0:00
/
0:00
A Phone Call Is Worth a Thousand Emails [RR 1056]
A Phone Call Is Worth a Thousand Emails [RR 1056]
0:00
0:00
0:00
0:00
About this episode
Carm Capriotto engages with Mike Carrillo, founder of AutoShopFollowUp, to explore the importance of personal communication in the automotive service industry. They discuss how phone calls can foster trust and relationships with customers, contrasting this with the impersonal nature of automated emails and texts. Carrillo emphasizes the need for shops to maintain a personal touch while scaling operations, and shares insights on effective follow-up strategies that can enhance customer retention and satisfaction. The episode highlights the value of understanding customer experiences to prevent negative reviews and improve service quality.
Topics:
customer retention
follow-up strategies
personal communication
trust building
automated vs personal interaction
service quality
customer experience
shop management
data collection
relationship management
Cars:
Chevrolet Trax
Thanks to our Partners, NAPA Auto Care and NAPA TRACS
Watch Full Video Episode
In today’s fast paced industry, automation and digital tools like texts, emails, and online bookings make business easier but often leave interactions feeling “people free.” Convenience can come at the cost of real customer relationships, reducing decisions to price alone.
Mike Carrillo, founder of Autoshop Follow-Up, reminds shops that while automation has its place, nothing replaces the power of a phone call. His company helps shops bring back that personal touch, building the know, like, and trust factor every business depends on.
Why phone calls matter:
• Build trust and loyalty by making customers feel valued.
• Prevent lost business by uncovering issues before they turn into bad reviews.
• Gain insights you can’t get from analytics alone.
• Challenge digital norms: 40% of calls get answered, even by younger generations.
• Ensure consistency with dedicated ambassadors who represent your shop’s culture.
Texts are great for generating reviews, but they miss the middle ground where future revenue lies. A thoughtful follow-up call turns transactions back into relationships, because at its core, auto repair is a people business.
Thanks to our Partners, NAPA Auto Care and NAPA TRACS Learn more about NAPA Auto Care and the benefits of being part of the NAPA family by visiting https://www.napaonline.com/en/auto-care NAPA TRACS will move your shop into the SMS fast lane with onsite training and six days a week of support and local representation. Find NAPA TRACS on the Web at http://napatracs.com/ Connect with the Podcast:- Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RemarkableResultsRadioPodcast/
- Join Our Virtual Toastmasters Club: https://remarkableresults.biz/toastmasters
- Join Our Private Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1734687266778976
- Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/carmcapriotto
- Follow on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carmcapriotto/
- Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/remarkableresultsradiopodcast/
- Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RResultsBiz
- Visit the Website: https://remarkableresults.biz/
- Join our Insider List: https://remarkableresults.biz/insider
- All
Filter:
|
Technical
Too Afraid to Ask
Car
Chevrolet Trax
"...op, so it's your choice. Let us prove to you that Trax is the single best shop management system in the ..."
Select text to request an explanation
This is the Aftermarket Radio Network.
Hey everyone, it's Carm Capriotto, Remarkable Results Radio, 10 years in now, having so much
fun continuing to allow you to be a fly on the wall of all these great interviews that
we do and all the great insight and wisdom that come from our guests, aim to be educational
and formative, illuminating and instructive.
That's our goal and we work hard at it at Remarkable Results Radio.
Thank you so much to our great sponsors that continue to support our great podcast.
More than 16% of light-duty vehicles on the road are EV and hybrid.
Is your shop ready to safely and properly service them?
Get your shop trained and equipped to service hybrid and EV vehicles with Napa Autotex
Innovative, EV Ready, Level 1, High Voltage Awareness and Maintenance Training.
Hey, did you know that NapaTrax has on-site training plus six days a week support?
It all starts when a local representative meets with you to learn about your business and
how you run it.
After all, it's your shop, so it's your choice.
Let us prove to you that Trax is the single best shop management system in the business.
Get your NapaTrax on the web at NAPA-T-R-A-C-S dot com.
