The Chevrolet Trax is a small SUV made for regular daily driving. It’s meant to be easy to park and drive, especially in city or suburban traffic. People talk about it because it’s a common choice for buyers looking for a practical vehicle.
They’re talking about how strongly the car’s AC cools the inside. If the car has been sitting in the sun, it can take a while to cool down, even if the AC is working normally.
Declined work means the shop recommends repairs, and the customer says no for now—or possibly permanently. The key point is that it doesn’t get authorized.
A digital inspection is when the shop uses photos or video to show you what they found on your car. Instead of just telling you, they show proof so you can decide what to do.
A full vehicle inspection means the shop checks more than just the one problem you mentioned. In this discussion, they’re saying it should help you understand what your car needs and why.
Preventative maintenance means fixing or checking things before they break. The goal is to keep the car running well and avoid surprise, expensive repairs.
“Green” usually means the issue is low priority. The car is okay for now, and the shop may just recommend keeping an eye on it.
Part
cracked bushing on a control arm
The control arm is part of your suspension that holds the wheel in place. The bushing is like a flexible cushion that helps it move smoothly. If that cushion is cracked, the wheel can start moving out of alignment and handling can get worse.
This is about deciding how urgent a repair is based on what’s likely to happen next. If a small problem could turn into a bigger one soon, that’s higher risk. The host is saying the shop should label it based on that near-term risk, not just “it’s cracked.”
Term
battery is testing low
They’re saying the car’s battery doesn’t test as healthy as it should. Even if the car starts today, a weak battery can still fail later, so it’s something to plan for.
A “safety issue” is a problem that could put people in danger while driving. It’s the kind of repair you prioritize because it affects whether the car can be used safely.
The radiator helps keep the engine from overheating by cooling the hot fluid coming from the engine. If the hoses around it are old, the cooling system can fail even if it seems okay right now.
Old coolant hoses can get hard and crack. Even if they aren’t leaking right now, they can fail later and cause the car to overheat or leave you stranded.
Struts are parts of the suspension that help your car handle bumps and stay stable. If they’re worn out, the wheels can lose grip more easily, which can make stopping take longer—especially on rough roads.
Stopping distance is how far your car travels before it fully stops after you hit the brakes. If the tires don’t grip well because of worn suspension parts, your car may need more distance to stop safely.
Ride control is how your suspension keeps the tires in contact with the road and keeps the car from bouncing too much. If it’s not working right, the car can feel unstable and stop less effectively.
Term
tire needs to stay, keep contact with the road
This is about whether the tire stays firmly on the road surface. If the suspension is worn and the tire can’t stay planted, the car can lose grip and take longer to stop.
SEO is how you make a website show up when people search on Google. The point here is that shops need to be seen as a trustworthy source of car information online.
Social media is where people post and share information online (like videos, posts, and comments). The episode mentions it as another way customers look for car-related info.
“ASC certifications” are official training credentials apprentices earn. The speaker lists the specific certification areas apprentices can complete in the program.
Here, “air conditioning” means the car’s climate system—how it heats and cools the cabin. The program includes training and certification for working on that system.
Term
journey workers automotive technicians
This phrase means the technicians reach a fully trained, skilled level through an apprenticeship. The host is saying the program registers graduates as official “journey worker” technicians with the government.
“Napa Tracks” is software for auto repair shops. It helps manage the business day-to-day and track things that affect profit, while also offering training and support.
“Declined service” means the shop recommended repairs, but the customer said no. The episode is about how to follow up later instead of letting those opportunities disappear.
This phrase means if you start with bad information, you’ll get bad results. The host is saying the shop’s follow-up system only works well if the recommendations are prioritized and entered correctly.
The Mitchell system is software shops use to look up repair information and help write estimates for specific cars. It’s part of how the shop turns diagnosis into a written repair plan.
A cloud-based system is software hosted on the internet rather than installed locally on a shop’s computers. In repair businesses, moving to cloud tools can change how estimates, recommendations, and follow-ups are stored and accessed.
ROs are repair orders, basically the official paperwork that lists what work the shop is doing on a car. They’re where the estimate details get turned into the job being performed.
Rack and pinion is the main steering mechanism in many cars. Turning the steering wheel moves a gear system that pushes the steering linkage to turn the wheels.
A CV boot is a rubber cover on the axle that keeps the joint greased and protected. If it cracks or splits, dirt gets in and the joint can start failing sooner.
ADAS means driver-assistance technology in the car, like systems that help you stay in your lane or avoid crashes. After some repairs, the car may need re-calibration so those features work correctly.
Labor guides are reference charts that estimate how many hours a repair should take. Shops use them to plan work and explain jobs to customers, but the descriptions can be hard to understand.
Shops often sort repair recommendations into categories like safety, reliability, and maintenance. The goal is to help customers see what needs attention immediately versus what can be planned.
This is about how the shop talks to the customer—especially explaining what needs to be done and when. The point is that reminders alone aren’t enough if the customer can’t clearly understand the message.
An oil change is when the shop replaces the engine oil. It’s a common service, and the story is showing how missed recommendations can get delayed until the next visit.
Shop management software is the system auto repair shops use to run day-to-day operations like estimating, work orders, scheduling, and invoicing. The segment emphasizes that connecting CRM to this software matters because it lets the CRM pull accurate service and customer data.
Deferred maintenance means putting off car repairs or service. The danger is that what could have been a simple fix can turn into a bigger problem if you wait too long.
