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Why Customers Leave Bad Reviews with Matt Murray · Auto Collabs

• 0:00
  Wait, you went to the chiropractor, got a massage, and then slept on a plane funny? Yeah. And now you don't feel good? So it's like it just undid all the good. [upbeat music] This is Auto Collabs.
• 0:15
  [laughs] Th- those are... That's three reasons why I don't feel bad for you. [laughs] Number one, you got a massage. Number two, you went to the chiropractor. And number three, you were able to sleep on a plane.
• 0:24
  I didn't get the massage, okay? Oh, all this money- Don't put me on the massage... is so tough to deal with... it was just the chiropractor. Look at all this money I have. It's, oh, I feel bad. No, no. Stop.
• 0:32
  [laughs] Stop. Get out of here. I wish I could- You just wanna take that one again and restart it. Why? I thought we were starting. Oh, okay.
• 0:41
  I didn't, I didn't, I didn't know if, like, the picking up of all the money was like- Can we still keep all of this? [laughs] Yeah, we should. I, I was- See- I had somewhere. I was going there...
• 0:48
  okay, I now have somewhere to go. No. I will step- You make me happy... I will see myself out. I felt like that was a good intro. I thought that was- Let's keep it... a great intro. Let's keep the intro.
• 0:57
  Michael Cirillo's turned his hat backwards now. Yeah, I didn't like the glare, the, the shadow over my glasses. It's always the best. I know. It's re- reflecting off your Invisalign. Yeah. [laughs] Well, those are out.
• 1:07
  Took my teeth out. "I took my teeth out for recording." We got chiropractors, and Invisalign, and the whole nine. It's getting bad around here, guys.
• 1:14
  I feel like we're getting to the point now in our media career where we may need to start thinking seriously about how white we can get our teeth. [laughs] No. [laughs] Please don't do it. They're just big Chiclets.
• 1:28
  Well, because the thing is, if one of us just decides to do it- [laughs]... the other ones are gonna have to do it. It's gonna have to happen. Cirillo's getting white teeth. I'm calling it first. That's happening.
• 1:38
  Probably. [laughs] He's gonna, he's gonna do- Yeah... start a fit check Instagram. It's gonna be great.
• 1:44
  [laughs] If I come in and I start sounding a little bit drunk on these calls, you'll know I got lazy and just started leaving my Invisalign in, though. I'll be like- Oh... "Oh."
• 1:53
  [laughs] I'll start talking like Mike Tyson. All of a sudden we check our, like, we check our reviews on, on, uh, Apple and Spotify and they're like, "Who are these fools talking about their geriatrics?
• 2:05
  It's unbelievable." That would be us. We need a Kyle-level segue. Speaking of geriatrics- No, speaking of reviews. Oh, yeah. There you go. Yeah, reviews. Come on. That's not old at all. Kyle mounts your segue.
• 2:16
  I can't do it. Unbelievable. We're hanging out with Matt Murray, Wide Well, today. Uh, if you don't know, he created this crazy reviews platform that has grown like wild.
• 2:28
  He's got cool insights, and he's just one of the, like, regular guys of automotive. He can be- I've always enjoyed hanging out with him. He's smart, too, you know? So. He was also there for the heyday of
• 2:40
  dealer.com's- Dealer.com... like, massive- You're right... rocket ship growth. So- Yeah... I hope we get to talk to him a little bit about that. Well, hey- Let's ask him...
• 2:48
  we hope you enjoy, uh, this conversation with Matt Murray. [upbeat music] All right. We were talking before the show, this show is solely going to be about industry partner merch.
• 3:01
  If you came here for anything else, you've got the wrong idea. And why Michael's not wearing his hat. [laughs] Ah. Done messed up AA, Ro- oh, no. Oh, wrong, wrong. I had to go with the hat thing. [laughs] Unbelievable.
• 3:15
  We got Matt Murray with Wide Well here hanging out. We're gonna be- Mm-hmm... nerding out over some data today, I think. Matt, thanks for joining us on the show, man. Yeah, thanks for having me. Appreciate it, guys.
