Batman Needs a Robin: Meet Your Shop’s New Sidekick Ninja App [THA 479]

This is the Automotive Repair Podcast Network.

Hey everybody, Karm Capriotto, a remarkable results radio.

Good to have you here back at Vision 2026 here at the Overland Park Convention

Center. And I know it doesn't matter what time it is, but I think in about a

half hour, the expo hall opens after the second day of training.

We're always excited to be here.

Tracy did a training class with Sarah and I did great that I facilitated the

mastermind, CEO mastermind today and it was really, really good.

Also, thank you so much to NapaTrax for sponsoring us here.

I talk too much about SMS systems and the total usage of them.

And I got to tell you, everybody that I spoke to says, yeah, yeah, we're

probably a little shy of using all the great features that are in all the

SMS's. The thing I love about NapaTrax is they've got local people daily training.

There's nothing they won't do for any different position in your company to

know and understand how to make their SMS, the NapaTrax SMS, a very powerful

tool in your company.

I got a very interesting episode on tap for you.

You're going to really like it because we're going to talk about some really

neat new software that's coming out from one of the guys who's with and he's

been on before. I'll tease you with his name, Jeremy Glasgow.

We'll be right back.

Hey, for over 30 years, NapaTrax has made selecting the right shop management

system easy by offering the best, most comprehensive SMS in the industry.

We'll prove to you that Trax is the single best shop management system in the business.

Find NapaTrax on the web at NAPATRACS.com.

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Jeremy, welcome to the show, my friend.

How are you doing?

I'm great, Karm.

Jeremy Glasgow, founder of AppFueled, unlike any other CRM in the entire world.

It's a bold claim, but we're making it.

It is, yeah.

And the founder of the original mobile app, Ninja.

Damn.

We're going to talk a little bit about this Ninja app.

Joe, Schindler is with us.

Family Legacy Company from what, 1972.

65.

65, even longer.

Yep.

I read that one in 1972 on your website.

You better change it.

Well, 72 is when we were in the, we're in the building we're in now.

65 is the start date for my, they started it up, but they moved to this

location.

So we have been in one location since 1972.

Okay, Joe.

Floyd's knobs.

I'm sorry.

That is just a funny sounding town name.

We get made fun of because of it and stuff because it used to be Floyd

knobs without an S.

Now they put two S's on it and everything.

Floyd's knobs.

God.

It's actually listed in some place, one of the dirtiest names.

Tell you what I mean, we're right down the road from French lick.

So Indian.

Oh my God.

Two on one.

So, oh my God.

Okay.

That's all in Indiana.

Please be careful when you drive through Indiana.

Okay.

Yeah.

Well, you don't want to get stuck in Floyd's knobs or French lick.

You say it's French lick.

Yes, just down the road.

And they have a motel six, I'm sure.

Carm, since we're talking about towns, I live in a town that's going to be

greatly confused with your sponsor.

Shout out to your sponsor, Nampa, Idaho.

Yeah.

And everyone goes like, Nampa, Nampa, N-A-M-P-A.

But it's really close.

It's right in there.

I get it all the time.

Okay.

So I'm talking about this whole gap thing of, you know, the app gap that

exists before we turn, if you were ever behind the scenes in any of my

episodes, especially when we go live, we seem to start doing the episode.

It says, okay, let's structure this.

I've got some notes.

Here's the way we want to make sure we give the listener.

And then, but we're about eight minutes in and we've already done the episode.

Yeah.

We couldn't contain ourselves.

I just can't.

That's great.

So what is your opinion on what this app gap is all about?

Okay.

My opinion on an app gap, it's not there for any of us in the auto industry as consumers.

Right, Carm?

So if any of us are rebuying right now, I would wager, I don't know, $5 that when

you rebuy, probably you're on the third or fourth rebuy, you're using an app.

Really?

That's as a consumer.

So rebuying.

I had one relationship.

Second, you say by the third, I'm using an app.

Third or fourth visit, I'm going to wager that you're using an app.

Wow.

Uh, Southwest Airlines.

Okay.

Amazon.

Okay.

Costco, Starbucks, Chick-fil-A.

And our grocery store, and our Walmart, is that what you're saying?

The list goes on.

So we don't have an app gap as consumers.

But where we do have it is with us asking our consumers to get our app.

And that gap just, it's why I don't sleep at night.

I do not sleep at night.

Because you're wondering how to pull them in?

Well, as consumers, we all know apps work.

We all use them.

It makes doing business easier at that business.

And that's why we download them.

And we don't download them because we think that the app does not build trust.

The app is used when you trust someone.

And so I've always misunderstood that, right?

I mean, as an app builder, I'm really biased on this.