Transmission fluid is the oil that helps your car’s transmission work smoothly. If it’s dark, it often means it’s been in there a long time or isn’t doing its job as well anymore.
Concept
false
Here, “false” means wrong information that can still sound confident. The point is that you can’t just trust an AI answer—you have to check it against what’s really going on with the car.
Pre-ordered parts means the shop gets the needed parts ahead of time. That way, when the car is scheduled for the repair, the shop can do the work without waiting on parts.
Follow-up and follow-through means the shop keeps in touch after the inspection and makes sure the next appointment and repairs actually get done. It’s basically “don’t drop the ball after you recommend something.”
A scheduling coordinator is the person who organizes appointments and makes sure the business has enough work lined up. In the episode, it’s used as an example of how shops can manage timing and customer needs.
Here, “database” just means the computer system that keeps track of what customers need and when they’re due. It helps the shop remember who hasn’t finished recommended work yet.
A “top-line bump” just means trying to increase the shop’s revenue. The episode is saying don’t focus only on quick revenue—also build the pipeline for future work.
“Facebook ads” are paid ads you run on Facebook to attract new customers. The point is they’re a short-term growth lever compared with long-term follow-up.
Term
Google stuff
“Google stuff” means marketing you do through Google to bring in new customers. Here it’s mentioned as an aggressive way to get more leads quickly.
A “loyalty program” is a way a business rewards customers for coming back. In car repair, it’s often used to encourage customers to schedule future service.
Term
opportunistic
“Opportunistic” means there’s a good chance to act when a customer notices a problem. The shop can use that moment to get the car booked for the work that was previously delayed.
A transmission flush is a service where fluid is replaced using a machine or process that pushes out old transmission fluid more aggressively than a simple drain-and-fill. It’s often discussed as a maintenance item, but the episode uses it as an example of work customers may not feel motivated to buy.
Deferred work means repairs the shop recommends, but the customer puts off for later. The idea is that shops can do better at getting those jobs approved by communicating clearly and following up.
LIVE
This is the Automotive Repair Podcast Network.
Hey everybody, welcome back. It's Karm Capriotto, episodic education for the professional
automotive repair industry. Been doing this 11 years. Thank you so much to you for being here.
You've stepped up to a heightened level of professionalism by adopting our language shift.
Thank you so much for buying into the word specialist and how specialist rules in your
business. And I've done a great episode recently, Town Hall Academy 485, discussing the specialist
in depth. We've got a lot of stuff going on. In fact, I'm going to tell you a little bit about
our app once we give a great high five to our partners. Hey, you know the technician shortage
is real, but Napa AutoCare has a solution at no cost to members. The Napa AutoCare Apprentice
Program builds tomorrow's technicians through a two year nine stage curriculum. Learn more at
member.napaautocare.com or talk to your Napa representative today. Hey, did you know that
NapaTrax has onsite 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. Find NapaTrax on the web at NAPATRACS.com.
Hey, everybody. Look, our app is there for you. It's a very powerful tool. You know what?
For your smartphone, ARPN, which is the automotive repair podcast network of which I am a member of
ARPN.app. For your smartphone, the ultimate professional automotive repair playlist,
get it, have a blast, share episodes and ideas, even download in case you're in an airplane
somewhere and you can't get to something. I have a really cool guy, Jimmy Luria. We're going to be
talking about deferred work as a sales growth tactic. Jimmy's from 3A Automotive and Diesel
Repair. I'm glad you're here. Phoenix, Arizona. How's business? We're in our hot season now.
So we're the devils in the city of Phoenix that are just praying for 110 degree heat because it
really does that much more for business. So yeah, it does damage. Yes. Cars don't like heat.
They don't like heat. Humans don't either. No, we don't. And humans don't like being in cars
that don't have good cold air conditioning. So Jimmy, listen, I got this thing said at 64 and
it feels warm. We had one coming the other day. It's a black truck that's sitting out in the sun
and the guy's complaining that it's not ice cold when he gets in it. It's like, look,
it's going to take about 10 minutes to cool this sucker down. So I imagine, wow,
it's blowing 40 out of the docks. All right. Hey, look, I am excited to get here and talk about
declined or we can call it deferred. And I do believe there's an interesting dichotomy between
those two words where decline means never deferred means later. And we can talk about that.
But is declined or deferred work? Is it a sales issue? Is it a communication issue?
Or is it a leadership issue? And I know you have the passion to discuss all of this.
Okay, man. So are we widely underusing this whole information we get from our DVIs?
Oh, 100%. The digital inspections are amazing. You've spearheaded a lot of conversations about
this technology and how transparency has helped the industry and being able to do that. But
one of the things that I've seen, and I've seen this even before digital inspections, was that
you're doing a full vehicle inspection and you're not doing a full vehicle inspection to have a
$5,000 average RO. You're doing a full vehicle inspection to educate the customer. So now we
have all this data. And what do they need right now? What are they in for? What do they need right
now? But then there's all these other items that they could be red items that they really should
do right now, but they can't afford it or they don't have time. And then there's the yellow
items that let's keep an eye on this stuff or this is what's upcoming. Absolutely. I mean,
I sent you some talking points, but this is a hot button for me.