• 3:25
  So I, uh, you know, I think, what was it? A little over a year ago, you guys decided to start... You know, I, I talked to so many companies in auto and it's like, do you understand the data that you're sitting on?
• 3:36
  It's insane. It's actually ridiculous how many companies have such rich data that, like, if more people knew about it, they would... We might be able to, like, figure more stuff out so it didn't live in a bucket.
• 3:47
  How did it come where you were like, "Hey, we're just gonna start sharing some of this, like, macro data that we have"? Who, who had the grand idea? Geez. That's, that's a good one.
• 3:56
  So if you go back to 2018 when we started collecting reviews, we, we wanted to be able to do this to make sense of what is really super unstructured data. And then our director of marketing, Jake, started in '19,
• 4:12
  and he had one goal. I said, "Jake, we gotta look bigger than we are." We were a brand-new company, right? And- We all know how that feels. [laughs] Yeah. Baby. [laughs] And he, he, he goes, "Well, we...
• 4:23
  Where's our first party data? If we're gonna be, you know, a little bit resource constrained," in other words, we don't have millions of dollars.
• 4:29
  We, we need to tell the industry about itself so that people are interested in what we do.
• 4:35
  And around that exact same time, I think it was through the friend network, we got connected with a PhD at Princeton who was doing her capstone project, [clears throat] excuse me, and she's like, "I just need a whole bunch of data.
• 4:49
  I'm gonna do some topic and sentiment analysis with some legacy technology." And we shipped her 10,000 reviews, which at the time for us was enormous. Like, we were all really excited. 10,000 reviews felt big. Right.
• 5:02
  And we gave her one question: Why do people leave negative reviews for car dealerships? And what's interesting to me- Huh... is her answer with 10,000 reviews is still found in this study of eight million reviews. Ah.
• 5:15
  Wow. Yeah. Yeah. That's a... Wait, that... Okay, that's a really interesting question, though. It's not like, why are... Like, where are dealers failing? It's why do people...
• 5:29
  That's actually, like, I've never heard that question asked in that way. Out of Paul, Michael, have you ever heard that question asked in that way? Nope.
• 5:36
  But it does seem, it does seem like the root, the root question and answer. Right. And why do they leave bad reviews? You can only add into it- Yeah... not subtract anything else, right?
• 5:44
  It's gonna give you a high-level- You could give-... high-level... you could come to a different conclusion than I think maybe you would normally come if you asked that question. Yeah, because the- Yeah...
• 5:52
  I mean, we're, we're just now... You're gonna tell us the answer, but, [laughs] but I would- Yeah...
• 5:56
  what you would think is that you would find some broad, overarching sentiment that spans in person, online, like, all the experiences wrapped into one that you can actually back into. But what did they say?
• 6:07
  [laughs] Yeah. [clears throat] I, I mean-Our answer is really simple, and you'll find folks that we all know talking about this w- even without Wide Whale data, but it's really our people. Like, plain and simple.
• 6:21
  People drive communication. People are the ones that are helpful and professional and knowledgeable for the customer. And what the data...
• 6:29
  Oftentimes, I end up with this, uh, perspective of like, w- you know, what technology would change the experience? Because if I listen to the customer, it's not about technology at all. Mm. They just talk about people.
• 6:42
  They don't, they don't talk about the AI bot on your website. They don't talk about your lead capture form or how long it was. They don't talk about the paid search ad that they clicked.
• 6:51
  It's, you know, my sales rep, my service advisor, or, you know, the, the staff in finance. Well, we go... So we go around. We've, we've been talking about this a while, but you're, you're,
• 7:01
  you're, like, shedding a different light on it that I'm super interested in and I wanna dig in more, is... And Paul and I say this.
• 7:07
  So we do these, like, in the dirt type, uh, man on the street interviews, and we'll go, like, downtown Nashville, downtown Philly, downtown wherever.
