is. So chicken tenders and french fries, maybe I'll consider that another week or two. But in any event, Service Advisor Nation, I appreciate you. Thank you for tuning into another episode of the Autofix Advisor cast. And again, the supermodel from Brittany Hodak. Right. Start with your story, understand your client's story, personalize their experience. Because let's be honest, everybody's got different stuff going on.

Michael Doherty [00:15:20]:
But personalize their experience, exceed their expectations. And again, I think on that front it's going to be under promise over deliver, especially from a service of ours role and repeat that process and that is going to give clients a reason to not look for other options. That is going to make clients feel like they are not 61% of customers that say that they feel like they're just treated at a number or treated like a number. So you know what to do. Be yourself, continue to be awesome, grow and maintain client relationships and we'll see you next episode. So again, ServiceVazer Nation, thank you for tuning in and enjoy your day. Evening whatever you're currently doing, wherever you're at. And again, appreciate you guys.

Michael Doherty [00:16:04]:
All right. Hey, thanks for listening to the autofix Advisor Cast. If you're ready to take your shop to the next level, check out our sponsor, WorldPAC and the WorldPAC Training Institute WTI. Big thanks to them for their sponsorship. Follow the podcast on social media for more insights and subscribe so you never miss an episode. Oh, and tell your friends we want to help the industry grow and help advisors love their jobs again. See you on the next autofix Advisor Cast.