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Amit Chandarana and Ed Roberts on the Future of Mobile Service

• Jim Fitzpatrick

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Amit Chandarana, CEO of Curbee, and Ed Roberts, COO and General Manager of Bozard Ford Lincoln, discuss how dealers can build more efficient, profitable mobile service operations.

On this episode of Inside Automotive, Chandarana and Roberts explain how technology, routing and technician strategy can help dealerships reduce unproductive drive time while increasing appointment capacity and customer convenience. Roberts shares how Bozard Ford Lincoln used Curbee to improve scheduling and expand the capabilities of its mobile service fleet, while also discussing the dealership’s approach to recruiting and training technicians from outside the traditional automotive talent pool.

Key discussion points include:

  • Route optimization and efficiency in mobile service operations
  • Bozard Ford Lincoln’s results after implementing Curbee
  • Expanding mobile repairs beyond basic maintenance
  • Recruiting mobile technicians from nontraditional backgrounds
  • Mobile service as a retention and sales tool
  • How dealers can phase in mobile service while managing investment and risk

Inside Automotive with Jim Fitzpatrick is powered by CBT News, your go-to source for the latest news, trends, and insights in retail automotive. Subscribe for more interviews with top industry leaders, dealership innovators, and experts shaping the future of automotive.

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Welcome And Why Bozard Matters

Announcer

Welcome to Inside Automotive with Jim Fitzpatrick.

Jim Fitzpatrick

Bozard Ford has been a national leader in mobile service, known for running the operation at a high level. Today that means more than 40 mobile units and over 2,000 appointments each month. But even when something is working well, there's always room to make it better. In the studio, joining me in the studio, I should say, is Ed Roberts, General Manager and COO of Beauxard Ford Lincoln, and Amit Channarano, who is the CEO of Kirby. Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining me on the show today.

SPEAKER_01

Thanks for having us.

Jim Fitzpatrick

Thanks for having us, Jim. It's great having you in. So let's uh let's start in the beginning

Growth Through Efficiency And Focus

Jim Fitzpatrick

here. Um uh talk to us first and foremost. How's business at Bozard Ford?

SPEAKER_01

Business is always what we make it. We can we can talk about all the things that we have no control of, as we said earlier, or you can control the things that you have control of. And when you focus on what you have control of, you can drive it in whatever direction you need to drive it in.

Jim Fitzpatrick

Sure. Is business better now than it was this time last year?

SPEAKER_01

It's constant progression. Okay. Doing the right things, we're gonna constantly grow, and uh we're we're in a state of growth right now that we we set out this year to focus on efficiencies and so that we could do more without working any harder.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I want to work hard and smart, and uh and and those things are coming into play.

Switching To Kirby For Optimization

Jim Fitzpatrick

So talk to me about the the change that you guys made um to to go with a new provider in Kirby.

SPEAKER_01

So early on, we started in mobile, we was doing everything with spreadsheets, and spreadsheets aren't necessarily very effective, and it's not taking in all the data that you may not have at your fingertips. Sure. And so we chased a provider down and and and really raised the level of our game, but we knew that we wasn't quite there yet. Okay. And and if I look out four, five, ten years, then I want mobile service to be the the rule rather than the exception. Today it's still the exception.

SPEAKER_05

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

And in order for those things to happen, we have to tie things in to allow us to make to maximize the use of our vans because we can't we can't charge customers for windshield time. Yeah. So we have to minimize that windshield time as much as possible.

Jim Fitzpatrick

Yeah, good point.

SPEAKER_01

So we're always looking for ways to to innovate, ways to make us more efficient, whether we we do days in certain areas or whatever else, we want to narrow down that windshield time so we can make those things as profitable as possible. And with using the right technology that ties all those elements in, and now when you layer in AI with all the things that they can blend together for you, then you can create some efficiencies. And uh we're half a month into it and I'm up over 20% over my best month as far.

Jim Fitzpatrick

So that's fantastic.

SPEAKER_01

And when you're at that size and still make those kind of leaps, yeah, that goes back to what we said earlier about house business.

