This week we are joined by Jack Allman who is the co founder and the Chief Commercial Officer for Bumper – a company that’s really helping service departments maximise every single result.
I think this is so important because everyone knows we’re going into tough economic times.
So we will be chatting all about how to maximise upsell and everything in the after sales department.
Here are the highlights:
(03:29) What separates the good from the great in after sales?
(10:08) Dealing with distressed customers.
(13:45)Don’t assume the customer will say yes.
(25:47)How to build confidence in a service advisor.
(41:14)The shifting landscape of customer expectations.
About Symco Training:
Symco Training was founded in 2000 by Simon Bowkett and it was his belief that the business had to offerits clients something different. That difference was clear to Simon from his days in the dealership when heexperienced many sales trainers who had allthe answers, but were unable, unwilling or both to actuallyshow the delegate how they could be implemented. It remains the ethos of the business today. You see,Symco only employ trainers that are committed to delivering not only inspiring and insightful training, butare equally as happy to demonstrate these skills and techniques with real customers in your own showroom.We believe in order for sales training to be effective and in Simon’s words ‘real world’, it needs to be triedand tested in the only place it matters the showroom floor. There is no room for theory when your goals arefor your team to sell more cars, hours or parts and retain more profit. In dealerships around the world thefocus applied by many of the sales executives is to try and sell a deal. Symco specialise in getting your teamsto focus on selling themselves, the product and then supporting this withthe deal.
To find out more visitwww.symcotraining.co.uk
Welcome to the Selling and the Motor Trade Podcast, an association with Symco Training. This is the weekly podcast where we share best practice tips and ideas on how to sell more cars, improve your service department and generally put more profit into your dealership or dealer group. I'm your host, Simon Bowkett. As some of you probably already know me as Skippy, I will start by saying thank you for taking the time to listen to this podcast. Hi, and welcome to another episode of Selling and the Motor Trade. First of all, I want to say thank you again to everyone that's listening to this podcast. It just keeps growing and growing. We're going to urge you to do something. This is one of the episodes that you're going to want to share with all your service advisors. This is an episode that you want to send out to all the service measures within your dealer group or your manufacturer because I'm joined with Jack Orman today. Now Jack is the co-founder and he's the Chief Commercial Officer for Bumper. Now this is a company that's really helping service departments maximize every single result. I think this is so important because everyone knows we're going into tough economic times. Everyone knows that people put things off when things get tough. And one of the surveys I've seen recently, things people put off when things get tough is number one, gym memberships. And actually that makes sense. You want to save some money? Okay, people put that off. Number two is DIY projects. People put that off when it's quiet. But the third thing people put off when economic times get tough is servicing a car. And actually it's not just stopping servicing the car. It's actually what do they spend on the car? So this episode is all about how to maximize upsell and everything in the after sales department. So Jack, it just leaves me to say welcome aboard. Brilliant, thanks Simon. Glad to be on. Thanks for having me. So Jack Orman, I've got to say I first met Jack when I was working for a company called BTC and that's where I cut my teeth and learned how to be a sales trainer with a man called Guy Orman. And Jack, I understand you know Guy quite well. I do indeed. Yeah, he's my father. So obviously I know you've quite been with you as well. Yes, Jack, it's going to make me feel very, very old. But I think I first met once we were in a restaurant, a lovely Italian restaurant in Mantwich. There's a whole lot of trainers there and they're telling jokes and Jack, you said, I've got a joke. And so we all said, go on Jack, what is it? And he said, Guy Orman, he got the best laugh there. Now you might not even remember that because you went 10 miles off. And Guy, I hope you're listening to this, but I remember that very well. And Jack, tell us about how you got the motor trade though. Where did you cut your teeth and the motor trade? Yes, I think that's a, you know, my dad is a, is a perfect kind of segue into that. So probably like a number of people in automotive, the introduction was through a family. So whether that's you follow them into dealerships or affiliated businesses in the industry, I worked for my parents' company with an automotive. Prior to that, I did an economics degree in a sales and marketing grad scheme in the brewing industry actually. So it completely unrelated and then took the opportunity to join my parents' business, which as you've touched upon, started out life as a training company and then very much became a tech company. So they had two platforms, one called AutoVHC, which is obviously most rated to what we're going to talk to today around after sales and kind of process and digitalizing after sales, and then more latterly, enquiring max, which was a lead management platform. So that was my routine group talking about D the group around the dinner table as a school child and very much kind of led me into what we're doing today. Okay. Well, listen, I want to go back before we get into what you're doing today. And listen, with AutoVHC, you've seen lots of service departments. You've seen lots of service managers. You've seen lots of service advisors. And can I ask you during that time there? What separates the good from the great in that after sales department? Or if you're listening in America, Australia, the service department, we've all got different names for it. So I think from our point of view, what we recognize is there isn't one single silver bullet and it's basically recognizing that you need kind of two or three key strategies to be working in harmony with each other and in sync with each other. So I guess the two most fundamental ones are marrying a kind of a human-strack physical process with a digital process. Now, I've seen quite biased, like you say, the AutoVHC background, that EVHC background and what we do now bumper, you know, would lead me to talk about the kind of digital side of it, but fully accept that you need both a great person and a great platform to work together in order to create a great service department. And I think we're seeing that accelerate more and more. Certainly in the earlier days of AutoVHC, which was digitalizing a paper-based VHC process, there was teething problems, there was early adopters and there was some that were slightly more slow to adopt that. But what we've seen is that has now become the standard, but it still sits on top of a great people process. You still need very efficient text, you still need really productive service departments in order