Latest / What's Working in Auto / WOW Moments: Unreasonable Hospitality in the Service Drive with Roger Pipher, WE Auto
Transcript
- Jake Hughes: Welcome to the show. This week we have Roger Piper from We Auto. He runs the fixed ops department across the group. He's been in the industry a long time, very tenured, has a ton of experience to share. When we look at one of We Auto's stores, Ford and Gallatin, Tennessee, staff is praised so much. Among stores that generate over 30 reviews a month, there's about 5,000 of those in the US. This fourth store from We Auto is in the top 1% of the country. So we want to talk to Roger and learn from his experience what's going on behind the reviews. And we learned that Roger is a big advocate of unreasonable hospitality. We see this theme quite a bit in the industry. There's a lot to learn from the hospitality industry and bring it into auto. Roger's doing it in one specific way, which he go goes into in quite a bit of detail called wow moments, giving his team a monthly stipend to spend to create special scenarios that wow customers and bring them back. And he tells one particularly moving story, going into great detail of a successful use of that budget. So Roger from We Auto, let's get into the show. You're on today in part because we work together, Wide Whale and We Auto, and in part because I saw that your team was nominated for the best dealership to work for. And I believe this is for the second year in a row. So congratulations. And tell me more about that and kind of how that's landed for your team and what you've been doing recently to achieve that award. Roger Pipher: Yeah, actually, you know, it's very humbling. You know, the first time we were definitely amazed that, you know, we were our employees about that much of us to vote us that way. you know, when we did it two years in a row, we you know, we were all super excited to celebrate that. And it's a big deal. Like, you know, and we we invest a lot of time and effort into trying to make it the best place to work for people, whether that be, you know, cultural events, training. just just dip so many different things we do, such a long list that you know it it really is rewarding when we can see that it pays off. You know, our employees see it, the team sees it, and they wanna, you know, you know, vote that way. And it's a proud pr definitely proud for all of us. Jake Hughes: We were talking before this and and you've brought up two specific programs that you can clarify this for me, but either you've built or you've been a part of building a we auto that contribute to the building that culture. We auto university and then wow moments. and I believe wow moments comes from unreasonable hospitality. So let's start with We Auto University. What is it? Why did you set it up and kind of what has the impact been on the team? Roger Pipher: Well, I wish I could take credit for all of it. unfortunately I'm just part of it, but we do have a training director, Dana Wine. She is she heads that up. and I you know, the vision came from our dealer principal, Mike Spiegel. he you know, he's an adjunct professor and education is his thing and he knows and feels that if we continue to train and empower our team, you know, it's just gonna give give rewards back. To a great guest experience, to making people want to come to work, people enjoying where they work. but we do classes in our Wii Auto University from you know, how to get good CSI scores, how to present, you know, numbers when you're selling a car to on the service drive, how to do a great walk around, how to connect with customers. and we go even deeper. You know, we do goal setting classes and we do how to read a financial statement. how to, you know, your s how to save better. You know, we go really deep. We have a personal trainer that comes in and does some you know, some some of some of that. So we we have a wide range of things that are available. and you know, different not everything's for every employee or every teammate. and they pick what they can. It's not it's not mandatory. They can choose what they would like to do and and and participate. Jake Hughes: How often are there classes or sessions, events that are that are put on? What's the frequency like? Roger Pipher: I would say every day we have something going on in a conference room in one of our locations. it it just all depends. We try to our our training director, Dana Wines, does a great job of doing a month long schedule. and get in and all the the instructors are are our employees, our managers, even some some teammates will step up and hey, I believe in this this subject matter and I want to put a course together. so I I would say it's unlimited. Quite frankly, you know, we do anywhere from sometimes two to three classes a day and then maybe one day we might have just one. It all depends on what we got going on. End of the month, of course, you know, in the car business we don't do as much on that day. Jake Hughes: When I look at Widewell's numbers, because we have sort of the customer view of the industry, I look at one of your one of your stores, Gallatin Ford. Of the positive reviews that mention staff, ninety-nine percent are positive, which is part of the reason I was interested in talking to you today. That's in the top one percent of the industry for the amount of positivity you're creating in your reviews with your staff. What do you attribu that attribute that to in addition to the university program? Roger Pipher: I would tell you that I think there's a lot of ingredients that go to that recipe. but you know, the one thing that's important and it's important to me and I I I say it until I can wear it out, and then I keep saying it so I can continue to wear it out, is we want to be number one in customer satisfaction by