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Sean: Welcome to Automotive Innovators Unplugged, spotlighting the innovators, disruptors, and forward thinkers shaping the future of automotive retail. Each week we'll dive into the tools, tech, and strategies that help dealers win in today's market and get a little personal with our guests. Introducing our host, Sean Kelly, number one Amazon best-selling author, special operations combat veteran, and CEO of Car Motivators, known in automotive as the Carvis Coat. And JP Burkemper, automotive AI expert and co-founder of VinSight, helping dealerships retain customers with state-of-the-art artificial intelligence. Now it's time for the show. All right. Appreciate everyone taking the time to join today. We're going to keep this tight and practical because this is a topic that doesn't get talked about enough in this industry. Most dealerships think they have a sales problem or even a marketing problem, but the reality is the biggest opportunity is what happens after the sale. So just to level it with a few numbers here, only about one in four customers actually schedule their first service appointment at the time of delivery. The dealer's share of service visits is declining. And each lost customer is worth roughly $12,000 in lifetime value. So when you look at it this way, the problem becomes pretty clear. We're not losing customers at the sale. We're losing them after. Today we're going to break this into three parts. First, what actually happens after the customer leaves? Second, why this problem continues. And third, what actually works inside real dealerships. I've got a great group here with different perspectives. We got operations, BDC, leadership, vehicle ownership experiences. So you're going to want to hear this and how it actually plays out across different stores. Matt Raymond. The COO of Bowtie Auto Solutions works directly with dealerships on service BDC operations, handling inbound overflow, missed calls, and building outbound campaigns that drive traffic back into the store. What makes Matt's perspective valuable is he sees the operational reality most dealers don't. Call volume, missed opportunities, and what actually happens when the phone stops ringing. We have Anthony Allegona, the founder and CEO of Appointments That Show. He helps dealerships improve communication, increase appointment show rates, and implement systems that consistently drive measurable growth through both off-site BDC support and on-site training. What makes Anthony's perspective valuable? He bridges strategy and execution, not just building processes, but making sure they actually happen inside the store. And his core belief is simple: business development isn't a department, it's a mindset. We have Sean Kelly, the founder and CEO of Car Motivators, the number one coaching practice in the automotive industry, where he helps dealerships build, where he helps dealerships build leadership systems and cultures that drive long-term customer and employee retention.
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He's also a special operations combat veteran, a number one Amazon best-selling author. And serves as the leadership development trainer for Infinity USA. What makes Sean's perspective valuable? He's focused on what most dealers overlook. Retention doesn't break at the sale, it breaks after when leadership, accountability, and culture aren't built to sustain the relationship. Lastly, we have Victor Sely. Vic has been in the automotive industry his entire life, from technician to sales to the vendor side for over two decades. He's seen how dealerships have evolved, especially around communication and follow-up. And what makes Vic's perspective valuable is he looks at the ownership experience across the full life cycle and where most dealerships fall short in that. They rely on reminders, but miss real engagement with the customer after the sale. So let's get into it. All right, we're gonna start with reality. Customer buys a car, drives off the lot. What actually happens next inside most dealerships? Matt, from an operational standpoint, what are you seeing day to day? Yeah. So on our end, you know, typically customer drives off the lot is, you know, do we schedule that first service appointment? I know it's talked about a lot at dealerships, but is it happening? ⁓ and then from there, you know, do they know where to go when to come back for service? I think I shared with you guys the last time we were on a call, I went into a dealership when I bought a car. way back in the day, but I went back in to service it and the advisor turned around, he's like, What are you doing in here? This isn't where you come. I just got my car and left, never came back, right? Because he never told me where to go, what to do. And so for us on our end, you know, we want to make sure the guest experience from the sales to the service handoff is letting the customer know next steps, what to do, what's covered, right? Like for example, Toyota stores, Toyota Care, you know, if the dealership offers, you know, the first two oil changes complimentary, whatever it might be, right? It's keeping them informed. keeping them educated on everything they get, giving