• 7:16
  And we typically have a line of questioning around, like, "When was the last time you bought a car?" All this type of stuff. "Would you like EVs? Not?" And it's just fun.
• 7:24
  But we always, we always have this question where it's like, "What do you think about car dealers?" Mm. And people start with like, "Ah, I don't know. Car dealers, meh." Right?
• 7:34
  And then w- the, immediately we go, "Well, how about the last time you bought a car?" And the first... I'm telling you, I've, I... At some point, w- we're gonna have Nathan. He's offscreen. We're gonna go back.
• 7:44
  And he, and every single one starts with something, "Well, I really like my salesperson." Like, that's the first. It's not like- That's amazing...
• 7:51
  like, "I showed the car to everybody, and I got digital retailing, and you wouldn't believe the deal I got." It was like, "I-" Yeah, we literally say we have never heard anyone say something bad about a salesperson.
• 8:01
  It's unbelievable. Only really good things. You know what's really interesting on that point, Paul?
• 8:08
  The review data, if you just look at positive reviews and compare them to negative, if it's positive, the customer will call out the individual. They'll use the name. "Paul was great."
• 8:17
  If it's negative, it's the staff or the service department or- Wow... they don't like to, to use a person's name.
• 8:25
  That- Which is, you know, l- little bit of psychology maybe, but it's, uh- I was gonna say, do you think that's because they're secretly afraid of confrontation, so they don't wanna call out the individual?
• 8:35
  That's sort of- Yeah. [laughs] So the whole organization takes the hit from one turd burglar ruining the experience for the customer. [laughs] Yeah.
• 8:45
  I mean, look, we sort of forget, un- at least I do, maybe you guys don't. But that, that car dealership on Main Street USA is the center of the community, right?
• 8:55
  It's the business, business maybe with the most revenue in some cases. It's the biggest. Oh. 80 to 250 people. Yeah.
• 9:01
  And, and, and my kids go to school with them, and we're on the same soccer teams, and w- you know, like, it's, it's part of the fabric of the community. So
• 9:10
  maybe being, you know, confrontationally adverse or adverse to confrontation, it totally makes sense to me. Yeah. I mean, I'm like that. If, if I leave a Google review for a business, I try, I don't leave, leave a ton.
• 9:22
  I think that's, I'm gonna save that for my retirement. I'm just gonna be a professional Google reviewer. [laughs] 'Cause it is really fun, especially retail, 'cause we talk about retail.
• 9:30
  But if I ever leave a, a good review, it typically names somebody. And if I leave a bad review, it will never name somebody. Yeah. I don't know why. 'Cause you don't wanna flame 'em. No.
• 9:43
  I'm like, my mind is blown 'cause I've said...
• 9:46
  See, this is like, this is getting such to the heart of what I really believe, but it's like the data's proving it out, is I keep telling people that you're, you know, everybody wants to put out, like, value propositions of, like, we come service to you.
• 10:00
  You can buy a car online. Whatever these, like, what I would call, like, fleeting value propositions are. And I keep saying the single greatest value proposition of the franchise retail automotive industry is its people.
• 10:13
  Mm. And you're just saying, like, the data proves that quite clearly. Like, when people have a great experience, they, they note that people created that great experience. Yeah. I mean,
• 10:27
  I've spent my entire career in automotive digital marketing tech. And while this isn't a, a popular point of view, I think sometimes we, as, as a dealership, you buy technology to make yourself more efficient, right?
• 10:41
  To drive a better bottom line. And sometimes that's, that's a real short-term perspective, right?
• 10:47
  Because ultimately, we gotta build trust with this community so they keep coming back, so my kids' kids say, "Yeah, I work with Heritage Ford." Mm-hmm. Right?
• 10:57
  And, and so, you know, that short-term thinking, we've seen it over and over again. I'm gonna buy a bunch of digital retailing tools, and I'm gonna AI all the things because I want a better bottom line.
• 11:07
  That's not necessarily a great long-term strategy. Well, let me ask you a question now, now that we're eight minutes into this podcast. [laughs] Um, [laughs] because we got us excited.