giving the customer the best and I wanna go back by giving the guest the best experience we can. Because we know that that's what's gonna keep customers coming back, you know, keep customers coming in to spend money with us and provide for our team's families and et cetera, et cetera. so I would say the most important thing we do is our training, consistent training and coaching around guest experience, customer experience, that allows them to have the tools for their toolbox to be able to handle Handle that those situations as guests come in. And let let's face it, you know, on the service side, that's you know, I oversee their service and parts departments. guests, their customers don't really want to come into service. so it's a challenge right out of the gate. So we're very proud when we see numbers and scores that our our advisors and and employees that work with those on the front lines are able to, you know, blow those numbers out of the work. Jake Hughes: What's courta what's the training ramp period when you when you bring on a new advisor from when they start to when they I mean, maybe they're experienced, but when they're kind of devel delivering an experience that you're proud of at Wii Auto, what is the ramp period look like that you're typically looking for? Roger Pipher: Sure. you know, it depends on, like you say, it depends on the level of experience of an advisor coming in. You know, if it's an ex advise experienced advisor, you know, we'll have them on the drive for a little bit. You know, we have our orientation program and our onboarding program where, you know, we run them through different things. but importantly, we we have them shadow one of our advisors on the drive. and depending on their experience level, we have a documented kind of check sheet that our lane managers or our veteran advisor that we may team them up with has to go through. and of course your your veteran that's coming in is going to go through that check sheet probably pretty quickly, but we're looking for the things that are important to us. You know, are they connecting with a guest? Are they, you know, following through on an active delivery? Are they asking for the survey? Are they are they, you know, talking the talking and finding out things about that guest that we can you know use to create A great experience. if it's someone that's new to the industry, I would say it's almost like a ninety day ninety day rant. You know, we'll we'll have them run and we'll give them a almost a what we call a pitch count over time. We're only gonna give you a couple ROs to write a day and we wanna see how you handle those. And it's closely watched either by our service drive manager or service managers. and there's constant check ins to make sure that they're doing everything they need to do. and if they need help or they have questions, like it's very important at that particular time to get those questions answered and let them know what tools they have in their toolbox. Because let's face it, in our industry we're not the we're not really the best well documented here here is the SOP on how to do this. I think our industry fails out a lot and we're trying to change that a little bit. Jake Hughes: Why do you think that's the case? Roger Pipher: I'm not sure. I mean I I've been in a long time and it just seems like this this is what we've always done. you know, that's what I think every dealer says. Well, you know, here's here's your pen and go to work and I think to get the I think to gear everybody to do the best job that they can, I think we gotta spend the time up front and set up for success. 'Cause if we don't, we c we can only be mad at ourselves later on. You know, I like to say all the time, either it's a lack of knowing or a lack of doing. And either way it's our fault. as a leader. Jake Hughes: Were the training programs different when you started? Started out in the early days of your career? Roger Pipher: For sure. You know, I started out as a technician a long, long time ago and you know, I I joke about this all the time. I you know, I remember an A technician telling me, Here's the book, kid, go figure it out. you know, and unfortunately that's just not the way it is anymore. people don't learn that way anymore. And and we we again we're we're a big our company believes that we gotta meet people where they're at and you know, adapt to that. 'Cause that's how we're gonna, you know, grow in the future. Jake Hughes: What do you think the current state of retention, employee retention is for your business and the industry generally? Have you seen it improving in recent years, getting worse? Have you noticed anything contributing to that? Roger Pipher: Well, I would say if you read all the gloom and doom everywhere, I would say retention isn't that good, right? and there's Jake Hughes: Right, right. Roger Pipher: some there's some truth to that. You know, when you talk about technicians, there's so many technicians leaving the business and not as many coming in. you know, and I attribute that back to I went to a vote school back in the day and study auto mechanics, what they called it back then. and they don't have too many of those anymore. and I I think we lost a lot of that. but I you know, I I also read some articles where some of that's coming back. you know, we do some mentorships with our eight technicians and some students that come in. We've we we've actually leaned into that a lot 'cause we find that growing our own is probably gonna be the best way to go. It's a little bit of longer play. but they get built into our culture, they get built into you know, they they come up they come up the right way, so to speak, in the organization. So we've set training paths now and we document it out so when they come in they know exactly what they