to price the parts up and surely you've got parts in stock. And all of that then converges to create a nice digital process, but again, recognizing that not all drivers will be receptive to a purely digital or even a purely physical approach. I guess much talk is about selling cars, right? The whole clicks and bricks approach. Or I do think it's quite similar in after sales that you need a digital and a physical way to interact with customers. You know, we're seeing that the high adoption of remote check-in a fully digital process where you may not even speak to anybody at all. I think Tesla's probably the kind of best exponent of that. But we know that I'm going to generalize, it might be some older customers are less comfortable with a fully digital approach. And equally, there might be a younger audience that simply don't want to talk to someone. They want to book in remotely. They want to prove work completely digitally and happy to pick their keys up from a key box. But it's about being able to serve all of those customers with what is probably an existing, if not smaller resource within your dealership. So you do need to make efficiencies. And of course, that's what every business is looking to do. And from our point of view, it's about recognizing that those two things need to work in harmony. And obviously, there's lots of associated practices around that around marketing that you do, the customer base that you serve. But for us, you need to have to be doing both of those two things excellently. And one is not an entire substitute for the other. They're very much complement each other. Yeah, I'm glad you said that, because there's lots of talk about the Kazoos of the World Covana in America. The share price is down 97%. When we're recording this, you've got Kazoo in the UK for people listening around the world. That floated for, I think, was $6.5 billion. I checked this morning. The market caps something like 112, I think they're down to. And they took all about just all this whole digital approach. And there's lots of talk about it's actually clicks and bricks. It's the people element. And I just think on the after sale side of it, I personally love these keyboxes. I love the idea that turn up. I don't have to speak to Jenny. I can drop my car off. There's all my information. I can get on with work because I need to do it. And instead, I'm sure that there's some people say, no, I always speak to Jenny. Why can't I speak to Jenny explain what is wrong with my car? I suppose it's getting that balance there. Yeah, I think so. I think that's the beauty of doing both things as well as you possibly can, because actually one will enhance the other. So like you said, to use Jenny as an example, she loves talking to you about her car. She's bought multiple vehicles from you over the years. But having a really good digital process that actually frees up more time to speak to then this example, you know, there's if you can serve that whole cohort of customers digitally that want to do so, your service teams, you can keep existing headcount, they actually have much more time to put their arm around Jenny and discuss, you know, her vehicle to the end of the degree. So you actually enhance both customers experience through your workshop. So for us, as I say, you need to do both. And I don't think you can ignore either. And if you think if you do ignore either, you are genuinely cutting off or certainly impinging the experience of our cohorts of your customer base. So I think you've got to consider both an equal measure. I'll go say talking about those service advisors. And it dotedly, we always would know, we'd listen to a service advisor and you could hear on the call where they're speaking to a customer and saying, well, you need to get the tires and they got three millimeters on them. And they're going to be 270 and we need to get the brakes done. And you can almost hear that the service advisor was apologetic about the prices. The service advisor had already made the decision themselves that customer wasn't going to buy this. And when you talk about anything that had to be offered, they're apologizing for it. And what I've found really interesting is with these systems where people just drop the car off and they leave the keys there, they're talking to machine. And the machine says, do you want to one liter of top off oil? Yes, please. Do you want the car fully valid? Why are you here today? Go on then. Actually, do you want to do this? So that tells me that so many times the service advisors are making the decision for the customer. If a machine or last the customer and say, go on, it's kind of like McDonald's. This might be an oversimplication, but you go through a McDonald's drive through, you wind your window down. How old am I? You push the button to wind the window down. And say, can I have a big meal? They say to every single person, do you want to go large? Now, they don't just say that's the big fatties. They say it to everyone and no one gets offended. And these machines, they offer it to everyone. I want to get your views. Do service advisors make the decision for the customer far too often? Yeah, I think it's probably fair to say that happens in a lot of scenarios. Obviously, not in all cases. But I think it's very easy in that role to feel like you've potentially dealing with a distressed customer. I think it's probably acceptable to say the average person doesn't put a little pot of money away just in case the car goes wrong. Obviously, they may have service plans, et cetera, which deal with the schedule maintenance. And there's obviously some extensive warranty products out there. But from our perspective, what we see is generally there is a degree of caution, nervousness around talking to the customer about the work that is due. And I think you phrased it quite well. Well, often it's a lot. I'm really sorry to say you need tires replacing, et cetera. And it probably does take quite a confident service advisor to rephrase that in a confident manner to say, look, the great news is we've done a full check. The vast majority of your vehicle is in good working order, the green items, the sum that need attention in perhaps two to three months time and the sum that needs attention today. We really advise you to get that done, et cetera, et cetera. That probably takes quite a bit of experience and confidence. I think our products are just a kind of bias. I'm going to kind of done it. It's back to ourselves here. But our product, I think, really amplifies the ability to have a very positive conversation around that, knowing that the customer has the ability to spread the cost of an unexpected cost. For me, puts out a potential fire there. It eases both the service advisor and the driver there. They probably provide peace of mind to both. And from our point of view, because there is a, I guess, a caution and a nervousness around telling customers about the work that's required on their vehicle, we do see they probably come quite selective in what they believe the customer will say yes to or is absolutely only necessary or probably have to think quite quickly, I wonder if I can do some goodwill here and potentially discount the work again. The McDonald's approach is an interesting one. Not only do you get up the same things offered every single