Shop-Ware and AutoVitals Integration

On this episode of The Digital Shop® Talk Radio, we are joined by Carolyn Coquillette, CEO of Shop-Ware along with Frank Scandura, owner of Frank’s European Service. They share with us what’s new in the latest integration between Shop-Ware and AutoVitals and how integrating your POS with a Shop Success Solution supercharges your shop for success!

Episode Transcript

*This transcript was generated using Artificial Intelligence. Errors may occur. If you notice an error, please contact [email protected].

Tom Dorsey (00:00:06):
Good morning and good afternoon. Welcome to this week’s edition of The Digital Shop Talk Radio. I’m Tom Dorsey and I’ve got a great show for you. Today we’re going to be talking about the future of automotive technology solutions. We really are. And so we’ve got, I think, some of the most influential thought leaders in the industry, at least when it comes from software tool providers and vendors as well as implementers. And so I’m really excited to welcome Carolyn Coquillette, who is the founder of Shop-Ware and also the owner and founder of Luscious Garage, probably the largest hybrid specialist in the San Francisco Bay Area and probably in all of California, maybe all of the world. Carolyn Coquillette, welcome very much to the Digital Shop Talk Radio.
Carolyn Coquillette (00:00:51):
It’s a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having
Tom Dorsey (00:00:52):
Me. No, it’s my pleasure. I’m really, I’ve been excited since this was proposed. I think, like I said, this isn’t going to be a sales pitch, whether you’re using Shop-Ware or you’re using AutoVitals or you don’t use any of ’em or you’ll never go digital. You want to watch this episode because it literally is we’re all going to get in a time machine and we’re going to take a peek into the minds of the influencers that really blaze the trail for where these digital tools that you use every day in your shop are going to take us. And you need to see this information because it’s going to help you to make those decisions on what you do and where are you going, what’s upcoming. And so to put it all together, we’ve got Frank Scandura joining us from Frank’s European in Las Vegas, Nevada.
(00:01:41):
Welcome back Frankie. Thank you. Thank you. I’m glad to be here. And Frank just happens to be using both of these and has been kind of the Guinea pig between Carolyn and Uwe on figuring out, and really, I mean, it plays such an important role. We talk a lot about our turbo shops on the show and through AutoVitals and without ’em we wouldn’t be anywhere. And it’s these people who are willing to give of their time, the disruption that it causes inside of their operations to really hammer out the bugs and find out what works and give honest feedback. And if anybody knows Frank Scandura, he gives on his feedback. And so that’s really a boon for all of us. And again, whether you’re in it or going to be in it or you’re never going to be in it after you watch this show, it’s going to change your mind. And of course, as always, welcome Uwe Kleinschmidt, founder and CIO of AutoVitals.
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:02:32):
Really, I’m looking forward to this. It’s going to be great.
Tom Dorsey (00:02:36):
Yeah, me too. Like I was telling Carolyn earlier, we’ve just been champion at the bit since it was proposed because not only is there some really exciting developments between the pairing of Shop-Ware and AutoVitals, but also, and I wasn’t kidding, I mean as far as influential thought leaders go, there’s a lot of players out there and not saying one’s better than the other, well I am, but I’ll be more diplomatic about it at the moment. But what really ends up happening, if you think about it, is somebody develops some path and it really gets proven out in shops. And guess what? That influences the rest of those providers and we’re all working and competing to bring you the best. And what AutoVitals is obsessed with Uwe, if you don’t mind me saying is exactly that, is we start out in a lot of times, and it took probably four or five years to even shake maybe, and we probably still haven’t a hundred percent that kind of moniker of we’re a digital inspection provider.
(00:03:37):
It’s really a piece of what I know keeps Uwe up at night and that’s figuring out how to make shops as efficient as possible to take the busy work away from the average service advisor’s day, keep that technician under the hood where he’s making money and focus on customer service, focus on keeping the sales up and reaching those goals and not so much focused on running around trying to find out answers to questions that you’ve done a thousand times and you’re going to do a thousand times again. And so if we could, let’s jump off right there. I think and set a baseline of saying, and I’d love to hear from both of your perspectives, Uwe and Carolyn, is where do you see your solution that you provide as integral to that goal of providing efficiency and providing tools that not add another tool to a service advisor’s day, but actually help ’em to remove tools and remove steps so that they become more efficient? And you know what, Uwe, I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to go with ladies first. Carolyn, if you can kind of give us a little insight of how that drives you in the development of Shop-Ware.
Carolyn Coquillette (00:04:52):
Absolutely. So I think the key realization that this industry has come to or is coming to is that paper is not your friend. Paper is your enemy. And that anytime you look at a piece of paper anywhere in your shop, anywhere in your business, you are looking at wasted time and you’re looking at potential error. And that’s because paper is a human powered technology. Every piece of paper gets moved around your shop by a person, someone has to look at it, someone has to print it in the first place, someone has to track it. And whenever you introduce people, now you’re introducing human time and you’re introducing human error. And obviously paper is a technology. Folks that have seen me make presentations, it is technology. It’s 500 year old technology printed paper, but it is technology. Fortunately we have a lot of new technology that’s available to us and we’re creatures of habit.
(00:05:52):
People don’t like to change. You’ve got a system, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And you think, all right, cool, yeah, sure, internet, yeah, sure phones, but I’m comfortable right now. And then you realize as the sort of pressure around profitability continues to increase inside of our shops, you realize, oh shoot, where am I going to get this extra profitability? Where am I going to get that extra efficiency? And the answer is by removing all of that human effort that you’re spending starting with paper. And so what Shop-Ware and AutoVitals together are able to do is completely remove paper from your shop operations. If a vendor walks in and gives you a piece of paper, we’re working on that solution for you still. But I mean basically all the stuff that you are self-generating needs to go away. And by nature of that doing, you are getting rid of all that human waste that is happening inside of your business.