gotta do to get to where they gotta go. you know, and we're we're we're looking to potentially create in our We Auto University a service advisor program where we can maybe go out and find people in the hospitality arena to where we can come in because they already will have that skill and we just have to teach them the the service side, the automotive side if you will. Jake Hughes: That's good segue to unreasonable hospitality. I know you found inspiration in that book. On a more specific level, what did you take from it and where have you applied it into the day to day? Roger Pipher: So I will take it a deep a little bit further than that. I actually went to an unreasonable hospitality workshop. and I I was just blown away on the the similarities just in business and a restaurant, but just the way he broke that book down and the way he broke the workshop down, it was just, you know, life changing for me. Like I was just like, Yeah, this this is it. We we're preaching customer experience, like this is the way to go. and from that workshop, you know, I came back and I brought an idea back and we we've been doing it now about two and a half years, what we call wow moments. So we empower our service advisors to seek out connections with their guests. We empower them with a hundred dollars to spend, spend it on one customer, spend it on a hundred. and we'll even, you know, waver a little bit if they come to us and say, Hey, we spent our budget, but we got one more. We want them to go out and look for ways to can creatively connect with a guest, not just, hey, you know, you have a Toyota tundra and you know, we're gonna get you a Toyota cow. We're looking for, you know, you go you're a camper, you like to fish, you're you're a dog mom, you're a grandma, whatever whatever that is, we're looking for those creative connections. Because if someone feel you know, everyone wants to be everyone wants to be heard and and and and seen. so, you know, and it's an intimidating business for customers to come in already. so if we can find a way to connect, that that was my whole mindset about it. So, you know, again, they're they're empowered with that hundred dollars to spend. And at the end of the month, they submit their stories and at the end of the month they vote as a team. Each dealership votes on each the service advisors vote on their own stories. And whoever wins, whoever has the best story gets an additional gets a two hundred fifty dollar bonus. and then we put their name and picture up on a plaque in the waiting room for the customers to see. and then at the end of the year, we whoever won the most throughout the year, they get a w a an award for that for their wow moment, you know, the the most wow moments in a year. Jake Hughes: I know you brought a specific example today. Was that is this example from a a yearly winner? Roger Pipher: Yes, actually, the one story that I brought you know when I read it, 'cause they they submit all their stories to me just 'cause we post them in the company. We want everybody to see it. and yeah, it it was one that be was a winner. it definitely touched me in a way that we remembered it. and it it actually touched everybody. yeah, it w it was a really great one. Jake Hughes: Be all right if we heard it. Roger Pipher: For sure. So we received a team message. This is the advisor who sent this to me, noting for us, and I won't say the customer's name, notifying us that the 2014 Super Forrester would be arriving on a flatbed. The customer reported that the vehicle had a check engine laid on and was experiencing reduced power. I took the initial call from the customer who was inquiring whether the vehicle had arrived at the dealership. During that conversation, I gathered additional details regarding the vehicle's. condition and discussed the expected time frame for diagnosis and repair. The customer shared that the forester was her only means of transportation and that her husband was currently out of town finishing school. She also mentioned that she had two young children, ages six and three, whom she needs to transport to school multiple medical appointments. During our discussion she shared that she was battling stage four breast cancer, which was spread to her blood. Despite her ongoing treatment, she expressed hope and determination to continue fighting. Given our situation, our team decided to provide the customer with a with a vehicle so she can maintain transportation while repairs were being completed. the service team replaced the accelerator pedal, donated some of their own time to assist with the repairs, and we offered all you know, we also offered some discounts and stuff, which she was deeply appreciative of the efforts. Wanting to extend that additional support and our encouragement, I organized a small gesture of kindness for For the customer. I purchased a card for the staff to sign with messages of encouragement and assembled a care basket, which included self care items and small gifts for the children, along with a Subaru pink bracelet in recognition of breast cancer awareness. When the customer returned to pick up the vehicle, she was visibly emotional and expressed her heartfelt gratitude for the care and compassion she received from the dealership. After completing her payment, I presented her with the care basket and she com she explained it was truly a wow moment on the way going above and beyond to make our customers feel valued and supported. The basket included self care essentials, you know, face masks, eye patches, chapstick, fuzzy socks, blankets. And as she walked to her vehicle, the customer expressed their appreciation once again, seeing that she was incredibly thankful for the kindness and generosity shown for our team. And that our dealership would remain her primary service center