I go, oh, we're going to build you an amazing app.

You're going to look legit.

You're going to be in the app stores.

You're going to be an amazing brand.

Your customers won't download it because you have an app.

They'll download it because they trust you.

And coming back to your shop will be easier.

You'll have some value in there.

You'll have some conveniences.

And that's why, as consumers, we use apps.

So that app gap is, how do we close it in our industry?

Carm?

And that's why I'm so thankful I'm on the show, just to get the question out there.

Like, I'm not claiming to have all the answers, but that is the question.

Why do we have an app gap?

I just love what you just said.

It just really rocked my soul.

They only put the app down because they trust you.

Yeah, I've had it wrong.

I think I've been telling the story since 2015.

We used to be a different company.

We've rebranded, app-fueled.

And why did we do that?

And my thought was, let's fuel the rebuy experience.

Everyone talks about retention.

No guys like Craig O'Neill.

Just brilliant mind to talk about retention and relationship.

I'm just under the impression that it can't be left to only text, only email,

only postcards, and only phone calls.

I'm not against any of those things.

But why not also an app?

So that's, I kind of just wrestle with the question every day.

Why an app gap?

Okay. My mind is reeling in a million places,

and I got to try to control it and bring it down.

Joe will be with you in a minute.

Joe's our guest here, too.

And I know Joe wants to say a ton of things,

but coming from Floyd's knobs, how much?

Oh, sorry, Joe.

I didn't know it was going to be like this.

I get picked on everywhere, so I go, good.

So here it is.

It's the rebuy experience.

So I come into your shop, Jeremy.

I'm a brand new client.

And you just do great things for me.

And I come second time.

Every CRM, all the software we have in the world

can tell you this is my third, fourth, or fifth visit.

It can.

And if on the third visit, is that when I talk about my app with you?

I mean, you could.

I would say you're missing the boat.

You could wait till the third visit.

The reality is, half of your customers,

you won't see for a third visit.

So I wouldn't wait till the third visit.

But you said that I'm not going to download it

until the third visit.

Well, it's possible that that's true.

We have evidence that you can move the needle.

You can move people to download something for other reasons.

So things like, I probably mentioned this on one of your shows before,

I didn't trust Krispy Kreme,

like that they were going to be a nutritional donut.

But they did offer me a free donut,

and I downloaded their app to get that donut.

It wasn't that I trusted Krispy Kreme in all things,

or maybe they were going to help me with chocolate milk, too.

Like I may not have known all the things Krispy Kreme was going to do.

But at that moment, I wanted a free donut.

And so we can do that in our shops, too.

We can get crafty.

We can have swag.

We can have something special that's going to happen today.

We could have a spin the wheel contest.

We could, I mean, restaurant people are great at this.

You might get a free appetizer by downloading our app today.

At Applebee's.

You don't have to wait till the third time.

Got it.

But the probability is most people won't be using and engaging in your app

until that second, third visit.

Again, I say go for it now, though.

Why not ask?

Jeremy.

Krispy Kreme's.

Okay.

You like them?

Well, I like free donuts.

And so, but it's very difficult to go get free donuts.

Am I right?

What do you have to do?

Be homeless, sit on the corner?

What do you have to do?

Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of ways.

Like I teach a discipleship group of high school boys and they get free donuts for me.

So, you know, you can just show up to random.

You don't have mentors that might bring you free donuts,

but otherwise it's a challenge to go get them free donuts.

Have you ever taken a waffle iron?

Krispy Kreme in the middle of it.

Have it very nice and hot.

Close the cover and wait.

How long, Trace?

Just not even 10 seconds, I think.

10, maybe 15 seconds.

Lift the lid.

Take a look at that.

Krispy Kreme that's got those square marks all over it.

Cut it in half.

Put it in your mouth.

You've never, ever done a Krispy Kreme like that before, ever.

And we actually did a show, an entire show.

It has to three years ago.

Can we do round two?

I mean, can I be invited?

And Joe?

Joe, we're coming back.

Isaac Rodell.

There he is.

Every year.

There he is.

Every year.

Sunday morning.

Thank you, Joe.

Was it 100, 200 donuts he brings in?

And he does a little waffle iron.

Best thing you'll ever eat.

And so here's the story.

This was the coolest thing.

Trace, he says, we got to do this.

So he brings it into our studio.

So we didn't have a lot of chaos going on.

He brought a box, the waffle iron's on.

And I said, Trace, just go and interview him.

She approaches it like she's a news person

for the first time discovering this unbelievable treat.

And she's starting to ask really tough questions of Isaac.

And it is a boot because you know we're playing it for fun.

Yeah.

And it was so much fun.