Tom Dorsey (00:06:50):
Yeah, it was funny long term, when I first started in a career in management, I had a mentor and he told me, when a piece of paper hits your desk, you handle it one time and you finish it and put it away. If you don’t, you’re going to constantly just be looking at these piece of paper. I have not adopted that. I have to admit over all these years I’m a paper and I hate it, but it’s a reality, right? And Uwe, I think what happens is that you get into the limitations. What do you think keeps those shop owners up at night? Because to Carolyn’s point, once I get my operation down and I know how to fix cars and I know how to market, I’m getting, people are coming in and I can wave and smile, but how do I with the current technology without adopting what we’re doing here, how do I get that solution? I can’t. And that’s what spends, I think a lot of time is you sit there and you rack your brain, how do I get more profitable? How do I make those numbers? But you really can’t. It’s almost like a vicious circle.
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:07:50):
I think there are two buckets, right? The one bucket is you don’t need to change anything because there are established ways of, for example, communicating with a customer and you just take them into a different medium. Case in point, I don’t know how long ago it has been invented, but maybe there were not service advisors around, but you took the customer to the car and showed them what’s wrong with it. Liability customers in the back shop who cared, and that’s a best practice which has been established. It is a habit. We just take that habit and digitize it and increase productivity. Other things are completely new or completely new in process and everything. Case in point, a service advisor can become a flight director type of guy sitting in front of a screen and see what’s going on in the back shop. That was not possible
Tom Dorsey (00:09:02):
Without technology. It might not even be in the shop. He might
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:09:04):
Be remote, he might not even be in the shop, and I don’t want to name names, but we have shop owners who literally tied their service advisor to the desk to make a point for a few days
Tom Dorsey (00:09:22):
With bread and water, at least bread and water. I think that’s minimum OSHA requirement.
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:09:29):
And so this is the other bucket, right? Things where you can disrupt a decade long habit for a huge benefit. Just imagine as a service advisor, you’re on top of things without running around and asking how far are you? And then when you’re done doing the round, the information you collected 10 minutes ago from the first tech is already outdated, just like paper. Paper is outdated. The moment you look at it, it’s like yesterday’s news and you’re in a constant attempt to update the information so you can make a decision as a service advisor. And so the clever, smart, seasoned service advisors make assumptions. So they don’t need to constantly update the information in the old world.
(00:10:31):
And it might be perceived as them being not adhering to the process, but all they do is, here’s the time I have, here’s the skill I have, let’s make the most of it. And now with the new technology, we can say, you don’t need to do that anymore. You can focus on the valuable work and not the busy work. And there’s so many examples for how that paid off, but it’s still, you need to be convinced. Changing the habit is worth doing, and sometimes it has to get worse before it gets better. That’s always the case. Anybody who’s trying to lose weight is going to gain weight in the first week.
Tom Dorsey (00:11:22):
And we had last week actually, we had Mike Bennett on, and you guys might remember, we had a great discussion around changing that belief system. It really starts there is that once you can believe that you can do it, then you find ways to do it the best you can do. I mean, that’s really what your staff is going to do for you. Frank, I want to bring you in because Frank is the one who has to take all of this hypothesis and put it into practice. And Frank, I’ve known, gosh, six years now probably, and Frank has always pushing the envelope. A how do you stay so far ahead of the curve, why are you doing it? And specifically if you could talk to us, Frankie, a little bit about what have you noticed, what has been the big takeaway from, to Eva’s point, right? Is the service advisor actually on their game at the counter focused, dialed in and not distracted and running around chicken with no head since you’ve been making this transition?
Frank Scandura (00:12:32):
Part of it is it’s a touch of insanity, I think.
Tom Dorsey (00:12:36):
Well, I knew that,
Frank Scandura (00:12:38):
So I’m a visionary. Anybody who’s read the book Rocket Fuel, there’s visionaries and integrators. I have all these great ideas, but I need people around me that could take those ideas and either tell me, you’re crazy, it’s going to cost $40 trillion or Yeah, we can do that. Let me create the process on how, and I’ve always had a vision of being the best period. How do I be the best at what I do? I don’t care if I’m making ice cream, making pretzels, fixing cars, it doesn’t matter. How can I be the best? And we were paperless about a year before we signed up with AutoVitals, and it was extremely difficult to manage. It was very cumbersome because we had to create a way to be paperless for the reasons Carolyn mentioned. You’d write something on a piece of paper and if it didn’t get lost, you were lucky.
(00:13:26):
If it didn’t get something spilled on it, you were luckier. And if it was legible, then everything was really going to be great. So we’ve looked for ways to solve those problems a long time ago. So to have a tool like AutoVitals to be able to manage being paperless and watching what’s going on, like Eva said, I could be here. I’m at home today. I could be here and I know what’s going on in the shop. I don’t have to look at cameras, I don’t have to look at anything. I just bring up my dashboards and my today’s vehicle page. And it’s not uncommon for me to take a peek at message questions. Why is this? Why is that? What happened here? What happened there? Yesterday we had a meeting and I jumped on my TVP and I looked at a couple of inspections during the meeting.