Yeah, I know when I reached out to Jimmy, he like responded in 30 seconds, I'm on baby,
let's do this thing. When I just heard you say reminded me of the old, would your grandma do
this scenario? You know, you look at your bathroom, would your grandma want to go in there
and use that facility? And if I did a digital vehicle inspection and I found very important
things to keep grandma's car on the road, not having to buy a new one, very reliable and very
safe, would I skip anything if it was grandma's car? And then once I sat down with grandma and I'd
say, Listen, Nani, I want to tell you what's going on here. We got to do this now. We can do this
maybe in a couple of months. And we see in the future this stuff coming up. I'd love to be able
to set some appointments with you right now. And it will work that out. If you can or cannot make
it this whole dental thing, I always say yes to any some appointments. Okay, great. Yeah, I want
something locked down. And I'll worry about how to work around it. Why are we afraid to make that
happen? It's in our head. It's the fact that, you know, you go into other industries, you go to the
chiropractor, you go to the dentist, you go to, I'm in Arizona and I'm, you know, fairly light-skinned,
I go to the dermatologist. The next appointment is set before I leave. And whether I agree that I
want that or need that, obviously the dentist, I want to go get my teeth cleaned every six months.
But, you know, we don't do that in the industry. And we know what's next, even if it's the oil
change. We know what's next. Is the customer, they don't understand it. They can't afford it.
They're not sure they can plan for it. I remember sitting down at the dentist and he wanted to do
two crowns. We're talking big money here, okay? We're talking about an ARO. Average Repair Order
for my teeth. And I had some really big expensive things coming up. Actually, I had to do a new
septic system on my home. House is 30-some years old and something happened, right?
The dentist doesn't know. The reason that I said no is I have something coming up. I didn't say never.
And I think that's one of the keys that, and again, let's maybe we should right now target CRM
and our sales counter for how all this needs to come together. Yeah. Well, I think that some of it
it's agreements, right? It's the norm. It is the norm in the dental industry to schedule your next
cleaning. It may not be the norm to schedule something that you want to put off or that is,
look, as we get older, they're not cavities anymore. Now they're whatever. I mean, I have fake
teeth from hockey. So if I got to do something with that, it's thousands, not hundreds. It's in the
industry. It's not common for somebody to be, okay, Mrs. Jones, the brakes are at four millimeters
and the way that you drive and everything, it's probably within the next 34 months. I
want to look at these again because we should probably replace the brakes. And then setting
that appointment, they're accustomed to being able to just drop in. They're accustomed to being able
to just call up and say, Hey, I have a break job. What shop out there on this planet is going to
turn down a break job that needs to be done today. Right. We've created this environment where we are
like just in time, like we can service things fast, especially the preventative maintenance
stuff. Nobody in their right mind is going to turn down a break job. No technician that's working
for any sort of commission is going to turn down squeezing in a break job, even if it's a foreign
afternoon, but we can get parts. So we've created that environment. So it makes it harder for us
to get the agreement from the customer to say, Hey, let's schedule you for six months now,
and we're going to do these recommendations. And then they don't whip out their calendar and say,
Okay, yeah, let's do that. Jimmy, do you think trust is a big factor here for saying no?
I don't know. I mean, obviously, when you have a new customer that there takes,
it takes some time to build that trust. I don't get that sense with existing customers,
like they know the drill. Now we've had digital inspections. I think the first ones came out
in about 2012, 13, roughly. Okay, I'm with you. Yeah. Yeah. So we've been doing this over over
10 years, right? They know the drill of, Okay, they're going to see some red, they're going to see
some yellow, they're going to see some green. I've surveyed people, like what do you want from your
auto repair shop? What do you expect? And the number one response that they wanted when with,
like, how do they get value out of what we do? They want to be prepared. They don't want to be
surprised. Help me plan. Okay, so they don't want the 35, 45, $5,500 average RO. But they're okay
with 1200 bucks. They're okay with 1500 bucks. If they know about it, and they can plan for it.
To me, it's not a matter of trusting. Okay, so it's not a lack of money. Maybe it's a lack
to get a yes, because they just don't understand what you're trying to tell them.
Yeah, I mean, there's quite a difference, right? And we have to clarify this with our team,
you know, all the time, like, what is red? If you're going to mark something red on an inspection,
what does that mean? Because if somebody takes my red to another shop, and we've got a cracked
bushing on a control arm, they're going to blow me out of the water and make me look like the
biggest criminal in town. Okay, if it's just cracked. Now, if we got some movement, or we've
got it's completely broken, you know, now we're going to have some suspension or steering issues
because of that. Yeah, okay, we can mark that red. But you have to make sure that your standards are
set for what is like, what do I need to do right now? I was actually filling in my manager
was out of town for a week and a half, about three weeks ago. And we had a new service advisor,
so I was up front watching to see what was going on, why I took on a couple of tickets.
And there was this Jeep that was in there, and this guy is not even his primary vehicle,
but he off roads it, you know, we're out here in Arizona, people off road all the time.
And I was looking at this inspection and the guys and even $5,000 worth of work,
Carmen, I'm like, the guys like, well, you know, I'm going to go ahead and do this,
but I need to put this, I'm like, look, I wish I could tell you that some of this stuff could be
put off, but none of this stuff can be put off right now. And I can honestly say that it was all
red. You know, I came down to he believed me, but he was going on a big vacation. So I offered
financing through the Napa Synchrony partnership, and he didn't even know about it. And he's like,
yeah, 12 months, same as cash, sure, I'll do it. And no problem done. So it wasn't a trust issue.
Okay, then let's bring the word risk in it. I can't remember if you did or didn't say it,
but maybe risk is part of the issue in our discussion. Listen, if it was correct,
the risk is kind of medium on this, maybe that word could come into play as we're discussing,
this is a high risk instead of if it's a, if it's a red, I loved you says, what is red,
red for us is a risk in the near future that this could get maybe the crack can get worse.