Jim Fitzpatrick

Yeah, that's right. When you chase the right things, you can you can find it. Yeah, no question about it. I see you shaking your head amid uh you want to add to that?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I think uh I mean I give them a lot of credit, um, sort of commendability to be, you know, the the lead race car. And when you're the lead race car and you're looking behind you, it's not easy to pit, it's not easy to swap out the engine.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, good point.

SPEAKER_02

Uh and to be able to have that type of vision, I think Ed, I think the family of Beaux Art, I think the customers deserve the fact that they took an engine, swapped it out because they were number one, because they wanted to increase that gap. Yeah. Um and really it came down to a massive efficiency play. Um, I think when you take, you know, the route optimization, the maximizing the density, minimizing drive time, and some of the other analytics that come behind the platform. And we know we're gonna make it better because we're constantly screwing stuff up and making it better. And I think that was the key that Ed wanted to see was someone that was gonna help build for not the next two or three months, but the next two or three years and five, ten years after that.

Jim Fitzpatrick

Right, right, right. And um uh I mean you got you guys lead the nation. Whenever this topic of mobile service comes up, everybody, you know, says right away, Did you know what Ed Roberts is doing at Bozard, you know, with with that many trucks on the road, 2,000 appointments each month? Well that's very formidable.

SPEAKER_01

Our target this month is to get to 2600, and I believe we'll get there. Okay. Right now we're tracking 2400, so we gotta pick it up a little bit, but we've got plenty of time to do that. And like Amit said there, that's it's when you're the lead dog, and and we don't look at it as being the lead, but we have to accept it when we are.

SPEAKER_03

Sure.

SPEAKER_01

Um when you're the lead dog, everyone's chasing you.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

When you're sitting second or third, you're only looking at the ones in front of you, so you only have a few. But we have the entire world chasing us. And we can either sit there and continue to do the same things that we've always done, right, and everyone else try something different, or we can continue to carve the way and and set the tone for how you move forward.

Why Mobile Service Becomes The Norm

Jim Fitzpatrick

Sure. You made the comment earlier um that you see this as the norm rather than the exception uh in mobile service. You you really believe that, that uh that more vehicles will be serviced uh through mobile service than coming in the shop.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. If you go back 40 years ago, we had window units in our homes to cool our our homes. When those things quit working, we took them out the window and took them in. That's right. Well, we don't do that anymore. They come to our homes and if they need to be fixed, they fix it. If it needs to be replaced, they replace it. And yeah, same thing that's going to happen with our automobiles. Sure. The dealerships that we go to today, those retail centers, um, nobody wants to go to them. Yeah. And if we don't find a way for us to meet them on their terms, then they will find somebody that will. And the aftermarket has shown over and over again that they will fill whatever void we leave, and we don't plan on leaving that void.

Jim Fitzpatrick

Yeah, that's fantastic. Not to mention what it does for the sale of vehicles. I've said this before, we've talked about mobile service so many times, but I will tell you that if a mobile uh if a if a Bozard Ford mobile unit pulls into my subdivision or pulls into my cul-de-sac, I'm asking, how do I get that that kind of service?

SPEAKER_01

It happens over and over. When we pull into someone's driveway, neighbors are curious asking if we service other vehicles and whatever else. And then obviously when we service a split driveway for the first time where the husband drives an F-150 and the wife drives I won't pick on any other brands, but drives something else.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

They know the difference of experience of them having to take that vehicle in.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah. So for sure.

SPEAKER_01

I become top of mind when they look to replace that other vehicle.

Jim Fitzpatrick

I bet, I bet.