time, you can't get discount through that journey either, which is for many, perhaps a path of least resistance. Obviously, there's a time and a place for it. But again, we really try to advocate kind of mitigating the use of discounts. We don't believe it solves that problem. For really for either of those two parties, it's probably a nice to have to not only pay 10% today, but you're still paying 90% of something that you were not expecting. So again, going back to that process, we'd work really hard to embed our product into the VHC tools, the DMS is the online check-in, whether that's a physical terminal or just a remote journey, online service booking. And I think it goes back to that kind of broader process question of when and how do you, you know, talk to customers about what you'll do that day. I think the key thing is no surprises as we see it. So, and that's not just relating to kind of how you're going to pay today, but very much about the journey for their car today. I, you know, first of all, we'll do a big health check on your vehicle. Once that's done, you'll receive a video. We'll have a report of the work that's due. Obviously, if available, that work will be priced up. You can choose to authorize the work from within that. We'll begin work, et cetera. And it's fully explained that journey. So the customer's not surprised when they get a text message. Yes. 11 o'clock in the morning saying, this is the work that's due with a, ideally, obviously, a video from the technician, perhaps someone who they've never seen before. So I think you have to remove any element of surprise and then giving them the kind of comfort and peace of mind by standardizing your process, I think is absolutely essential. And that's what we see. Look, the great dealerships we work with have bulletproof processes, both human and, and kind of automated digital processes. And again, marrying those two things together, you know, works brilliant. And you get this lovely standard approach that you say, you'll always get offered to go largely McDonald's and in this instance, you'll always be offered to authorize all of your VHC report. So all of the red, all of the amber. And it's amazing what more work you'll convert that. The key thing is don't assume the customer will say yes or no to any of that work. I want to go back to that setting the agenda we call it because you're dead right. If we're not telling the customer that we're going to carry out a complimentary vehicle health check on your car, it's going to look like this. There'll be three different colors and if it's green, it's good to go. If it's amber, it's something that's going to require tension before your next scheduled service. Now, if it's red, that something that's going to require immediate attention. But Jack, what do I do? I'll pop a call in here once the technician's had a chance to do that. Hey, listen, what's the best number to get you on this morning? Little things like it's got to be this morning. So we're not going to call it in the afternoon. Hey, from time to time, the tech might want to send you a video on something they want to draw your attention to. What's the best email address or phone number that we're going to send that through to you? They've got to do that because you hit the nail head for me. Otherwise, it's a cold call. And so often we get a service advisor saying when you get a cold call at night, people trying to sell you the old PPI claim back or the diesel gate scandal. When it's a call that comes out of the blue, it's like no. But when people expect it, they know it's coming through. And then again, the other thing I love that you said there is when we put that call into the customer, as we thought, most areas agreed and they're good to go. There's an amber area that I'll talk to you about that when you pick the car up. Now, listen, there's a couple of areas that are red. If the customer knows what's going to happen, it makes it so much easier to offer that. And I think that's where the service advisor, they're not certainly a gender start with. It's that cold call they're on the back foot to start with. It doesn't matter how much they're asking the customer, it's going to be hard work. But also to your product specifically, again, I want to drive into this. I think so many service advisors have decided to enough grand. That's a lot of money. It's just after Christmas. And they don't offer the tires that have got three millimeters on it because they think, Oh, no, look, what else they're spending. And they're allowing the customer to take a imminent risk. Okay. As opposed to an educated decision. Yeah, I completely agree. And I think what we, I guess what we would control a lot of conclusions from some of the victims we see through our trust pilot reviews where we see quite a motive language use. So this was a lifesaver, the ability to spread the cost. It meant I could get the kids to school. I could still go to work. I don't know what I'd have done without you. You know, we see lots of language around this. And what's really interesting is then we dive into the transaction in a bit more details. How much is that, how much are they borrowing? What's the transaction for? Easy to assume it might be two and a half hours. Just to stop you there for a second for people listening in maybe Ireland, America, South Africa, Australia, can you quickly run through what bumper is now? No one in the UK. I think you're in like the top 100 dealer groups here in the vast majority. Can you just give a quick flavor on what your product is? And we'll talk about for people that haven't got it. Just the what you've seen in the business that's good and bad that they can get their service advisors to do. Yeah. Yeah. Very good point. So essentially we're a payments platform solely focused in automotive and the process, the products, the people everything we do is designed entirely for automotive transactions. So we're not a generalist, BMPL. So by now, pay later product. We are very much bespoke for this type of transaction because we recognize the type of transaction is potentially more complicated than buying a pair of trainers or jeans and needs the flexibility and the process and the system to do so. So essentially we're buying our pay later product. So that means the driver can spread the cost of their service or repair work or indeed accessories, warranty products, add-on products, totally flexible. And what that allows them to do is choose anything from say three, four, five, six installments, completely interest free, giving them the flexibility and the peace of mind to say yes to that work or buy a premium tire rather than a mid-range or a budget tire. We then essentially put them through a credit process, make sure that we're responsible and make sure that they've got a full affordability assessment. That gives them the ability to spread the cost. We then pay the retailer, either the garage, the repair shop, the workshop up front, minus our transaction fee, and then we take on the risk and liability for that transaction. So again, for the dealership, it allows them to optimize their after sales performance, their add-on performance, accessories performance, while ensuring that the customer has a great experience because they can authorize this work, they can buy a premium tire