moving forward. Jake Hughes: And so that is an amazing story. And you by producing this program basically empowered your staff to create that moment and they came up with that independently. Roger Pipher: Yes, sir. Jake Hughes: I mean that's fantastic. Thank you for sharing that story. That's that's really great. Roger Pipher: Yeah, it it and there there's so many more. Like this one stuck out, but there's so many more from, you know, people retiring to, you know, I had one advisor, you know, not too long ago, one of his his customers that just didn't show up for an appointment and he and he reached out to the customer and the wife picked up and said, I'm sorry, you know, Mr So and so is in the hospital and well you know, et cetera, et cetera. And the advisor took it upon his time to stop at the hospital on the way home. and just to spend a little time with with his customer because it's someone that comes in all the time. and he was battling. I I I don't remember what he was battling the customer, but just those those little creative connections create customers for life. Right? They're they're gonna remember that. They're always gonna wanna come back. you know, and that's what's important, right? And you read it all over retention, retention, retention. That's what we're striving for in a car dealership business right now. And I I personally feel when I w when I when I put this program in place and w and we as a company started to push it forward, I I feel this is gonna, you know, create something really special in the future. Jake Hughes: I feel there's more pressure today from independence as a franchise dealer to maintain market share, maintain your presence of institute programs like this in order to help sustain and grow the business. Roger Pipher: For sure. I think there's pressure all over for that. You know, you read articles all over about that too. I just got back from a twenty group meeting and they had a they had an article about that. how the independents are just, you know, picking away the customers from the car dealerships. And you know, I I think you know, that's what this program is and I I think it's not a one size fits all program and and I hopefully that us as our our dealer group can start to as we have and continue to push that forward a and expand it more, make it a one size fits one situation for their guests that come in rather than a one size fits all and not make it just a rubber stand. You know, I I like to say, you know, some of these dealerships and the way our business is, it's like a bank teller. You just go to the go to the counter next, next, next, rather than having an emotional connection, because I really feel that that's that's what that's what's gonna make the difference now and in the future. 'Cause they have so many choices. Customers have so many choices now. Jake Hughes: And you so I'm curious how you get your staff to sort of have the stamina to maintain all those personal relationships with with the various customers coming in and and not make it about checking the boxes. And it seems like between launching these programs, giving your team some agency, a little bit of peer satisfaction with the awards and bonuses and financial incentives that combination has created these positive outcomes that you're striving for. Does that encompass everything that you've been working on? Roger Pipher: For sure. Absolutely. You know, and do we have every single advisor bought in? No. Do we have some advisor that do more than others? Absolutely. and again, it's a one size fits one. Like I I I'm not looking for everybody to do, you know, twenty a day. I'm looking for them to to pick out, you know, a a a a client, a guest, a a customer here or there. And you know, it's it's busy on some service drives. We have some very fast moving service drives. So, you know Some little tips that we give Just write a little note down and go on to Amazon and just send them a gift from Amazon with a little handwritten note. something as easy as that. A number one dog mom or a brand you know, you know, favorite grandma or something like that. Just something small just to know that you heard them and you were listening and you were paying attention. I think that that's what this business we've we've lost a lot of that. and you know, maybe maybe we never had it, but My goal is to, you know, hopefully continue this march that we're doing and and you know, it'll help us get number one in in and customer satisfaction. Jake Hughes: When I look at review data, I see the value of communication. As a broad topic, it always comes up as a driving motivator for car buyers and those that are getting the car serviced. It seems to me that human level communication is from your perspective just as important as I guess, you know, functional and or communication that's informing them about the status of their vehicle or just basic operational communication. How do you think about those two types of communication and train the team on that and kind of do you think about those two things independently? Roger Pipher: For sure. I I think that, you know, when we talk about communications to you know, with advisors on how they communicate, we really stress the importance of personalization. You know, personalizing how you how you it's at w number one, it's asking up front, how do you want to be communicated with? And then when you do that, make sure you're you're making a personal connection somehow, some way. and yes, to go back on your original what you were how you started off is Yes, that's that's one of the things. I just was at a reason as a summit recently and they talked about that statistically. that's one of the major, if not the second or first, reason why customers defect from cardio ships is the communication level. 