Engaging Our Clients in Need With Helen Fradette [E058] - Speak Up! Effective Communication

This is the Aftermarket Radio Network.

Welcome to another episode of Speak Up Effective Communication.

I'm your host, Craig O'Neill, here on this show in the Aftermarket Radio Network, focusing

on our communication and leadership skills.

Me today is a very special guest from my local Toastmasters Club 404, Grand Rapids Toastmasters,

our newly elected president, Helen Ferdette.

Helen, thanks for joining me.

You're welcome.

It's great to be here, Craig.

This is going to be fun.

I really appreciate you agreeing to do this.

Helen's background is a little different than most of the guests that we bring

in on the show.

Not entirely.

We bring outside industry guests all the time.

Helen, your background, as I understand, began as a music teacher.

Yes.

And then you became an IT security professional.

Yes.

Quite a career shift indeed.

Interesting thing about it is that this was a tough transition, an interesting transition

as you were saying, and it was a challenging time.

Absolutely.

It's hard to put a resume together like that as well.

Yeah.

Well, this is why we want to have the conversation today because people going through major

transitions are a tough time in general.

That is one of the more challenging circumstances that we face in the automotive after

market.

We're dealing with clients who, whether we're aware of it or not, are in fact going through

a lot.

And a car repair, especially an expensive one in those times, can be truly a major barrier

in the life.

So Helen, when we talked before about this, you brought in some ideas that I thought

would be worthwhile to bring to this audience.

And for our loyal listeners today, I think you're really going to enjoy Helen's

perspective.

We don't always get to have a conversation with someone about how they perceive

our industry outside of a normal transaction that we're currently engaged in, which changes

the way the feedback can come in.

And so we're going to hear some of Helen's story here today.

And we're also going to introduce a really cool word of the day, brought in the word

solicitude.

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And we're back.

And the word of the day is solicitude, and that is a noun folks in it means care or concern

for someone's well-being.

A difficult thing for any of us on any occasion to always convey when we're in the middle

of a transaction.

And Helen, we're talking about auto repair today, and I think you just have some good

perspective for us.

So the story that you were describing, you received a gift.

But that gift had a bit of a catch.

Yes.

So during my transition between being a music teacher and my IT security career, I went

through a time where I was a single mother with three young children and had recently

been divorced.

So I was in need of a new vehicle or an updated vehicle to get my kids basically

from school every day to and from school and myself to find a job and or maintain a job

during this difficult time.

And the 1996 mini van that we had was dying to the point that it was no longer worth

putting any repairs into.

96 and what year was this, Helen?

2013, you say?

This was in 2011.

2011.

I got to know what kind of minivan was it.

Do you remember?

It was probably a Pontiac.

Do they make minvans?

I think I feel like it did.

I feel like that's what it was.

That might be what it was.

OK, they did then.

Yes, Pontiac transport.

Oh boy, yep, they had some issues.

OK, that helps our audience very much.

We're familiar with these things and it places us where we are in time.

So that's funny because I don't know much about cars.

The only ones I know are the ones that I own right now.

And it's basically what the makeup models are and what color they are.

And that's all that I know.

So I could tell you my minivan was gray.

That's about all that I remember about it.

And then, yes, so I was a member of my church at that time.

And I asked the deacons from the church to help me search for a car.

Not only because I didn't know much about cars or how to find one,

but I was exhausted from just simply my life circumstance at that time.

And one of the deacons gladly took that on as a challenge or as a request.

He ended up finding me a 2010 Park Avenue and worked out the price of it.

I think it was $5,000.

It had 90,000 miles on it.

And the $5,000 was a gift from someone from our church.

An anonymous church donor had gifted that to me for the purpose of getting my car.

So really thrilled, excited, went and I didn't need to drive it much.

Just thank you.

I needed a car to fit all my kids.

And I was set up nicely, ready to go.

However, with a car that is...

So I said it was a 2010.

Did I say 2010?

It was a 2001.

That makes more sense to me, yeah.

I also have dyslexia, which would be coming up right now

because you flip numbers and letters a lot in this when you have dyslexia.

I didn't know that.

Yes. So that would be why I said 2000.

So it was a 2001.

Is that a Pontiac?

Buick.

A Buick was definitely a Park Avenue and it was white and it was big.

And I felt safe and big and comfy.

So it wasn't long.

Maybe six months after I was gifted it that started needing repairs.

Yeah, I'm picturing those vehicles.

That was prime time of my career.

I've worked on a lot of those things, a lot of transmissions.

It's the 4065E.

It's four speed automatic in case you didn't know that.

Yeah, they had issues.

I'll say it back to you, but it'll be backwards from what you just said.

It's a bunch of soup and knowledge in our minds of what goes into those vehicles.

And so our listeners who are familiar with them as well, they're thinking like,

oh, cool, all right, charity vehicle.

And then a 90,000 mile 2001 Buick Park Avenue.