• 11:17
  Um, how did you get into automotive? I don't know the answer to this question, but it's a one that I always wanna know the answer to. Yeah. I was in the Navy. Uh, I left college about halfway, joined the Navy just to go.
• 11:29
  I needed to do something. And so I did that from 2000 to 2006. Came out of the Navy, moved to Manhattan, 'cause when you're 26, that's what you do. [laughs] Uh, turns out- Join the Navy, then move to New York.
• 11:40
  [laughs] Yeah. Turns out that wasn't a good decision. Um- Lot different than the Navy, I bet. [laughs] Yeah.
• 11:46
  [laughs] So I ended up, I ended up back home with my folks and found dealer.com shortly after moving back home, and came in to just learn the industry, learn technology, and I, you know, uh, lived through the heyday there.
• 11:59
  It was an unbelievable 10 years from 2007 to '17, and I've never left. Like, why would you leave auto? We can ag- we can, we can relate to that. Facts. There you go. Mike, you were gonna ask something before-No, no.
• 12:14
  That, that ship has sailed, no pun intended. Intended. Yeah. All right. Oh, we got him with the ship has sailed. [laughs] Okay.
• 12:20
  So before we get to the report, because there's some interesting insights that I want people to draw out, I have to get this. We found out something... You know, we do these, like, we're, we're professional podcasters.
• 12:30
  I don't know if anyone knew that or not. [laughs] But- [laughs] Bold move. But we, we asked... We found out that the name Wide Whale wasn't because like, you know, everyone's gonna widely whale their stories.
• 12:43
  Like, there's another reason for that. Give us that, give us the background on that. I'll try to make it quick. Um, [laughs] When I was in the Navy, I picked up a guitar and just fell in love with the acoustic guitar.
• 12:56
  Decided I was gonna start a music production company. I needed a name for it, so Wide Whale was... Initially, Wide Whale like the corduroy, W-A-L-E, right? Got it. Mm-hmm.
• 13:06
  And then, believe it or not, didn't start a music production company. Um- [laughs] Years later, uh, as dealer.com was growing, I was thinking, "You know what? You don't need a billion-dollar company.
• 13:17
  You need 20, 50 million dollar companies, and what would the holding company be?" So Wide Whale came back for me then. Then it became my Xbox handle. So every time I played Xbox with my son- [laughs]...
• 13:29
  I was Wide Whale. And when we started this business, my wife and I were trying to figure out, "Well, what, what do we name it?"
• 13:35
  And I'm over at GoDaddy like trying different URLs on, and the closest we got was Rep Mon, R-E-P M-O-N,.com. And obviously that wasn't really- [laughs] We couldn't go that way. Rep Mon.
• 13:48
  [laughs] I'm so glad the way you said that. He's like, "Obviously, that was wrong." Yeah. That was, that was, that was just a big nope. So- [laughs] Wi- Wide Whale came back for me.
• 13:56
  And, and to be frank, like at, at the very, in the very early stages, I thought someday we might rebrand, right? Every large... You, you know, if you look at- Yeah...
• 14:04
  the story of almost every business, they rebrand at some point. But in that first year, year and a half, we were on the phone calling dealers, and we would have to spell our name 'cause they'd be like, "White Wall?"
• 14:16
  [laughs] "What are you t-..." "You're the White Whale? Who are you?" Trust me, with a name like Isoto, we spend a lot of time. That's why I just put it on my hat, so I can be like, "Read right here." It's great. Yeah.
• 14:26
  [laughs] Yeah, yeah. And it's, uh, it's turned out to be a really great choice from a branding perspective. Yeah, that's strong. Thank you. That's awesome. [laughs] So, all right.
• 14:34
  So- Let's get into the study because, uh, you know, you've, you've kinda looked over the last, what, year, um, worth of data.
• 14:40
  You've, you've said, "Okay, where, what are we, what are we learning from this year, and what does that mean about where we're heading?"
• 14:46
  I, I'd like to maybe like tackle a few of those notes, um, specifically from this year.