Hey, welcome back.
I'd like to introduce you to Mike Carrillo.
Hello, Mike.
Hey, Carm, how's it going?
Great founder at AutoShopFollowUp, AutoShopFollowUp.com.
Did I meet you at the Institute Summit?
Yeah, I think that that's where we finally got a chance to connect.
I know I've seen you around over the years, but I think that was our first
time to really get a chance to sit down and chat a little bit.
Yeah, I find what you do fascinating and I want to understand some things about calling
clients for our shop owners.
Here's my curiosity is, Mike.
Calls versus text and the truly important to follow up as far as retention matters, maybe
catching problems early.
I was just chatting with some people a couple of days ago telling them I'm going to do
this interview with you and what it is that you do.
I started to think about the number of times I've been upset at a transaction at a business
and I've just vowed that I wasn't going back.
I wasn't going to do a negative review.
It was just me.
I'm so busy I didn't have time.
I didn't want to pontificate all the quality reasons that I had a bad experience.
So I said I was never going again.
So I was thinking if that business called me up a few days later and said, hey,
you were here, how was your food?
How was your experience?
How was this?
How was that?
And I'd say, you know, I really didn't have a good time or something didn't happen.
Oh, tell me about it.
Then the next stumbling block that people said, yeah, but I don't answer the phone number
I don't see, right?
And so there's all these interesting things that are going on in our time and in our
life that challenges that phone when it rings for me to want to pick it up in
this digital age of waiting for a text.
So I love what you do.
Again, I'm the boomer where the phone was always the most critical important thing to
us.
I remember pay phones.
Yeah.
Okay.
I saw one in a movie the other day and I said to my daughter there, see, look, it's
a real pay phone.
I like to watch Bill and Tess just to remember that time, you know?
So look it, you say a phone call is worth a thousand emails.
So tell me about it.
Yeah.
So really I think what it comes down to is everybody does business with people they
know like and trust, right?
And especially when you're when you're working with vehicles and things that for our average
customer, they have no idea what's going on and it completely hinges on whether or
not you're telling me the truth, right?
Like I work in this industry, but I am not a car guy.
I'm not able to diagnose my own vehicle.
I am good at taking it into my shop, but that really requires a certain level
of trust that comes from our customers.
And so I think what we've seen happen in the industry is while automation is a great
thing, automated emails have made our lives a lot easier for doing follow up text messages
have made a lot easier for doing follow up.
What we've done is we've really kind of removed relationship from our interactions
with our customer, right?
Where most of us started our businesses on handshakes and relationships with individuals,
but as we scale and as we grow, which we all want to do, we start to lose that
handshake relationship that we really, really launched things off with.
And so the question is, is how do we continue to maintain that level of quality
and that service while not sacrificing the fact that we need to automate, we need
to be able to grow and keep growing our businesses?
But how do we do that while still maintaining that level of expertise and connection?
You said I'm awful.
They're my and then I think about today's digital age.
I could book an appointment without talking to an individual, drop off my vehicle
without seeing anyone, pick it up, pay for it through pay to text, text to
pay and never, ever looking anyone in the eye, looking to see how clean the place is.
I mean, COVID taught us how to do all that stuff.
Right.
And in some ways it's been helpful.
It was hands free, but now we've ultimately ended up becoming people free.
Right.
And then in the absence of relationship and in the absence of that expertise
and being able to model what you guys do, the customers really left to
make the decision based on price, which is the primary thing we don't
want them evaluating as based on, right?
Is it should be a lot more than just who's the cheapest to go to.
But outside of relationship, convenience and price becomes the
two most important things.
And the no like and trust theme that happens from everyone that I know
who's into helping the service professional grow and become successful
and profitable, the no part, the no part is where that digital age
makes it cruel, if you will.
I go there, but I really don't know them.
Right.
And that's how it is with a lot of our businesses.
And what we don't want to do is commoditize our industry to the point
where yeah, all the customers are looking for is who's the cheapest price
and who can get me in the quickest to make it the most convenient, right?