Anyone who's been in this industry for a while

immediately what's running through our head is all the normal things

that we can expect to fail on those vehicles around that time.

We're already seeing this barrier coming up down the road.

And it sounds like this is exactly where we're heading.

Yeah. And there's not only things that just fail, I'm assuming,

because they fail faulty, but you also just need that regular maintenance

and repair of whatever happens at the 100,000 miles.

And then the whatever the next 100, whatever a thousand miles it is or numbers.

There's the expected maintenance.

And then there's what we understand in our industry as pattern failures,

of which we would always caution and look out for, right?

Yes. That's coming with that type of vehicle.

Yes. So that set me into a, hey, I didn't have money to make a car payment.

And which means I also don't have money to make payments for unexpected maintenance.

Even my regular maintenance, even just oil change, I remember once

just trying to find a place that would change my oil for, you know,

30 to 40 bucks of, hey, I just need my oil change

and having to pay like $70 just for the whole thing in the air filter

and all this stuff and just very stressful.

So it's something that we often forget to us in the industry.

It always feels very routine.

It feels so routine and it feels normal and someone's got a car.

They have to take care of it.

Otherwise it gets more expensive.

So why wouldn't you like budget for this, right?

And that shouldn't be a challenge.

And we have to really stop and remember sometimes that even that,

even that the simple things in our minds are not always simple.

Yes, because having a car is one of those things that if you,

it's not as easy to explain a, well, if you're going to have a car,

you need to be able to, you know, pay for these maintenance

regular things that come with it.

Otherwise, maybe you shouldn't own a car.

Well, if I were to not own a car at that time in my life,

it would have probably meant that my children may have had

to not be able to live with me because I would not

have been able to get them to medical appointments,

to school every day.

That was at the fear of my mind.

Real life shattering fear. Yeah. Oh my gosh.

Yeah. Like, well, if you can't afford a car,

that means you can't take care of your kids.

Therefore, you can't afford your kids either.

So therefore, you know, it's just really, really stressful for a lot.

Yeah. Oh my goodness.

So this car did hit a problem, though, not just even maintenance,

but needed actual repairs as well.

Absolutely. Several times, many times.

So any time that I would need to repair,

something was going on with it, I would have to find a place

that was strategically located.

It didn't really matter about relationships of people that I had.

It was the closest one that was to my house

where I was living at that time that I could walk.

I could drive it and have it be where I worked on.

I could walk home or walk the kids back with me.

And or that it was next to a place that had maybe a mall

that I could take the kids to the mall

and we could spend a couple hours there while it was being repaired.

Lots of logistics, figuring those things out.

There was always in that conversation of, you know,

here's the first analysis of what needs to get done.

And I would say, you know, what's the bare minimum

that I need to get to keep it going?

It's an older car.

I just need that to keep moving.

And usually I would get good what I thought was good advice

and be able to figure out a middle place that we could land.

I would say there wasn't a lot of like price

negotiating that I was aware of.

It was more of service cutting out.

Well, you need these four things.

You can only afford this amount.

Therefore, we recommend these two things that we do.

Now, let me ask this, Helen,

you're describing what I think is a very common scenario

that often goes unknown inside of the shop

is knowing the industry and especially the people in my network

and many of our loyal listeners here,

they'd be hearing the story and it's like, oh, my God,

I would have loved to be able to help.

That's narrow. If I had only known that someone was really

teetering on like, oh, like this is barely affordable

because of circumstances, did you ever bring it up?

Or did you feel like it was even something

that could be brought up into the equation?

No, I never brought up that I was in need

to the service people that were servicing my car.

I did not know that there was a sliding scale

I still don't know. Are you telling me

there's a sliding scale for things like this?

There's a lot of shops that are very involved in charities

that do help with maintenance and the keep or even repairs

of a broke down scenario like that, where cars

no longer serving its function to serve,

especially the single mother scenario.

Like this is one of the heartbreak stories,

like working as a service adviser,

I've probably shared with you in some context,

like I would see these stories, people are crying in front of me.

They're breaking down.

Like this was the last thing that they could handle.

And all of a sudden, I'm in a roll way over my head

for how I can engage someone

who clearly needs help is not asking for any charity,

whatsoever wants to pay the fair price of what something is.

And for whatever reason,

the question never came up like, can you help me with that?

Occasionally it would and it would it would be something like,

yeah, let's see what we can do.

And we would absolutely do it.

There'd be discounts that we can apply to that sort of thing.

And yet there is on the shop side, too,

it's like, oh, someone's come in with a sad story

and they might want to take advantage of us with a sad story

and that sort of thing.

There's fear on that side, too, on occasion.

But our default is typically going to be, yeah,

we're going to try our best, our utmost to try to help the scenario.

But there's dignity to preserve in this.

And I feel like that's like you wouldn't dare bring this up,

probably for one reason, I'm dignity.

But is there also anything behind that?

I know that personally, in my own circumstance

and my personality, I don't want help if I don't need it, right?