And then somebody left to go get chocolate chips

or something like that was the funniest.

So I don't mean to be laborer or episode about crispy creams,

but you brought it up.

I do.

And I'll keep bringing it up if you want to.

I love, yes, yes.

You have this thing called the App Ninja.

And I really want to jump inside that thing.

You said, Karm, it's like,

if you have Batman, you have to have a Robin.

And Batman is everything that we have today,

but you need to have this sidekick.

You call it the sidekick.

Sidekick, Nijan.

What it is about the Batman, that just occurred to me one night.

Most people, if you're a client of App Fuels,

your customers should not know who we are.

Because we're building the app for you.

It's your branded app.

And so we are App Ninjas.

We hang out in the shadows.

We don't want your customer to know about us.

This is to position your brand in the right way.

So it just made sense to me when I was talking

with a branding cliche, we're talking about service advisors

have way too many tools, Jeremy, way too many tools.

And I said, OK, so they've got their hero.

Their hero is Batman.

So pick your shop management system.

You know, Naptracks, Techmatrix, Shopwear.

That's Batman.

And we knew to be the App Ninja that's in our DNA,

which is to come alongside your day without interrupting your day,

and not really asking you to use an extra tool is just come alongside the advisor.

And we thought Batman usually works alone at night.

Which is how he is.

But occasionally Robin shows up.

And that's that's how we view our Sidekick Ninja.

OK, so when you just come alongside their day.

Robin shows up on their screen.

That's right.

Yep.

And it does what for them?

Well, so the problem that we first wanted to tackle was

what we assumed was a missed call scenario.

And there's a lot of ways that can happen.

And not just a missed call, a missed engagement.

For example, if I was, let's just go along with the Krispy Kreme story for a moment.

At the window or wherever, the person told me I had a free donut, right?

I downloaded the app and then I drove around to the window.

If the person at the window couldn't within one second see that I was the customer

expecting a free donut, all you've done with that reward or that membership opportunity

or that loyalty is you've actually messed that person up.

Because you might be about to write that ticket.

Close them out.

And oh, wait a minute.

This was an A customer who had our app downloaded with a $12 rebate and 14 stars.

And they were actually a member.

And so that was really the first problem we wanted to close is we discovered that advisors.

Because they didn't they didn't have time to go to that extra tool.

Didn't even know what the customer's profile was.

So we thought, hey, you're in there looking at that ticket.

You're about to write that up.

Don't write this ticket up and forget their $13 rebate.

That customer's going to call you out.

Okay, all right.

So it makes so much sense to me because Joe, jump in any time.

I keep thinking about the word sidekick.

Listen, Tracy leads this network of ours.

She does 90% of the heavy lifting to get us where we are.

But she's my sidekick in many cases.

Sidekick Tracy.

To me, it is one of the most.

I think every one of us in this world that are doing good things for people

can't remember everything.

It's like, I'm so enamored about, okay, oh, tell me all about this client.

The phone calls that have come in, the work we've done, the future commitments,

the mileage.

Tell me about their family, their occupation.

Tell me about their dreams.

And all of that's in the CRM, but we have to stop and integrate it or open it.

And it would be so cool that if I'm kind of joking about my watch,

and last time Jeremy was on, the last thing we talked about, the blah, blah, blah, blah,

blah, it's my watch could be my sidekick.

But you've decided to say, how can I give the kind of information

that continues to build loyalty and trust?

Because when I talk that language to the client, right, Joe?

They're looking at me and says, damn, how do you know all that about me?

How do you remember that stuff?

It's the key to remember that stuff.

It is the key because you've got so much going on.

And pre-psychic ninja, customer comes in, you have to remember to switch over to the website,

prep, field, look at the customer profile and put in.

At the same time, your phone's ringing, customers in front of you.

And then the next thing you know, you get a phone call, a day later,

hey, you forgot to put my 5% rebate, my free oil change, whatever's on there,

because didn't have it right there.

Now it stays on the screen.

It's right there to see.

And it's got a little spot that says, hey, you have a coupon available for this customer.

You click on it, see what coupon they have.

Oh, they've got a wiper, so wiper blades.

Okay.

So if the car's in for an oil change and basically the wipers were halfway,

we were quite gone.

But then now, hey, bring it back in, put a wiper blade on.

We're going to go ahead and take care of this in advance to take care of the customer and say,

hey, we applied this to you for your free wiper blades or the birthday.

We give a birthday for your birthday.

That's a great one for them.

Hey, I want to wish you a happy birthday.

You got $30 off coupon.

It's right there.

And that's what I've tried other CRMs.

And you had to log in, log out of different things.

And as an owner service advisor, since I do both roles,

I've got 400 things going through my mind at all times.