(00:14:11):
I said, oh, okay, well what about this? What about that? Is that what we’re talking about here? So it’s just how can I be the best? So I charge prices that deserve it, you know what I’m saying? So the guys that want to do the 9 99 all change, the 1999 all change. And we see it all the time in the Facebook groups, Hey, what are you guys doing for March Madness specials? Hey, what are you guys doing for this special? And I’m thinking, man, it was so long ago that I felt like I needed to drive traffic with cheap prices. And then you create an environment of people just sitting around waiting for that. So how do you become the best you need the technology and the support of that technology around you to just go for it. Just do it. And it’s just do it. And I could take my team and I could explain, listen, here’s why we do this. And that’s an important part of it because it’s really easy. Part of my story was when we first signed up with AutoVitals, I showed up with all the tablets and I handed everybody a tablet. I says, okay, we’re doing digital inspections. And I walked away.
(00:15:20):
Now how do you think that worked out? And I said, no, no, no, we got to get better. I need four pictures of every car that comes in for an inspection. No lie. I had a technician took a picture of four shocks and four tires on every single car. So now we have to really, this is why we’re doing this, guys. We’ve said it. The customer used to have to leave work, come down, look up at a greasy drippy car. I don’t know what I’m looking at, but I guess it needs it to now I could take a picture and attach it to an email and send it to you. Now I can take a picture and text it to you from my personal phone. That’s always dangerous to having a way to not only communicate electronically, but track it. How long have you looked at inspection? What is the interaction can we talk back and forth with and without open ro? So it’s just truly,
Tom Dorsey (00:16:11):
Hey Frankie, if you will talk to me a little bit because you’ve changed software several times and that’s disruptive, but you’re willing to do it. And there’s a lot of people out there that see the benefits that shop work can bring, but they’re like, oh my gosh, that’s difficult. And it’s disruptive and my guys and my, it’s not easy. And I have firsthand experience knowing that Frank’s had a couple rough patches, but you did it and you’d probably do it again and you will do it again, I’m assuming, right? If there’s a reason to do it, if you could give folks a little bit of insight into that,
Frank Scandura (00:16:56):
Those
Tom Dorsey (00:16:56):
That might have the cold feet, right?
Frank Scandura (00:16:58):
Yeah. There’s guys that are just so focused on what they have in the past and they’re looking back here and they can’t see what’s ahead in the future. It’s like trying to live your life through the rear view mirror. We had a program that was pretty good, but it didn’t, wasn’t moving forward with the times. It wasn’t helping me be more digital and it wasn’t helping me communicate with customers. Sure, I could click 14 buttons to send a PDF invoice to a customer that’s old. Why are we still doing it that way? To really, you need to really up your game shop where I love the fact that it’s interactive where customers can add notes and go back and forth and these notes become a permanent record on the repair order. It’s like, hello, truly the game changing. So yeah, we’ve made changes and we changed from a shop operating system we had for 10 years in February of last year.
(00:18:05):
August of last year, we changed again because it was not delivering. And lemme tell you, it was painful for the team. And I don’t just make those changes on my own, I get everybody involved. We have our weekly meetings and everybody has a say and nobody said anything about the first proposed change. So when a second proposed change came up, I said, okay, a lot of you guys griped, mumbled and complained about the first change. If you don’t have anything to say about this one, you’ve got nothing to say. So we had a little more input and we do get a little bit of pushback still, but listen, this is what we’re doing, this is how we’re doing it, this is why we’re doing it. So in order to be a part of the team, we need to make it work together.
Tom Dorsey (00:18:52):
Exactly. And transparency and involving those folks and having regular team meetings and getting that feedback and the honesty is the only way you’re going to make it through something like that. But Carolyn, to Frank’s point, it seems like for so long, and this is, I don’t know if this has been your experience, it’s definitely been our experience in AutoVitals is that there’s software technology and technology. I think in general, this industry has been so underserved for so long. You get folks that are like that. It’s like, oh my gosh, the grass is greener and this one thing will pop up and I jump over here and then, oh, now this thing and then this thing, and I’m doing this leapfrog type thing. If you can talk to us, because I know that you work to eliminate the need to do that into the future and incorporate a lot of the things that are requested and required through your experience as an awesome shop owner.
(00:19:44):
And then the feedback that you get from the market and folks and having discussions like this, but also being able to provide, which we’re going to talk a lot about that today. Here is the future needs so that you don’t see it as, oh, the next best thing. And here I go jump through this hoop and then jump through this hoop. If you can talk to us a little bit about how that influences your development and really your creativity when it comes to some of the functionality and features that you’ve built in the shop where that are really impressive. And I think that they’re game changing. Like Frank said, game changing. That was his words, not mine.
Carolyn Coquillette (00:20:24):
Yes, thank you Tom. And thanks Frank for obviously all your support and certainly your perspective as one of the industry’s top operators. I mean just it’s awesome to be able to work with folks that have a ton of insight and we love to hear from you and work for you forever. Shops have been like, wow, I can decode a license plate to a vin. Isn’t that amazing? Wow. I finally had a significant leap forward from 17 digits to seven digits, and that’s been the extent of SMS innovation for 10 years. And guess what? Everyone’s like, oh, and I get it for free. Well, guess what? You don’t get it for free. And Eva, if you want to talk about that, I’ll leave that one for you. I know you and I have a shared point of view on shop data and that I think segues to a different conversation that we were potentially having around, you get to use Google and Facebook for free, but it’s not really free.
(00:21:25):
But needless to say, there obviously has been a ton of innovation in software technology in cloud technology and shops have just been left out in the cold. And you wonder, okay, well why is that? And it’s actually, and I presented on this also, so this is not a secret. I think it’s been deliberate. I think that the industry likes to keep us down. I don’t think that empowered, capable shops have been necessarily what the industries wanted. I think if shops are dysfunctional, then vendors get to keep more of their money and customers get to keep more of their money. So having shops have a seat at the table hasn’t necessarily been welcome. So we’re really excited to be able to enable shops to be able to stand up and say, you know what? We deserve more money. We deserve more competitive tools. We deserve more competitive pricing.
