FOJ Forum focuses on recovery, recruiting and regrets

How far has business climbed back from the depths of the pandemic? What's being done to win customers from independent repair facilities — and keep them? And how about the perennial challenge of recruiting and retaining technicians?

Those questions and more were addressed in a panel discussion during the first installment of the 2020 Fixed Ops Journal Forum on Oct. 8. The third annual event is being held online this year over five Thursdays.

The panelists were Scott Doering, vice president of customer service at Volvo Car USA; Nick Latino, COO for fixed ops at Performance Auto Group (Ford, Lincoln, Mazda, Honda, Hyundai, Genesis, Buick-GMC) in New Jersey; and Dawn Matthews, service and parts director at David Auto Group (Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-Ram) in Glen Mills, Pa.

Here are edited highlights on select topics.

The current state of business

Matthews: We're climbing back. We're somewhat where we were prior to [COVID- 19]. We're at 100 percent efficiency; we'd like to be at 130. The hours are doing great. However, we're seeing a decrease in customer-[pay] repair orders, so we're focusing a lot on internal. We have a lot of warranty [work].

Latino: We're almost back where we need to be, but we still have a lot of room for improvement. And I think that starts with our front-line crew. The customer that's coming in now is not your average customer [from] before this pandemic. Everyone is really, really scared of what's going on. We have to make that a comfortable atmosphere when they come into the dealership and make them feel that we're there for them.

Doering: It's been sort of a slow climb back to where we were. We're almost there. We've seen a reduction in the number of ROs. We are doing well today with warranty ROs and warranty business, but we haven't seen customer pay return as quickly. People are deferring things when they can, and I think that's what's hurting us.

Steps to improve customer retention

Doering: In our network we've seen a much quicker adoption of digital solutions. When you find needed work and you can transparently share that via video or a photograph, it creates trust with the consumer. That is really the evolution of the industry and where it's going.

Matthews: Part of retention is training our staff, making sure that the service lane moves smoothly, making sure that advisers are up and ready to greet that customer as soon as they come out of their car. I really believe that our employees will help us get out of this flux that we're in right now, but we have to take the time to train them. And we have to demand the very best from them.

Latino: One of the things that we've done is we make the customer's next service appointment. We follow up with an email right after that or call them, text them … all different avenues [that] we can touch base with that customer.

The competition

Latino: People think that the aftermarket is cheaper. Is it better? Absolutely not. We have factory-trained technicians. We have warranty on our parts. Whoever's in front of that customer needs to express that and build value added to the repair order.

Doering: I think there's going to be a big capital investment in technology because the margins are so high in our business. If we just look at the chains, the Amazons, I think there's going to be a significant investment around creating a better customer experience.

Recruiting and retaining technicians

Matthews: It's very, very hard to recruit a technician. These new kids that are coming out of school, they want their life to look different than some of my technicians that have been in the business for 30 years or more. They're very interested in, "What does my time [off] look like? How can I have the weekends off? What does my schedule look like? We're open from 7:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. That schedule that I've laid out for some of the older technicians doesn't look that attractive to some of the younger guys coming out of school. How do we attract these younger technicians that are coming out of school that are 25, 26 years old? They want to make big bucks, and they want to work six hours a day. And take lunch.

Doering: We've tried to sort of dig into one of the pain points for these technicians coming into the auto field. One of them that we identified and we're trying to address right now is tools. It's kind of a big ask [to have] these kids pay for their own education and then over the first 10 years invest a significant amount of money in tools. That's a barrier.

One thing they would have done differently at the start of the pandemic

Matthews: I dipped my toe in a little bit with a mobile technician. If we could rewind, I would have really invested the time and money in that mobile technician. That could have made a huge, huge difference in our bottom line.

Latino: I wish that we could have explored the pickup and delivery a lot sooner. I think it would have given us the advantage, not only over the aftermarket, but also customers would have known that we were out there for them.

Doering: We were lucky to have a platform ready for pickup and delivery, but what became very quickly evident is you also need to have the right integrations. You need to have scheduling set up properly and working, you need to try to keep the customer in one environment.

We launched a great platform that worked very well for the dealer and customer, but it sat in the form of an app which created some challenges. That's all since been fixed, but ideally I would have been further along with integrations when we launched.

The mobile tech also is one that we would have been thinking about [but] weren't far enough along to pilot. I think COVID has reinforced with us that that needs to be in the tool box for service. If we believe our customers should receive service how they want to, I think that there will be some customers looking to that. And I think as technology changes and software becomes a bigger part of what's done in the workshop and with electric cars, I think there's maybe an easier business equation around mobile tech going forward than the huge vans fully outfitted to do anything. We can be very tactical in mobile service in the future and deliver good customer value.