the why service with up us benefits. So you gave us a good little story there. I guess I'll I'll get a little deeper here. If I walked into a store, what would I actually see versus what leadership probably thinks is happening? Yeah. So one of the things we do is when we go out to visit our dealer partners throughout the country, we walk into other other stores that are not our current partners just to see what we can get for business as well as kind of see the operations going on. Most of the time the only people that'll talk to us are the service advisors and we kind of have to stand there awkwardly for a few minutes, make eye contact, look at them. We don't bring flyers in, we don't carry backpacks in, right? We just want to look like we're a customer so that we get the hello. ⁓ and it it takes a little bit to get a
hello. Now, don't get me wrong, there's a lot of dealerships that do some really great work. We were recently in the Midwest and walked into a store and they said one of the guys said, Can I help you? And I said, Yeah, you know, I just wanted to follow up. ⁓ we had reached out. We're an outsource call center. We answer and he turned away. And I was like, Hold on, wait a second. I did where where are we going? Next guy said, Can I help you? Like looking at him, looking at me. And I was like, I explain what we did. He turned away. Finally, a young lady sitting at the end gave us the time of day. I said, Listen, we're not here to sell you anything. We're just here to tell you what to, you know, we do. No sh your phones are ringing. Nobody's answering. I'm like, we can do that for you. And and she gave us the contact information to her manager. And I was like, Well, is he here right now? And she's Well, no, he goes home. And I'm like, it's It's three o'clock in the afternoon. Like I I don't want to insult the intelligence of what you're doing here, but three o'clock in the afternoon, like how's the manager leaving at service when we should be making sure that, you know, all the status checks are done, people are picking up their cars, right? Like it's those are the little things that like the it's the customer experience. Like to me, a manager should be managing the customer experience over anything else. Anthony, from your side, why do you think it looks like this? Well, you know, I think it really has to do with the strategy for ninety nine percent of dealerships, they're really focused on acquisition instead of retention, right? All the processes that are put in place are put in place to try to get that customer. ⁓ there's no real strategy on how to create that relationship and then take ownership after the sale. You know, processes are are are hard to follow for most businesses and I've never minded the dealership in general. And post sales where really most people drop the ball. I mean, it's it's hard enough doing, you know, trying to get them in the dealership, but, you know You shouldn't just try to try to be selling one car to a customer. You should be trying to sell three, four, or five through a customer. And that's to turn them into a client, right? And the way to do that is to create that relationship. And you know, unfortunately, not many people focus on the relationship side of the business, in my opinion. That's right. Yeah. Do you think that most people in charge, you know, with their name on the building, even realize that it's happening like that it's happening like this? I believe some do. I believe most do, but most don't know how to fix it, right? It's i it's a it's a one percent better everyday approach. It's if if you really want to focus on the customer experience, then it really starts from the digital showroom, right? And it goes all the way after the sale. But accountability is probably one of the biggest things that, you know, you see in life in general, never mind in a dealership world. So I understand the struggle. But I really think the people with their last name on it do know what's going on. They just don't know how to change it. Yeah. Nothing consistent, nothing meaningful, right? So if we all agree this is happening, I just can't why hasn't it been fixed? Sean, from a leadership standpoint, what do you think is driving this? Well, I think that it's a mindset shift, right? Because you get what you focus on in business. So in reality, if you look at a typical dealership, what percentage of the their attention is focusing on handling the fresh lead? versus handling existing customers and and retaining them. So I think you have to ask yourself a lot of questions like, what well, what part of your pay plans aim at generating repeat business? What metrics does your team get coaching on around retention? ⁓ what's your minimum standard for repeat sales or found, you know, found found business? Or like what percentage of existing service customers are receiving engagement from a service to sales trained And qualified sales consultant at your store because it is a different type of engagement and requires a different sort of training. I think if you ask yourself those questions, you'll find there's a a massive gap there. Yeah. You get it's more of a leadership problem or more than a process problem? Yeah, man. I'll you know, I'll tell