So I want to be able to say I can do it myself.

I am proving that I can do this and such.

And, you know, sometimes that's rooted in

childhood growth and where you're at in your family order

or other things as you've grown up.

For me, it was in the middle of my relationship separation

and planting myself strongly, saying that I can take care of my family, etc.

Although we talk about dignity,

there's a difference between understanding someone's

circumstance and meeting them in a comfortable place that I feel,

yes, I can contribute this and you're contributing the other part of it.

We're meeting somewhere in the middle.

And it's a hard topic.

Yes, it's hard to find that place.

It's hard to breach it.

It is.

I had a fear component on my side that would prevent me from being

able to even probe the question of do you need help?

One of the worst mistakes I remember making as a very young service advisor

was I had programming from a computer screen and I talk about some elements

that we sometimes get too fixated on just moving from data field to data

field to data field and not being there just to have a conversation

and open up dialogue in more natural ways.

These are painful lessons because I remember I was I had a female client

in front of me. She had a young child probably around, I don't know, six to eight or so.

And I was just moving across the fields.

Last name, first name, spouse, this and that.

And as I asked spouse, I said, why do you need to know that?

I was like, oh, I'm sorry, it's just a field on my screen.

And that was the end of the conversation.

She left uncomfortable and I got a phone call from one of the shops

that we know very well and say, hey, yeah, we have a client over here

that they were asking and we're referring them back to you

because it sounds like a transmission problem.

But yeah, they were concerned about this spouse crush.

She's like, dude, I know I realized like I made a mistake in how this is.

I was literally just going through the screens.

It seems like they're very uncomfortable with that question.

Why are they either worried like, OK, since she doesn't have a husband,

she feels like she might get taken advantage of.

It's like, oh, my gosh, no, we talked to you up and it was fine.

It got smoothed over. She came back.

We were able to recover from this.

But that made me more nervous for a while on how I engage potentially

difficult situations like that where it would put me in a position like,

crap, there's no trust here.

Like the industry has no trust.

And so the act of even though I'm just there was careless data entry

on my point, even from a position of caring, what if it sounded predatory

is always in the back of my mind now?

What if it sounded predatory?

And I hated having to overcome that element because I know

there's bad players out there, too.

I just wasn't one of them.

So how would that conversation take place in a way that would make you feel

not like you're about to be preyed upon by some

untrustworthy or unscrupulous repair facility?

What might have helped would be the thing that I can.

That's an excellent question.

You're not only touching the angle from your side of seeing it

as a possible predatory or somebody to take advantage of them.

And we have to acknowledge there's bad actors in any industry.

But what you may not be catching also is just for me to have to say

that there is no spouse brings up emotions and circumstances

that I'm just trying to get my car fixed.

And now here is another thing.

Just it's a system in our lives that there's a field.

You're just asking me because it's there and now it's triggering.

Oh, yeah, I'm by myself.

I don't have anybody to consult to figure.

Hey, is this decision or we're making this decision together?

It's just me, right?

So you have that working against you, too.

What I can say is as you went through and presented that to me,

I think it would be wonderful if it's not just you guys.

It's anywhere that you are filling out a form for information.

Have a conversation about who you are, why you're here, what you do.

How many people use this part?

You have other, what's the purpose behind these fields?

You need that field, that field's on the form for a reason.

Is it because hopefully in the future, someone else might be coming in,

maybe to pick up the stable and you'd like to know who that is.

That's the question that you should ask.

Hey, is there somebody else that also drives a stable that might be

picking it up for you?

Nope, it's just me.

Perfect.

That's an easy, safe question, but what's their spouse?

No, it's just a totally different angle that you come at it.

Yeah, that's a much better angle today, too.

And that field for me was just like, I don't even use it anymore.

I couldn't stand it.

Yeah, is there any other decision makers on this vehicle?

Even was I felt a little bit of a riskier ask still, too.

Because of that scenario, it felt like dangerous ground

unless they brought it up in a conversation naturally.

But using those as that's like getting to know you of, hey,

I just saved this car for this myself and my three kids.

We just drive it from school to back.

That's pretty much all we need it for.

Well, now you just found out the reason I have the car,

how important it is to me.

Jewel right there.

The power of an open-ended question versus data entry.

Yeah.

So I mean, an exercise because even looking at your forums

that you're filling out and doing, why are we asking these?

Can we turn this into a kind of a template,

then salesy, pitchy kind of way that you go through

and frame the conversation in a way that you can still get

the information, be able to fill it out while you're talking

and having a conversation.

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This is what I've captured from our conversation.

You know, I've got you here and here.

And this is about the number of people.

This is about how far you drive it.

Whatever it is you guys need to know,

but you've got it through a conversation.

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Now, this particular story, though, continues.

Now, in your case with that vehicle,

yeah, you still had some some repairs

that you had to address.

There were circumstances that I understand it

where you ended up not having some repairs

and then having to do something else with it.

How did that work out for you?