• 14:52
  I think let's, let's start with, because we s- we talked about people, where, where are we seeing trends go when it, when it pertains to like people talking, you know, consumers talking about the people that they're dealing with?
• 15:07
  Yeah. So the data, uh, this year is the beginning of 2023 through Q3 of 2024, every Google review for every new car dealer in the US. And, uh- Just a huge tree. Got it. Yeah. It was, it was 8.1 something million.
• 15:22
  And, um, so we're, we're presenting some year-over-year trends, which is great. Specific topics we can now see over that seven quarters.
• 15:30
  The headline this year for sure is, uh, negativity around staff interactions is up 20%, driven primarily by sales interactions. Hmm. Sales saw a 27% jump in negativity.
• 15:43
  But even as we look, so service saw a 15% jump, and if we break luxury and non-luxury dealers, they all saw an increase in negativity. It's pretty much across the board.
• 15:53
  Within that, of course, there are specific interactions. So when somebody talks about staff, they might also be talking about how knowledgeable that person was or how professional or helpful they were.
• 16:05
  And in almost every case, we saw a growth in negativity in those traits as well. Um, so that's a challenge. Yeah. Would the... Let me ask you this. Were the number of reviews up or down?
• 16:20
  Reviews generally, I mean, every year the average dealership receives more reviews than the previous. So it's on the increase, right. Yeah.
• 16:27
  Increase across the board, but as a percentage, the mention of negativity around staff is up 20%. Well- Communication is up 18%... what is your feeling on why that is? I mean, we can all, you know- Yeah...
• 16:38
  yes, but do you, do you know why? Or do you have an idea why? Yeah. I have a good feeling, and, and most of it centers around the fact that our, our industry's been through a lot the last four years, right?
• 16:49
  So if you bought a car in 2021, let's say you bought a car at MSRP or higher, and there really were no incentives to speak of. You just bought the car. And now OEMs are back looking for market share. Supply is up.
• 17:04
  We need to move metal. Incentives are flying. Negotiation is back big time, right? Like, customers are after a deal. Yep.
• 17:11
  And at the same time, I mean, look, one out of five vehicles sold in the US today is a non-ICE vehicle.
• 17:17
  So our salespeople now have to represent a plug-in hybrid, a hybrid, an ICE, all the incentives and product knowledge associated with all those platforms, and I think it's showing up a little bit as, you know, a, a ton of complexity and maybe a lack of training.
• 17:34
  Do you think that... As you're talking about like the inventory shortage conditions, I think about people paying over MSRP, you know, say two to three years leading up to when we got inventory back.
• 17:52
  You think a part of those sales conversations are now people realizing it, that they are underwater in their trade? I know it's kinda early for that, but it's happening, right? Yeah.
• 18:02
  That's gonna put a damper on it quick when you're like, "Hey, great." Yeah. You need to figure out where to put this seven grand of negative equity in this deal.
• 18:10
  I think that'll be the, that, that'll be a long tail of negativity- Yeah... too, right? Oh, yeah. 'Cause the average car on the road is now 12.6 years. Yeah. Years. So it- It's actually went upIt literally- Yeah...
• 18:22
  went up this morning. Well, I don't know if it just went up this morning, but we just saw something that it just went up. [laughs] Again.
• 18:28
  This was, like, literally the most unpopular opinion during that swell, unexplainable, was, "Okay, what's the long-term impact of this?" You're gonna have customers who will resent you for a very long time.
• 18:41
  [laughs] Yeah. Because everyone knows, and nobody is apologizing for it, that you're taking advantage of everybody. And, and consumers will not soon forget. How much of that negative... H- like, do you think...
• 18:53
  There, there's gotta be a portion of that negative review increase of people that are like, "I'm buying the car anyways, but boy, I'm just so unhappy doing it, 'cause I know, I know you, you screwed me over three years ago."
• 19:07
  Yeah. Yeah, I mean, everybody wants a deal. Yeah. Right? Always.