versus mid-range, as I say, but they can pay for it over flexible monthly installments. That's one of our core products. We also then provide two other digital payment products. One is a payment link via SMS or email to pay on Apple Pay, Google Pay, or credit debit card. And then our most recent product that we've launched is open banking or instant bank-to-bank transfer. So particularly useful on car sales, big average transaction values, and it's basically trying to modernize how a cash customer might pay currently, where you might have to ask them to set your present payee, sort code account number, and make a bank transfer. Now we can facilitate that type of transaction in a fully commerce journey, so you can make a payment, sorry, I as a customer could buy a car, make a payment that could be sat in the dealership's bank account within a matter of seconds, and I've done it all through my mobile banking as an e-commerce solution. So what I'm saying is that we're a fully encompassing payments platform, whether you as a customer, as a driver of a vehicle, once they spread the cost of that, whether you want to pay in full, ultimately we can serve both of those, whether you are a digital journey that's fully embedded, or you're face-to-face with your dealership. Again, you can do so through QR codes, SMS links, email links, et cetera. Now we work across all brands, we work top-down bottom-ups, we work with OEMs, we work with retailers, we work as you touch upon with 74, 75 of the AM 100 groups, so we massively over-index on the franchise's data space, and ultimately what we want to do is ensure that we can help them optimise the opportunity that sits in front of them today, both in after sales and sales, but we're best known and our legacy sits more within after sales than it does in sales. So what are the steps Jack? You go from auto VHC, and you wrong that out everywhere, what are the steps from auto VHC into bumper? Where was the need spotted? How did that evolve? How did James get involved as well? Yeah, it's actually got quite a natural progression as these things often are. So as you say, I was working for my parents business, also VHC, your vehicle health check platform, your West Cross dealers in the UK, Europe and a few other markets, and what it did obviously was identify additional service and repair work. They needed doing above and beyond the schedule, maintenance or diagnostic work. It then presented that, it priced it up, and ultimately you can see what was sold and not sold. That obviously is a massive opportunity for I think many dealerships. I think everybody will probably concede. You can always look to improve that performance of what you converted that work, and we saw that through across all of the dealerships that we worked with. And at the time we were working with Perju Citrant as a brand, and one of their lean consultants there was looking at this in a lot of detail. How do we optimise this? Is there particular process improvements that we can make? But ultimately, the customer doesn't have the money available or deemed you too expensive. This is quite a difficult thing for you to sell. It's unexpected costs, stuff you're not prepared for, but potentially wrapped in a perception that franchise dealers always expensive, which we hear a lot, which actually is not necessarily the case. So true. And at the time we were then introduced to James, who is co-founder of Bumper, who came up with the original concept. His background is in finance and tech businesses, and he'd been working on this concept of a very early buy-and-our-pay-later product, perhaps before the likes of Clarana became as well known as they are today. And he was speaking to this lean consultant at Perju Citrant as well at the time, and we were basically put together. We were put in touch by this guy at PSA who said, look, great concept. Speak to these guys who know the sector quite well, have data that help point you in the right direction of the top possible outcomes. And that was the genesis for it. We then, as I say, spoke to some of our partners within Autiviewc, put some pilots in place. The uptake was great. I mean, look, don't get me wrong. That early product that we produced was the very definition of minimum viable product. But it was functional. The key thing about an MVP is it needs to be functional, and it was, and it gave us the strong indication that there is an appetite for this product, and it creates a good outcome for the dealer, and a good outcome for the driver. And for us, we were super excited by that early uptake, and it really, I suppose, kind of accelerating from kind of that kind of initiation point to where we are today. As a business now, as I say, we work with about 4,200, 4,300 service and repair centers. And we've got a team of 70 in the business. We are funded by VC money. As I say, we're best known for our work here in the UK, but last year we launched into Germany and Spain. We've got a couple of other markets that we're moving into. The key thing is, without going on too much about this, the reason we're going to other markets is because we think the same problem that we've talked about just now exists ultimately really where anyone is driving a car. I don't think the average driver, wherever you are, is saving up a rainy day fund for the car to go wrong necessarily. That fund probably is a drawdown for all sorts of things that go wrong. The boiler breaks down, the roof falls off, et cetera. So when the car goes wrong, which is potentially one to two times a year, depending on how often you get in your vehicle checked, that's a real critical key point. And that's really hard as a dealer to overcome if ultimately that customer doesn't have the funds available. That's why we see things having to resort to discount customers only getting the very bare minimum done or nothing at all. And as a franchise dealer, you potentially lose them at that lucrative three to four year mark. So for us, that's where we really kind of started. Again, I just want to go back and get so often, I think it's the service advisor makes the decision for the customer. Okay. And so many times you've done it, Jack. I hear without job day in day out, we're listening to service advisors, real calls, real customers. And the number one objection handling technique I hear out there at the moment is, okay, I need this work. That work done to work. I can't for that moment. Okay. You can't be ready for a clock. And now I said that sarcastically, but it is okay. And sounds people or and I call themselves people because service advisors are selling, right? But then right to turn around and say, listen, can I just ask you, is it the cost of that tire or the timeframe to fit it? You're not sure about. Okay. They're not taught to turn around and say, you know, a lot of my customers said they'd leave that air conditioning service. Till they found out it's the inactivity causes issues, not the activity. So they need the skills how to deal with that objection. But surely also the objection handling is if you can't afford it. Okay, Mr. Customer, here's another option for you. So that way it takes that away because I believe that even if a service advisor thinks that if a customer can't afford it, they'll still talk about why it's so important to get that air conditioning