So this might be the more recent conversation

that I asked about.

Was that that we're referring to?

Yeah.

OK, so that's a different car.

That's the different car. Got it.

Yeah, this is a different car.

So to be able to turn in that car

and buy my first car, like actually be in my new job,

have credit, have something saved up

to put a down payment, be able to pay on a newer car.

That was amazing because so I did buy a Prius.

A 2010 Prius was my first car that I bought again

off my own from the gift.

And I remember before I bought it thinking

I don't have to worry about it breaking down on the highway.

I in because I was driving this Park Avenue

eventually to Lansing every day for work

from Grand Rapids to Lansing an hour drive one way

and then another hour back.

And I was constantly afraid it was going to break down on me.

And I was so worried about all the time,

not only just my driving with work,

but also when I drove the kids around,

I remember thinking it would been really, really nice

with this gift that was given.

And again, I'm so thankful for the generosity.

But with some gifts that you're given,

they are still kind of a burden

that I have to carry.

Right. So to have someone else come along

and say, we realize this is an older vehicle,

you need assistance for repair.

Hey, and you're in a really tough time in your life.

Helen, if there's any time that it's making a noise,

just call me. Let me.

I know stuff about cars or hey,

maybe you don't know stuff about cars,

but you'll take it to your guy that you know about cars.

That would have been amazing if I had someone say to me,

it's an older car and or you're in a tough time.

It makes a noise. Call me. I'll drive it.

I'll take it to the repair shop.

I'll bring it back to you and pay whatever

and even pay for it, negotiate whatever.

Or that would have been wonderful to.

Yeah, it'd be powerful.

I was involved in church charity at one point as well,

where we were frustrated

because there were some well-intentioned people trying to help

folks in situations like yours with a vehicle

and they would go and they'd find a vehicle.

All right, here it is.

And some of those people helping out of the sincere goodness

of their heart had zero qualification to assess those vehicles.

And it was aggravating.

Like there was one specific case that just burned in my brain.

It was an early 2000s Dodge Grand Caravan minivan

that was being given to a lady who had needed the help.

And similar ways of what you were describing.

And it experienced a major transmission failure right away for this lady.

And, man, I would have been able to tell from one dipstick check

on that transmission fluid.

It literally had torque converter clutch material on the stick.

It was a common issue back then.

And it would have been like, no, this thing is going to fail.

Imminently type of a thing, just a skilled assessment

could have prevented further frustration.

And now the person was faced with a similar scenario.

Couldn't afford transmission.

And fortunately, the church was able to kick in and assist on that particular case.

But the lesson for the church was also like, oh, this charity program

that they have for providing vehicles cannot stop at the vehicle provision.

It needs professional assessment and good news.

There's professionals who also would happily assess the situation for free.

And these pre-purchase inspections are available.

And most shops would be happy to do them.

They would be happy to.

And those charities need to be aware of that and find a partner in their local area.

Very valuable, you're spot on there.

When you were going on, though, there's another element that would have helped.

I feel like you were going to add to that that, hey, some assistance to help maintain.

Oh, yes, it was a reminder of also so I wouldn't have to remember to change my oil.

And just like the regular stuff that if somebody could also not only

hey, if it makes a noise or a smell or whatever, call me.

But also every three months or, you know, four months, I'll touch base with you,

make a time for you and I'll go take it to get it.

So just having that off your mind because there's just so many things.

Yeah, we call that manage it for me.

Yes, there's so many things that are on my mind as a single mother

taking care of three young children that having to remember

everything, these are crucial things that your livelihood is dependent upon.

If I knew that I could trust someone just that they're taking that for me.

What that would have been.

It's brilliant.

Yeah, so one of the things you've heard me talk a little bit about

some of the what I do on my day to day in our Toastmasters Club

is my practice ground for a lot of the topics and safety, reliability,

efficiency, like our professional responsibilities.

Make sure your vehicle is safe, reliable and efficient.

We won't let you down.

And that's why we inspect every car that comes in and we're going

to provide that inspection result for you here.

And then we're going to help make sure that this thing stays on the road

and we can keep things going great for you.

Right. And that conversation is how we teach advisors to do their job

in our field and your spot on on this what you described.

We call a manage it for me approach to business versus this industry

is sometimes referred to as D.I.F.M.

Do it for me as an car break you fix.

Please do it for me because I cannot fix.

The whole goal is to make sure car does not break in the first place.

That's the goal.

So we've hit on a lot of things.

The trust factor is one of them.

We talked about the vulnerability that we can feel,

especially in that moment of disadvantage.

But what I want to go back to real quick is when you do walk into the shop,

you're not really putting your real circumstances out there.

I feel like we've made some assumptions when people are walking

and you mentioned this already.

You don't know a lot about the cars and being treated sometimes like you do.

Is that did you feel like being treated like you do know?

Or do you feel like more often you're being treated like you didn't know?

What has been impressed on me

as a middle class white female growing up in the Midwest, Southwest

is that women are generally treated as that we don't know about cars.