• 19:10
  And, and I think it's hard to feel like you're getting a deal, unless, unless you're the EV customer right now, who is sharing less negativity around the cost of the vehicle or a- available deals.
• 19:22
  It seems like the EV segment has some positivity there.
• 19:26
  But the ma- the vast majority of customers are in search of a deal that either they haven't found, or to your point, they're having a hard time structuring it, or they're being pressured in the finance office.
• 19:35
  And I just think, I just think that a lot of this can be tied right back to the complexity of the moment, right? The industry- Yeah... has changed so quickly.
• 19:44
  Well, and, and it just en- enhances the need for heightened communication, increased training, right?
• 19:50
  It's like we have to double down on those things, because if the front line, if the salesperson, if the service advisor is the person that, like, a consumer is waiting on to have the right information, with the right emotional intelligence, with the right empathy, in the moment, understanding the complexity, squaring that with the reality, like, that's the person that's gonna be in the weeds with these consumers.
• 20:14
  So if, like, what you're saying earlier is, if people have a great experience, it's because of the person. They- Yeah. We have to double down on ensuring that the, the path to that is strong.
• 20:25
  Because the, the risk is actually so much higher. Mm-hmm. It's, it's a risky situation to send someone untrained into, when the complexity is so great, right? Yeah. And sales gets exposed, right?
• 20:39
  'Cause the customer gets to ask questions live, right there- Right... on the showroom floor. And they're expected to know. Service has a little bit of a different feel.
• 20:47
  If I'm just getting my oil changed, my tires rotated, I kinda know what that looks and feels like. I know about what it's gonna cost. Mm. It's familiar. With a vehicle...
• 20:56
  Yeah, and then, and then even, so, like, l- let's say there's a noise, right? Something's wrong with my car, and I bring it in. Service isn't expected to know what's going on. They say, "Okay, Mr.
• 21:05
  Murray, I'll take your vehicle back there. We'll be in touch." True. That's a nice buffer for them. Big time. So. Right. Well, you mentioned, you mentioned EVs.
• 21:14
  Is there some data specifically around EV purchasing that you can share? Yeah.
• 21:18
  So the beauty of this data is we, we, we can take all of these reviews and set some benchmarks across all interactions, and then we can start breaking apart the cohorts.
• 21:28
  So how does sales do versus service, luxury, non-luxury? When we look at EV-specific interactions compared to ICE, what we see is a ton of negativity for the EV customer around knowledge and helpfulness.
• 21:43
  So greater than 70% increase in negativity year over year for EV customers from the sales staff, right? Wow. Right. Right. Right. So- You're just saying, like, "I went there, and they didn't know anything." Yeah.
• 21:57
  I mean, it, it plays out in, like- [laughs]... "Hey, I want this trim level EV. What's the range?" I don't know. And they go, "Um..." Well, the data's a lot more complex, too, of what you need to know, for sure. Right.
• 22:09
  'Cause you just, you just mentioned one, right?
• 22:12
  This trim level has a different mileage ran- it's no longer just like, oh yeah, all the Equinoxes get 32 miles to the gallon average, city and highway, because they all have the same- Yeah...
• 22:21
  engine and transmission in them. It's like, nope, we gave this one a little bit more and this one a little bit less. This is all-wheel drive. This is two-wheel drive. Totally changes fuel efficient- like, totally.
• 22:30
  And by the way, you will never see that fuel effi- you'll never see that mileage 'cause of the way you drive that thing. [laughs] Yeah. Right. I mean, it- I thought it was interesting.
• 22:40
  I don't think we s- I don't think we saw this in '23, but the, the reduction in negativity around maintenance for the EV customer, super interesting. Mm. Hmm.
• 22:49
  So the c- I think the, the consumer's starting to figure out that that vehicle, that platform, is a little easier to maintain, at least in the moment, right? I'm not worried about the oil change, for instance.
• 22:59
  Um, so less negativity there. And I said deals earlier, but there's still s- you know, state-level incentives out there, so folks are feeling like they're getting a deal.
