Exceeding Customer Expectations With Better Systems and Processes – Jeremy O’Neal and Chris Collins [RR 539]

Jeremy O’Neal President and lead sales trainer for Advisorfix, began his career as a Service Advisor and moved into Service Management at the dealership level for VW, Audi, and Porsche. He consistently placed in the top 3% of Service Advisors across the nation.

With a passion for helping others, Jeremy started coaching Service Advisors in 2007. Jeremy also owns an independent auto repair shop Freedom Auto Repair in Hesperia, CA. Previous episodes HERE.

Chris Collins Story

If you absolutely insist on playing by your own rules, living beyond the edge, turning your trials into strengths, your passions into a lifestyle and your ideas into gold…then I’d like to share a little story with you…

It’s about going against the system, refusing to conform to the 9-to-5 status quo, and achieving a life of freedom, excitement and unlimited possibility that few people believe is even possible.

It wasn’t always this way though. In fact, it used to flat-out suck.

You see, growing up, I had a stepfather who was a pastor-missionary in Mexico, which made me a missionary’s kid.

My early years were spent bouncing between Washington and the downtrodden city of Tijuana, Mexico. During the summers, my mother and I would stay in Washington with my grandparents, while my step-father traveled from church to church, gathering support and coordinating youth groups to build houses for Mexican families on free plots of land given to them by the government.

As soon as the summer would end, good ol’ Stepdad would shuffle us back down to Mexico, where, on the back of a motorcycle, I’d shoot north across the border each day to attend school on the U.S. side in Chula Vista, Ca. After school, I’d head right back to TJ to do missionary work.

My stepdad was terrified of the possibility of anything secular grabbing ahold and influencing me into some imaginary wayward path. He only allowed me to attend a private Christian school, where the kids had nothing but the latest, greatest, newest stuff. Meanwhile, I lived on handouts and trotted around in worn-out, old hand-me-downs donated by the church.

I was constantly teased and bullied—in Mexico for my pale skin and golden hair, and at school, in Chula Vista, for my ragged donated clothing.

Then, when I was thirteen, during my yearly summer pilgrimage to Washington, my Stepdad abandoned us in the middle of the night, cleaned out our bank accounts, and ran off with a 21-year-old girl from the church, who, it turned out, he’d been having an affair with for years. Mom and I were left homeless in Washington State, without money, resources, or hope. https://chriscollinsinc.com/

Key Talking Points:

• Running a business- using a system not an idealized version of a business  If you’re not following a system then will have lower numbers
• Can’t put good people into bad system- system first then people second 
• Top performing employees thrive on successful systems and processes
• Good systems are scalable
• The average shop is short 3 people- 1 in bays, 1 at the counter, 1 at office
• Dealerships have home-field advantage yet still lose 75% of customers once they sell car
• Success is a mindset- be open-minded, always ask questions, the enemy is you 
• Vision 2020Go back home and perform 3 changes you learned within 30 days- 1 change per week
• Service advisors- Bridging the gap and taking care of customersAre your service advisors spending their time with customers or doing other things because the proper system isn’t in place?
• Building rapport with the customer- when customers chase you that’s when you lose them 
• Car delivery- is the car ready and staged for the customer to pick up?  
• Car is a commodity, not relevant to the relationship with the customer 
• Customer experience- connect on deeper level, never betray their trust
• Labeled as “repair shop” for certain customersGaps in visits and high ticket invoices
• Car is an asset but the customer is a client for life

Resources:

• Thanks to Jeremy O’Neal and Chris Collins for their contribution to the aftermarket’s premier podcast.
• Link to the ‘BOOKS‘ page highlighting all books discussed in the podcast library HERE. Leaders are readers.
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