you a quick war story. You know, when I was in combat, I'll never forget we the war just started. We were part of a big convoy rolling through Anajaf, the city of Anajaf in southern in southern Iraq. And all of a sudden, you know. We had a one star general that was part of in our convoy. And all of a sudden, as we're driving through the streets, we our convoy gets blocked and we get under ambushed and we're being attacked from all angles. And everyone's ducking in their Humvee because they're trying to, including myself, trying to avoid getting shot. And and this general gets out of the front Humvee like it was something from a movie, lights up a cigar, and is like, Hey, I remember I'll never forget, I was in the turret. He's like, Syap, turret gunner, second story, third window, shoot. He starts walking up and down the convoy telling everyone where to aim. And that completely turned the tide of the battle. So at the end of the day, it's the leader's job to direct fire and tell the troops where to shoot. So if you have your team focusing solely on handling those fresh leads, hopefully not going to be shooting at the, you know what I mean, going after the retention sale and the repeat business. So I think, yes, it all stems from leadership. ⁓ Anthony, what role do you think the tools that are are available to dealers and CRMs, for instance, play in this? ⁓ they play a huge role. But, you know, it's it's funny that you say CRMs. I mean, that's one of the biggest challenges I see in the industry is getting dealerships to use them
effectively, you know, making it a requirement instead of a request. Especially as an off-site BDC, you know, I always recommend dealers keep their leads. I'm not really looking to take their leads and work them for them because I believe they should work them harder than anybody else. But when it comes down to it, at the end of the day, once I send them an invoice, the microscope gets really, really fine tuned on me. And so I know the results have to be there. And I can't count on the dealership to make sure that they use the CRM. Right. So I there's things I have to do to make sure that they use the CRM and I tell them if this is something that I have to put in place just because I don't know what's going on on the other side, imagine what's going on When if a a company like me is not involved, meaning the leads are coming in, but there's no daily check of what's going on with the daily processes. And thank God I've learned how to put things into play to where I can have checks and balances to where I'm doing when we're doing follow-up for my team. So the tools are there, but you know, I I told dealers if you if they made a CRM that looked like Facebook, everybody would use it, right? It's just getting them to use those tools. So the tools exist, but the ownership and execution don't really. Vic, do you have any thoughts on that? Well, absolutely. Holding the service advisor or the salesperson accountable, number one, you gotta have buy in from upper management. Not you know, the dealer may turn around and say, I love this, but if he doesn't have his management team bought into the process, i it's just gonna continue being the same old mess. Okay, and you know what? I I was a firm believer back in the day when I was in a dealership. If it didn't happen in the CRM, it never happened. And you gotta make sure that these guys are using it and you whether you incentify them in the beginning or they realize that this has to be done this way. Or otherwise maybe car sales or car service is not for you. Playing you know, it's the owner's name is up on that on top of the building and his reputation is at stake. You know, and You gotta do the right thing. And you know what? In the long run, it puts money in your pocket. Sell more cars, service more cars, you're writing more ROs. You know, you gotta do the right thing. Yeah, you you gotta. And just to bring it back to the numbers, only about twenty-five percent of customers are actually scheduling service at delivery. So it's not a small issue. It's happening everywhere. So I wanna talk about kind of transition into what's actually working. What works? Let's make it practical. If each of you walked into a dealership tomorrow, I'm sure some of you guys were in dealerships today. What's the first thing that you'd fix? Matt, one operational change that immediately improves retention. Know the amount of phone calls you're getting, know the amount of phone calls you're missing, and figure out how to fix that problem. Who owns that in the store? Everybody. Anthony, what needs to change on the sales floor after the deal? I tell everybody, you know, we're all we're all entrepreneurs, but most people don't know it. So we got to you know, try to coach our salespeople to become sales professionals and understand that their network is everything and and and turning customers into clients is how they can get themselves to the next level. And just like they have a process of getting them in into the store, there should be a process on as soon as they sell. And, you know, for example, once a month I take one of my clients and I just take a random client and I send them lunch and pizza and and soda. And I and I put a note and I