The Bitterness Of Low Hanging Fruit

It has been a long year for just about everyone. When the days are long and the uncertainty of tomorrow is the only thing on our minds, it is easy to make mistakes. However, when does it stop becoming a mistake and the real problem is the culture at your workplace that drives you to pick up the low hanging fruit instead of performing a real service? What we are going to discuss today, everyone has been guilty of. 

It has been our mission to curb these mistakes significantly throughout the last decade. Through building our software alongside striving to provide better service, we’re achieving remarkable results. 

We have made a lot of adjustments and changes in our business, most of them to provide more efficient and reliable service to our existing and new customers. During those changes, there is one that constantly evolves, SERVICE. We are not talking about how we try to dazzle the customer with fancy words that attempt to represent value, we are talking about delivering real value to our customers through our actions. 

So much value, that the last thing they ever do, is question if they got the best deal.

I am going to let the world in on this amazing secret about how to build trust with your customer, without ever lifting a finger above and beyond. Make your service process for your best customers, the process through the entire journey for every customer. How do you do that? By not picking the low hanging fruit.

Now you are probably really annoyed with me, “OK Ricardo, FFS, What’s the low hanging fruit?!”

The low hanging fruit is the job you want to do instead of the job you should be doing. In the photo below, is the most recent example we have received here. A referral reached out and wanted us to competitively offer her a quote, based on the multi point inspection of a local Audi dealer. You can see that the dealer told her, her vehicle needs about $4,000 worth of repair. But I want you to ignore the price in this exercise and let us focus on what they told her she needed.

• Oil change
• Disinfect Interior (thanks Covid19)
• Replace two tires
• Wheel alignment
• Replace battery
• Replace axle

Looking at that list and knowing a couple things about this potential customer, the axle stands out as a big red flag. Most Audi axles last a long time. We could only remember few instances where we replace them, at least in our experience. However, the axle boots…. those can and do tear often. So long as there isn’t play in the joints, the axles should last to 150,000 miles before major wear becomes evident. Especially for someone who doesn’t abuse or alter their vehicle.

In an effort to win over the customer, we match the quote with some options for the customer. However, we are insistent that we would like to really inspect the vehicle ourselves. If nothing, but to confirm the axle needs to be replaced and not the boot.

Here are our findings:

• Battery
• Axle does not have any play, so suggest replacing inner and outer axle boot
• Rear shocks
• Rear level sensor arm and bracket
• All four tires strongly suggested, mostly due to uneven tread height and aggressive tire pattern

You might think… Ok, some small differences. So what?! Look at these photos, would you consider missing these items a mistake, technician negligence, or shop culture problems?

If this person had trusted the dealer at their word, they would have spent $3887.36 fixing a vehicle, that still needed the rear shocks, two more tires, and a rear suspension bracket. Another $2000+ worth of work, that would directly affect ride control and passenger safety.

Her vehicle potentially needed $6,000+ worth of work and not $4,000. This means this customer was improperly informed on the state of her vehicle and was about to make poorly informed decision.

 Know what drove this decision? Picking the low hanging fruit. 

In other words, the technician wasn’t interested in finding what the vehicle actually needed. He was more interested in finding the work that would reward him the most. An Audi technician would likely have performed the dealer recommended services in around 3 hours, while tallying up 6+ hours of labor on that invoice. Making money for himself and the dealership at the same time, but poorly servicing a vehicle.

Why? His motives are to pick to the easiest jobs that reward him, not the ones that assure the customer is making the best choice for their long term vision.

This is not the first time we have seen this and it’s not the last time we will see this. The bitterness this dealership has created by doing their job poorly, will long linger with this customer. All we had to do, was what we’ve been training our service team to do for over 6 years.

Full inspection bumper to bumper, put the pictures and videos into our management system Complete Auto Reports, and show the customer through our default process…. That we deliver value they can count on.

We don’t chase low hanging fruit, we strive to provide an unmatched service. This drive is what motivated us to create CAR. The only Shop Management System that was built around a carefully reviewed process. 

A process that has lead us to 43% growth in the last 3 years. Even through COVID, we've had less of a decline than many of our peers.