(00:22:21):
And that’s where the industry is going. It means self-driving cars are not going to be self fixing cars. We are a critical component. We are the hand that rocks the cradle. And so getting us to where we need to be is something that I am particularly passionate about. And so one of the things that we have felt strongly about from a solutions perspective has not been to just reinvent the wheel. We’re not trying to make X legacy system back in the cloud. We’re actually trying to rethink what shops are doing in a cloud-based environment. You see that with all different aspects of our system in terms of how the repair order works, in terms of how part pricing works, in terms of how communication with a customer works. So just trying to not take an incremental step but to really make the leap. And that is tricky.
(00:23:07):
Unfortunately, when you have to rethink, it takes more effort than just saying, oh wow, gee, instead of typing in a VIN number, I can type in a license plate. That’s obviously better. But what’s the long-term solution? The long-term solution is to type in no numbers at all. And so how do we get there is something that certainly Shop-Ware wants to deliver and is delivering. And it’s awesome to be able to work with someone who shares that point of view with Uwe who’s been at the helm doing this himself for longer certainly than I have. So Eva, what are your thoughts?
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:23:44):
Where do I start
Tom Dorsey (00:23:47):
The beginning?
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:23:51):
No, I mean this is a really interesting topic. Why has this industry been underserved? And I mentioned it so often, but it stuck with me an almost planted doubt in doing AutoVitals, to be honest, that one of the industry experts told me, Larry Moore, if you think you can deliver a software to all of us, you wrong, we’re all anarchists. I will never forget this. Larry was like customer number three or something like that, right? Yeah, here you are. And so there is one portion in really where one of the most set statements in a Facebook group or in discussions is I know how to run my shop and we have a special way.
(00:24:58):
That’s probably the number one statement. And so although that’s true, the question is how much of this can be opened up to a standard procedure where you really just create efficiency and effectiveness and how much of it is really creating your brand and should be special and not as Frank said, chasing the discount traffic. And I think that is what every shop should make a decision about. I believe a clear, and it’s not that I believe it, the numbers have proven that to us in the last three to four years that shops starting with 600,000 revenue outer vitals and four people turn now 2.3 million with seven people. Can you believe this? I mean, what business can say that a change in process and an addition of tools allows an employee to create a hundred thousand dollars revenue more over the course of three, four years? That’s the potential we’re talking about.
Tom Dorsey (00:26:21):
And in a lot of times doing less cars, I mean we used to to say it was adding a bay or two bays to your shop without having to do the construction, without having to go out and buy land because it’s really when you break it down, it’s what it gives back. When you do that and when you realize those gains, it is like adding a whole nother shop to your shop sometimes.
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:26:48):
And that requires an honest analysis of how you do the operation today and how it could be done in the future. And shop owners and shop teams are willing to do that, have reaped the benefits in the last few years in multiple times
Tom Dorsey (00:27:11):
That apparent, right? Once we got into this covid situation, it really drew a clear line
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:27:19):
And we just looking at Frank’s TVP, which I do from time to time blows me away what he’s able to process. I know the parking lot is full and overflowing. That’s probably the only limitation
Tom Dorsey (00:27:36):
I muted. Tend to have a
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:27:38):
Thank. You’re muted. Sorry
Frank Scandura (00:27:39):
About that. And technicians, if we could get more guys and we’re going to take a hard look at apprenticeship, but we’re limited to that. But you’re absolutely right, I’d be able to really just blow it up.
Tom Dorsey (00:27:54):
Yeah, exactly.
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:27:55):
And even to use the word process, we are now using this and it’s normal. Just go five years back, if I had said something about process in a presentation to shop owners, they would’ve looked at me, what professor from what planet is this guy?
Tom Dorsey (00:28:14):
I thought it was another credit card processing pitch.
Frank Scandura (00:28:20):
That’s an interesting point too, right? Because process people product, our product is our service, our people are what they are, but if you don’t have a process, it’s just a free for all and just how do I write up a car? I did a training video that I shared with everybody. It’s on our YouTube channel, how to write up a car, how to point out damage without insulting a customer and looking like an idiot. How to recommend the services by time and or mileage at drop off, how to take a quick peek at tires and wiper blades. That’s a process. And then when you make it the process for everybody, and if you don’t do it, you can’t lose. You just really can’t lose, right? So it’s really good stuff. Important.
Tom Dorsey (00:29:11):
Well, and it was like I was saying earlier is that that information’s out there, people are going to find it, and if they find it there but you didn’t tell ’em and you didn’t want to hurt their feelings or whatever it is, your doctor doesn’t pull any punches when they’re going to tell you they lay it out there and you appreciate that you might not like the news, but at least, and now I can make a decision on what I’m going to do next if I got to go find it online or somebody tells me afterwards, Hey sucker, oh my gosh, that’s the last time you see that. You just see dust, there’s never coming back.
Carolyn Coquillette (00:29:47):
We refer to 10 X all the time. You’ll adopt a solution when it becomes 10 x better than your existing solution. That’s sort of the activation energy that justifies the transitional cost. And you talk about a shop going from 600 K to 2.3, I mean that’s not even 10 x. So what we’re talking about is essentially offering shops innovation that allows them to do so much more with what they already have or less. And you might think, okay, well why is that the case? That’s impossible. And what you realize is that anything that gets done inside of your business is limited by the capacity of time and by how much can a human do between their ears in that amount of time and when your shop is running based on the best technology we have, which is the space between your ears, yeah, sure it’s going to get done right.