And I forget.

And then I've had customers call, hey, I had this.

They're not upset.

I had this.

You just nailed the feeling that every person who's listening here,

who's never been treated to the deserving discount coupon,

free something that you get.

Oh, that's great.

Well, the next time I get there, they didn't even remind me.

They didn't offer it.

They didn't know I'm pissed.

I am pissed.

And when you go to checkout, I can't remember where I was.

Oh, I think I went to OfficeMax.

I joined their program because we do a lot of our printing there and stuff.

And when I went there, the guy looked at me and he goes,

hey, you've got some points.

Do you want me to take it off of your order?

You had no clue.

I didn't.

I just signed up because they convinced me this was a good thing.

You're going to get some future discounts.

We won't bother you a lot.

And I said, okay, I figured he's not an incentive.

You know, I'm a businessman.

I come here.

And so that, wow, I see why I keep coming here.

They care.

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I will protect the owner's money. Can I explain this for one second?

Yeah, yeah.

Some rebate programs, I'm not picking it in any particular because we've all experienced this.

You don't even know you have a rebate and you show up to a business. So as a consumer,

we've all done this. You walk in there, you didn't even know you had one. You came back

because you just came back. You walk up there and the person behind the counter does the great

thing, the honorable thing, the trustworthy thing, and they give you the rebate you didn't know you

had. That is great customer service. That's great trust, but it's also giving away money you didn't

have to give away because you came back without knowing about that rebate. So AppFuel, we want to

empower the owner to not give away their own money unless the consumer is the one that engaged with

the program. So for example, someone goes to Joe's shop, they don't have a rebate, a balance

that they didn't know about because they had an app and they unlocked it after the visit.

That's how we want to use the owner's money is it's an investment in them engaging in your brand

so that they saw it, they unlocked it, they swiped it, they looked at the ticket, they gave Joe a

thumbs up, thumbs down on the visit, and now it's in your brain. We just won some philosophical time.

We got six seconds out of your customer. Boom, your brands. So we don't want that moment to

happen that you just experienced. I don't want that to happen where an advisor is mentioning

rebate dollars that you didn't know about as a consumer. Is that fair, really?

I really understand protecting the money. I really get that. Yeah, I'm not arguing for

not giving it away. The consumer is more informed because the app empowers, updates you and keeps

the consumer to know this. Joe, you've got a really big ticket. The car needs a lot of work.

And over on Sidekick, you're seeing that there's a rebate out there that the customer hasn't asked

for. However, that works. Is it possible that that big ticket item could actually come in the

house if you remind that customer about that? Oh, it most certainly can stuff and everything

because if you've got a rebate, they're like, oh, well, I'll go ahead and do it. I understand what

you're saying. They can choose to use it when they need it if the client doesn't ask. And if

there's so much going on in our world to remember everything, we've got loyalty cards for the grocery

store. I mean, we're scanning it. Yeah, let me restate what I was trying to say. What I'm not

saying is that if the rebate is there, I think Joe should be quiet about it. I'm not saying that.

What I'm saying is our app does not add the rebate dollars to their account unless the customer

keeps the app on their phone, creates a profile, and then within 24 hours unlocks the dollars

themselves. I see. If they don't do that, the rebate dollars actually expire and go away. Okay.

They have to be engaged. They have to stay engaged to keep the app to have the rebate

bounce. If they unsubscribe, it all goes away. Okay. That's fair. No, I'm not asking that.

I hope I didn't say it that way. I'm not trying to get advisors. And I'm sorry, I read it the wrong

way. But I'm good at miscommunicating. So part of what my job is here is that if I was unclear,

my audience, maybe I think it's clear. And I want to drive down there. Okay.

And I think one of Jeremy's things that he's not mentioned, because he taught me about it,

is gamification. And basically, that was a conversation we had was that basically,

he engages the client and gamifies it so that they get the adrenaline rush by unlocking stars,

by adding vehicles. So one of the things I loved about it initially was customer comes in,

I've got their 2010 Chevrolet Silverado. I'm working on it. They download the app and they

get home because he sends a text to him, hey, you're free of my app because I actually charge

for my app because they get some great benefits. I get like $300 with benefits for $59.99. First

year's free. So they go home, they download it. And then they go in, oh, I get 20 stars for every

vehicle I own and add. So now I have records, hey, he is a BMW, he has an Audi, and he has a Corvette.

And he's got all these cars, he's put in his things. So next time he comes in,

hey, I know you bring your Chevrolet pickup truck here, but you've got these other vehicles,

we do work on those so we can work on those for you. It's just a reminder to basically

reach out to customer, learn about them, and basically be able to say, we can do that work.

Information is power. Yes.