service. Why it's so important to put the premium tire on as opposed to the budget tire because it really is a huge difference in stopping distance. And I think even if they're not using your product, my apologies, if they know they've got that down the background, okay, that they can if the customer can't afford it. I think there's some people say, you know, the one we train lots is promise me. If someone says, no, I'll leave those tires because they've got three millimeters on it. Again, we'd say, well, I've only got 1.4 millimeters until that is illegal, which is the thickness of the credit card. I can ask you, is that the cost of that tire or is it the timeframe often costs? Well, then that's on the premium tire. But listen, on this occasion, why don't look at a low cost alternative? No, I'll leave it. We would train. Well, listen, would you do me a favor? Even if we don't do that tire, would you promise me you get that tire change between now and the end of the month? It's only having the thickness of the credit card to its illegal. You're doubling your braking distance on a wet road. The dry road is five double decker buses extra stopping distance. But if they've got the ability, didn't say, and by the way, Mr. Customer, you can spread that over 0% over the three, six, nine months or however long you go. That's got to give that service advice more confidence to offer this stuff all the time. I keep on going back to I don't believe service advisors offer 100% of what's needed to 100% of the customers 100% of the time. Do you have any evidence that's helping the confidence of that service advisor? Yeah, we do. One of the things that I kind of draw upon there is we do things that we call engagement days. Okay. Yes, they're there to kind of serve our benefit as much as the deal is. But what we want to test is what is the true outcome when you get total buy-in from a service team that today we're going to talk about everything on that VHC report. Because like you say, there's a degree of concern about conveying a lot of that work. And on those days, what we say today, everything you offer, you're going to offer the straight up the option to authorize that work today for the full amount. So that whole retail job card. Now, you're also going to give them the ability to spread the cost if they want to. And the really interesting thing is you look, 100% of customers do not go down the bumper route. I wish they did, but that's not reality because we know actually lots of customers just want to pay in full. That's fine. But the joy of it is actually seeing how many customers do say yes to work that day without having to resort to discount or talking about the red only work. Because what we're seeing is that as a service advisor, I've now got confidence that I've got a tool in that pocket that I'm going to talk about. And the customer is aware of it. But I know I can talk about the whole VHC report because I know the customer has whichever way you'll look at this. But has some flexibility in order to authorize all of that work. So if you're saying, look, it's 600 pounds, Mr. Customer, a lot of them will probably think that's a lot of money. But if you say, look, Mr. Customer, I've got some good news. The red, et cetera, blah, blah, it's 600 pounds or it's 100 pounds a month for the next six months. You're happy for us to perceive that today. You'll get some customers that go down the bumper route, which is great. They obviously need to and they will benefit from that. Equally, you'll get lots of go. I'm not interested in the cost, but yeah, I'll get all of that done today. It's such an interesting outcome. But for us, we see it's around one in six to one in five, go down the bumper route when we've done these days. The rest just say yes to the work getting authorized. And in a lot of cases, they actually don't use bumper at all that day, but they sell a load more work. So to your point, we've done that material outcome. So we've done hundreds of these days and we see the same outcome. Yes, I'm trying to save our purpose. But more is to say there is a really positive way to sell more of your VHC work on the day. Yeah. So true. Listen, I got to say one of my bug beds. I have no evidence from this. And maybe you have from your experience with auto VHC and again, what you don't want bumper. But I passionately do believe the number one point of defection to the independent dealers. I know you represent independent dealers as well, but our work is all franchise dealers. Yeah. I think it's tires. What happens is the service advisor turns around and they deal with the tire sale incorrectly. Your tires got two millimeters on it. Would you like us to put a tire on? How much is that going to cost? 180. Oh, that's too much. I'll leave it. You know, I'll leave it means they're going to go straight down to quick fit. Okay. And quick fits. Just not going to do the tire jack. They're going to do the tire. They're going to do all make servicing. They'll be on quick fit database. And let me tell you, they are brilliant at marking the customer's when the MOT, the NCT test is true in Ireland. The roadworthy certificate in Australia. They're so good at that. And that's that point of defection where we lose that customer. I don't believe it's just when the warranty's run out. I don't believe that they go to the independent because they think they're going to be cheaper because we haven't dealt with that sale on the right way. Again, we're going to give the service advisors confidence to offer 100% of what's required 100% of the time. I think you're a think spot on. I think for a lot of them, they probably don't see themselves as tire retailers. I'm quite happy for that to go. I know there's, you know, there's processes and products in place to kind of mitigate that happening. For us, I guess whether you're a franchise or an independent or rapid fit, what we're about, and as I say, we're massively over the index in the franchise deal, is about capturing as much of the work today. What you, what you don't sell today, you're probably massively unlikely to sell thereafter. So can you capture as much as possible today? And that's where the Amba work is really, really key as well. Because otherwise, you know, some people may be able as a shopping list to go elsewhere. But the Amba work is key, because particularly with our product, if it's perhaps not due today, because it's not below the legal limit and it's not deemed safety related, but it's due in three months time. Why not get the customers to get it done today? Spread the cost over three to six months. So you're paying over a longer period of time, but you capture that work today and you reduce the chance of them going elsewhere. And I think for me, what this goes back to is your overall after sales process and helping to support the service advisors conversation. And the way that we talk about this a lot is touch points. I what are the various customer touch points through that after sales journey and giving them an awareness that they've got this flexibility early on means that they don't have the concern going into this conversation that you say you talk quite rightly about this kind of cold call concept you remove that as well. So have you got it on your website? Have you got it in your pre checking journey? Have you got the ability for them to get pre approved? So as you can customer get pre approved for, let's say, I know, two and a half thousand pounds worth of credit, they can then draw down on that credit through the VHC journey. So they already go into this conference into this transaction with confidence, and we seem to some amazing outcomes off the back of this. And then equally, whatever you don't sell that day is embedded into your follow up comes your predictive campaigns. Can I get, have I get this right now? So you're recommending introducing bumper right at the beginning. I've got that naively wrong. I would think you were bringing it up only when the customer says I can't afford it. Have I got that right? Are you talking about bringing it right in from the right from setting the agenda? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. For us, I think it's a really, really nuanced, difficult conversation to know when to bring this in through a VHC conversation. How do you know who needs this and who doesn't or who would appreciate who wasn't, even if they're driving a, you know, a new company. You know, an expensive car. They look wealthy. You have no idea what the background is. Most people live to them. Well, sorry, a lot of people live beyond their means, but you shouldn't be living relatively kind of within your means, but live paycheck to paychecks. At any expense that comes outside of that, even if you're earning £100,000 a year, can become a problem, right? So for us, the best way to address that is to treat all things equal. A bit like your McDonald's approach is on your website. I mean, I'm not revealing anything that's not kind of out there. Arnold Clark, great example of this. I work with all of their businesses. It's on their website. They talk about it over. The customers are aware of it. It's through the pre-checking journey. It's through the VHC journey, fully embedded, both are pay later and pay now products. The customer knows they have this available. And ultimately, from our point of view, we see right from a volume through to a premium brand as equal opportunity. We see, you know, amazing engagement. In fact, our number one brand that we see month in month out is BMW. You know, I think for a lot of people, they assume BMW customer perhaps doesn't need this, but, actually, what we see is that they absolutely do. You know, for a lot of people, it might have been an aspirational purchase. For other, it's a massive convenience play. But if that means they're more likely to come back to you again, why would you not let the customer spread the cost? For us, it's not just about saying, I think I could have sold it, sold that work without bumper. But that's really difficult to assess. But actually, even if you could have, potentially, and the customer might walk away going, damn, that was expensive, but I got a BMW. So maybe that's always going to be the case. Or they walk away going, maybe I could have afforded that, but that was an unbelievable experience. I'm definitely going to go back there again because it gave me that flexibility to spread the cost through right as Christmas. So as we've got the cost of living crisis biting really hard and you touched upon how people, you know, start to binge in memberships and Netflix accounts. Well, discretionary spend on vehicles, like you say, is one of the earliest things to go. Already in that kind of discretionary area, people believe they can make a choice on this. This is safety related to work. This duty of care work. So for us, going back to it, it's all about process. Are you making the customer aware at the various touch points that you have this available? And I think we'd use the high street as a great example that if you're buying a laptop, actually even lower value items, that's trainers and t-shirts, et cetera, they don't wait for you to check out, wait for you to not buy, and then offer you the ability to spread the cost. It's a marketing tool list. Buy now, Pelly, does two fundamental things. It gets people over your threshold, I into your dealership, and it helps them to be able to prove more work. You're only going to do that if you're making the customer aware of this early on, or else, A, the main number comes to your dealership, or B, they'll only authorize the very, very, well, actually, probably gets a step before that to your point about service advisors. The service advisor is only talking to them about the very urgent red work. As far as the customer doesn't know this product's available. And go one stage further. The objection handling, I've got that wrong. I forgot about this. The objection, someone says, I can't afford 600. They go straight into the service manager and say, how much can you discount that work for? What can we do the labor rate for? Imagine, they're just giving away potential profit at that stage there, that, you know, clearly, I could still get full margin on. 100%. I think minus cost, obviously, you're, I'm sure you don't do it for free. Yeah, yeah. We're not a charity, sadly, but, yeah. I think one of the interesting things, I haven't got the stats to hand that to an incredibly high number there. The online service booking platforms see as an abandon rate, once the customer goes through the journey and sees the price of the service they're trying to book, the abandonment rate is significant. I'm sure in sentences, it's north of sort of 50% or so. Well, so if the customer there, at that point there is getting jumpy around price. And that's the service at the cost they expect. How do you think they're going to react to stuff that they don't expect when the vehicle's onsite and to use extreme language? They may even feel like they're being almost held to ransom. So it's important that you can address that. Give the customer the peace of mind early on that I'm a dealership that's going to really help you today. Whether that is a pure affordability play or a convenience play, it enhances the customer experience and it increases their chance of coming to you again. For me, that's vital, particularly as there's this kind of shifting dynamic that I don't quite notice you're going to settle around the agency model. Yeah. And amplifying your relationship through the service journey probably comes more relevant than other. And that again is further accelerated by, as I said, we talked about the cost of living crisis, but the new vehicle supply, that's probably meaning, well, we're seeing the data already. People are holding onto their vehicles for longer, I think, across Europe, the average age of vehicles. And the last five years has gone to 11 years. People holding onto that car for longer. The repairs have been more expensive. So what do you do to address that? I think products like ours being front-footed with the customer and positive with the customer, absolutely essential. And the businesses that we work with, as I say, quoted Arnold Clark there, but right through from the likes of Sitner, Pendragon, through to the smaller businesses, which have amazing processes. For us, it's about doing those two things really well. So it's supporting a digital journey with a really, really good human people. I go back as well. It's retention of that customer because people are holding onto their cars longer because they can't afford to get a new car, or maybe can't get it. And that's definitely case. But my concern is retention into the franchise world because those people are going to the friends in the shed. They are going to the independence because they think they're cheaper. Service advisors think they're cheaper. Customers think they're cheaper. They're not. Okay, we need to look into everything we do. But again, this is a tool just to retain that customer. So when they do change their car, my concern is once a customer goes to the independent, these independents are great. They're going to do absolutely everything and we've lost that customer. Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the ways that probably to best articulate that is if I just kind of share some brief numbers that we see as a typical outcome, which is a 6.1 year old vehicle uses our products. So this is franchise sector, 6.1 years old, spending just over 750 pounds, an old car big bill. And then our average trust pilot score is 4.9 out of 5. So old car big bill, happy customer. For us, that's a really, really powerful dynamic. And one, one that we don't believe is that easy to achieve, even if you've got great people process, you've got great tech, you've got to provide payment flexibility these days. So for us, we think we can't solve all things to all people, but we really think we're a very powerful tool to address that older car that's coming through the workshop and equally, how do you deal with a customer that's having to spend unexpected costs on that older car? That's a really, really tricky situation that we help we can resolve. Yeah, I want to get your views on these risks. Now, again, people listen to this in South Africa, Canada, Australia. I'm sure they're happening everywhere in the world. I've just not seen them other places yet. OK, COVID times haven't traveled to me places the last three years. But these kicks, I love them, as I said before, because they go in there and listen, I'm in the industry. OK, but I'll sit there and go, you know what, I do use oil. I'm in a diesel, you know, it runs on devil's juice. I always have to top up oil between services. I'll go variable servicing car there. And sometimes it's just not offered or it's jammed in the boot and they've jammed it into the bill without me actually knowing it. But you know, last one, when I said, yep, I'll have one of those. OK, and I actually even got my car fully washed last time. OK, inside and out, do a proper vac. Yeah, it was going to be wasn't a lot. It's for a BMW dealership. I think they wanted 30 quid or something like that. I said, you know what, if you're going to do it properly, I will go ahead and do that. Thank you very much, Mr. Halliwell Jones. And I'll do it. Are you seeing any integration with those systems to introduce when people are booking in? Are you doing any work with those now? Yeah, we are absolutely. The likes of Czech, Vicki, Dynamics, and there's a few exponents of it. We've got integrations that allow the customer to say yes to those additional items and also spread the cost or get pre-approved. You can use that same credit for those items that they're pre-approving and then use us through that the VHC journey thereafter. And again, it goes back to those touch points early on. If that's the first interaction that customers having, give them the flexibility. Given the confidence they can say yes to these items plus anything else that may occur through that journey. And that same concept applies to where we're embedded into the vehicle health check platform. So all of the VHC platforms, most of the DMSs were integrated into that mean every customer gets offered. Every single time. And it doesn't become the discretion of the service advisor at all. So from our point of view, we recognize service advisors are busy, busy people, probably more so than ever. Oh, yes. There's been a lot of very, very tight and resource control, I suppose. And from our point of view, we know they've got a lot of systems to log into. So how can we make that light touch and intuitive and make sure we're almost acting like a digital service advisor, which is why we've embedded it into the VHC tools. And again, see really positive outcomes. So I talked about our average transaction value of 750 pounds. We see an almost similar number through our fully integrated journeys. So we've got something that allows you to have a digital service advisor for one of the better phrase, sells as much as a service advisor would and creates a great customer outcome. And what it's doing, going back to our earlier conversation about Jenny, we're able to address those customers that are happy to prove all that work digitally. And you can then have a face-to-face conversation or a telephone conversation with Jenny that takes up more time. So yeah, the self-checking terminal, I saw some great ones actually out when we were out in Germany that sat sits outside of the dealership. So you have to facilitate a proper 24-hour journey in process. Again, that puts an importance on how can you also then fulfill, well, actually, it takes that back. The technicians obviously then you've got perhaps shift journeys. But also, can you transact with that customer 24 hours? Well, you're going to need some sort of payment product to do so. That's where we sit in that. Now, I know there's physical and safety constraints around 24-hour pick up and drop off. But there's a shifting landscape that's customers that are so used to. You know, you're perhaps the younger set that are coming through and will form a larger part. They're so used to a more digital way of interacting with retailers that I think you've got to be able to address that. And we know fundamentally our corporate, one in four customers, UK customers have used our buy-now-pay-later product before, not just with automotive, but elsewhere. They already know about this type of product. It's just about facilitating it. Yeah. I suppose it's not just the product, your product. And again, who can blame if you're talking about your own product? I get there and I ask the question. And it has to be done. But I just think in this new social media world, the digital world, we're becoming less social. And what I mean by that is you go to Tesco's. The cue behind the self-checkout is longer than the one where you're going to speak to Betty. You go to McDonald's, okay? You go to the big iPad where you order the meal yourself to start with. First time I looked at it, I thought, why am I doing this? But you go and do that because you know you're going to get exactly what you want. I suppose to Dave, who can't get the order right there. I suppose that is the generation that's coming through. And people expect you to say, click, click, click. Got what I want because we've got busy lives and we need to move on. Okay. And our office actually said he reckoned that self-checkouts at supermarkets was the greatest invention of the 21st century. He was absolutely really thinking about it. It's one of his really, really fondant. But to your point, it's just such a smooth way of transacting and creates a great process. But again, look at these Amazon shops. I'm sure you've been with these Amazon shops where you go in there and there's no checkout. You just walk out there because it's got cameras everywhere and the nose. They're speeding that