listen, tell me it's from ATS Lunch is on us, pick up the phone during lunch and set some appointments. I don't have to do that. And it's a very small investment, but that small investment lets them know I'm just not bare for the dollars and I'm thinking about them and these are the things that sales professionals need to do. And if they did that, you wouldn't have to worry about all the new leads coming into the system because you'd be nurturing the leads that you're already worked with. Well, that's another nice incentive to work with Anthony there. Nice free free lunch. So ⁓ what do you think the the like the best salespeople are doing at at do differently in this case that we're talking about, Anthony. What I s where where I see the difference between top performers and and your everyday salesperson is to just their daily habits. Like, you know, for instance, it's success leaves clues. It's the people that wake up at five o'clock in the morning. It's the people that are in the CRM first. Like one of the things I challenge my clients with, especially because I'm when I'm consulting and I'm in their CRMs, I said, do me a favor, do not let me beat you into your CRM. If I have to beat you into your CRM, that means I care about your leads more than you do. So I look for the habits for what time they come in. Are they there early? You know, how do they speak? Is there a daily lead audit? Right. What kind of conversation are they having? Are they coming with the hospitality mindset? There's it's really all the small things. And I and I I I truly believe hospitality is behind everything. And the CRM is where we take all the information from the customer and we put them in. We're collecting dots, right? And then The sales professionals should use that information to put those dots together to create the experience, right? To create that hospitality feeling because you can't take a picture of it. So I really believe that the sales professionals that excel just have really, really, really good habits and and they're really, really disciplined. I like that. Zooming out, Sean, what separates stores that actually retain customers? Well, I think that first off is proper hiring. You need the right person in the right seat. And there's different
sales profiles out there. So, you know, are you hiring a hunter or are you hiring a farmer? Are you hiring an engineer? Or, you know, or what combination thereof? So I I think there's a lot of, you know, really great technology and processes now. The the old way of like you interview someone and you're trying to sell them on working at your dealership and they're trying to sell you on getting hired. So of course you're gonna hire the you're gonna hire them. A sale is always gonna happen. And But are they what what type of profile are they? Because someone who has that farming mentality is going to be the the right person if you want retention. So you need a you need a hunter with a little bit of a farming second. Or maybe you're at a store that doesn't have a lot of traffic. So they need to be much better at farming. You really need to hire the right people for your team and your culture. But ultimately, that's the first thing. And then the second thing is, I mean, I'm gonna say proper pay plans. And and and listen to this one. If you're owners, just because it's not in the NADA handbook doesn't mean it doesn't add value. I think I think dealers get this tunnel vision and groupthink. You know, everyone's in the 20 groups and those add tons of value, obviously. Not hating on 20 groups here. But what I am saying is I think a lot of dealers are like, it does not it's not in the NADA guidebook, so it does not compute, you know. So they miss out on opportunities to build, like, let's I'll give you example, you know. You can build a service to sales BDC role and BDC department at your dealership where the person's only job is to prospect to service, you know, maybe confirm appointments and create sales opportunities. And, you know, they don't usually hire for that role because they won't give them a pay plan that motivates them to stay on the team long term. So they'll they'll they'll they might put someone in that seat, but they won't pay him. And then they don't get results, and then the person quits. And and so I think. Number one is hiring the right person for the right seat. Number two, pay plans that retain people, let go of the whole group think and be creative. Some of the most successful dealers I coach literally are on an island. They don't have a lot of peers because they they figure it out themselves and they're willing to innovate and think outside the box. Third, and I think Matt touched on this earlier, is the the ⁓ the alignment between service and sales. Or Vic Vic, I think mentioned it too. So, you know, it there's a lot of obstacles that prevent retention. What especially as it relates to like mining to service customers. And, you know, is service being punished when you sell a car? Eliminate those obstacles. Reward the entire team for group accomplishments. You know, do your pay plans pit them against each other? Right. And then and then does the GM do a great job of uniting service and sales? I mean, I see this across dealerships.