So when we go to shops,

they will likely take advantage of us because we don't know about cars.

Before the internet came, then access to that type of knowledge

was only in my high school automotive shops,

classes that I never went to.

And then I felt like my opportunity was gone.

So I would say when I go in,

I am presenting that I want to know about what's going on.

I will ask questions.

So it's interesting that you're making me think about,

well, I will ask questions.

They'll say, I'm like, so it's making a noise.

I'm not going to say it's the carburetor or the piston, something, spark, whatever.

I'm going to say it makes a noise like, you could, you could, you could

when I do this, right?

You're the best. Yes, this is good.

This helps us, actually.

And then you're going to come back and say,

we found a bunch of car words

that I don't know what connects to what, how it works, what fires it.

I don't know if you're telling me that you need to replace this piece.

But, you know, is it a part of a larger thing, a system?

Or is it just a little bit?

I just don't know.

So I might ask some questions.

I'm like, so this has to be.

And so you need to do that so that I can get a good picture, except then.

So I mean, I do ask questions.

Well, I can finish that, but I'll tell you this, Helen,

the thing I've noticed and my career as an advisor is our female

clients ask better questions.

You know who comes in pretending to know more than they really do with the real

mask on our guy customers, like not knowing about an automobile is almost

emasculating is the impression that you would have.

And so they cover it up.

Same reason, though, that same fear is there that if you betray

a lack of knowledge too much, like the shop will take advantage.

I talked about this in one of my earliest episodes on the show.

It's the universal fear that is cited by every consumer group

study in our industry is that the vast majority of them feel like

we're going to upsell them things that they do not need.

And that fear comes with they have to act like they know.

And so we have to go along with that and treat people as equal footing

and educate customers in a way that doesn't rob them of the assumption

of knowledge and digital inspection platform that is court,

the auto flow company that I work for is a major help factor in that.

Providing images and videos of the thing that we're discussing

pretty helpful to help them actually see the thing that isn't just

the words of this complex system.

Yeah, and that makes me think of another comparison that I've thought of

is that if we could think of my mechanic as my doctor,

my physician, family practice person that I go see every year

and that you would say, my knee hurts when I do this way.

And then you'd say, well, you're just getting old now, Helen.

That's what happens.

But we have these things that you can put in place if it's a value to you.

If it's going to get you where you need to go based off of your goals,

how often you use your car, how often you or what how long

do you want to keep this car?

How long do you mean this is my if I go back to my person, my knee?

Like how I want to keep my knee, but are you going to be a marathon runner?

Or are you just going to, you know, walk around the block every evening

and enjoy the Michigan evenings, summer evenings?

So depending on what my use is intended use for it,

then you'd advise my mechanic way of, you know,

how to proceed with addressing this issue that's coming at me.

I always make an analogy when I'm speaking on this

for the audience of the auto repair industry, our listeners,

the target audience in the aftermarket here understand this.

I liken it not to a medical visit because you are the patient in a medical visit.

So I like in our industry a little bit more to a veterinary clinic.

So Helen, you have cats, for example.

I start trying to help advisors think of their vehicle as they might think of a pet.

And this is a little bit easier to communicate on.

And when you're managing as the patient and you start managing a vehicle as a patient,

it makes for an easier analogy, I think.

And then we're still dealing with same terms in older car, older pet

and like quality of life analysis here.

How can we manage treatment in a way

that's going to work for your lifestyle and the animal's actual experience?

Right. But I think my intention was to get to the parts of like,

I'm not a doctor, I don't have the PhD in my anatomy

and how it all connects to each other.

So explaining, hey, well, this pinched nerve here

in your shoulder actually runs all the way down your leg where

here's your car word that attaches to the other car word to make this function.

Yeah, too complicated.

Yeah, for I mean, I don't know the words,

but you have to bridge that as whatever profession you're in.

I do that in I.T., you know, well, what do you do for your I.T., you know?

You go on way over people's heads if you want to in that field. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, you have to find that that middle grounds to translate

what it is that the audience needs to your client needs to understand

in order to help them make a good decision

to you on taking your advice or not.

Yeah, one of one of my coaches and mentors, Dennis McCare, and he always says

like he had the story of like an oxygen sensor going bad on the vehicle

and the client asking, what does that do?

Well, sir, right now it's turning on your check engine light.

It's kind of a comical approach to this thing.

Like, oh, we could go and explain how it's measuring the air inside

of the exhaust to understand the how well the engine is running with its

efficiency and all the other things.

But no, at the end of the day, this is how it's affecting you at the moment.

And the long term ramifications are a lack of efficiency and potential.

Other issues or what on it goes.

But no, we don't need to go to the depth that we always need to do.

It doesn't always impress people.

It overwhelms them.

And you have a lot of other things that are already overwhelming.

This does not need to be one of them.

So, Helen, how can we help you make a plan here?

That's going to serve your immediate needs.