• 23:09
  And there's a ton more competition, so maybe prices. You know- Yeah... I can get into an EV for much less than I could three years ago. That feels better. In a lot of cases, it's the cheapest option.
• 23:19
  We were just talking about, um, the Colorado incentive of $12,500 total between state and federal. Just being able to put 12,5 down on a car. And so, as a result, Colorado's EV adoption has...
• 23:32
  One out of every four cars sold in Colorado last year was an EV. It's crazy. Wow. It's wild. 25%. It's nuts. Insane. Yeah. Was it 25 or was it 20? It was 20. 36. No. No, it's like one in four or one in five.
• 23:48
  So I guess when people are buying in those numbers, it makes sense that negativity goes down. You know, on- Right. Yeah... price cost, right? I mean, if you're- Around price... especially if you're leasing. Holy crap.
• 23:57
  Lease some of these cars- Yeah... you can for, like, 299 a month. It's like a $60,000 vehicle. Yeah. They... Oh. Go ahead. Sorry. No, go ahead. One, one, one related, just one related stat there.
• 24:09
  Uh, negative sentiment around cost and service, broadly, is up. So we were just talking about how old vehicles are. Mm-hmm. Hmm. Our customer is now running into the things they never had to pay for before, right? Right.
• 24:23
  So the, we, we, we looked at... So, you know, S&P tells us-12.6 is the average age of a vehicle.
• 24:30
  So then we looked at review data to see if we could understand, you know, what's going on, what are people talking about in service.
• 24:36
  Br- the mention of brakes is up over 30%, transmission is up over 30%, engine is up over 30%. And e- and in every case, you know, it's 1,300 bucks, it's 5,000 bucks, it's $10,000 for an engine.
• 24:49
  Like, these are things the average consumer hasn't had to deal with, right? Mm-hmm. Yep. And we're not out in front of it helping them understand what to expect.
• 24:57
  Yeah, I mean, at 12 years on average, right, like, you're 150, 200,000 miles on that thing. You're, you're gonna get into replacing things. Yeah. What's the transmission cost?
• 25:07
  I mean, and, you know- I, I wanna ask you this. I mean, a- as we kinda wind this down, um, you had mentioned earlier training. Now you, just listening to you now, there's kind of a training track in here.
• 25:19
  I, I love the paradigm shift that I've been writing notes on here, which is, so, so many dealers in our industry are so focused on competition, right? That, like, "What's my competitor doing?"
• 25:31
  They go to their 20 group, and they bring up their digital composites, and the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, not realizing that the number one thing they are competing against is the industry. It's the market.
• 25:41
  It's what they're up against. It's, you know, being empowered by this information. What do we do with all of this data? How do we- Mm-hmm. It, 'cause it's, it's more than just having a conversation, right?
• 25:53
  It's, it's so much more than that. So what are your recommendations for the dealer listening to say, "Oh, okay, now that I know this, what do I do with it?" Yeah. I, I, I always think about the annual planning process.
• 26:09
  Every business goes through this. "Hey, we're, the, you know, the year's winding down." We get to September. We start thinking about next year.
• 26:15
  And oftentimes when we're thinking about investments in next year, it's that, that new technology, or, "I need valet service," or, "I need some other bell and whistle on my operation." That's not the answer.
• 26:27
  And what our customer is telling us is that the very basics that made automotive part of the fabric of our communities is what's going to make it successful in the future as well, right?
• 26:38
  Good people, helping people in their community find the right vehicle or take care of the car they currently own. Make it a great experience for me. I will always come back, so will my kids, and so on, right?
• 26:51
  So when we talk to dealers and we share this data, we generally say, "Look, we can, we can bring these insights to you daily, weekly, monthly through the platform, make sense of what your customer is saying, show you where you benchmark, and therefore, where you should focus."
• 27:06
  And it's that, again, it seems basic, but technology to replace people is not what our customer wants, right?
• 27:15
  Really well-trained, positive, supportive staff in sales and service, that's what makes the foundation of a successful business. It's huge. And I mean, it resonates so deeply with, uh, the mission here. It sure does.