Plain and simple. And so if they're playing in the app, you gain the benefit of all of that

information and you ask, why not? Yeah, I mean, I get their, we already got their name, the phone

number and address and everything. We might not collect the email that day. To me, email has

somewhat went away because you get bombarded, so they ignore that. But they give you your email

because it earns them stars. So now I get their email, I get their birthday because they get an

extra $10 off their next visit for giving me their birthday, which is a big thing because I get a

report of birthdays and I'm like, hey, this person's birthday this week. And they get a notification.

A hot, crispy cream on your birthday. If there was one around your shop.

I'm all about co-partning with people. So yes, I mean, you get so much information to dig in and

like you said, being able to collect all that information and tell your customer and say,

oh, I just want to wish you a happy birthday today. When they come in the week before or

everything, and then you got rebate, I think 30 days is the expiration. Yeah, you can adjust it.

So this app combines phones, texts and emails and Sidekick Ninja is bringing that all up,

integrating with the phone. Whose phone system do you integrate with? Well, this is where we,

like I think we're blowing people's minds. Thank you, Joe. This is where I have to get to say

a thank you to Joe. It's call inbound. Joe is a call. Great people, by the way. They're

sponsoring our shows. Yeah, he has blown us away. Like what is actually possible with a phone system?

And so for AppFuel to be a CRM, I've wrestled with it to be honest, like does a CRM have to

become a phone system in today's world? And the answer I'm coming up with is no, because I know

David over at call inbound. So Joe, like reach out to Joe, you go, Joe, this is unreal. We think

we can show all of your phone calls. Every phone call your shop has, we can AI score it,

transcribe, record it, and give it to you all wrapped up in a nice, let's call it gift wrap bow,

right there next to the repair order. So if Joe's looking at a repair order today,

and he clicks on our little ninja, it opens up, he can see all of the texts, calls,

whether it was from the shop management system, or from AppFuel, the CRM, or from the phone system,

sees it all up to two days before the repair was opened, and up to two days after the repair

order was closed. So rather than looking through a whole customer thread of calls and texts that

might be unrelated, we just kind of wrap it up and say, here was your repair order. Now,

why do we go back two days before and two days after we're looking for that appointment reminder

moment? Sometimes there's some texting going on in there that happens the day before. During the

visit, there's a lot of calls and texts as Joe knows, he's an advisor owner, you get that there's

a thousand things happening while the tickets open. Then when the ticket posts, because you usually

have things like rebates going out, you have things like a Google review prompt, you might have a

call center task that's loaded up in your ninja prompting you to make that next day satisfaction

call, it's all visible right there with the repair order. So at any moment that Joe wants to, he

could go back in time, hey, I want to like maybe a customer calls back and he's wanting to rehash

a visit from two months ago, he could click on that repair order, open the ninja, and he'll see

all of the communication with that visit in one click. It's scary smart right there. It's scary

smart. The fact is that one thing he hit on right there was being able to have the reminder, hey,

I need to do the 24 hour follow up and call my client and say, hey, did everything go okay? Or

did there was any issues? And I have a record of that because if I just see, did I miss that?

It's not on here. It's not my, because it's a little task. It's a little task master for you.

To be able to tell a client the last time we talked, the last time we text,

I'm telling you that's scary. That's scary smart. I'm not saying that the client would be scary.

It's scary in a good way that they look at you and say, wow, these people really care. They've

got this detailed information about the safety and the reliability of my vehicle and value me as

a client, that they track all of this because they don't stay on the center line. We know this

stuff because we don't want you to go left or right. So when did this hit you that you had to

do this? Well, I mean, this vision, it came in 2015, Karm. It was that the word back then nobody

really knew the word was omnichannel. Right. Right. That word's been around for a decade now,

maybe longer, but that's as far back as I can remember. And when I think of omnichannel,

again, back to it's more of a question than it is that I have the answer. But if the statement is,

we want an omnichannel, how could we leave phones out? And how can we leave apps out? I don't think

you can. Right. And by experiencing what we're all experiencing as consumers today, a lot of

businesses, the first channel they're actually to get rid of is phones. And I don't think our

industry's up for that. I don't think we should. You deal with Amazon, you're not calling an Amazon

rep on the phone right now. That's probably not happening. You're not going to talk to a human

and get some help on an Amazon order. So our industry, we're not going to get rid of phones,

which I think is great. Good. Let's keep it that way. But then in other industries, they might cut

out email, but they're not cutting out email and not replacing with something. If they cut out email,

it's because you became a direct channel. You chose the channel they wanted. And I use Starbucks

as the perfect example. I don't get Starbucks emails anymore. But it's not that Starbucks

doesn't believe in email. They email people too, but they know they have me in the app.