(00:30:48):
Human intelligence is incredible. Literally, we’re still trying to figure out how to drive cars with machines and we can drive a car and listen to music and eat french fries. I mean we’re amazing. We can do so much between our ears, but when you spend time doing stuff between your ears that could be better spent done by the machine, then all of a sudden you’re cheating yourself. You’re wasting that very precious time doing something that doesn’t need to be done by you. And then you’re only able to get so much done in your day. The more you can delegate stuff to the machine, which oftentimes will actually do a better job than you. When you get into just really pure processing stuff, truly what computers are for tracking time, it’s way easier for a machine to track time. I mean, you can guess what time it is right now.
(00:31:35):
You could guess how much time it has elapsed, but you’re not going to be nearly as accurate as your phone. So you can actually admit your limitations and say, okay, there’s only so much time in the day, there’s only so many people we have in house. Let’s figure out how much we can give to the machine and let us do this stuff that only humans should do, which is talking to a customer about their priorities and what do they actually care about in terms of the maintenance of their vehicle or repair of their vehicle. Then you’re able to get so much more done and PS your customers are going to be way happier because you’re going to be available to them. We’ve talked about phone skills and phone time and answering and phone traffic and there’s been so much emphasis on the phone. The phone can only happen between somebody’s ears. And so spend the time on the phone when you really have to and give everything else to the machine, and that’s how you get from one x to 10 x.
Tom Dorsey (00:32:30):
Now that’s such a brilliant point is that really is our job is to focus on the customer’s needs, not running around trying to answer every question under the sun. And I tend to wake up every morning at 5 44, so I think I am as accurate as a call, but Frankie, I wanted to touch on a point Carolyn made right now. Do you think that because I thought it was brilliant, is that it’s the comfortable thing, right? Once I have this figured out, this process, it’s the comfortable thing and why a lot of times, and I’m not trying to pick on the front counter, but the front counter tends to resist these changes so much because I’ve already got it figured out, right? We’re doing great and it’s really comfortable where I’m at right now,
Frank Scandura (00:33:17):
What are the seven most dangerous words to an organization? We’ve never done it that way before.
(00:33:24):
So listen, everybody hates change. The only constant in life is change. So let’s just move forward, figure out a way to make it less painful. Complacency is what destroys innovation and destroys progress. I remember killing myself to do a half a million dollar a year in sales, and it’s by implementing the processes, by being innovative, by accepting and embracing the technology to make it easier. And it is. There’s a learning curve. There’s a learning curve. When I install a new software, there’s a learning curve. When AutoVitals updates, there’s a learning curve. When my MacBook updates, there’s a learning curve for everything we do. I will not get an Android phone because I refuse to go through that learning curve. So there’s things that we make decisions to do, just do it. Let’s just focus on getting it done. We can sit around and complain all day long about how hard it is, and we never did it that way before and I don’t understand or just get better. Let’s go make it happen.
Tom Dorsey (00:34:44):
And that’s a brilliant point because these things become ubiquitous, right, Carolyn? It’s like I have an experience where I’m going to update my Apple, my iPhone, or I’m going to search for information in Google, and then if your information comes to me in some completely different format and I got to start reading from the bottom to the top instead of left or the right, it’s because it really does influence the way that we’re living our digital lives nowadays. It really kind of follows this kind of set pattern of expectations and it’s across industries and it’s like do you find yourself thinking about how do you take that larger experience and forge it into your product so that you give the same flavor? A lot of times it feels comfortable. It feels familiar. This is kind of the way I’ve been doing. I do this on my phone. Oh look, I’m doing it right here and it’s natural now.
Carolyn Coquillette (00:35:47):
Yeah, so I mean certainly switching shop management systems, I mean if Uwe wanted to build a shop management system, he would’ve done it already. He’s just smarter than me. He’s just like is why would you go and do that? Which is why we love this partnership is that shopper can calculate the sales tax and manage inventory, and EVA can handle the technicians inspections and the back of house and the tracking and all that good stuff, and it’s best of both worlds. But the challenge of actually moving from a legacy system to a new shop management system is inherent and there is a network effect. I’m already on an iPhone. I don’t want to leave an iPhone. I’m already on in certain legacy shop management system name. I don’t want to leave legacy shop management system, but there eventually becomes a 10 x incentive that if I switch, all of a sudden I’m going to unlock all these additional benefits and now it’s worth it to me to figure it out, to figure out how I need to adapt to that thing.
(00:36:47):
And it’s actually not the customer’s problem. It’s our problem as a service provider to figure out how to justify that transitional pain and to communicate that to you and deliver that value quickly so that you get onto Shop-Ware and then very quickly your parts GP goes from 50% to 60% and you go, I did it. That was why I did all that. And we’re excited to be able to tell that story over and over again. And more and more people are obviously making the switch understood that it worked for their friends, and it’s proven. And there is a component to which you can always say, oh yeah, it does X, Y, and Z, but if it’s not a robust solution, for example, when we’re talking about taking the work out from between your ears and letting the machine do it, if the machine screws it up, you’re going to take it back.
(00:37:31):
You’re not going to let the machine do it again. So when we deliver solutions, we have to deliver solutions that are robust and actually better than what you’re doing yourself. What’s interesting from I think a product perspective is that Eva has spent a lot of time studying technician workflows and has created a tool that automates technician workflows and delivers very consistent quality out of technician behavior. From a shop management standpoint, we very much have to operate within those special snowflakes. All those different shop owners that have their own flavors for how they want to track their businesses, report their businesses, whatever, send their businesses to QuickBooks, et cetera, how do they want to communicate to the customer, how do they want to put the services together, yada, yada, yada. And that does require basically creating a tool that is universal that allows folks to basically customize and apply to whatever their facility, their size, their priorities, whatever that happens to be.