Maybe it is someone else is, well, it's just a crack, Bobby, you can just don't worry about that.
But we explain what that maybe should have been a yellow who knows. But the word risk in my mind
needs to be used. Yes or no. Yeah, I think we're too afraid to get an egg on our face sometimes,
you know, and, you know, it's like, look, a battery is testing bad, when is it going to go out?
I don't know, it's testing low, it's but the car still starting. Customer could argue, well, it
starts. Yeah, but when is it not going to that's when, you know, so it's like, okay, so we have
certain parameters that we go off of to say that that is a risk like our inspections, when they
come in in this order. Number one is we better check out what the customer came in for. Because
if we call them about anything else, you know, we don't have the answers to that, then we better
we better have that. But then after that, it's safety, reliability, then maintenance and then
appearance. So what they came in for, then safety, then reliability, then maintenance,
you know what I mean? And then appearance, of course, you know, trims hanging off. But
I find that if you look at that and you go, okay, well, we have a safety issue here,
brakes are metal to metal. That's a safety issue. It's a safety for that person and anybody that's
around them, you know, on the roads. But reliability, are you talking about grandma? I've got 80 year
old grandma here. And she drives across town to go to church. And she's got a seat on the radiator.
It's not leaking, it's not dripping, but we can see it's crusty, 10 year old hoses.
What do we do? Is that a safety or a reliability issue?
But that determination needs to come from your counter, because there's the no like and trust
thing building together. You know, will we have a soft place in our heart to have or not spend
four or 500 bucks to get this thing right just to lift the reliability of her vehicle up?
Would I say to grandma, you don't want to get stuck driving to church?
Is that a hard sale and emotionally hard sale?
If grandma is driving on the freeway or it's going to be 110 today. If grandma has a breakdown
and she's on the side of the road for any reason, that is a safety issue. So you have to measure
what are we looking at and judgment in my opinion is to how I don't have a problem with hard sell.
Like hard sell is like caring about a person, caring about the fact that
they don't have trouble. And look, even struts could be sold hard, right? Because the strut
is its job is to keep the tire on the road. If somebody's got a family full of people in the
vehicle and their struts are shot and they have to break at 60 miles an hour over some choppy road,
that could be a safety issue. They will lose stopping distance for sure.
Remember the old days, Monroe said 50,000 miles, you got to take a serious look at your ride control?
How many people are doing that today? You have to train the people how to sell. This is
that type of work. They have to understand it so that they can communicate it to the customer.
One of the best I think Monroe years ago had, and again, I don't know if it's years ago or they
still have it today. I haven't seen you being able to see the choppiness and the whole concept
of that tire needs to stay, keep contact with the road. And you know what? I don't believe
people have a clue what any system does on their vehicle today. And it's our job to help them
understand it. Why go to Google to find out something about your vehicle when you could
look that person in the eye, Jimmy, right across at your counter and says, I'm your Google for
your vehicle. Please, would you do me a favor? Google me, text me, call me, just Google me.
It's a perfect analogy. Yeah, the truth is, is that's where, you know, all of the, you know,
you want to look for SEO and, you know, social media and things like that is who are the experts?
Like who is giving information that those that the AI and Google can find that is the authority
on that stuff. You know, so having your own information about it, because I mean, every,
every shop owner, every service advisor, manager, we're all having to argue with somebody who is
AI or Google educated every day, every day. It's not always right.
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You were talking about CRMs completely botched the marketing of these deferred work. What did
you mean by that? This is something I've been working on for 25 years. My background before I
got into auto repair was marketing. My degree was in marketing. When I started working for my dad in
2000, that was the first thing that I did. As we started learning, back then we were doing hand
written inspections, but we had our old Mitchell system and we had recommended services. In the
vehicle tab, there was a place to put those recommendations. We had the heck of a time
actually getting that data out of the system and into a format that could be sent to the customer
through a postcard, through an email, anything that could prompt us. One of the things that we found
early on was that even when the early CRMs came out, let's just say, Karm, you brought your car
into the shop and the brakes were at three mil and you said, you know, I'd like to do it, but I
don't have time today. Can I come back next month and go out of town? Okay, good. So that goes in
there as a recommendation. Now the CRM knows next month, send karma reminder. And then we've
gotten into this thing where it's not even a physical postcard that you get. It's an email
or it's a text. The text doesn't say what it is. It says you have recommendations. You have to click
on it to then see what it is. The email, you may or may not open because you've got a thousand emails
in your inbox. And there's no system in place for the service advisors to be calling back.
This is something I've been dealing with for 20 years. Okay. Now they send that list. So it's
June in July. It sends you those reminders. And let's say it sends all of them. It sends a text.
It sends an email. It sends a postcard. And even I have a prompt to call the customer.
Where does it go when they don't answer the phone or they don't respond?
I mean, is the what happens next syndrome?
They go into the abyss on most of these systems. You have to actually set it up to send them out.
Like I'm looking at a list that we pull. I pull every month because none of the CRMs will do what
I want them to do. So I have to pull it out of tech metric. I have to then take that information.