up because they know if they can make that transaction nice and easy. I would argue though, the block of those is when you go into the store to start with. Okay. Not coming out of them, but it's again making that transaction quick and easy for people to make a decision. I'll go back to making educated decision, I suppose an ignorant risk. And listen, what about people who haven't got your system? They're listening to Australia at the moment saying, listen, no one out here is doing this. What mistakes do you think service advisors are making? And you see day in day out there that someone, a service manager, listen to this in a different market that hasn't got your product. What mistakes are they making and what recommendations would you say? Go back and have a look at this, just drawing on some of your experience working with service departments around the world. Yeah, I think it goes back to what we were talking about earlier in terms of, are they thinking at the customer? Or are they thinking about what is best for that vehicle and the safety of that customer? I think too often they tried to put themselves in the shoes of that customer and how would you receive this news. It goes back to being very apologetic about the work that's required. But from our point of view, if you're in that headspace, that becomes incredibly difficult to turn that into a positive conversation as soon as you start to talk negatively about it. That for me again is further enhanced by, and this is probably going a bit into it, but the way that you load your workshop that day, I think as you get later on later in that day, there's almost just a desperate demand to get that vehicle out of your workshop. They almost don't talk about the work for fear of having to say to the customer, we have to keep the car every night because we're late in the day now. So for us, we see, and it's not always difficult because we appreciate customers drop cars off at different times of the day. If you can get that vehicle on the ramp quickly, if you can get the VHC done at the very start of that journey and obviously utopia is your finger is fucked up. The goal now, cars on the ramp still, you get authority on that work and you get it done. However, we often see that that VHC journey can get later in the day. And as a result, that puts pressure on everybody. Tenitions start to rush. They perhaps don't start to identify work because they know that car needs to be back to the customer that day. The communicoid work almost sometimes deliberately late so that you know the customer will say, look, I'll have to leave the car back tonight. I think that puts massive undue stress and pressure on the performance of that workshop. And that's why those conversations get even more apologetic or they get later and shorter. And like you say, you get met with an OK, no problem. Great cars can be ready then at five o'clock because I'm not going to get after you that extra work. So for me, it goes back to how you're going to workload that workshop. Give yourself the time in your diary to identify the work and actually do the work and the performance of that will then feed through engine numbers. Isn't so true. The problem of upselling at the moment, so many times we've got service advice saying, we haven't got timed upsell. I mean, to book a camera service, it's easily going to be three or four weeks. Someone's got a problem with their car. We can't get it in to the 24th of two months down the track there. And they say, actually, I haven't got time to upsell anyway because we can't do the work that we've got there at the moment. I mean, that's a real issue, I think there. But are you seeing the same? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think it's true of many de-ships. And obviously, there's variables that are somewhat out of their control, whether that's part of it. I don't come through on time. But from our side, where you can nail that process. And I think that's supported massively by tech. When you can support that process for us, we see a really, really, fully functioning slick workshop. And I think that allows you then to finesse the performance of it. But ultimately, if you're kind of working through a backlog and kind of racing against yourself every day, you're never going to create an environment that either feels like a relaxed, positive moment to come into as a customer or to work in as a service advisor. So you definitely got to address that early on. Yeah, very, very interesting. I love the idea of your product. You know that some of our clients are working with it already, and it just, it really does make things so smooth. A couple of questions to finish this up on. Yeah, other markets, people listen to this around the world. What plans do you have? I know you talk about Germany integration before. Do you have other countries you're planning to launch into at this stage? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, in Germany, we're in Spain, you know, led very much by some of our tech partners that have carried us across borders, many of our OEM introductions as well. We're launching into the Netherlands in the next six weeks, I'd say, six to eight weeks. That's very much on the near term. And then we've got a couple of other mainland European markets that are due probably to three, two, four this year. We're just kind of refining some of those. But as I say, the opportunity we think exists much more beyond just your mainland European market. So we think that the average person isn't saving up for their car to go wrong. So we're looking at a number of other markets further afield from that. As I said, we're supported by some brilliant VCs and institutional investors and CVCs from some of the brands. The likes of Jaguar Landre, Vuporsch, Ventures, etc. You know, are really eager for us to work across much broader. And based on what we want to make sure we do is create a really sustainable, sticky product. We don't want to jump from market to market. We want to make sure we leave a really, really strong legacy that, you know, what we feel like we've achieved here in the UK, where we've really helped to kind of shift the way that a lot of this work is presented and sold to customers. So, yeah, some exciting plans ahead through 2023. How did people get hold of you, Jack? What's the easiest way for them to find you and Bumper? So all the usual sources are website, which is Bumper.co in Europe, Bumper.co.uk In the UK and then through LinkedIn, we're pretty prolific on LinkedIn's selfless, shameless self-publicists. And again, through our website, feel free to contact me directly. My email is Jack.almond.com.co.uk So again, we would love to talk to anybody that feels that we have a place in there after sales or in details departments to kind of optimize the transactions that take place digitally. Brilliant. Really appreciate that. Thanks a lot for your time. Cheers, gentlemen. Love that. That just leads me to say that all details of this episode and other episodes on the selling in the Motor Trade can be found on our website, simcotraining.co.uk. Go there to get a copy of our book, Words That Sell Cars. Go there to sign up to a free trial of our sales fitness online sales training program. Easiest way to get hold of me is Simon Bowkett, food LinkedIn. Thank you. Thank you.