(00:38:35):
And so Shop-Ware does try to provide kind of a customizable solution. Actually, if you look at the tool, it doesn’t say Shop-Ware anywhere on it except in the URL bar. I mean, it’s basically your tool. We want to make it feel like it’s your shop, it’s your solution, and we’re trying to get out of the way. And so by allowing folks to really kind of fit it to their own needs, obviously it allows ’em to feel that much better. I didn’t have to reinvent my shop to be able to implement this tool. I basically just said, what is my shop? How do I make this tool facilitate my needs? So that’s something that we feel strongly about. And then in terms of just training and getting people to accept new tools, that’s a work in progress. All of us are working on trying to connect and convince the other person that we’re talking to as best we possibly can. The human interface remains the greatest mystery. And so certainly we have a pretty robust sales and support process to reach our customers and let them know how they’re going to make this change. But that’s something that we’re working on all the time.
Tom Dorsey (00:39:43):
Yeah. Bill, I want to bring this in. Bill put a funny comment, and it’s so apropos. It says, if you do not change, you will end up with change. It will just be the jingle in your pocket type. And that brings up a really good point, and what we were talking about before is that a lot of times a lot of technology is out there and it’s just kind of floating around for free. I mean, you use Google for free all day and these other things. And I remember in the beginning of the internet as I’m old like that, but it was a big struggle on to figure out how to monetize something. I can see the weather. What do you mean I’m going to pay a dollar to look at the weather. I need to look outside the window. I don’t need to. And so there was this struggle to monetize this thing, but when we’re talking about somebody going from 600 K to 2.3, when we’re talking about reaching efficiency and productivity levels at your counter or from your technicians that you’ve never could accomplish before, that has a lot of value to it.
(00:40:50):
And so how do you justify, and this is a question of both of you. I’ll let you arm wrestle over who takes it first, Eva and Carolyn, but how do you get in there and justify that? Because a lot of times it can’t just be metrics, right? Because oh numbers, oh gosh, that can all be fake and I don’t believe it. You really have to provide the value, the tangible value to establish and defend that price point.
Frank Scandura (00:41:18):
Lemme go first.
Tom Dorsey (00:41:19):
Yeah, sure, sure, of course. Frank won.
Frank Scandura (00:41:22):
Lemme tell you why, because I can remember back in the early days when we used to write inspections that every car, my shop gets inspected and I was challenged to prove it. So I pulled all the repair orders out for the tire. We can get all this paper flying all over the shop to learn that not every car got inspected. And I found that very infuriating because my expectations weren’t being met. I said, please inspect the cars. You said you inspect the cars, were not inspecting the cars. So now I can justify a financial investment in a software that lets me measure it so that when I’m in a meeting with an employee and I said, look, 72% inspection rate, you promised it’d be over 95% and I stopped talking and it changes everything. So I’ll let the smart people go next.
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:42:15):
I would like to talk about change a little bit because it can come across as, dang, there’s this fear of change and fear driving something is not always a great feeling. I love the following statement, get comfortable with the uncomfortable change can be fun. It is for me. So I had so much change in my life from whatever, don’t get me started, but the moment you have learned the first time, even if there was failure on the path that there is value at the end, you actually want to do it again. So there is this, you want to change because you should ask, why should I change and what goal can I achieve? And this industry is so amazing in peer connections where owners talk to other owners sometimes even to the degree that, oh yeah, sign me up because I talked to X, Y, Z, and I want to achieve the same result as him.
(00:43:41):
So the point I’m trying to make is really embrace change as a positive, although little uncomfortable, but be comfortable in just embracing change, whatever happens. And then after a while you start looking for the next opportunity and it’s uncomfortable, but the last 10 times it paid off eight times or better. You can only win. And if you make that a constant habit of not expect it to be perfect on the first day, but invest and chase your goal, I think the sky is the limit. That is what excites me about this industry. There is so much potential numbers, 66% of all technician findings are not being sold to the customer. Are you kidding me? And that has different reasons and we can analyze them. And so that is what Tom called the obsession. We want to identify those things and eliminate them because the opportunity is just so big, so big, but it requires to look at the process to accept change. It will not happen by a shiny penny product which shows up and promises the world the next day not going to happen.
Tom Dorsey (00:45:23):
And that’s really the mark of the true innovator is that I have that vision and I have that goal in mind and I’m just going to go get there. And just the influences from the past or the naysayers or whatever it might be, you don’t really allow them to cloud that vision and then you just get there. And that’s what really changes a market. We would’ve never had cell phones if we listened to, I’m sure the people going, oh, who’s going to drive? Or who needs to be outside to make a phone call? What if it’s raining? But there was that other person who went, no, you’re kidding me.
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:46:02):
And if I may, there is a clear, you can call it pressure or opportunity that motorists, we as consumers make decisions now differently. We value transparency so high because we have been given opportunities starting with Amazon probably way back to make decisions without needing the So-called expert on the phone who at the same time applies sales pressure. And I have to decide, is that because he wants to educate me or is it because he wants to sell me? And we are all exposed to that. And that is a change. We cannot stop. I remember a customer way back asking us, how dare you sending recall information automatically to my customers? I am the source of the communication to my customers. And I was thinking, are you using Google?
Tom Dorsey (00:47:11):
Have you ever heard of the internet?
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:47:14):
And so that has changed dramatically how we approach things. And this is just the beginning, right? Anyway, I’m sorry, I got a little philosophical, but so the beauty back to this podcast is AutoVitals and Shop-Ware. So thank you. Carolyn had an amazing collaboration process. It’s not normal.