Boom. Right.

And a bit more of a different conversation than just this, this, that, that X dollars.

And that's what we're going to do today.

Right. OK.

So I mentioned this O2 sensor and you had a story, Helen, about an O2 sensor.

You bought your daughter another vehicle, an older car.

I did. And this was her high school the summer before her senior year.

She needed a car just to get to school and back in.

So I would be last summer's twenty twenty four.

It was a two thousand nine

Honda Elantra that I bought just through

Facebook Marketplace or something for two thousand dollars.

And I think it had one hundred and twenty thousand miles on it.

Pretty good for that old of a vehicle.

And but of course, it wasn't long before things

were making noises or smells and such.

So a couple of times in and out of the shop, just with the bare minimum

to keep it going. And then finally,

we took it in because it had the check engine light on.

And of course, tons of things come back through.

It was like, you know, twenty five hundred dollars worth of repair

comes back of of needing to fix.

But he said, I think, you know, your culprit really is this O2 sensor,

which I just maybe down in the muffler area, something like that.

I don't know if it's there, but that's what it's detecting the oxygen

coming through on the in and out.

And this is the thing, though, Craig, is

they understood that we are only just needing to get this car by, you know,

just we're not going to throw a lot of money into it.

We're just using it until it's done until it runs out.

We're going to let it go.

But the best that they could recommend was a $1,200 repair

in order to get this O2 sensor issue corrected.

No symptoms, pretty much the lights on.

Did you have any other issues that you felt there?

Only just that it was getting what they told me was that my danger

would be possibly it would start, but it was still starting.

Like sometimes you might need to jump or something

with that and the muffler would get kind of loud eventually.

But no other symptoms, just basically the light was on.

That was basically it.

My automotive thing wants to say what code was it and was it this?

And I'm already thinking, was it the catalytic converter

that they were having to replace?

Because, yeah, oh, my gosh, OK, but no, this story goes on.

And this was just last year.

So I'm much more in my state of mind.

I don't have to worry about where's my food coming in?

How am I getting my kids to school and everything?

So there's a lot better spot, you know.

So it's like, that's interesting.

That's still more than I really want to put into this car right now.

So I'm starting to weigh my options of, you know,

getting a different vehicle for her and how to go about that.

In the meantime, I check with my one of my colleagues who I know

works on cars on the side, handy guy on the side.

He does a quick Google search for the part that I said was

they were going to replace.

He's like, this is wherever he can find it,

$100 less than what they're quoting you at the store.

And likely this is really more of a muffler issue

where it could probably take this to a muffler shop.

And they could, I'm going to hell,

I need this and say, Jimmy, reduct tape,

muffler it to get it to do whatever you need to do

to get that code or whatever to at least to have your the safety

and security for driving the car continually.

Yeah. And for the people that don't recognize Helen and I are both in Michigan

and it gets rusty and exhaust systems are constantly falling apart

in horrible ways.

And there is nothing that can ever be said negative about that

muffler shop that can make a quick patch for some things.

They are valuable to all of us.

So all right, continue.

So he said, you know, if it was him, that's the way he would go.

And just probably the shop doesn't have a muffler specialty guy

in his in their shop.

So the best that they could really do is take out the entire blah, blah,

blah thing and to get to that one space that really needed to be adjusted

where the muffler specialty guy could do that.

So, I mean, at the end, I decided to just trade the car in for another vehicle.

Oh, you didn't even deal with it on this one.

Oh, no. I was like, you know, I didn't do anything to it,

even the 2000 something at all and said, you know what?

It hasn't stalled.

There's a jumper cable in if we need to start.

It might get a little loud eventually,

but it wasn't until she said that something was smelling

that I said, OK, now it's time to go go for you then.

That was about three months later.

So I really didn't do anything with it.

Yeah. So the shop that probably accurately assessed that a component

of maybe a larger area than you needed to do.

Yeah, that's exactly what happens in those cases.

Catalytic converters are expensive and a $1,200 repair in an exhaust

is not surprising because the part itself is often $800.

And yeah, even though you might find a price similar to what the shop

has to pay, shops have profit margins, all the things.

I know our listeners are going through all the things like, of course,

the parts cheaper when you look at it online, all these things.

And like, they don't know the cost of operating business to be there

for the next person's like, no, client doesn't know how our business operate.

It's a perfectly fair assessment.

They don't care that like that's a component of, yeah,

the markup has to be X, Y, Z in order for us to make our margins

in order to pay our staff and be here again next week.

But I will say if that shop would have said, I mean,

it's still $1,200 is significant for this vehicle to repair it.

Oh, it's such a bummer, too. Yeah, yep.

I know it's hard.

You say, I know that we are just wanting to limp this car along.

Here's the $1,200 best recommendation that we can give you.

It would, in my mind, I don't want to go back to them anymore

because I would have preferred them to say what would have built that trust was,

you know what, we've got a muffler guy down the road here.

I've got a relationship.