The the departments are so siloed, and the the owner of the GM isn't really doing a great job of getting them working together. So High level engagements, lastly, I'd just say from a tactical thing is, you know, high level engagements reaching the masses. You know, again, do you have a good marketing message? Is the team aligned? What percentage of your owners are you touching on a regular basis? How are those combos going? If you can't answer those questions, you're probably not doing it at all. So finding ways to really make those connections consistently and measuring that, that's what those are the things that work. From the customer's perspective, what What are the dealers missing? Well, I can look I look at it two ways. I think one of the most glaring things that stand out to me because I purchased a car just about eight months ago. Okay. I didn't even see the service department. What about the service walk? You know? I mean they never introdu I mean, I know when I sold cars, you know, you always gotta have that handle. Okay, because how else are you going to retain that customer? How else are you going to have that customer coming back into the service department? I was really good friends with one particular service advisor, and every one of my customers was introduced to Joe. Okay. And Joe had the greatest follow up. Okay. And he always told me when one of my customers popped in so I could go out there and say hello to them. You know, and say, Hey, you you know, there's nothing wrong in asking. You have anybody in the family that's looking for a vehicle right now? Maybe your kids look at the you know, they're gonna be driving soon, you're gonna need a car for them, you know, something to get around in. You know, you gotta be on the ball all the time. And also what I liked was our dealer incentified the salesperson to introduce it and do a service work. And Therefore, that party, the guy that you're using the service advisor, if he does his job, he gets a piece of it too. You know, and it's like Sean was saying, it's a group reward. Okay? It's not just sales or it's not just service. You're doing both. And ⁓ and you keep everything together. And not only that, the numbers are gonna go up. You're gonna retain more customers, you're gonna have more repeat sales, okay? And your ROs are gonna go up. Guaranteed. It's guaranteed. And that ⁓ it only goes by one way. Gotta communicate with the customer during and after the sale constantly. Yeah. I think, you know, it's about owning that relationship, you know, from the second they walk in the door to even after they leave, right? The car purchase is is a it's a big deal and it lasts a long time. The average car ownership is just getting longer and longer. What are we doing to stand out throughout that whole process? So, you know, buying and servicing your car at your dealership becomes the only logical choice. So let's get into our next segment that is tactical takeaways. Let's simplify it into three things any store can actually act on immediately. Number one, schedule the first appointment before the customer leaves. All right, that's what we're talking about. Let's get that 25% up. Right. We know the statistics behind people regularly servicing their cars at the dealership. The odds of them buying their next car from you go up, and that's what what it's all about. Number two, building a real post-sale ownership journey. It's not just sending reminders. All right. That's you know, it's not just checking that box. Guys put tools in place to actually own that customer throughout their journey. And make loyalty easy. Number three, align sales and service around that customer. All right. Simple thing. Introduce your customers into service, right? Hey, when they come in for service, introduce them back into sales. Right? It's just one cohesive organization. So the sale is not the finish line. It's where the relationship should start. So a couple closing questions, just gonna ask a few, keep these tight and practical. Number one for Sean. Who actually owns the customer after the sale? I think team members own the customer relationship, but the dealership leaders own the employee relationship. So I'll kind of recap everything that I shared earlier just by saying that, you know, the the the customer fell in love with your sales consultant, and that's probably who needs to continue to deepen that relationship. And the the leadership of the dealers need to ensure the employees know what's important. And that they have the right attitude, like Anthony mentioned earlier, right? It's the it's the retention versus transaction, relational versus transactional. So that that's up to the dealership leaders. Yeah. Matt, what are your thoughts? Who actually owns the customer after the sale? So it has to be everybody. I mean, the you know, salespeople, we can say, I mean, turnover and automotive is it is what it is. But it really has to be everybody. I'll leave you with this little story. When