We do want our customers evaluating us on more than that.
And I think to also just to touch real quick, I think you had
mentioned the answering the phone thing.
And I think this is a question that comes up a lot.
I think you guys will be surprised about if you actually pick up the
phone and you start calling your customers, how many of them answer
because the majority of our customers aren't business owners.
I'm the same way.
I tend to not pick up unknown numbers, but also my phone's probably
rang three times since we've been on this call.
So that's something I think of business owners.
We end up looking at our customers as being the same as us.
I mean, it really isn't the case.
I mean, on average for us calling, we're able to maintain over a 40% answer rate.
I mean, during COVID that was nearing 70 because everybody was at home
and just wanted to talk that's gone back down to our more normal rates.
Now, but people really do answer the phone.
People do want to chat and have a connection with the person on the other line.
It really does happen still.
Well, I don't answer phone calls.
Those robot calls, those spam type calls, even if it's got my area code in it,
because everyone has learned how to somehow mask the area code.
And you were telling me in our discovery call, Mike, that you use
the local area code of the business, right?
You use it.
So the individual will look at that phone and say, should I or shouldn't
I and you say 40% of the time they'll answer.
Yeah.
And so we actually do.
And there's a number of reasons for that.
There's things that we do on our end for one, we don't use.
And this would be key to if you're dialing out of your shop
or if you're having one of your team members do this.
If you're not dialing from a robo phone, that makes a huge difference
because that means there's no pause when they answer the phone, right?
Everybody hates that.
When you pick up, you say hello, and there's like a moment of silence.
And I'm like, you called me, you're not even here waiting for me, right?
So that's a big thing that turns a lot of people off and gets a lot of hangups.
And then also just your dialing reputation because we're not a telemarketing
company because your shops aren't and you have a healthy calling reputation.
You're more likely to get presented and not have the incoming potential
spam, even that some phones will mark.
So keeping a really good calling reputation is a big difference there too.
OK, I got a million questions.
I can't wait to get to them.
But my question now to you is this, if I'm a shop owner and I know
that follow up through a phone call is critical for my customer to discover
anything that could have gone wrong, we want to have a quality transference.
Cars done, been through quality control.
We have processes that get paid, discuss with the customer, maybe look
for follow up, follow through opportunities.
But then I still want to make sure that everything is good.
And my greatest intentions in the world is to sit down and do this.
Now, is it me, is it my service advisor, is it a customer service rep?
Who does it? Buried, busy, two week solid.
I got customers that we waited on 21 days.
I want to sit in a phone call and I sit down and get my cup of coffee.
The phone rings. I never get to it.
I think everyone has great intentions for follow up and follow through
because I think that's a key retention piece.
I'm sure you believe that, right?
That's why I was fascinated about your company.
I don't mean to pontificate here, but there's a point where we all say,
who's your recruiter?
Who's your marketing person?
Who's your DVI company?
Who's your coach?
And there's one more thing that we almost have to ask in this realm
of business services is, who's your callback person or company?
Right. Yeah, it's one of those things that, you know, my co-founder,
Aaron, you know, his dad owns a couple of shops here in Arizona.
And he started doing these calls when he was 16 for his dad
because it was important then and it's important now.
And I think where shops end up kind of missing the boat is that consistency,
right? That's the hardest part is as soon as some of their fire starts
burning brighter in the shop, it's going to be the first thing to get pushed off.
Right. So and that makes sense.
There's there's other more critical things that are happening
on a day-to-day basis in your shop.
What my suggestion would be is in an attempt to do this in-house,
having somebody that the customer didn't individually work with
directly is one of my biggest recommendations.
If you have an office person, because a lot of times our customers,
we know how passive-aggressive kind of everybody is in society these days,
that most people aren't going to tell the person that they worked with
that they didn't do a good job, right?
That's one of the downsides of having a service advisor call and follow up is,
is that person going to really tell that person
that they didn't have a good experience with them?