What Makes Kirby Different

Jim Fitzpatrick

What's unique about Kirby uh admit? What what what separates you from the other guys? Because you guys have grown extremely fast. Um, everybody, you've made big, a big splash in this area of the business. Um, you've done a great job so far, but what what what separates you from the others?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and look, you know, you can go sort of deep into a feature function benefit analysis and things, and I think uh that's probably for another time or another day. Uh part of it is the focus. Okay. We're we're a very focused company that does mobile service. Um, we do a mile deep when it comes to mobile service and everything to operationalize it. Um, like any organization, your team is the most important thing. And I our team is bananas. I mean, these this team works 24 hours, seven days a week, but they do it happily. You know, we talk about work-life harmony, not necessarily work-life balance. Yeah. Uh, our team will pick up the phone from anybody on a Sunday afternoon at two o'clock to avoid an hour meeting on a Tuesday at three. And we're like that with the dealer body. That's great. Uh, I mean, we had an entire team of engineers at the dealership watching every part of the operation. Um, we had our dealer success team there. We had a product leader there. I was there. And our entire thesis is to continue to learn from the guys that are doing it the best. Yeah. Bring that into the house, yeah, iterate the product, and distribute that to everybody. Sure. And so I think from a level of focus, it's the most important thing. Yeah, I mean, I think we optimize routes better. We had to when we were in the business, and we have to with large operations. They did more appointments on Monday, the first day that we went live, than most dealerships will do in two or three months. Oh my gosh. Wow. Um, a little bit of fingers crossed as we were going into that and stressed. And then it was really great to see on Tuesday that that appointment count went up by 25 or 30 percent because the team learned how to let the system optimize routes, right? Place the job on the right route, um, give the technicians the ability to single swipe and tell a customer, Jim, I'm on my way. Yeah, here's a picture of me, I'll be there within 20 minutes. So all these really cool things that we were able to help develop that dealers use now. And on top of that, to Ed's point, he's really interested in you know the platform's data and what it's gonna spit back out at him so he can continue to optimize it. Because he's they've got some robust goals.

Jim Fitzpatrick

Yeah, yeah. So you created the Uber of this uh mobile service.

SPEAKER_02

It's it's similar to that. Yeah, I mean I think there's there's a nuance to the way Uber works and some of the other things work. You actually don't want to see a mobile service technician from a customer standpoint, you don't want the customer waiting right outside the door. Yeah, you need to be able to give the technician some breathing room. There might be upsells on the previous job. Sure. There might be some diagnostic things they find. By the way, you might want to stop and get a cup of coffee or take a break. Right. But they do know when they're gonna come in in a very finite period of time.

Jim Fitzpatrick

Yeah, yeah, that's that's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01

But not only do they know who's coming and and they get a picture of them. So they that it's it's recognizable when they get there. Right. And it's also people relate to people. So when they see that, then now it's okay, here's my guy. That's right. That's right. And so there is a lot of ties to Uber that comes into play there where some similarities, because that's what our customers are used to, but a lot of differences behind the scenes as well.

Jim Fitzpatrick

Yeah, for sure.

What You Can Fix In Driveways

Jim Fitzpatrick

Um, talk to us about the types of services that you're able to do. Um I would imagine there are those services where you got to bring the vehicle into the shop, but for the most part, uh the vehicle can be serviced right at the customer's house or business.

SPEAKER_01

So we do more in field than I would recommend the the average dealer to do. We we do overstep our boundaries there a bit just to learn what we can't do.

SPEAKER_05

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

And uh so we we have a couple tow trucks and sometimes we'll overstep and we have to bring one in.

SPEAKER_05

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

Um but the the the mission there is to find out what our boundaries are. Okay. And reality is I'm not gonna open up something that is lubricated. So I'm not gonna open up an engine, I'm not gonna open up a transmission in field. Okay. But we have found that we can do most anything else in field. And uh with uh axle replacements all the way to reprogramming something.

SPEAKER_05

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

And so challenge yourself of what you can do rather than what you can't do. And and when you start challenging yourself from that angle, you f you open up the windows so broad so much broader.

Jim Fitzpatrick

That's great. Can you do tires?

SPEAKER_01

Can you absolutely so we have two tire vans that's dedicated to tires?

Jim Fitzpatrick

Wow.

SPEAKER_01

Yes.