And in the way it comes out of that system, I would send four postcards for one car with four
recommendations. So I have to then have somebody, we were having somebody migrate that and put those
all into one line item with four recommendations. Now I can send a postcard. Okay. Well, I was just
looking at, I have one list. It goes back two years. You know how much money in recommendations
were there? And those were just the top 4000000 3.3 million in potential. Now that's going
back two years. But the thing is, is most of these CRMs, they'll send one or two reminders,
and then it just falls off. And it goes into the abyss. And there's no other follow up on that
recommendation or that declined service. And so what my wife and I have developed over the years
is a system where we're going back to those and we're sending those things every month.
If they haven't done their decline service, it's still in the system and it will send
another reminder. The CRMs don't do it. But Jimmy, but are you doing this manually? You're clicking
stuff manually? A lot of it. Yeah. A lot of it's manual. Come on. There's got to be a piece of
software out there that can manage that for you. There is, there's a couple of them that you can
set them up to remind them, but the problem is they don't give them the ones that you want
them to see. So they're not in the correct order of importance. That's kind of the garbage in,
garbage out. If the service advisors aren't prioritizing, let's just say they have four
decline services. The first one is a light bulb. Well, is that a safety issue? Maybe.
You know what I mean? The most important one is that the brakes are two mil. That should
be number one on the list. So it won't prioritize them unless you actually do that. But a lot of
times what the link that it goes to, if it's in an email or in a text, it just says you have a
recommendation. It doesn't actually give the recommendation. And here's another thing. This
one is one I found out hard way a few years ago when we went to, from our original Mitchell system
over to a cloud based system was that we used to have to type in what the recommendations were.
Well, that was a blessing and a curse. The curse side of it was time. We had to take the time to
put it in the vehicle recommendations for that vehicle. The blessing was is that we didn't use
technical terms. We weren't using these technical terms that are coming out of
Mitchell or all data that are being pulled into the ROs as part of the estimate. So look,
you asked 90% of the people out there what a rack and pinion steering gear is.
They have no idea. idea what that means. They don't have an idea what a CV boot is.
Or a DVI or an ADAS or keep going down the list.
Right. So now I've originally figured out how to pull the recommendations out.
Then we had somebody sorting the list that would put all those recommendations on one line.
And then, okay, so now my problem is handled there with regards to the postcards,
but the CRM won't do the same thing. I'm looking at these things and these explanations are
they're coming out of the labor guides and it's confusing the customers.
So now what I'm doing is I'm pulling those lists. I'm having AI sort them for me. And now
I've got a tool in one of my AI tools that what it does is it'll go through and it'll move them
around as to safety, reliability and maintenance. And it puts them in customer ease. So I'm not
going to put rack and pinion steering gear. It's going to write on the postcard steering repair.
Big question. Someone's listening says, oh, I love this episode. Jimmy's so smart. And then he
said, well, AI, let me do it. How does AI let you do that, Jim? Are you stuffing things up?
Did you write some integrated thing? What are you doing?
It's all in communicating to the thing, right? I've used chat and I've used the Claude both.
And I've had to correct it. Everything I've done, I've had to correct. work at it,
look it over. In fact, my wife was telling me that one of the lists that we sent last month,
somebody was sent three postcards for the same thing. And it was like, well, how did it do that?
So now I've got to put a tool or a prompt in there to make sure that it cleans up and it's
removing duplicates and things like that. But we shouldn't have to do this stuff. The CRM's
customer relationship management. We should be able to pull that data out of the CRM.
And if somebody has a recommendation that they forgot about that we recommended 14 months ago,
that's a safety issue, we should be able to pull that out of the system and be able to know that
we need to call that person and say, hey, this is a safety issue. Did you get that thing handled?
We don't have that ability right now. You know, Mike Delacruz,
his company Overdrive Marketing, is he doing anything like what you're talking about?
I've talked to Mike, he partners with some of the CRM companies, is what he does. He hasn't built
his own CRM, but he understand, him and I had this conversation, right? They're very limited.
Some of them do more than others. The one that he works with, I believe we've used them before,
it will do a little bit. But again, it's not sorting the information. It's not breaking it down
so that the customer can understand it. It forgets. So, if you don't come in next month or you don't
come in, maybe it sends it two or three times. But if you just forget about it, the system's
going to forget about it. The customer's going to forget about it. And then they go to someplace
else while they're out of town and they get an oil change. And the person says, hey,
your brakes are really close here. And now that job that probably should have gotten done before
they left town is getting done by another shop. So, are you going to design this AAS system,
all knowing, all seeing thing? I mean, Mike Delacruz, he's a great partner of ours. I know
he's got some really cool, fun, different, and aggressive stuff in his program. But what I'm
hearing you say is there's this, we have fingers. If anyone can watch my video, my fingers, and
they're almost touching, but they're not. But we need to have them slowly integrated into, if you
will, a tight handshake. And then they need to be communicating back and forth, up and down,
left and right, in and out, so that if this happens, if this, then that type of logic sitting
inside this piece of software. So you're obviously designing this and getting ready to launch this?
Yeah, right. And that's the thing, like right now. So I've got a friend who now who is building
software that he just recently got his connection to his shop management software so he can pull
the data. And that's probably where Mike has more information than a lot because he does have that
connection to the softwares. And that's the piece that I'm missing, that connection to be able to
dig in. These news says, I can't even pull my entire database out of it. It's absolutely
ridiculous. That's why, you know, you sense a little antagonism about the CRMs and how they're
botching this communication with the customer in this area specifically. Like I can't even pull a
list of oil changes that are due or past due. I just find that tough to accept. It's ridiculous,
isn't it? General Repair, we're missing out a lot on doing oil change services. You've got some big
franchises. Some of them have been around a long time. Some of them that are just popping up,
you know, 10-minute oil change, right? And they're advertising heavily. And auto repair business,
we've lost a lot of that business because we didn't make it convenient enough.