Is the service advisor going to pass that on to the owner and say,
hey, that this guy didn't do it or I didn't do a very good job here?
Right. Because we all have that.
We all have customers who leave and they aren't the happiest.
It's not a dig on any individual team member, but making sure
that you have someone who's able to get that information,
get that really engaged in conversation with the customer
and pull that out is critical and someone that they feel safe sharing with.
Yeah. OK, Mike, I just don't think you can represent me well.
I mean, come on, man.
If it's not me or somebody from my people inside of our business,
somebody that they may have seen or talked, I don't think it works, Mike.
I'm challenging your think here.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, and it is one of those things where it's tricky,
because especially smaller shops, you have a tendency to think
that all my customers know me, all my customers want to work with me.
But the reality is that your customers want to connect with somebody
that they like and that's personable.
And if you engage them with conversation on the phone
and you're not trying to check a box, I think follow with phone calls
have gotten a little bit of a bad rap because people have tried them in house
or try to force a team member to do it in house.
And what ends up happening is you kind of end up just trying to check a box
versus trying to make a difference, right?
Getting on the phone, taking the time to engage with that customer
to ask the right questions and not just trying to get through,
hey, I called and followed up and he said everything was fine.
It's, hey, how do we really get into the nitty gritty?
But that means you have to have somebody calling who wants to be calling
who wants, who has interest in that customer, right?
And that's what really what we've done is we've created a system
where people are customer service based.
That's all we're worried about is just loving on our customer.
We're not trying to sell them something.
We're not trying to push them to do, although there are asks
of rent along the way.
But our main focus is how do we make a connection with that customer?
Then you'll find that if you do that, the data, the information,
the actionable feedback just starts to flow.
Are you an APA Auto Care Center who is ready to take your shop to the next level?
Then the Premier Tier APA Auto Care Gold Certified Program
is exactly what you need.
Gold Certified Auto Care Centers provide customers with a consistent
experience no matter where they are in the U.S.
Now this means they are more likely to return and support your shop
or find your Gold Certified Auto Care Center while on the road.
Gold Certified members can maximize technology,
increase their local marketing opportunities and have a fully trained
team that keeps up with the latest trends.
Simply put, the Gold Certified APA Auto Care Program
powered by your local brand will set you apart.
A true partnership is a two way street.
Shops must meet specific criteria to be eligible for the many benefits of gold.
An APA Auto Care rewards its most committed partners,
their Gold Certified members with free premium shop referrals
on the Napa online locator, annual marketing dollars and enhanced
warranty, training opportunities, program rebates and so much more.
Are you ready to get started?
Contact your local Napa sales representative to discuss your eligibility
and apply today.
More than 16% of light duty vehicles on the road are EV and hybrid.
Is your shop ready to safely and properly service them?
Get your shop trained and equipped to service hybrid and EV vehicles
with Napa Auto Tech's innovative EV ready level one high voltage
awareness and maintenance training.
Hey, take your Auto Care Center to the next level, the gold level
with the Napa Auto Care Gold Certified Program.
This program is for the best of the best who can provide a
consistent consumer experience and earn the trust of returning and new customers.
Talk to your Napa sales representative about how you can become
a Gold Certified shop.
Let's face it, your shop management system is the single most
important tool in your shop, period.
Napa Tracks was built from the ground up to make your business
more profitable and efficient.
We provide an extensive set of tools to increase and track profitability
in real time.
Napa Tracks offers the industry's best post sale support hands down
and we train your people on site.
Yep, on site and we offer remote refresher training 10 times a week
and customer support is open six days a week.
Give us a call, visit the website or join our Facebook community
today to learn more.
We'll prove to you that Tracks is the single best shop
management system in the business.
Napa Tracks is always customized and tailored for you,
whether you're a one man shop or a large multi-bay or multi-location
company, after all, it's your shop.
So it's your choice.
Visit us on the web at Napa Tracks.
That's N-A-P-A-T-R-A-C-S dot com.