I was working in Pennsylvania, the dealership I worked at, if the owner caught the customer trying to find service, he went back to the salesperson and it was not a pretty conversation. So when I sold cars, I showed them where service was and I said, Hey, when you pull in for your appointments, for your first service appointment, especially, come find me because I'd like to personally make sure we get your car bumped at the front of the line. It was a way to prevent. the owner getting a customer walking around aimlessly, right? So every time they came in, if they were walking around aimlessly, like, can I help And like I'm looking for Matt. And so it directed them back towards me and I like, hey, you're here for service. And I'm like, yeah, I am. And I'm like, follow me. Let's get you around the build. Because you have to go all the way around the building. It got confusing. You have to go between a gravestone. It was weird. But at the end of the day, it it it's all
about making sure you're wrapping your arms around them every time we come across. But love it. And then hey, Sean, again, how do you get sales teams to even care about retention? Well, I think first and foremost, you need a de clearly defined system and process that's measurable in that arena. If it's important at the top, it'll be important to the team. You know what you're going to track and measure, but the biggest theme here is consistent coaching reinforcement. It's not just like one conversation, hey, we're going to do this service retention thing. And then you don't even talk about it for three months. It's got to be consistent coaching. So, you know, every leader, it's hand-to-hand combat. Every leader needs to sit down with each team member and ask them the hard questions. Like, you know, what do you want to gain from working the service drive? What's stopping you from doing that? And and if they can uncover those obstacles and coach each person through it and then challenge them to commit and then hold them accountable to that, you'll get the growth you need. Love it. Anthony, what do you think? Getting sales teams to care about retention, not just making the sale. No well, number one, I think it starts with, you know, you have to care about people, right? So I would think that the leadership really needs to care about that employee, number one. Right. If you want your employee to care about your customer, you gotta care about your employee because happy employees make happy customers. So the same attention that you want them to give your clients, let's make sure that we're giving to the the the employee as well. I mean and what I try to tell people is, you know, when you become a professional and you really care for people after the sale. It's gonna help you separate yourself and if you do it the right way, you're gonna brand yourself at the same time. Meaning if they were to make sure they got their reviews done all the time and they had a follow up process, like Sean said, for after the sale, to where they were consistently touching their people within so many months or whatever it may be, they would find that their number one, their incomes would go up, but they'd be building themselves an online brand, right? They'd instead of chasing leads, they would become the lead. Right? Because think about how many cars if they're selling fifteen to twenty cars a month, let's say fifteen, you're probably selling about what, a hundred and eighty cars a ⁓ a year. That's a hundred and eighty people that you've made very, very happy. And why w should you have to convince your future customers of how good you are when you can have all your past clients tell everybody else for you? So I think the the best way to get them to buy in is number one to buy into them as an employee and treat them the way you want them to treat your your clients. And number two, give them a process that we can hold them accountable to. But like Sean said, don't have it be every other month. It has to be consistent. It's it's you know, it's a contact sport, just like Sean said. So I couldn't Yeah, I love that. Why aren't CRMs solving this though? Because nobody likes to use them, unfortunately. It's listen, I I it stands for cash revenue machine in my book, right? I've challenged dealerships. I said, Listen, I'll come to your dealership and I won't take a fresh up and I promise you I'll sell your team in a week and I'll just sit inside your CRM because there's two showrooms. There's a there's a brick and mortar and there's a digital showroom. And most people are sitting inside the brick and mortar avoiding their digital showroom, right? And there's thousands and thousands of leads in there. Just nobody wants to engage them. Yeah. Unfortunately. Yeah. Just comes to down to people not using it, I guess. You know, the the the meat is in there. What does that make you think of? In ⁓ I'm still muted. Hey Sean. So the one ⁓ one thing I learned many, many years ago is that with retention. Okay. You