Jim Fitzpatrick

That that that's fantastic. And uh I would imagine the customer's response is phenomenal. This helps in CSI, it helps in repeat business, referral business.

SPEAKER_02

You you guys mentioned something earlier. When I was at the store, I was in the Ford showroom and I looked at the banners, and the banners went from pardon me if I get this a little bit wrong, but maybe 85 to 76. So national sales rank at Ford. And it just continuously progressively got to, I think the last banner I saw was maybe 10 or 11. Yeah. This is in a town of about 15,000 people, by the way. Right? So I I think the interesting takeaway is that there's a lot of deals that look at this and say, I have a lot of UIO, I sell a lot of cars, and so therefore I needed mobile service. Yeah. I think they sell a lot of cars because they do mobile service, not the other way around. The the offering gives the customer the thing that they're looking for, which is that long-term relationship. Yeah. I think you said it best. Selling a car or buying a car is maybe not as memorable as owning a vehicle. And I think that's the most important thing is that the more you show them that the ownership cycle is uh this wonderful and it's this easy and it's convenient, then obviously you're gonna give that person a shot when you buy another vehicle, right? Sell sells the first car, service sells two, three,

Helping Dealers Launch Mobile Service

SPEAKER_02

and four.

Jim Fitzpatrick

That's right. That's right. Are you finding, admit, that you're um doing a lot of conversions from comp like like Bozard, where they're on a platform, they see the attributes of your platform and say, I want to make the move, or that you're getting the call for de from dealers that say, We're not we're not doing mobile service, but we want to, so come on in here and show us the way.

SPEAKER_02

It's certainly the latter.

Jim Fitzpatrick

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, we're seeing a lot more dealerships pick up the phone, raise their hands, and say, I've never done mobile service. Okay. A little bit nervous about mobile service in general, which I totally understand. And that's how we come in. So not only do we provide a software platform, but we're operationalizing it with them. Okay. And then you've got to support it. There is no set it and forget it, and you got to do and you know, the community about mobile around mobile service, I will give it credit. Anyone could pick up the phone and call Ed. Anyone can pick up the phone and call Finley Ewing at Ewing Automotive. Sure. Anyone can call Brian Benstock and have these conversations and say, Yeah, you guys are doing mobile service. Why are you doing it? What should I learn? And how do I go about doing it? Right.

Jim Fitzpatrick

You've probably fielded a few of those calls, right?

SPEAKER_01

All the time. And we're open to it because our industry needs it. Yeah. But it's a growing vertical. So there's so much out there that's untapped.

Jim Fitzpatrick

Sure.

SPEAKER_01

And uh, so if we can get that word out and get them out there doing it, then then it strengthens every element of our industry.

Jim Fitzpatrick

I bet, I bet. What does recruitment look like when you're recruiting technicians into your company and you've got 40 mobile units? Are you getting people now, technicians, that go, hey, I'd rather be in the truck than be in the shop? Do you do you get it?

SPEAKER_01

It has certainly broadens windows. Yeah. All dealers chase the issue with not having enough technicians. So 15 years ago, we created, or 12 years ago, we created a tech development program and we eliminated that issue. I don't have an issue with not having technicians. Nice. But then when we stepped into mobile, we stepped into mobile for the first time back in 2015. When we stepped into mobile, it really we tried all kinds of different things and we failed numerous times doing different things, and we'll fail numerous times going forward because we're going to continue to push those boundaries. But what we landed on was people that already drive routes, are already conditioned for that. They're already used to talking to customers. And it doesn't matter the product they're delivering. So we've hired pool technicians, we've hired HVAC technicians, we've hired plumbers where that's what they already did. Yeah. And now we just got to teach them our skill to do the things that we do out in the field. So it really broadened the window of where we can find our technicians

Managing Change Without Losing Output

SPEAKER_01

from.

Jim Fitzpatrick

Yeah, very good point. Talk to me about the changeover. Usually when you go in and you're going to change a software platform in a dealership, it's a big thing. This is whether it be CRM or DMS or something like this. What was that like?