OK, I know recruitment companies and when they recruit four
positions in the company, they want to know everything about you.
They want to know about your town.
They want to know about your company.
They want to know about your culture.
They want to know everything about you.
Do you build a dossier on your clients so that when I'm picking up
the phone and calling, I feel like I'm you or your business?
Absolutely. Yeah.
So one of the main things is in our on-boarding, we want to collect
and know as much about your shop as we possibly can.
Right. We want to know your folks' names.
We want to know the people that they're working with.
We want to know how you describe where you're located,
but not like the northeast corner of this.
We want to know your caddy corner from McDonald's, right,
because that's how we would talk if we were if we were down the street
from the folks that we're talking with.
So yeah, knowing and being integrated and understanding
the shop and the shop's culture.
All of that is absolutely paramount to making a good call
and really building a relationship between the customer and the shop,
because we don't want to feel like a third party.
I think that's important from our side.
And obviously, if you're doing it in-house, it'll feel that way already.
But we really want to feel as integrated
and a part of your team member as possible,
not like a third party that's calling to follow up after the fact.
Mike, what are you learning from these calls?
It's so much all the time, actually.
We're starting to really put together some higher level data of
taking a look at, hey, what are we learning in general
about the industry and where things are going?
I think some of the one of the most surprising things
I think I've seen after doing this a long time
is how many customers shops lose because of simple misunderstandings.
I think that's one of the bigger pieces where we talk to folks who,
you know, they didn't leave a review.
They didn't go up and complain.
But once they got home and they looked at their little DVI print
out there like, hey, these guys charge me twice
when I could get this part for on Amazon.
Well, this doesn't make sense.
These guys are overcharging me.
They just when we ended up talking to them on the phone
and they're able to say, hey, I looked at this like, this is weird.
Here's the deal, right?
We provide X warranty for this.
These are what our technicians are capable of.
Like, these are all the things that we bring to the table
when we're doing this.
There's a reason for that.
Well, that's something that somebody would just not come back, right?
They're not going to call you if they're like me,
they're not going to leave a review like you mentioned,
they're just going to be unhappy and never show up again.
Right. But those are the types of things where I think we take for
granted because we've been in the industry so long,
we know how it works, but that's taking a little bit of time
to educate the customers along the way with the things
that they're struggling with makes a huge difference on people
coming back because like, well, now they get it, right?
They don't feel taken advantage of.
They understand the situation and how it works.
So that's, that's, I think, a major piece.
Well, I'm the shop owner and I'm entrusting you to explain
to my customer why they can buy the part cheaper on Amazon.
Interesting.
That's where we really get to focus because we get to speak to that.
And then when we have technical issues that come up or,
hey, there's a sound about this, that's where we're able to pass
it back to your team.
We're never speaking to that end of things, right?
If that makes sense.
Okay.
You said the big words there.
Pass it back to your team.
So how does, how does that, the resources back to the shop that
you're discovering, is there a dashboard?
Can I look at it online?
Do we have a weekly call?
How do I learn about what you're learning?
Yeah, absolutely.
So when our team is calling, making dials, right?
Following up with your customers at the end of the
call, our owners, GMs or whoever you want to see it
gets a report that gets sent to them in their email.
We are in the middle of doing our beta testing in our dashboard.
So that, that is coming here shortly.
But currently we send out an email report with a breakdown
of all those, all the call results.
Now that said, while we're calling, your team is being
notified in real time of anything.
So if say we talk to somebody who's unhappy and they're
expecting a call back, that gets sent to the team
immediately, right?
If we end up scheduling an appointment online, that gets
sent to the team immediately.
So there's no delay between when we're interacting and
when you guys find out about the information.
But at the same time, we send a roll up report with all
kind of the key call outs to your management team.
That way you get to review and get real actionable
feedback sent to your inbox.
Well, when the customer picks up the call, Mike, and
they say, Oh, it's you guys.
And will they save that number?