We got to the point during COVID when I was watching our oil change, our waiter oil changes
take 90 minutes. And you can see people sitting there like looking at their watch going,
when am I getting out of here? Is that customer coming back for that next oil change if we
delivered that slow a service? And it wasn't like we're slow. We're that busy and we're not
accommodating them. How long will the break job take then? Exactly, right? One of the key things
is the speed of service. We've got to be able to turn these types of things around. We've got
to be able to get people in the door. Obviously, they have to be scheduled. We can't run an
emergency room in our shops. But we need to turn them around fast so that we're not losing out on
that opportunity. Well, I appreciate your passion on this integrated CRM based on all these conditions.
It makes so much sense. And I hope one day you find your top of the mountain for that. But let's
talk about what we have today. We have deferred work. Jimmy, how important is it that our service
people at our counter are running the point of the plow on this?
Yeah, they've got to be trained on how to go over the inspections. It's probably
the biggest thing that we work on with a new advisor. Somebody, they have good
sale ability. They can make a sale. But how you present what you're seeing is really important
because I told you that getting that recommendation back to the shop starts at the checkout counter.
It actually starts before that. It starts when you're going over the inspection and going over
the recommendations. That's where it starts. And the truth is, why have average repair orders gone
up with digital inspections? Well, it's just human nature. Somebody's looking at, you give them $5,000
worth of work that should be done on their car at some point. And you guys, you go through it and
the customer settles on a thousand, they feel like they won. You'll have to do five. I did one.
And so we're seeing these averages go up because we're working on vehicles.
The average age of the vehicle now is 13 years. And that's gone up from 11 just a few years ago.
What am I looking on in Arizona? We don't have rust like you have in Buffalo.
Are you picking on me? No, we're working on these cars. They come in here. There's 25 years old.
They're still running. They're still together, but we can't even get parts for them. But
you tell me I can't find $5,000 worth of work on a vehicle that has 200,000 miles on it and it's
15 years old. So the point is, is that going over that with them and not scaring them,
but going over it with them and saying, okay, here's what we found. This is what you came in for.
Here's the fix to that. We did an inspection. Here's what we found.
This is what you should do now. This is what you could do now.
This transmission fluid is pretty dark. You don't have to do it now, but you could, right?
And these are the things that I'm going to recommend over the next year or six months
that you start chunking away at if you want to keep this vehicle. Where does it actually start?
Recently, I had some blood work annual physical. I go to Quest. Quest sends you the next day.
Can't imagine how quick blood work happens. And then you can start looking at your numbers.
Okay. I am not a doctor or a clinic clinician, whatever they're called,
but it starts to show me green and red. And there's a question mark near the rating and I could
click it and it tells me what the parameters mean. And if I'm this high or if I'm low,
and I'm getting a warmer feeling when I go into the doctor and I say, so here I am,
I've already done the homework. I didn't Google it, but Quest gave me a quick overview and a
synopsis of where I'm high or low, green or red. You're sitting across from an individual
and they're saying, hey, do you ever have a blood test? Did you ever see the greens and the reds?
That's what we're doing right now. Because isn't it, if you're going to keep this vehicle,
just like you want to keep your body perfectly strong, everything the way you expect it and
you want it for the safe reliability of your vehicle, we've got a green and red, no different
than a blood test. And so let's go over this because we're the experts when it comes to your
vehicle. And maybe that everybody's saying, okay, here comes the bad news. I'm going to have to
get off my wallet, blah, blah, blah. Maybe we take some of the air out of the negative balloon
by doing that, by saying that. That's right. And again, that's part of understanding
the whole process. I mean, you've had Jason stretch on here a couple times, right, from Florida.
And Jason wrote a book with his business partner, Mike Watkins. And one of the steps in their
sales process is the check-in or when you're setting the appointment, like we're setting
expectations of what is this customer planning on doing with this car? Do they like the car?
Or do they hate it? They want to sell it. They want to trade it in. I'm ready to kick the door in
this thing, just to give me a reason to get rid of it. Or are they in a situation where, you know
what, I still owe 20 grand on it. It's worth 10. I can't afford to go and trade it in and take the
negative equity. I've got to keep this sucker for the next five years until I pay it off.
Because now, when we call that customer up and we say, okay, Mr. Jones, I know you got to keep
this car. You want to keep the car. So what we've done here is we've laid out exactly what it's
going to take to keep this car, I say reliable, safe, and valuable. Because all those three things
are important nowadays. Reliable, safe, and valuable, right? So that conversation starts at the check-in
so that you can now use that when you're communicating to them about, well, look,
we looked over the vehicle. You said you wanted to keep this thing. My dad used to say that.
We have a customer come in and say, Jim, when should I get rid of this car? When is it time to
say enough's enough? And my dad would always, his first question is, do you like the car?
Because if they don't like the car, there's nothing that you're going to say to them that's
going to talk them into putting $1,000 or $2,000 or $5,000 into it. If they hate the car,
they're looking for a reason to get rid of it. Help them, right? I absolutely love it. In fact,
if they hate the car, you've got a tough chance of just trying to sell an oil change, probably.
I know. It's the truth. But if they really like the car, you know, somebody says,
you know, I love this car. And I don't want a car payment. Okay.