They're tracking my actions and I get app alerts. So, and that's the channel they want me in,

because I'm way more likely to click on a Starbucks app alert than I would be on a random

email because I have 400 emails, but I only have a few businesses that I trust enough

to allow an app alert channel to be reaching me. Again, I'm just kind of wrestling with those

questions, Karm. But it was in 2015, I just said a CRM should not exist in today. And that was back

then. I still believe it today. It shouldn't exist unless it's considering the direct channel

of app alerts, profile notifications. Phone. I mean, yeah, absolutely phones. We had phones

about four years ago. Of course, there's a group that pushed us to go next level. Now, when I say

phones, we don't ship out phones. We're not a phone company. But we did allow our system to be

clicked to call. So this sidekick ninja we're talking about here, Joe can click on a phone

number inside a shop management system and it's dialing outbound. So we've minimized people

having to pick up a phone and type in 10 numbers and it's still just making an outbound call from

your phone system. So it brings the phone and then you pick it up. Oh, it doesn't even do that.

You just have a headset. Yeah. Oh, you're doing it with a headset. Yeah. Basically,

I click the button and I use Apple. So I have my Apple iPod or your phone in and it basically

will direct the phone call to my ear. What about cell? Like calling from a cell phone.

They call you on a cell. They call you on a cell. It's just an inbound phone call.

It's an inbound phone call. Yeah. I mean, it comes right to it. So it doesn't matter if the old

landline things. It wouldn't matter how they dial. There's some instances on how like Joe might

dial. He can dial from the app field app if he wants to. So he can dial from a phone. He could

be on the road making a call from his call inbound phone number from an app from his phone.

So it's all recorded. It's all pulled together. It's app information. It's

repair order information. And it's the CRM if we're intelligently pulling in the acronym of

Ford Family Occupation Recreation and Dreams. Yeah. There are so many great points.

All of this came from John de Julius years ago is that you've got to know this stuff about your

client if you want to have a very powerful and trusted relationship. You need to know what's

going on because being able to talk their language to them and now you've got this side

ninja with all this other stuff over here. It's like the doctors say we have this medical chart

thing and you could sign on and you can see all the blood work the last time you were in and

drugs that you've been given and taken and your pharmacy. It's all there. Really kind of saying

is we got your ass covered. Your vehicle covered. This is why you come here because we're all

knowing and all seeing we're Oz. Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's scary. This is the Oz sidekick ninja.

And the thing is you hit on something right there because I have that app for my doctors.

I see everything and I had a client the other day that called me. Hey, can you send me this,

this and this? I want to remember what I have lost my things. I said, you have my app, right?

He said, yes, I said, well, I'll send them to you by text, but you can just go on your app.

It's connected to you. You can pull your vehicle up and you can look at any service record in my

system on your app. I mean, he goes, I didn't know I could do that. And that has been my selling point

for downloading the app. Basically, clients come in and they basically will actually have had four

or five in the last couple of weeks. They lose their basically paperwork and all of a sudden,

they need the paperwork for something. Neither selling the car. They got a quarantine question.

They didn't know it was available because they were an early client that I had that I

did not push real heavy on the feature. Now they are and they're like, oh, I can do that. Okay,

great. And that is one of the big selling points of the app because you have every service record

I have in my system. So, yeah, it's great. And Joe, like we've got a couple, you know,

AI is the buzz, right, guys? Who's not going to bring up AI in a show? I'll bring it up.

It'll be the fourth time today. Yeah, fourth time today. But I'm actually going to go past

the word of AI. Like this is what we're doing. It's AI rocks. I'm putting it out here for the

first time. AI ROX. First time you guys have heard it. It's trademarked AI ROX. And it stands for

authentically intelligent repair order experience. So it's not AI like artificial intelligence.

It's authentically intelligence repair order experience. And what that is is we are capturing

we're about to roll this out. So we had to get the phones in first. Thanks, Joe. It's a huge win

because we got the phones in there. We've got the text in there. We've got the consumer engagement

in there. We have the notes in there. We even now have all of the status updates from the SMS in

there. So guess what we're doing, guys? We're putting that into a score, a repair order experience

score. So we've always been able to score customers. We give them an A through F,

but we thought and everybody can score calls, you know, real estate scores calls,

app field scores calls, a lot of people score calls. But what we're doing is we're taking the

collective, that entire repair order experience, that whole journey, all of the message communication.

Did they engage? Did they not? Did they become a member? Did they not? How the advisor do on

the timing? Did we do what we said we were going to do? We're even finding trust breaches in there.