I mean, is it the same number that they would call
from so that they could expect that call down the road?
How do I prevent this from not being a robocall in the
future as a zoomer?
For sure.
So the way part of the way we do it is we go ahead and
we assign that to that shop.
So the number, any number that we're dialing for is
only for that shop.
So those customers, if they do call back, it goes
to a custom voicemail for them or our team will
pick up if they're available and not on a separate call.
That said, I would tell you 99% of the time, if
customers want to call they end or call back for
whatever reason, they end up calling the main
shop's line because that's what they're used to
communicating through versus the number.
A lot of you think a lot of businesses have
back office numbers and things like that where
they get phone calls from.
Typically the customer, like I said, 99% of the
time, if they do want to call back, they end up
calling the main shop's number.
And if we leave a voicemail, that's the number
we leave as well.
Retention, does the shop owner appreciate that
this is a service for retention and knowledge
and follow up and follow through?
Are they checking the box that says I'm
staying in touch with my customer?
Because in my mind, follow up calls are really,
really, really important.
What percent that you know are really doing?
Actually doing follow up calls in-house themselves.
Well, I usually say that of most shops follow
up routines are a little bit like my gym routine.
Like I did it once six months ago, but I
still take credit for it.
But it's not happening on any consistent basis.
Right.
So it's
up because you're a member.
I am.
Yeah.
Right.
And that's the thing is it doesn't end up
actually happening consistently.
We do it for a little bit and or what I
hear oftentimes is, Hey, we like to do it.
I have my team do it when things are slow.
But all of us in business, right?
We're all trying to level out the roller coaster
of revenue, right?
We all wanted to try to level that out as
much as we can.
So it's not sink or swim, but that requires
that consistency, right?
And making sure that we're following up
with every customer every time.
I know a few shops that really run a good
pro you're I'm in-house, but I think
where that typically falls apart is there's
not much of a so what, right?
We're saying, Hey, we want to call, but
we're not giving our team.
Well, what's the goal of this call?
Right? What's the actual output?
Is the goal just to get them to say that
we're OK so we can say we did it, right?
Or are we trying to collect data?
How are we reviewing that data as a team
afterwards, right?
How do we apply any new learnings that we get?
I think that's where it really starts
to fall apart is there's not enough
of a so what.
And for us, I think what we see is
when shops start to follow a program,
they start because they know it's
something they should be doing.
It's something that maybe they used to do.
It's gotten too busy and it's fallen off.
And what they're hoping to see is some
appointment scheduled, right?
They want to see some immediate revenue
return and you will see that by doing it.
But I think our shops stay because
of the data that they're able to get,
because you can get data from being
on the phone with folks that there
truly is just no other way to get, right?
My background is in digital marketing
and everything is based on predictive analytics.
We're all trying to predict what the
customer is going to do based on previous behavior.
But this is actually getting on the phone
and talking and finding out what
their actual experience was.
So there's really no way to get this
level of data outside of that.
Wow, Mike, you're on the phone with a
client of mine and he says,
she says to you, hey, you guys mentioned
that I needed to have a break job.
When can I come in for that?
What happens then?
Well, then so we just go straight to
their website and say absolutely.
And we go to book through whatever
current online booking tool you're
using right now, right?
So if you're using Chop Jeanne
or AutoOps or one of those,
we're just going to hop on there
and we're going to schedule
straight through that.
We notify your team directly,
but we like to book through the
normal process that way.
You know, service providers aren't
having to look at another spot for
an appointment or add it to the
calendar. We want it to be as
seamless as we can.
The customer picks up the phone and
says to you, hey, I'll talk to you
this time, but just text me the next
time.
How often does that happen?
Very, very rarely does that come up.
And if it does, we actually do
maintain a do not call list.
And I think it's important to call
out to even if you're doing this
in-house, this is good to know.
Not everybody gets warm fuzzies
from a phone call and that's
okay, right?
So if we call and say we talked
to Karm and Karm's a little grumpy
today and he's not into this and
he's like, yep, what is it?