Well, here's what we're going to do. Yeah. Love this car. Doesn't owe me any money.
You know, in fact, the design continues, even though all this new stuff's coming out,
my car still looks really great on the road, blah, blah, blah. Well, this person is telling
you about their best friend, the car. I love that. The car goals, being able to say,
can you imagine the doctor saying, so, Carm, what's your goals? How long do you expect to live?
So we need to talk about what you have to do. This whole doctoring thing we've been talking
about since I've been podcasting for 11 years has never found such a greater parallel.
In most recent episodes, we're trying to explain to the client how they care about
this, they should care about that the same way. Your car goal. Wow.
Right. And it is, it's an educational process. And we have to take responsibility for that
education. Because if we let them use chat GPT or into the AI tool, yes, like we can get a lot
of education, but if you're not scrutinizing the answer and digging a little deeper because you
don't know what to ask, you're going to get some false. Yeah. We had a complaint on a six diesel
that was in the shop. And I was trying to respond to this person and figure it out.
It was an issue with the glow plugs. So I chat it and I come up with this brilliant response on how
this could not have been a problem. It was not true that this could have been caused by what we did.
And I went to my service manager who's our diesel expert and I showed him and he goes,
chat GPT is wrong. I go, what do you mean? He goes, that six oh, there's two engine types on that one.
And it was right there on the cusp of that change. Chat GPT didn't know that, right? So
that's a real technical example. But for everything, why you need struts or, you know,
chat GPT might say, no, struts are a joke. You don't need to do struts.
Why are they saying what they're saying? I think the gurus of AI are really trying to say,
you got to learn to trust your source or at least find out where your AI got that answer for you.
Well, let's face it, if an AI boss picking up Scotty Kilmer, we're in trouble, right? So
there's an interesting perspective coming from Scotty. You're absolutely right.
There's so much to talk about for this, but all I care about in this great discussion that we had,
Jimmy, was that the listener can walk away saying, I'm not doing some of this, I couldn't
improve that. It was inspired by, you know, the passion Jimmy has for this. And at our counters,
we need to get better at knowing what their car goals are. Do they love or hate the car?
And again, Jimmy, I'd love to maybe even do a part two and say, how are we training our people
to get the right language and confidence? We've got a lot of newer faces in our industry that
are on our counters. They're great with customer service, but they may not know exactly how to
explain. Now, one of the biggest training programs or educational programs that are out there in our
industry is Service Advisor. And I'm thrilled to see coaching companies formulating, you know,
groups of Service Advisor coaches listening to calls. There's so many positive things happening
on that side. And I think that's going to end up becoming a critical component to scheduling
and managing deferred work. It is. I mean, and the truth is, is that, you know, there's so much
emphasis on getting new customers in the business all the time. It's like, if somebody's having
trouble with car count, they instantly want to look at my new customer marketing. When the
truth is, is that, like I just, you know, I was just talking about just in two years,
and that's not everything that's in there. That's what I have pulled because it does have,
it does pick up the estimates in there. That's how it picks up the decline services. And, you
know, so it has a value there, those $3.3 million, more than a year's worth of revenue.
I'll take 10% Jimmy. Right. You know, and again, you start looking at that, Carmen,
this is the math that we need to think with as shop owners is like,
is it worth it? Would it be worth it to hire somebody full time to be on that part of your
marketing? Meaning all they're doing is looking at getting the person scheduled and back into the
shop for those recommendations. I got the word for you. Your job is to scrutinize all of our
deferred work. Scrutinize. That takes some thinking and analysis. Scrutinizing does.
There's a lot of ways to spin that in the shop too, like are utilized that in the shop. It's like,
you know, people complain about not getting good inspections from their technicians.
Well, if the technician knows you're not going to do anything with the stuff that's not sold,
they get frustrated because they never see that work coming back yet.
But if you, like we emphasize every week, look, the inspections are important. This is what we're
doing. This is what's being sent. This is how many people came back in because of your inspections,
and we got them back in the door for those recommendations. That's the gravy. Like,
you know what I mean? You got somebody who's on the schedule for, you know, $2,000 worth of
recommendations that the parts are pre-ordered. The technician knows it's coming in. Everything's
ready to go. You want to talk about making time on a job and getting buy-in on why are we looking
this car over for? What it came in for? Safety, reliability, and maintenance. And that's all
part of that whole system. That's a marketing system. Well, Jimmy, I know shop owners that do
have full-time. They're fairly large companies, multi-million-dollar companies, but they've got
full-time people working on this. Scheduling, deferred work, followed through. How was your
appointment last week? Phones, texting, all of those tools available to them, and they're just
doing fantastic with the follow-up and follow-through. Fantastic. There's an industry that does that
same thing that does really well with it, and that's the dental industry. We were talking about
dentists, right? Yeah, we're talking about them. They have a position in a dental office called a
Scheduling Coordinator. That's not the person that's checking the person out. That's the person
who's looking through and making sure that the shop, the dentist, they have enough
cleanings, oil changes, light services, and they have enough work for the technicians,
occupiers coming in to get their veneers replaced. They've got the big stuff, right? So all they're
doing is looking in that database to find out who's past due, who's due for getting that crown,
who's got that crack tooth that they haven't gotten fixed yet, and it's the same thing.
We have all that information. It's there if it's properly organized.