So if the advisor says something like, this was supposed to happen at three, and then there was

a bad sentiment in a call, we're wrapping it all up. And we're calling it the authentically

intelligence repair order experience score and IROX so that you can look through your tickets for

the day and you go, how did we do as a shop today? You're going to see your every repair order you

have, not just every call you have scored, but the actual visit experience. I love it.

And that I'm so excited to do and we could not do it without phones. So thanks for David for

helping us get this integration. We're about to go big time with it, but it's just guys,

if we can put this story together and help shop owners look at how we're doing, how is our team

doing? Did the car get delivered well? Did the call after go well and just kind of put it into

an experience that we can look at and get better at shops? I don't know if we said it here today,

but a word that just hit me upside the head was the word collective.

And I also came up with another incentive for our peoples. It's an AI ROX score. Didn't you say

there's a score? It's a score. It's a score, right? It's a score. It takes 12 ingredients.

If we're measuring all of these individual and or particular areas of do they have the app,

are they engaged with it? What's our phone call records look like as it gets opportunity,

digital vehicle inspections, delayed work, all comes into the AI ROX score somehow.

It's either the company has it or the service advisor has it assigned. This could go a lot of

places. Yeah. And our thought was not to scare someone like Joe. We didn't want it to be like,

advisors, you're being watched by the Justice League and we're coming down hard. It's just you

could have live information. You make that next day satisfaction call to the customer.

You're going to see all the sentiment of the calls yesterday. You're going to know how it went.

So it's more of a self-improvement if we view it that way. Of course, everyone can

use it the wrong way. I think these tools should be used as self-improvement. So advisors that like

their job. Honestly, as the service advisor, I mean, I actually audit my calls all the time

to see if I am not speaking correctly because I have been told multiple times I talk too fast on

the phone and I do and I try to work on it. So knowing where I dropped the ball in the customer

experience, I can work on that and improve myself to do that. So it would be a coaching tool where

you can say, hey, we need to work better on the communication while the vehicle's in because

that is where I dropped the ball is basically keeping up to date the client so that I'm not

getting a phone call three hours after. So I love this idea because it's going to blow

making customers experience better overall. At the mastermind this morning, we were talking

about huddles and meetings and some people would do it. They do an eight, I think a 10 a noon and a

two and at the 10 o'clock huddle as they regroup, even if the car, it's a non-update update. That's

what it is. Thank you, Trace. A non-update update. I like that. I'm going to call the client. I have

nothing to tell him, but I want him to hear from me. The part didn't arrive. It was on

back order. It was supposed to arrive this morning. It didn't. We're following through,

but we want to let you know. We haven't forgotten about you. I know I'm porting the vehicle is to

you, but we're still at a standstill on this. A non-update update. I'd almost say something

Jeremy did whenever I started with him, the white glove approach. Basically, you're handling them

like they have just purchased a Rolls Royce and everything's going to be touched, handled to you

with white gloves on. I love that approach to it as well. You know where's the hell out of me?

We've done some incredible episodes while we're here and they're going to go out,

people are going to listen to them. They're going to say, oh my God, those are some great ideas,

and then do nothing, nothing about it. That upsets me the most. Mr. and Mrs. Listener

upsets me the most that we give so much positivity and information, but they said,

listen, learn one thing and you got to implement something that you learn. A lot of things have

come out of this episode, but at least step forward to do one thing. Jeremy, appfuel.com,

appfuel.com, and if they want to go right to me, it's forward slash Jeremy.

Forward slash Jeremy. Yeah, book of call. I really just like to talk about vision.

So I walked into KC Joe's last night, great barbecue place, and Brandon and I walk in,

Brandon Cresce, I'm a business partner with him in another business. And if you guys need someone

to kick a service advisor, by the way, just reach out to Brandon, former Marine, he'll get it done.

I know you will. He's like that. He's a little scary. So I walk in to go, Brandon,

check it out. So this is my one action. If we want these guys to do any one thing,

here would be my one thing. We walk into this restaurant, and I don't think they did it on

purpose. I'm just watching this because I love to see how consumers are directed almost like

cattle. We walk in and then we'll say red, like a theater red rope line. As we walked in and I go,

Brandon, I've always wanted to try this in a shop. So this is a to your listeners,

Karm. Just an idea. I think it'd be fun to try it as an industry. Just split your counter in half,

put a beautiful red rope, and then on one side, make it just look like a normal counter.

And then on the other side, have a nice sign above VIP members on the left side of the rope,

you would be so subtle, you wouldn't even have to say it. Customers would walk up,

they have to make a choice. And if they made the non-member choice, and guys, I'd say,

love the mess with psychology of people. Wouldn't that be cool for the probably half of your

customers? I don't know, Joe, you want to try this? But they would probably walk up on one side.