What do you need?
We're not going to start drawing
this out, right? We're going to
say, hey, we just want to let you
know that we appreciate you
choosing us. We're here.
If you need help, we're going to
let him get off the phone because
that's how he's going to be
best served.
You know, at the same time,
though, if we talk to somebody
and they want to tell us about
their grandkids for 10 minutes,
we're going to do that too
because remember the ultimate
goal is that no like and trust.
And that's how you establish that.
So we can't treat every single
customer the same.
And yeah, they're going to be
respectful. We respect that and
they won't receive any follow
calls after that. Grumpy.
Grumpy happens.
I know.
I can't imagine you being grumpy
Karm, but I know it does happen.
I'm not grumpy, but I can get
grumpy. I can play grumpy, I
guess.
It's amazing how, you know, his
life goes on and the phone
rings and we're in really some
bad situations that we really
don't want to. But it looks
like it's something I needed to
get. And it wasn't.
And you're in a crisis or
in a terrible mode.
Everyone can get grumpy at that
moment in time, especially if
it's just a follow up phone call.
OK, the digital natives,
have you found that the really
young people just don't want the
phone call? No, not at all,
which is really wild.
Actually, I was reading something
the other day where I was talking
about how the younger
generations actually have
a stronger drive for actual
relationships than almost anybody
because they've been so
pacified by social media and
the ability to have existence
with other people without having
to connect.
We actually have not seen that
at all. And in fact, the
younger generation has a higher
sense almost of loyalty for those
people who do make a bother to
make a connection in a relationship
because they crave it more than
anyone else does.
Typically, they're not as much
nickel and dime or shoppers.
If they find that place that they
know like and trust, that's going
to be their place until there's
a reason to do otherwise.
I read that article, I believe
or I had seen something come
by, you know, all the different
emails that I get that says
people are craving.
Some of the younger people are
craving relationships that
they can't get.
And I think that most I don't
want to come across as a text
message follow up is a good
thing like you.
I would say 96% of our customers
are running some sort of text
message follow up alongside us.
And they're fantastic for review
generation and things of that
nature. I think where we end up
seeing kind of the wheels fall
off the bus with that is
you're only going to hear really
from two groups of people, the
people who really loved you
and the people who really hated
you. But our future money is
in the middle, right?
Those people who are a bit
neutral with us still, that's
really where we want to make
the difference in terms of
retention.
So what I'm hearing from you
is a little bit about the
consistency of the engagement
with the client so that the
relationship can be strong,
built strong, stay strong.
I also believe I heard that
we can stop negative reviews
if they're about ready to
happen. I mean, do people?
And I don't know the answer
to this. I should find out.
I need to ask somebody.
Maybe you know, I had a bad
experience. Do I sit on it
or wait or do I immediately
running to Google and I give
you a bad experience?
Is there a timeline in
there?
You know, I don't know the
answer to that question.
I know that we've seen as
a result of following up.
I know that we've seen the
number of negative reviews
drop. Now, you know, you could
argue that that's because
where you're heading it off
of the past, or maybe they're
applying some of the feedback
that we're getting, right?
There's a lot of reasons that
reviews can happen.
You really can, right, by
heading that off at the past
and touching base that
customer who's been sitting
and they've been irritated
about whatever maybe that
part costs, right?
And they've been sitting
around fuming about it.
They go to another shop.
That's typically when the
customer leaves the review,
when they say, well, I took it
to this other guy and he said
this, right?
That's why most of our reviews
start that way.
So making sure that we're
following up in that in
between time, I think is
really essential.
I love the idea.
I just see some tons of value
in it.
And I don't know
callback pro.
Maybe that's the again,
I don't know if you call
it that or I called it that
or because just like I've
got my recruiter and my
coach, who's your callback
pro?
Our team members who
actually are calling
in dialing, we call them
our ambassadors because really
we feel like that that's
their primary role.
They're an ambassador between
your shop and that customer.