I'm going to call him and I'm going to send you over there.

I think that he can get that for half the price

and you'll be better off to get that limping or that patch in place.

I don't know how it works in your industry.

It's too bad we'll never know on this story

because I wonder what the diagnosis was.

Was it a bad cat? If it was a bad cat,

yeah, there's cheap cats that you can get, catalytic converters, all the things.

There's literally just a muffler, huh? Man.

It wasn't a catalytic converter.

I wouldn't remember that dog gone.

I really want to know because it's frustrating.

But yes, the thing is sometimes outside of your specialty,

the best thing that you can recommend is some of those.

We had a guy down the corner from us, a Tuffy Muffler shop

that's no longer there now, probably because they didn't charge enough, as my thinking.

But they bailed me out number of times when just a simple crack on a rusty old pipe

and they got it by with some welding magic.

And sometimes the guy never even charged us for it

because we shared customers on occasions and referrals and things like it.

It's just bonkers.

What a good muffler shop in a rusty state can do.

And there was a missed opportunity, perhaps, to look for a middle road option

or explain why this is what it is and shoot would have been good to know.

Like if a muffler shop tried to patch and you still have the same problem

that justified the shop's original diagnostics, we just don't know in this case.

But explaining options, I mean, this is the reality we face.

Customers come into this.

They hear our recommendations and there's always another place

that will have another thing.

And there's always the guy that knows a little bit about some stuff

that can make some recommendations.

And yet there's some facts in the middle of all of this

and the solution just not always obvious.

And it's not the priority for you.

Your priorities get out of this as simple as you can for your exact needs

and perhaps a missed opportunity.

But maybe the best advice is if you aren't willing to do that,

then you're better off getting rid of the car as you did.

And that might have been the advice they had to give.

Right.

Yeah. I want to know the end of that car story, though, man, incomplete, too bad.

Well, I am notorious for not throwing anything away.

So if I walked away with a paper, then I might find it one day

and I'll let you know because it'll be laying around my house somewhere.

Good insight, though, Helen.

And we appreciate your perspective.

I appreciate your perspective.

And I know our listeners will, too, as hard as it is to hear sometimes

about the reality of the perspective of the industry.

I appreciate you coming on to share this stuff.

And I hope that our listeners can draw some value from it

and just think about the way we're approaching the conversations,

not from our perspective, not from taking offense to like,

oh, it's not fair that the industry doesn't have trust.

It's just what it is.

And that's where we have to meet everyone at.

So, Helen, thanks for meeting me here.

And I'm just excited for what our Toastmasters Club is going to have

for your leadership of the club this year.

You've already brought so many great insights and stories.

I shared the storytelling formula in a few episodes ago.

We talked about that.

So, yes, yes, I heard that.

Yes, good stuff.

No, I hope you can come back again.

We'll have plenty more to discuss.

I'm definitely going to interrogate you further

about how your role as president is challenging you

and things you're really happy about, how they turn out.

So, we're only about a month and a half, I think, now into your term,

but good things ahead.

Right, sure. Looking forward to that.

No, it's good stuff.

I use the Toastmasters Club to help people understand

what it is to be an ambassador in our industry

to talk with folks like you who don't know the good side

and the good hearts in the industry.

And I hope there are some folks too.

I hope you heard make your charitable intentions

more well known out there through proper channels.

If you're worried about being taken advantage of,

maybe your charity isn't what you're doing.

But charities out there, there are things.

And I think, Helen, from what I heard from you,

if that had been put out there in churches

or other groups that are more able

to identify charitable needs, if that had been out there,

it would have been much easier for you to tap into, right?

Yes. Letting it make sure it's known.

Otherwise, how can we take advantage of it? Yeah.

Yeah, because just counting on people to tell you the need

is not what's going to be the reality.

Right. Hey, Craig, there's one more thing

that I wanted to share as just as an idea

for a way that you can kind of solicit information

from your clients as they're new coming in

to see where they're at that possibly,

you're not just going to say,

hey, are you somebody in need?

We have a donor that can offer this.

Right. You can't just go on and say this.

What gave me this idea was I got a new tire recently

and the tire shop looked at my tires

and then they brought me in and they had this picture of,

like, here's what the normal tread looks like

and the amount that's here and like a measurement.

And then here's the in-between one or, you know,

and then here's the dangerous one.

You're like right around here, you know,

it just kind of showed me that.

And I'm like, well, that's perfect.

Like it has a visual.

I can see where I'm at.

You know, you looked at that, that's where it's at.

It made me think of putting something together

for assessing new clients on where they're at

in their whatever journey of car owning that we are.

Like.

A vehicle health scale.

It actually exists.

Yep.

Yes. Personal joy.

Are you somebody that is, I'm sure it's like,

I don't want to mess with my car.

I just want to bring it in and you guys fix it.

You don't need to tell me, just make sure it works.

And you don't care how much it costs.

We're just going to take it from you

and you trust us to do everything.