Frank Scandura (00:47:47):
Unprecedented,
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:47:49):
Unprecedented. That point of sale vendors and us work in such a collaborative way and we could make requests and there were challenged and changed and implemented. That’s typical collaboration. So I really want to thank you. That makes me super positive. And for the future,
Carolyn Coquillette (00:48:23):
Thank you, vet’s a pleasure to be able to work with you. And yeah, I mean we’re obviously proud to not only provide our product, but be able to leverage our product to the rest of the industry. We have our own problems to solve, and then we want everyone else who is solving other problems to be able to additionally reach those customers. And what’s so critical about shop management software or systems and why I’m passionate about solving that problem and not something else is that it’s the center of the business. It’s the system of record. It’s the system of engagement.
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:49:00):
That’s correct.
Carolyn Coquillette (00:49:01):
And so to the extent we can create an ecosystem that allows shops to meet all their varied needs with that one connected environment is not only our mission, but also absolutely critical to the future of the industry. So thanks for bringing your products to our customers.
Frank Scandura (00:49:21):
Let me say, as a customer, it is refreshing to have you guys working so well together. And I know I’m a big mouth, so I tend to get attention of people. But that aside, it is very exciting to see the working together and the innovation and the changes that are possible and quickly. And it’s like ve and I, we’ve been working together for years, and he’ll reach out to the other companies and they’re like, no, mine, right? A three-year-old, go here, mature people, go here, let me show you what I’ve got. What have you got? Let’s work together. Right? Year olds go mine. And it’s very refreshing as a customer to be involved with it on both ends. Thank you guys.
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:50:08):
You’re welcome. So can you describe the benefits you saw through the switch and now with the new integration? Tom? I hope that’s okay. I’m not, oh yeah,
Tom Dorsey (00:50:18):
That was going to be my next, we got about 10 minutes left and I was hoping, I promised folks a crystal ball and I want to talk a little bit about what’s happening now and why is this so strong? Because that’s what we do is we’re not really picking winners or losers here. We like to work with the best of the breed, so to speak, because that gets us to the next level. And so I know a lot of folks want to hear from Frank is what does that look like today? But also I’d like to, if we could get a little peek under the hood of what’s coming.
Frank Scandura (00:50:49):
So just to have the ability, in my mind, you guys went from zero to working together very quickly. And I don’t know if it’s the same behind the scenes for you, but to me it seemed like it went very quickly. So I was able to make a commitment to Shop-Ware and within a couple of months, make the switch, even though not everything was in place yet, it was completely satisfactory to me to be able to start my workflow management. I took a peek here just a second ago, 169 sold hours right now that’s not waiting for parts, that’s not waiting for authorization, that’s not waiting for drop off. So to know that at a glance to me is critical. And now with the canned jobs, it’s like next level. So the system we used before, it just was too general. And one of the things I love the most about Shop-Ware is where I can go into, have a car up on my screen and go, let me see what have I done in the past on a car like this? Oh look, I did do that exact job and there was a service bulletin, and here’s the information that I can apply. And it takes seconds to do that compared to anything else out there. And to see that all come together from a shop owner, man, it’s just exciting.
Tom Dorsey (00:52:11):
So then what’s next? Is it going to tell you that that situation exists without you even having to go look for it?
Frank Scandura (00:52:18):
Yep, I think so. Right,
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:52:21):
Exactly right.
Frank Scandura (00:52:23):
Lemme tell you, that’s that 10 x Carolyn that you were talking about before, that’s 10 x right there. And I just can’t wait for that database to,
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:52:34):
Yeah, we have, I mean that has been one of my dream projects all along because if you really look at how you run a shop, every shop behaves like I opened yesterday.
Tom Dorsey (00:52:50):
Yeah, first
Uwe Kleinschmidt (00:52:51):
Job,
(00:52:52):
Every estimate is written up from scratch. Really, there has to be a better ways. And let’s just be clear, the service advisor, no matter what digital technology we’re going to implement is still the focal point for the customer. There’s no doubt. It’s just the way the information’s being presented and the family and football talk Trust is accompanied by the transparency trust. And if we look at our data, there is still so much to do in terms of recommendations by the tech, don’t show up on the estimate, use one KPI client jobs will never be presented again or will be presented through a generic service reminder without filling the context three months later, remember we talked about this and here’s the picture of the dirty airfield or whatever. It’s right. There’s so much more to do and that’s exciting.
Frank Scandura (00:54:13):
And I want to say too, with the being able to map every single recommendation to a canned job and Shop-Ware and AutoVitals and then just go update work order and the entire estimate gets started for us, we’ve still got to verify parts of labor. And I don’t think that’ll ever change, but just to have it in there because now nothing gets missed. Before you didn’t have that and it was like, okay, let me export what I do have can jobs mapped for and lemme go back and look at the inspection again. Oh wait, the phone rang. Oh wait, somebody just walked in. Oh wait, technician said, come on, let’s go have a smoke and all these interruptions, take that problem away. Now update the work order and all of those jobs create a new recommendation, nothing’s getting missed. So I’m just looking forward to the day where it says, oh look, you did this job on that car three months ago. Is this the same? Yes or no?
Tom Dorsey (00:55:21):
Yeah, because that’s really the name of the game that information’s out there, but it’s so time consuming to grab it. And if I can just deliver that information, and especially the most important thing because then you can get analysis paralysis or whatever overload of information, the AI there, the smart way is just to be able to make that decision on what information you need to see right now. You can still get that rest of it and you can go dig down to the next level if you need to, but here’s exactly what you need to know and when you need to know it to be as most efficient as possible, getting it in and getting it done. And if you can deliver that, that’s the better mouse trap because then Carolyn, if you could talk to us a little bit about where does it go from there because it’s, it’s not like it’s going to end. And I mean you look at Olympic athlete or you look at a high caliber sports team and they’re at the pinnacle. They’ve made the world record that nobody else has ever been able to do. Well, they don’t take tomorrow off, they’re going to do it again. And now you really start to have to slice hairs to figure out how do you eat that last bit of possibility out of my operation? How do you incorporate that? How does that influence you in your development?