Maybe let's say they picked the guest side, not the member side. But their first question would

probably be, I didn't know if I should be walking over there or how could I walk over there? And so

instead of you having to be a salesman, as it were, you just create interest. And I think for

customers to know there was a better way to do business here at the shop. And you could do it

in subtle ways. That's just like a beautiful visual. I guess I would say that's my next step,

Carm. It's like, I think we can be member shops, and we can do it in subtle ways.

You're a VIP to me. Come on over here. Yeah. And you wouldn't even have to say it.

It's just... And honestly, thinking about this, my first loyalty program was inspired because

they put a casino near our home, and Caesar's Casino has silver, gold, platinum, and diamond.

Nice. Everybody wants to be diamond. You don't want to spend the money to be diamond,

but they want to, so they can go get the privilege of going to that one side.

I mean, we all fly to these conferences, and I'm a Delta Diamond member now,

and you get to go in a special lane. If you're in certain airports, you get to go through a

special line through TSA without having to pre-check and everything. Everybody has that

in their head, the level that you get when you see that red rope is what it is and stuff like

That's a really clever idea. The apps are the after effect of you thinking through your shop

brand. How do you want to be? Do you want to be just a guest shop, or do you want to have a member

experience? And if you haven't thought through that, apps are really the after. That's the after

thought. But a velvet rope is almost a feel of belonging. Think about it. No matter what side

you're on. It worked for me at Casey Joe's. I don't know what side I chose. It wasn't clear,

but I still got great barbecue. Think about it. Just the subliminal messaging. You've got a counter

with two service advisors, client advocates there, even if it's a CSR, and the person sees the rope

and they see a distinct left and right, but there's no sign that says VIP or nothing. It's just the

messaging that I'm on the velvet rope. It's not like the TSA barriers. It's not this

piece of seatbelt material that separates the columns. It's a velvet rope.

It's, and everybody knows what the velvet rope means, because if you've ever seen a movie,

it has a night club up with a bouncer. It's always got that nice, sleek, red velvet rope there.

That means I'm special. I get to go there. All right. If somebody who's listening tries the velvet

rope thing. Please try. Reach out to appduel.com. Appduel.com forward slash Jeremy. And don't

forget to carbon copy me because I also want to know, and if not, you've got to call me and tell

me. I will. This was fun. It was great. Thank you so much, Jeremy Lasko, founder of the original

mobile app Ninja. And now side kick Ninja, the Chrome extension. And Appfield, of course,

unlike any other CRM and Joe Schindler, from the greatest name of a little town in the world,

Floyd's knobs, Indiana. Got to get to say that 10 times fast later. Four and a half day business.

You're open till noon on Thursday, huh? And I am on Friday. Friday's half. And I am about three

steps away from just saying, we're going to be closed Friday. Ah, okay. So that's why you're

diamond at Delta, because you have the whole weekend to travel, right? To be honest, I don't

travel but Amber, but these are my vacations. How do you get diamond? I don't understand.

I'll tell my secret. Somebody help me. I got a Delta American Express card. I'm not diamond.

You don't have a shop anymore. I put all my expenses on my shop. So that gets to me.

Oh my God. That'll be another episode, Joe. How do we all be getting diamond? Yeah. And plus,

I'm a big boy. So I do, I will pay for first class. Tracy did such a great job of putting you in the

camera that nobody can see you're wearing a sling. Yes, I hurt my shoulder. He hurt his shoulder

and he's wearing a sling. Your style's a little crept, I'm sure, because you're pounding on the

table. Anyone heard the rumble of drums in the background? It was but Jeremy and Joe

pounding on the table. Trying to get their points across. We're just really testing Tracy's editing.

This was a blast. Thanks for being here. Yeah, thanks, Carl. Thanks, Tracy.

Thanks for being on board to listen and learn from the Premier Automotive Repair Business

Podcast, Remarkable Results Radio. Get your episodic education on the ARPN

listening app at automotiverepairpodcastnetwork.com. Also, enjoy the podcast on our Carm Capriado

YouTube channel. Carm is all for advancing the professional automotive service industry. Until

next time.

Batman Needs a Robin: Meet Your Shop’s New Sidekick Ninja App [THA 479]

About this episode

NapaTrax

SMS systems

shop management system

Chevrolet Trax

Kukui

automated follow up

one and done cycle

Pit Crew Loyalty

CRM

Krispy Kreme

rebate

free oil change

wiper blades

lifetime value

AppFuel

customer profile

gamification

records of vehicles you own

repair order

omnichannel

app alerts

click-to-call

service record

AI ROX

non-update update

back order

white glove approach

loyalty program

TSA pre-check

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