sell ⁓ up front, they come through the back, and in three years if they're leasing, or four years if they're leasing, time to buy a new car. So it's a cycle. It's a cycle. And if you keep the if you do the right thing by having doing the right thing at the sale, keeping the relationship there, okay, not just you know, birthday cards or whatever, but a little bit extra. Okay. Service. They're you're retaining service. They're getting their and and you're s you sol you branded yourself, like you know, you're the brand, okay, number one, because you're selling yourself when you're speaking to a customer, number one. They already selected the vehicle that they want, so they're or the OEM, the manufacturer. They want a Ford, they a Chrysler, they a Chevy, okay. The most important thing after that is branding that customer to that dealership. So now everybody in that dealership is part who's part of the team, that's who owns the ⁓ customer. And that's where it's gotta be. Okay. You just it's easy to be a Ford guy, it's easy to be a Chevy guy, but I wanna be Schultz Ford guy. Okay. I like Schultz. I like going to Schultz. They take care of me. They know my name. They know my vehicle. Okay. They take care of me when I gotta leave the car there for a day or two, okay? And that and they'll do the right thing. That's what sells and retains the customer. The individual service by the team. And they're branded to that they're branded to that dealership. So Vic, you're in stores you know, every day. I'm wondering you know, when you get their business, you got thirty days to improve retention in a store. What is it that you're doing first? First thing is make ⁓ to be honest with you. I w I try to put together sales and service you know, and and preach it or cho show them, coach it. Everybody calls me coach 'cause I've been a high school football coach for forty years. And I take that kind of a relationship and and and experience to the
sales end of it and and showing them if sales and service are cohesive and you get the leadership, ⁓ your general manager or your GSM Who's your head coach? Okay. He's got to be the guy that's repetition is your best coach. You got to do it over and over and over again. Okay. And you just, like Sean was saying, you can't go revisit it three months from now. That's crazy. You got to be talking about it continuously. Okay? That's the main thing. Making sure you know your process with the sale. You got that down pat. Now what are you going to do that you could keep that customer Technically for life, not just to you ⁓ because hey, Matt mentioned, you know, guys, there's turnover that's huge. But if you're good at what you do and your customer loves you, so to speak, you go down to another dealership and you send out your memo, your emails, telling customers you're no longer here, you're here, you're gonna get a good number of them if they really like the service that they got to wherever you are. And that that's key. And then you do the whole system all over again. You know, you gotta you gotta marry that together. That's my gut. Provide exceptional service and introduce your customers into into service from the sales side, introducing them to service, let ⁓ know that you're you know, you're ⁓ a point of contact for for life. You know, car needs. You come back here, we'll get you the answers. Sean, I I gotta ask you, if you had thirty days to improve retention in a store, where are you starting? Well, first and foremost, my recommendation is I'm not I'm gonna stop defining insanity. And what I mean by that is stop doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. I think it's important to note, you know, you can't read the label when you're inside the bottle. And you're you're like one of your team, what one of your players, you're on the field playing to win, but you you don't have someone on the sideline watching you play the game. So my my first recommendation would be hire someone outside, hire a third party, anyone on this meeting. I mean Talk to JP about VinSight and Vic about VinSight because there's an AI tool that you can your all your customers get and you can they can chat with the dealer, with an AI that represents the dealer and and hire Anthony Algoda to to help with the BDC piece and the CRM management and hire Matt and Bowtie solutions to drive up retention and hire car motivators to teach your leaders how to coach and and develop your team and create accountability. And and I think that's the biggest opportunity, man, is is partner with someone that has proven results. And case in point, we've got a a ⁓ few I've had a lot of clients that have mutual where where we are on this conversation, mutual vendors. And I'm I I'll never forget this. One one of my dealers calls me up. He's like, Sean, one of my dealers that you haven't worked with yet is struggling in retention. You know, can you can you help us out? And I was like, sure. You know, so next thing you know, you know, we're we're