SPEAKER_01

We set out this year to really, and and there's a lot of noise in the industry about becoming efficient this year. Well, there's those that talk about it and those that really start to execute it. And uh we we have gone through an immense amount of change at Bozard Ford Lincoln this year with doing those things to make us more efficient and to streamline the number of third-party products that we use because I mean having 30 windows open on your computer is not efficient for anybody.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And so But it's a dashboard.

SPEAKER_03

We give you a dashboard. Exactly. Everybody's got dashboards. 47 dashboards, right? Exactly. Yeah, we need a dashboard for the dashboards.

SPEAKER_01

But managing change is is instrumental in any type of significant growth. And and because when you're growing, you have to change to evolve into that growth that you're having. And and we make our teams part of the the change.

SPEAKER_05

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

So when when they're part of it, then they embrace it and they've they help us get there. But managing change is the biggest element of getting there. So from that standpoint, it's just another element of what we're changing. It's just another element of managing that that change. And w did we do some behind the scenes work? Absolutely. We did a lot of behind-the-scenes work. But when it came down to it, the first day that they're there, we're live and executing more appointments than we ever had.

SPEAKER_05

Wow.

SPEAKER_01

So it's it was seamless from the standpoint of production.

Jim Fitzpatrick

Nice. Very nice. Do you so do you have admit when this happens, you have boots on the ground right there?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, absolutely.

Jim Fitzpatrick

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

Um, every single dealership, whether it's the size of Ed store or or if it's a brand new store that's just starting off, every single dealership gets an in-person launch. Yeah. It's not only to familiarize the dealership with the technology and the customers, you sort of just want to have someone looking over your shoulder and saying, Am I doing this right? What else should I know? Uh and then for us, it's really important to establish a relationship. You know, we have dealer success managers that want to come in and establish a relationship. So that two, three weeks from now, we pick up the phone and we call you, you're gonna answer our call. Right. Or when we're visiting you every couple weeks or every couple months, you want to make sure that you have the whites of each other's eyes. There's a relationship there. That's right. Uh the more we can do that, because we know there's gonna be churn. We know there's gonna be attrition at dealerships. We want to continue to retrain and keep giving the tools back to everybody. Oh, that's great. That's great. I say this all the time, though. We train dealers, customers book appointments every single day. In fact, 75 times on the first day, if I'm not mistaken, you've never trained a customer to have to go through the process. So you have to make this thing easy at the end of the day.

Jim Fitzpatrick

Yeah, then

OEM Momentum And The Convenience War

Jim Fitzpatrick

no question. Now you come from a very uh long career on the OEM side of the of the industry. Um there's a number of OEMs that have made a commitment to mobile service, Ford being one of them. Yep. Um where does that stand today? Are we seeing more and more OEMs that are jumping into this saying, hey, we can't let Ford take the take the lead here, right?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, look, without without not getting in trouble on too many NDAs. I mean, I think that's a good thing. Right, right, right, sure. We are in some way, shape, or form in a conversation with 14 or 15 out of the 16 or 17 OEMs, depending how you uh qualify manufacturers and the different brands. Um, you know, General Motors has a pretty robust program, Ford has a very entrenched program, sure. Uh Stellantis has a program. So you're typically going to see that in what you would consider the domestics because of the fleet activity. Um, but there are a lot of other manufacturers, everyone from the Toyotas to the Subaros and everything in between that are also leaning into mobile service. If you think about it, we went back to the conversation a couple minutes ago. There's 301,000 independents. Yeah. And even if you wanted to go to your local dealer, it might be 25 minutes and a two-hour wait. Yeah. And there's 16 independents between Ed's house and the dealership. That's right. And so it's a convenience factor. You guys have talked about this on this show before. Convenience is always going to win, and this industry has to be up have another tool to combat that convenience.

Jim Fitzpatrick

That's right. That's right. You can order your uh groceries, uh, you can order a car to your house, you can order anything you want, Amazon, anything. You never have to leave your home. Yeah. So this is kind of the last frontier to have your vehicle serviced at your home. And it makes sense, right?