So the risk of not doing this in my mind is this. If all of a sudden my shop is just,
I need a bump. top-line bump, so I'm going to go out and become a more aggressive
Facebook ads, Google stuff. I'm going to market my butt off to new potential clients when
here's Karm postcard to all this cool, neat stuff. I go to Jimmy shop and I love Jimmy shop,
but all of a sudden I got this postcard or I got this thing that I saw or something that I clicked
on a loyalty program or something. Oh, this is cool. And you aren't doing anything about my
long-term loyalty or my deferred work because this is where I always hung my hat on Jimmy shop.
If you don't stay and market to and support the safe, reliable maintenance piece of your strategy,
you got a great chance of me going to a different church.
Yeah. I mean, you're most the most valuable asset of all of our shops is that database.
Take all the equipment away. Take the building away. It's the databases.
And being able to work it and give someone some responsibility. Listen, in fact, you could do
this at home. You could work remote, but here's the stuff or here's the stuff. This is what you
got to do. Here's what I expect. I expect $2,000 a day coming from you and deferred work. I mean,
I'm kind of, who knows, it's very possibly a right number, a good number, depending on how
big the database is, but an individual should be able to fill your calendar with X amount of dollars
per day from your entire database for your customer base. Just by the fact that I contact
is someone says, oh my God, I have a meaning to get in there. My brakes are squealing. I didn't
know that. It's opportunistic. It is. There's so much opportunity. And you really got to start
looking at it from the standpoint of it. It's a marketing function, right? So if we are relying
on our service advisors to be the ones that are making these calls, it's going to go up and down
like a roller coaster. Because look, when it's 110 degrees out in Phoenix, shops are busy. Service
advisors are busy. They don't have time to call a list of 1,000 people to schedule the books out
a week or two from now. So yeah, when are the service advisors going to have time to do that?
When it's slow. But as soon as it gets busy, what's going to happen to the outflow
onto the database, right? And unless you have other marketing campaigns in place,
it's not enough to just put a set it and forget it CRM that you think is doing texts and doing
emails. It's just not enough. You have to educate the people. You have to stay on them.
The founder of the company that we used to use back 20 years ago used to say,
you know, it's really funny. Nobody loves spending money on their cars except racers.
Racers love spending money on their cars, right? But nobody wants to spend money.
It's like the same thing with the dental. Nobody wants to go to the dentist. I'm sorry. I don't
like the tools. I don't like it feels. It's expensive. Same thing with our cars, right?
So we have to work this all the time. People aren't just going to drop in and say,
oh yeah, you know, I think I'm going to go get my transmission flushed this week because
that's fun and I love spending 300 bucks on that. Well, Jimmy, I love this conversation.
It's been great to have you on the show. We're here and hopefully we hit a home run here and
talking about is deferred work, a sales issue, a communication issue or a leadership issue.
We may not have hit the leadership side of that as much, Jimmy, but I always say if you're the
owner and this is your responsibility to grow the business, then there were a lot of ideas
inside of here for you to take away. What I always believe is that there needs to be an
accountability piece inside of this to whoever you ask to manage your deferred work. You've
got to hold them accountable for it. Thank you so much for being here. Jimmy Aloria from 3A
Automotive and Diesel, Phoenix, Arizona, where it's hot, hot, hot.
Yes, sir. Thanks, Carm. Thank you.
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 Capriato
YouTube channel. Carm is all for advancing the professional automotive service industry. Until
next time.
About this episode
Deferred work is framed as the overlooked growth opportunity in auto repair: the “declined” work that’s really “later” can become booked repairs when shops communicate clearly, educate through full digital inspections, and proactively schedule. Hosts break down how color-coded findings (red/yellow/green) reduce confusion, why customers want “Help me plan,” and how CRM follow-up often fails without correct setup and prioritization. They also connect the technician shortage to training pipelines and explain how proactive database marketing turns long-term loyalty into approvals.
Most auto repair shops are sitting on a goldmine of untapped revenue without realizing it.
In this episode, Carm Capriotto welcomes Jimmy Alauria of 3A Automotive & Diesel Repair to discuss how deferred work can become one of your shop's most effective growth strategies. By pulling just two years of data from his shop's database, he discovered $3.3 million in potential revenue from deferred services. From better customer communication to smarter follow-up systems, Jimmy explains how to turn yesterday's declined repairs into tomorrow's repair orders.
What You'll Learn
Why your customer database is one of your shop's most valuable assets.
How deferred work can create significant new revenue without increasing car count.
Why shops should schedule the next appointment before the customer leaves.
While DVIs provide excellent transparency, their primary goal should be to educate the customer and help them plan, rather than to force an immediate $5,000 repair order. Jimmy notes that customers decline work not necessarily because they lack trust, but because they need time to budge
How categorizing repairs by safety, reliability, maintenance, and appearance improves customer understanding.
Understanding the customer's personal "car goals," whether they love the car and want to avoid a new car payment, or they hate the car and want to trade it in, is also critical to framing recommendations effectively.
The shortcomings of traditional CRM follow-up systems and how AI can improve communication.
How AI helps prioritize repairs and translates technical repair language into customer-friendly messaging that drives response.
Deferred work isn't lost business; it's future opportunity. By building better follow-up processes, educating customers, and using technology to communicate more effectively, shops can strengthen relationships, improve customer retention, and unlock substantial revenue already waiting in their database.
Jimmy Alauria, 3A Automotive and Diesel Repair, Phoenix, AZ. Jimmy’s previous episodes HERE
Learn more about NAPA Auto Care and the benefits of being part of the NAPA family by visiting https://remarkableresultsradiopodcast.captivate.fm/napaautocare
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/