Carolyn Coquillette (00:56:49):
So the paradigm for shop management historically has been we all just copy each other and we steal each other’s customers, and we kind of already know what the end game is. It’s the thing that lets the human make the decisions better and better and better versus a wholly different approach, which is stop having humans have to make all the decisions. And that’s what shopper does differently than any other system available in market. And so what Eva’s describing and what we’re all kind of describing is, okay, we’ve got these dots, we have the things that we have to get done in the journey of a cars visitor or the journey of running a business. And what we start to do is actually start to connect those dots together with the technology. So right now, AutoVitals has got this connection where the technicians inspection, auto-populates recommendations onto the repair order Shop-Ware’s Frontier right now is optimizing customer approvals.
(00:57:51):
So we already have a digital customer experience where they can come to the RO and look at the details and approve work and chat with the shop and so on and so forth. We essentially optimizing that to get to better and better so that it’s not up to your advisor’s phone skills. Now obviously if you want to follow up and talk to your customer, that’s great. You certainly can. No one’s taken the phone off anybody’s desk, but if the software can do a better and better job producing that value that gets that customer yes, just like Amazon allows customers to click yes all day long, then great. And actually we have already shown that customers are 12% more likely to click yes with shopper than when you just simply call them over the phone. So that’s a pretty compelling difference in terms of sales. Beyond that, it’s auto fulfillment of parts, and then it’s auto fulfillment of schedule.
(00:58:41):
So that essentially that labor inventory and that parts inventory components can be managed by the system. And then obviously there’s less and less management that has to happen between people’s ears. And there’s a lot of different ways that we’ve set up the system to be able to facilitate that. The data structure, the way that it understands parts flows, the way it understands labor capacity are unique. So anyway, we’re very bullish on all of that. Certainly ultimately, shops have their own priorities in terms of what kind of cars they work on, what kind of margins they expect, what’s their market, what’s their rent, what do they need to pay their employees? All that varies. And so the profitability piece, and it’s not just like press the button and it says, make me money, make me money. At some point you have to tailor the system to your business, but for the business to be able to run with less and less human capacity is obviously where we’re headed. So those are sort of the next steps for us.
Tom Dorsey (00:59:39):
Yeah, that’s exciting. That’s exciting times because that just leads to that’s what you were born to do. That’s what people open their shop to do, and that was to fix cars and serve the community, not run around and deal with all of this crazy regulation and information and all of these people distracting you and taking your time all day. It really lets you get back to doing what you love. And I think that’s awesome.
Frank Scandura (01:00:02):
And don’t confuse what Carolyn said with less human interaction, doesn’t mean we need fewer people to get the work done. That means we could use the people we have more efficiently, more effectively, and with less pressure.
Tom Dorsey (01:00:15):
Like I said, doing the stuff you love doing, that’s stuff you hate. That’s usually what you hate.
Carolyn Coquillette (01:00:20):
There’s so much discussion about AI that technology is going to take our lives away. We won’t have jobs, and it’s anything. It’s like we’re going to have more substantive jobs. We’re going to be able to do the stuff that’s uniquely human and not do the stuff that humans don’t need to do and don’t even necessarily do very well. So it’s really good news. This innovation and the progress that we’re making is actually really good
Tom Dorsey (01:00:47):
News. That’s a brilliant point. I mean, hey, I’ve seen Star Wars and they all look happy when people shooting lasers at ’em and stuff, but future looks pretty cool, man, we’re out of time, which is a bummer because I could probably do another hour on this. I mean, we’re just kind of getting the surface scratch, so if you didn’t get your question answered and you didn’t chat it in, shame on you. But no, seriously take it to the Facebook forum. Let’s continue that discussion there. I know a lot of people got their gears turned, and I thought this was a fantastic discussion about two, like I said, very influential thought leaders in this space and really coming together to the benefit of Frank Scandura. And I don’t know how that could get any better, right, Frankie?
Frank Scandura (01:01:31):
You’re absolutely right. And I feel privileged to be a part of the testing process and helping us better product for everybody. Thank you both very much.
Tom Dorsey (01:01:40):
We love you, Frank.
Carolyn Coquillette (01:01:42):
Thank you Frank.
Tom Dorsey (01:01:43):
Yeah, definitely. And for everybody who’s out there helping out in that form and turbo groups and everybody participating in those chat forms and whatever side of the fence you’re on, we appreciate you. Thank you very much. We couldn’t do without you. Tune in next Wednesday, same time, same place. We’re going to be doing another edition of Who Wants to Be Our Digital Shop Millionaire. And then the week after that we’re going to be talking with the folks from Bay iq, talking about a little merger thing happening, what’s on the horizon there talking loyalty and customer retention and kind of a little peek under the hood about what’s coming in the future of that side of it because they’re both as equally to the success of your business. So really excited. Mark your calendar for those two episodes coming up. And as always chat in your suggestions, email us, get on that Facebook forum, tell us what you want to hear. Tell us when do you want to come on the show and tell us your story as well. Like these brave individuals here today have done. Really appreciate your time folks. That was a fantastic episode and it really gave a lot of insight and I think got a lot of gears turning with folks out there who are looking to make these decisions and see what’s coming. So thank you very much.
Carolyn Coquillette (01:02:54):
Well guys, thanks Tom. Thanks Uwe. Thanks
Tom Dorsey (01:02:56):
Everybody. Have a great day Next Wednesday, get out there and make some more money.