Are you a this person?

Yeah, we call them key throwers.

Here, just take care of it.

Yeah.

And it doesn't necessarily have to be a scale

of a non key thrower to a key thrower scale.

Like continuum, but.

Yeah. What type of customer?

You're describing actually the topic

that my friends, Brian and Kim Walker

will be talking about in an upcoming conference.

They call it customer avatars to a degree

where it helps the shop understand

what kind of client you are.

Or specifically, like you said, with this vehicle even,

there's probably a difference on there too.

And it can inform how the interactions need to go

in order to serve you best and follow up with you best

at how you'd like to be followed up with

and when for that vehicle,

all sorts of variables like that.

And there's some data intake that occurs.

And I always try to teach it through conversation

and asking intelligent questions

to kind of put the puzzle pieces together

through our relationship that is developing

and that the pieces always start to fill in.

And it's out of care and the best interest

for the individual that that conversation

needs to be conducted with solicitude.

I agree with everything you're saying.

And it also made me think of like,

oh, like the Harry Potter houses are kind of cool.

Like you're like, are you this one

or this one or this one?

You can like put them in houses.

And then, yeah, like you describe,

are you a this type of customer

or are you this type of customer

but allowing me to tell you

that I am someone that is in need

without explicitly saying, I'm a person in need.

In some way of, if you went along those,

what did you call them?

A client profiles or avatars.

They're an avatar that you're at this stage

in your life with this type of circumstances

that you're balancing.

You're not asking that.

You're describing, hey, a rabbit avatar is at this.

Here's what the rabbit is and they eat carrots.

We have rabbits that eat carrots

and we have rabbits that eat, I don't know, beets.

I'm gonna have to probe Brian and Kim

on how they approach this too.

But you're describing like almost like

a personality test it feels like.

Yes, but it's not personality.

It's like just where you're at and your situation.

Some intelligent questionnaire of some sort.

Yeah, yeah.

Something that will come out.

Like you go to the doctor with your pets or yourself

and you always have some major checklist to do.

Like we don't put anything in front of people like this

really well anyways.

Yeah, but it doesn't explicitly say like,

are you living paycheck to paycheck?

Like that's not the question.

Yeah, financial circumstances are a tough topic to probe

in what I've seen.

Yeah, how do you ask those questions

without explicitly saying

because a lot of people are living paycheck to paycheck

but they don't admit it.

They don't realize that they're living

beyond their means anyway.

Yeah.

Continuing education, I'm asked, right,

I'm trying to round out some of my college stuff too.

And like just even looking at the admissions process,

first thing they want you to do,

fill out the financial aid form.

No questions, you must fill it out.

You have to fill this out.

And it's a whole thing.

And I don't know how that would look maybe

for the situation on finances.

Like I do know some shops will offer a line

of credit type of a thing, but that's a credit thing.

And most of the people who meet it can't get it.

Yeah, it's tough.

We're gonna be happy to get some outside counsel

on some ideas as we get those together, Helen.

I think you're on a thread there.

I think that's worth exploring a little bit

and knowing from some focus group study

from non-automotive people

and what they would actually feel comfortable with.

I think that's where some insight

would be really beneficial.

Ah, that's cool topic stuff.

Helen, thanks for bringing that in.

All right, well, hey, thank you so much

for listening today, folks.

If you have any questions on this topic

or you wanna visit us in Grand Rapids Toastmasters Club 404,

we're there every Tuesday night, 6.30 to eight o'clock.

If you're in town, let me know on a Tuesday night.

Otherwise reach up to me at speakup at kregoneal.net.

And we do appreciate hearing from you on topics

or suggestions or anything that you wanna hear

about on your communication journey.

I think this will be a great episode

for service advisors out there.

So owners, give them this one.

I think it's a wonderful perspective.

Thanks for sharing again, Helen.

And hey, remember, folks,

listen up to the other shows

on the Aftermarket Radio Network.

We have remarkable results radio with Karm Capriato,

diagnosing the Aftermarket A through Z

with Matt Fonslow, an upcoming guest.

I can't wait for some of you to get to hear him

if you haven't already listened to his show.

Business by the Numbers with Hunt Demerist,

the Auto Repair Marketing Podcast

with Brian and Kim Walker,

and the Weekly Blitz with Coach Chris Cotton.

Looking forward to being out there speaking,

Kim and Brian Walker will be with me

at the Institute's Mars Intensive in Ogden, Utah.

Thanks again to all of our sponsors

to make this show possible.

Please, folks, get out there,

listen up to your clients with care and solicitude,

and then speak up.

You've been listening to Speak Up,

the effective communication with Kregoneal

on the Aftermarket Radio Network.

Follow Kreg on your favorite podcast listening app

and on his YouTube channel.

Let him know what you'd like him to speak up about.

Kreg is all for advancing the Automotive Service

Aftermarket.

Engaging Our Clients in Need With Helen Fradette [E058] - Speak Up! Effective Communication

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