'Cause we just you know, they drop the car off and we just we just don't contact We just we just leave and then w we get mad when they're calling in, checking on their car or their vehicle and we wonder why. We wonder why we're losing and that's truly It makes a lot of sense. Jake Hughes: Do you have any sense for if that's unique to franchise operations, or is that likely universal in your experience? Roger Pipher: I mean the the articles I read and you know, talking to different people, I just think it's an industry wide. there's some outliers, you know, there's some people that do it better than others and we're not perfect by no means. we know that and that's why we we it's important to all of us and the l and our leadership team and we make sure we push that message down. So again I I think it's the industry and I think the the people that are gonna figure it out to hopefully get better. I don't think we're I don't think anyone's ever gonna be perfect. but if you can get a leg up and and and get in a way that just just get a couple steps ahead, I think that's how you're gonna win. Jake Hughes: Yep. One step forward every day. That's how I I like Roger Pipher: For sure. Jake Hughes: to direct my team and keep myself motivated and on track as well. So I know that you you founded the fixed ups leadership circle a few years back. tell us a little bit about that and then what key challenges leaders are facing this year that you've observed. Roger Pipher: Sure. yeah, that's something I started a couple of years ago. It's just a a free thing that I do. where fixed leaders gather. I have anywhere from we do a monthly call, a Zoom call. I have anywhere from maybe six one night to twenty five another night, it all depends 'cause it's no no charge. It's really where they'll they'll send in discussion topics before. if sometimes when no topics come in, I'll just talk about what's you know, some industry headlines. It just starts some great conversation and and we all kind of learn from each other. It's a you know, I I start off pretty much every meeting, every time that this is a safe place. There's no judgment. we've all had these questions if we or we're holding on to and we're afraid to ask. and yeah, it's just a it's an hour we spend a month and you know, I advertise on LinkedIn too. And it's just something that I thought would be just great I learned myself. I the takeaways I get from it are are Second to none. Jake Hughes: What are some things that you've taken away from meetings that have stood out for you? Roger Pipher: Yeah, I would say that, you know, particularly one thing that everybody's struggling with, you know, is the headwinds of customer pay RO growth. you know, we're talking about that, going to independence and that kind of thing. You know, the average car on the road is what they say twelve to thirteen years old. so you know, and affordability, all those things are are things that we're facing on the dealer side. so it's just trying to come up with strategies for that. retention, you know, what you brought up earlier, employer retention. Tension, customer retention. you know, just different different ways to stand out and be different. You know, I think that people, you know, we do it at night, this leadership circle. people that take the time after work to to kind of lean in and try to figure that out are the ones that are that that want to make a difference. you know, and and I I've been doing this forty one years and I I I don't stop learning every day. I I I learn something new every day and I I always want to learn something 'cause to me there's always another way to do it. and there may be a better way. You know, just because I have all the experience doesn't mean that that's the definite way to do it. Jake Hughes: Have you ha have there been I'm curious about small wins. Have there been any so customer pay RO headwinds are a key challenge this year. Have there been any small victories that have been reported in the group that peop the you know, the group has taken back and people can start to make some progress on that topic. Roger Pipher: Yeah, I I would say that for us, you know, we're we're we we aggressively market. We're not afraid to, you know, we don't need to hit a home run, if you will, on every customer. Like we understand that Jake Hughes: Mm-hmm. Roger Pipher: small wins, base hits are gonna win today. so I I would say, you know, a win for us is taking a step back and thinking like a customer. and if you're providing a great customer experience. Sometimes price doesn't get in the way, but we're in some tough times now. You know, affordability is a real thing, whether it be on the front side of the house or the back side of the house. so finding ways to, you know, walk customers through that and get them through that. And you don't have to get it all today. you know, you can you can set it up over time and that's how you're going to set up multiple visits for for your customers to come back. And we've adopted that and you know it it it works. You know, it's working for us. I wouldn't say it's you know, the the end all be all, but it's working for us. Jake Hughes: If people want to get involved and contact you about the fixed ops leadership circle, how should they go about doing that? Roger Pipher: Yeah, they can reach out to me on LinkedIn, just direct message me and be more than happy to, you know, see if they're a good fit. we're a good fit for them and for sure. Would would love to have the more the merrier. The more the more ideas and discussion topics we can have, that that's how we're gonna grow all as you know, as an industry. Jake Hughes: All right. Well, Roger, thank you for being here. Appreciate having you on the podcast. It's good to talk and learn. thanks again. Roger Pipher: Yeah, thank you for having me. It was great.