And to drive relationship
you know, that's our
terminology is important
and that's how we refer to
them.
I think it's a strong
job description.
If I was sitting down
working for you and calling
that to knowing that I'm
the ambassador for this
particular company,
do you encourage the
individual who is going
to make calls for a shop
to actually speak to
what some of the
leadership there?
We always try to have
the same person calling
as much as we can.
So that way, that
relationship begins to
develop between them
and the shop.
Obviously, there's
vacations and things of that
nature that come up and we're
providing that consistency
and making sure people
are there to do that.
We really try to keep
that the same person
calling because they're
going to see trends.
They're going to be able
to provide deeper insights
into that for that shop
just based on that
long-term relationship.
So we try to keep
the pair as much
as we possibly can.
Bilingual if necessary?
Yep, yes, sir.
Yeah, that's definitely
an important we have
some Spanish speaking
ambassadors as well.
Mike Carrillo,
founder, auto shop follow-up
What have I failed to ask you
that you'd like to tell me?
Yeah, I think you asked
the pertinent things.
I mean, it's one of those things
that is really simple.
It's almost I think sometimes
we discount it a little bit
because it just seems like,
man, we should do this.
It's not complicated, right?
It's but it's consistency.
Right. And if you apply
that consistency,
the results really do work.
What we've seen
and this is just a little,
you know, pat on the back
for myself, our team.
We don't have long-term
contracts and we retained
over 98 percent of our
customer base last year.
The system really,
really does work.
That's our main call.
We just we would love shops
to see more do more follow-up
in-house, even if you're doing it
on your own.
It really, really, really
can move the needle for you
in a way you can't expect.
I just see a lot of value in it
because we're in the people
business. We fix cars,
but we help people
have a great life,
give them their freedom
to get anywhere they want to
get with the safe
and reliable vehicles.
I don't think our business
should be cold.
It should be warm and friendly.
It should be, I mean, you
know, people,
whether it's employment,
people don't quit businesses,
right? And or if you're a
customer, you don't leave a
business. You leave the people
who are working there.
And so if we lose
sight of that piece, right?
Whether you're in your best
customers too, right?
You're people who have been
coming there for 10 years.
It's so easy for us to say,
oh, we don't want to call them
and follow up.
They're our customer.
They've been coming to us forever.
Yet the main reason people
don't come back is because
they said they feel forgotten
about. I think we start to
take for granted the people
that we have and forget
that our customer was only
our customer the last time
they're in our shop.
Now they're up for grabs,
right? And we have to keep
working for that.
You earn a Meach Transaction.
I really enjoyed this, Mike.
Thank you so much, Mike Carillo,
founder AutoShop, follow up at
autoshopfollowup.com.
You taught me an awful lot
and you broke down some
barriers in my mind.
Appreciate you being here, man.
Thank you, Carl.
Appreciate it.
Pleasure as always.
Thanks for being on board to
listen and learn from the
premier automotive aftermarket
podcast.
Until next time.
Request an explanation for:
1 cars
1 cars featured
Request an Explanation
Heard something you'd like explained? We'll add it to this episode.
Sign in to request explanations for terms you heard.
Want to learn more?
Browse our glossary for plain-English explanations of automotive terms, jargon, and concepts.
Help improve this episode
See something that's not quite right? Our annotations are AI-generated and can sometimes miss the mark. Click the flag icon on any annotation to suggest a correction.
Report incorrect info
Suggest better explanations
Flag missing cars
More from Remarkable Results Radio Podcast
From Data to Loyalty: How AI and Hospitality Are Redefining Shop Growth [THA 488]
Jun 5, 2026
Stop Hiring in Panic Mode: Build a Recruiting Pipeline for Your Shop [RR 1094]
Jun 2, 2026
When Personal Stress Walks Into the Shop: How Leaders Protect Performance [THA 487]
May 29, 2026
From Guesswork to Process: Modern Diagnostic Strategies for Auto Repair Shops [RR 1093]
May 26, 2026