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I think when you have a beer with somebody and you have a conversation with them and you just say, wouldn't you rather have the dealership come to you? Right. Even the owners of dealerships say, Yeah, I rather.

Onboarding Timeline And Van Investment

Jim Fitzpatrick

Exactly. Right. So for the dealers that are listening that say, okay, you sold me. I got I gotta go down this road if I if they haven't done it already. And dealers, you do have to do this, otherwise you're gonna get smoked by your competition. But uh having said that, what's the what is the the onboarding look like? Is it a week? Is it a month? Is it two months? What what does that look like?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, um taking the outlier aside from this, you know, this is a well-established operation. I think a dealership that's just starting off, it's about four to six weeks.

SPEAKER_05

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

Um, you know, this this upfitting of vehicles, there are vehicles that are upfitted for $120,000. I sat in a couple of them. Yeah. There's also vehicles that are upfitted very easily for $20,000 or less. Okay. And you can still get about 30% of the type of work you do in the dealership out in the field.

SPEAKER_05

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

About four to six weeks up and running. Software is actually not that difficult. Takes us a couple weeks to get everything ingested, okay, optimized, and then being able to deploy it.

Jim Fitzpatrick

Yeah, that's not bad.

SPEAKER_02

No, it's it's really not. I mean, if you have conviction around this thing, uh, we can be up and running in about 30 days. Sure.

Jim Fitzpatrick

I would imagine that there's also once a dealer announces that we're going to go down this road, there are some hand raisers among the team that go, oh, you're going to do that? I I want to be, I want to be in the truck.

SPEAKER_01

You have to share the vision with them of what we're trying to accomplish, and then they can start to see where they can be a part of it. And then the handraisers come up. And for for him coming into us, it's one thing to change the software. For the dealers that's stepping out there, it's a it's it's the support that you need to say, hey, we're working with these dealers that has all of this. Sure. We can help you get there much faster. Because trying to do it alone, you you think, well, how can I go from doing it here to doing it in someone's driveway? Right. There's there's a lot of things that we have to overcome, a lot of things we have to think through to be able to do that. And then having a partner that that has those connections that can say, hey, I have not only do we can we help you with with the route optimization and all those elements and scheduling and all those things, right? But we have the connections that can help you overcome those obstacles that you run into.

Jim Fitzpatrick

Yeah, yeah, that's great. So you can hold the dealer's hand from the time they call to the time they're servicing vehicles with with their their new mobile truck.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, we we say we're gonna help you operationalize the business, right? You have an idea, you have conviction around this, but you need someone to sort of give you some of the best practices. More importantly, we want to make sure that they don't sit on the same grenades that we did and some of the other dealers have. Yeah. So we talk a lot about the failures and the mistakes and how we reverse engineer those. Yeah. You've been there, done that too many times.

Jim Fitzpatrick

If you had a guess or or venture uh a number, what would you say the average investment is among the 40 trucks? Just to give the dealers an idea, because you had mentioned uh 20,000 or 30,000 up to 140,000. What what's kind of the average? What could a dealer expect on average to invest in a truck?

SPEAKER_01

For my average, I'm about 85. 85, but I would tell the dealer starting out today that their their average doesn't need to be that. When we when we stepped into it, we overbuilt our vehicles. Okay. We overbuilt several of our vehicles to be ready to go out and do that. Okay. I mean the technicians that that we put in these things, they don't have to have their own tools because there are everything's in the van. And so as we've learned over time, that's when we get down to where we can build vans and and really be effective with 20 or 25,000. Sure. And so from for the the average store that's out there, I'd say probably that $40,000 window is what you can build something out for.

SPEAKER_02

Okay. It also depends on the profile mix of your of your dealership. Yeah. If you're if you're a Toyota store in a large market, you might want something smaller because you're maybe doing some software updates or minor maintenance. Right. If you got heavy fleet business, you're certainly in that hundred dollars.

Jim Fitzpatrick

Yeah, that's true too. Yeah. Right. Are you saying Toyotas don't break down?