• 27:27
  People, people, people. Oh, now. [laughs] Matt. Yeah. A- as we wind down, we wanna thank you for joining us on Auto Collabs. How can those listening and watching get in touch with you? Widewail.com. Come check us out.
• 27:37
  You can find us on all the socials, uh, as well, but we'd love to connect. That's W-I- Thank you so much for joining us... hold on, W-I-D-E-W-A-I-L.com. My man. [laughs] Not W-H-I-T... [laughs] Right. Not that.
• 27:53
  [laughs] W-H-A-L-E. You need to buy whitewail.com just to mess with everyone. You do. You do. [laughs] Yeah. That is a great idea. Well, man, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me.
• 28:07
  [upbeat music] Okay, guys, it's like we've been saying it. There's something about people and communication- [laughs]... in the water. Funny thing about that. I don't know if anybody's heard this one. Yeah.
• 28:21
  [laughs] Funny thing about how that works. Funny thing about how it works. I think for me, the, the most interesting thing about this is that,
• 28:32
  you know, with all of the information that's available online right now, right, like, the myriad of articles and, and research places, and things you sh- places you can go to figure out about EVs, and nice, all this stuff, people are still craving knowledgeable,
• 28:49
  like, intelligible people to interact with, and ask questions, and get regular communication back. Like, they want that out of their dealership experience. It's like this.
• 29:00
  Like, I'm really interested in, here's, here's a kind of an ad- an adjacent thing, the way I think about what Matt was saying. I'm really interested in real estate investing.
• 29:11
  I could undoubtedly find everything I need to, and prompt GPT, and get all the info- Right... and what does that mean, and this and that.
• 29:19
  I still wanted to sit down with a buddy of mine who's been doing it for the last 20 years to get the ins and outs, and, like, the gut check. That, that's what AI still i- isn't giving us.
• 29:30
  It's not giving us the gut check of, like, "Okay, dude, but what should I do? Now that you know-" Right... "where I wanna go, what should I do?" And it's the same thing with buying a car.
• 29:37
  Like, I think sometimes we forget that this really is the second largest purchase that people make in a three to five-year period of time, and they wanna make sure that they're not making a mistake, and AI's not gonna tell them if they're making a mistake or not.
• 29:53
  Ah. Right. Very true. Very true. It, it, it kinda goes back to, you know, when, when we talk about social media marketing, and when people
• 30:04
  just come up with their idea or strategy, especially if they're not experts, they all of a sudden overlay or they forget how they navigate social media, and they forget- Right... how they consume social media.
• 30:15
  [laughs] Like, well, do you actually do that? No. Uh, let me watch you for five minutes. Would you like watching that? 30 seconds. Would you engage with that? Would you ever watch that? No. God.
• 30:24
  Would you swipe like that? No, you wouldn't. And it's the same thing, I think, with this AI conversation. It's very alluring to say it's gonna fix everything and we can just deploy the bots.
• 30:32
  And in reality, it's like, well, what would you rather do? It's like, I'd rather talk to a person. [laughs] That's right. It's the same principle. Yeah. Same principle.
• 30:39
  Well, hey, look, on behalf of Paul Jay Daly, Michael Cirillo, myself, Kyle Mountserre, Matt Murray, he joined us today, we really hope you enjoyed this conversation. Like, subscribe, do all the things.
• 30:51
  Share this with someone that you think- [laughs] Yeah... might need to hear it. You know, smash the subscribe button. Uh- Oh, I've heard that one... and we'll see you next time here on Auto Collabs.
• 30:59
  Sign up for our free and fun-to-read daily email for a free shot of relevant news in automotive, retail, media, and pop culture. You can get it now at asotu.com. That's A-S-O-T-U.com.
• 31:12
  If you love this podcast, please leave us a review and share it with a friend. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you next time.
• 31:19
  [upbeat music] Welcome to Auto Collabs. [laughs] Why are we recording? Are we rolling yet?
• 31:38
  Not yet