working together to build a service BDC and we're getting them some software. And and he's like, I I need a he's like, I need an expense neutral pay plan. And so we we We engineered something that's never been done before for that and we come up with that. And next thing you know, they went from last place in their market to number one in the region for three consecutive years for retention growth. And they reached third place in their region for customer retention in service. And then we added a service to sales element just by working with vendors and partners like you guys. So I think and everyone on this on this meeting, on this webinar, so I think that would be my recommendation is stop defining insanity. Hire a trusted third party and be open to trying something new. Love this Sean. What do you think, Matt? Yeah. So the biggest thing is is and I'll say this all the time is know your numbers, right? And so for us on our end is know how many calls you're getting, know how many calls you're missing. How do you fix that leak? And then from there, like Sean was talking about with retention, right? Start start with the low-hanging fruit, start with your recall campaigns, then start with your private oil offer campaigns. You know, a lot of our most successful dealerships will come to us and say, Hey, what do you see that's working out there? I mean, a golden nugget if you watch this webinar, steal it and work with it. Stop advertising percentages off. Your average customer, unless they're 73 years old and shops at Kohl's, cannot do percentages in their head. So start advertising, you know, was is pricing, right? Because that's everything we've ever learned in life. Everything was is, right? Real estate agents was, is cars was, is. So why are you going to start doing percentages? And so I tell dealers, do do. you know, a was, is, now, price, and and that'll start moving the needle. And then start talking to your customers, finding out what they're looking for, right? I mean, use AI to go and take all your Google reviews and find out all the negative things. They're t they're telling you what you don't want to pay attention to, right? Because anybody that's ever worked in any kind of dealership, if you look at the general manager or the sales manager, anybody like that, it's like, hey, we got this negative review review. It's never met with What do you think we have to do to change it? It's like, well, you don't understand. They were in here. You should have seen what it was like. It's always I w I was on the retail side. I get it, right? So look at what they're saying negative and see if there's a something common that you can bring and make it positive. You know, and Jonathan Dawson said this on a clubhouse that I was on today. If you ask enough of your customers why they chose to purchase from you, you'll know and see the common things that you do and do really well. And then make that your why-bye message and that'll help you shift the focus of your customers and focus on who you're marketing to. Very nice. Hey, Anthony, I'm gonna let you speak to this as well. What I would do is I would probably ⁓ I would probably go in there and monitor their habits for a day or so, see how they interact with their people, and then I would put processes in place for customer touches, right? Train them on the art of hospitality because that's what's gonna separate themselves. And you know, when you when you really care about people. Everything else in the equation becomes really, really easy because at the end of the day, we're not even selling cars. We're we're helping people buy, right? It's like when I was a when I was a waiter at ⁓ a steakhouse, you know, people were coming in for steak, they weren't coming in for anything else. When people come into a car dealership or they come into your digital showroom, they come in to buy a car. And there's usually only a few reasons why they will or where they won't buy a car from you. And and it all starts with, you know, their first perception and how you communicate. So training people just on the art of communication. How to care about people, document everything that you do and use all those notes that you document to create the experience, to cultivate the experience that creates hospitality. And if you do that, you'll win more times than you lose. Nice. Well, awesome guys. I appreciate everyone's perspective here. It's been a great conversation. If there's one takeaway, it's the dealerships are really good at selling cars, but there's still a real opportunity. And it's what happens after the customer leaves. So the stores that win. aren't gonna be the ones just really good at selling cars. They're gonna be the ones that actually keep the customer coming back after the sale. I appreciate everyone joining today. Reach out to these guys. These guys are experts. Feel free to reach out to us at VinSight. We can talk about what you're doing, maybe ways that we can help. We'll see you next time.