SPEAKER_02

Is that what you're saying? I'm not saying that at all. I'm not saying anything about any brand. All cars are built.

Jim Fitzpatrick

Toyota dealer, you know, you just need a wrench. That's all you need. Well, I mean No, but I know what you mean.

SPEAKER_01

I will say it this way there's there's several manufacturers out there, as he said a moment ago. Not a single one of them builds a dealership without a service department type.

Jim Fitzpatrick

That's exactly right. We used to say that in F and I, which is behind every huge dealership, there's a thing called the service department. So if you don't think you need a service contract, you know, let's let me take you a walk back and show you some cars that are in service right now, right? Yeah. Same thing applies. You know, it's it's something's gonna happen somewhere along the line. But uh so

Simple Test: Ask Customers

Jim Fitzpatrick

that's great. Um let me let me give you the final word here, Amit. What do you what do you want to leave the dealers with? Because there's gonna be a lot of questions uh on this as we send this out and and uh some of the clips that they'll see in social media and for the dealers. I think there's a lot of dealers that I that actually I've spoken to, and it's just my sense that there's a lot of dealers on the fence right now about mobile service. Does it work? Does it not work? You're probably getting these calls, right? Oh, we're just not sure, you know, what if we're taking on the right deal. Man, I I if I were a dealer today, it'd be the first call I'd make would be to Kirby to get in here.

SPEAKER_02

We want to do mobile service, but I I think the thing I would say is first principles. Yeah. You know, next time you're at a dinner, next time you're having a barbecue or you're speaking to folks, ask them what they think about it. Good point. Because I think a lot of people would say, wait, you don't do that already? Yeah. Because I because everything else has come into me. And so I think when we step away from, you know, is this profitable? Yeah, I mean, people don't do this if it's not profitable because you want to reinvest back into the business. That's right. Um, does it help me with retaining the customer? Absolutely. Does it actually open up my shop efficiency? Right? We we talk about this all the time. The couple hundred thousand dollars that you might spend in six months of construction to add a service pay. Yeah, one mobile service vehicle is the equivalent of about two and a half service pays. Okay. And you're up and running in four to six weeks for maybe 25 grand. That's right. So then when you go back to that barbecue and nine out of ten people say, Yeah, I would much rather you come to me than me come to you. And by the way, that one person's your wife and you're lying.

Announcer

That's right.

SPEAKER_02

I think you have to lean back into not overthinking this and saying, all right, well, how do I go make something work that my customers want? And whenever we go follow the customers, we're usually okay. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Jim Fitzpatrick

Do you ever get the the dealer that says, Look, I've got 10 stores, I'm gonna give you two of them. So show me what you're made of. Show me that, you know, show me that this is the real deal, and then I'll give you the other eight stores.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, sure. And and and I think that's smart. Like, yeah, it's not I think what a dealer is basically saying there's I know my personnel. Yeah, I know which service manager has the bandwidth to go try something new. I know which one's more progressive and native. That one maybe over there's on retirement and probably doesn't want to touch anything for six months. So I think it's smart to be able to go test and learn. And then ultimately, uh, how do you decide which of your can customers get more convenience? All of them. That's right.

Jim Fitzpatrick

Right, that's right. No question about it.

Final Challenge To Dealers

Jim Fitzpatrick

Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining me on the show. For dealers that are watching, this is a call that you need to make. We're gonna show all the information on the screen right now for you to do just that. If you don't do this and you get smoked by your competition, don't call me. This is a what I would refer to in the industry as a no-brainer. You've got to get on board with uh mobile service for your dealerships. It's the right thing to do for your customers, it's the right thing to do for your team, it's the right thing to do for your bottom line. There's really, from my perspective, I've been in the business a long time, I can't see any downside of doing this, right? So these are the kind of solutions we want to be bringing you here at CBT News. Do it. You can thank me later. Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining me in the studio. Really appreciate it. Thanks for having us. Thanks.

Announcer

Thanks for watching Inside Automotive with Jim Fitzpatrick.