The AI-Driven Auto Repair Leader: Using Technology as Your Strategic Thought Partner [RR 1092]
Remarkable Results Radio Podcast
The AI-Driven Auto Repair Leader: Using Technology as Your Strategic Thought Partner [RR 1092]
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51:30
Term
service advisor
A service advisor is the person at the repair shop who talks with you about the problem, writes up the job, and keeps things moving with the mechanic. They help turn your description into a clear repair request.
Concept
background checks
Background checks are ways to verify information about someone before you trust them for a job. The speaker is saying AI can help do some of that research, but you have to handle it legally and with proper notice.
Term
RO descriptions
“RO” usually means repair order. The RO description is the written explanation of what the customer says is wrong and what the shop plans to do, so the mechanic has the right info.
Term
AI technician rewrite notes
This is AI used to rewrite the mechanic’s notes in plain, clearer language for the customer. Instead of confusing wording, it helps explain what’s wrong and what can be done.
Term
hose leak
A hose leak means a hose in the car is letting fluid escape. The point here is that the shop should describe it clearly so the customer understands what’s happening.
Concept
tokenized data
It means the AI turns words and text into smaller chunks it can understand. If the chunks are good and relevant, the AI’s answers tend to be better.
Concept
AI rewrite everything
They’re talking about using AI to automatically rewrite messages customers receive. Instead of sounding like a template, the goal is for updates to sound more natural and personal.
Concept
prompting
Prompting is the instructions you give the AI so it knows what to write. If you phrase the instructions well, the AI tends to produce better results.
Concept
customer communication
They’re talking about the messages a repair shop sends customers during the process. The idea is to make those updates feel more personal instead of using the same canned wording every time.
Concept
unscripting those
They want to stop using the same fixed template replies. Instead, AI should help write responses that fit what’s happening with your car so it sounds more human.
Term
inspection
In an auto repair context, an inspection is the shop’s process of checking a vehicle to identify issues and determine what work is needed. The hosts are pointing out that an inspection report can be overwhelming when it lists many items without a clear, prioritized summary.
Concept
natural language way of communicating
This means describing what the car needs in normal, easy-to-understand language. Instead of a confusing list, it’s meant to be clearer about what’s important and what can wait.
Concept
perceived value
Perceived value is how “worth it” the customer feels the service is. Even if the work is the same, better explanations and professionalism can make customers feel more confident and satisfied.
Term
AI
AI is computer software that can help with tasks like writing and summarizing information. Here, they’re saying AI can help shops explain car inspection results more clearly to customers.
Term
TSB
A TSB is a manufacturer’s “here’s how to fix this known problem” document. Shops use it to make sure they’re following the right troubleshooting steps for a specific issue.
Term
chat GPT
ChatGPT is an AI chatbot. In a repair shop, people use it to help think through troubleshooting steps—like asking for the next thing to check based on what you already know.
Term
diagnostic trees
Think of diagnostic trees like a decision guide. You check one thing, and depending on the result you move to the next check until you find the cause.
Term
LMS
Here, LMS means AI language systems. The idea is that some are trained on more information than others, which affects how well they can help with troubleshooting questions.
Concept
repair data
Repair data is the history of what mechanics saw and how they fixed it. If AI learns from that kind of real repair record, it can give better troubleshooting suggestions.
Concept
front counter
The front counter is the shop’s customer-facing intake area where service requests are handled and communication is coordinated. The speaker is describing a future workflow where an AI assistant handles phone calls and outbound communication, reducing the number of people needed at the counter.
LIVE
This is the Automotive Repair Podcast Network.
Everybody, Karm Capriotto, welcome.
Remarkable results radio, 11 years strong today.
Sitting in the background somewhere is Chris Cloutier,
and he is the most perfect person to come on and talk about AI.
Thinking a little bit about AI,
we've been talking about AI for years just like we were in
DVI and people just weren't quite sure what they were going to do with DVI.
If you think back a little bit, and then we keep saying,
ah, it's not going to be anything.
It's going to be obsolete in a short, and I completely disagree with that.
And I want you to get that out of your thinking.
We're also going to talk about front of house,
back of house, recruiting and production and productivity.
AI can help me with that, really?
You're going to just love this episode.
Trust me, and thank you so much to our sponsors on the podcast.
Hey, welcome back. Don't forget about our app, everyone.
For your smartphone, the ultimate professional automotive repair playlist.
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And thanks to all the guests who've come on over all these 11 years,
who've contributed to our automotive podcast network shows.
I appreciate you giving nature and to help support the industry.
Let me introduce my friend, Chris Cloutier.
Hello, Chris.
Hey, Karm, how are you?
I'm great, sir.
CEO, founder, autoflow.com and CRM for your auto repair shop.
Yeah, and then proud owner of now a third golden rule auto care in Dallas, Texas.
We just opened up a third shop at the beginning of the year and it's been wildly successful.
So yeah, multi shop owner, auto repair shop extraordinaire.
Sometimes I'm the windshield and sometimes I'm the bug.
And in a day, I'm usually both and you can understand that, right, Karm?
I am a truly a serial entrepreneur.
We won't even talk about the real estate company that I own on the side, right?
That's right, Chris.
Yeah, your entrepreneurialism just kind of comes out.
It does, yes.
So I wrote to Chris a bit ago and I said,
I've been thinking about the power that Amazon and others have in logistics.
You may remember this.
I can't imagine the code, the algorithms that they have to decide on
delivery, product movement, purchasing storage, shipping workers, et cetera, et cetera.
I'm reading from this.
I got me thinking about the future shop flow, work flow from inbound appointments
to work assignments to meet promise times, writing algorithms, AI stuff into software.
And since you are the cutting edge person in our industry who thinks about this every minute of the day,
I thought of Bayflow and wondered if your software is an integral part
of a larger AI algorithm.
I said, come on and do a show and he goes, okay, I will, but first you got to read a book.
So Chris prepared me for this episode.
It's the book called The AI Driven Leader by Jeff Woods.
He talks about having AI be your thought partner and that AI doesn't replace humans.
It enhances you.
It's not going to replace you.
Your role will evolve with AI.
Six to 10 jobs today didn't exist back in 1940.
These are all kinds of things from the book.
Improve the productivity of your people and goals are too small.
Goals are a compass.
It's a really comprehensive book.
He brings up a lot of great examples and he actually taught me how to talk to AI
and get back what my expectations were, Chris.
That's it.
And it's a great, I would say starter guide for a lot of people.
And they're like, I hear the term AI, AI, AI, AI.
How do I use AI?
Where do I play AI?
Oh, I talked to AI the other day and I asked it a question.
It gave me the wrong answer.
Sure.
But at what context did you ask that question, right?
What were the parameters that you gave the machine, the AI, to understand what it is
and give you a better answer, right?
And in the book, it does a really great job around, like you said, executing and prompting,
as well as helping you understand, as a leader, this is going to become a strategic partner.
So here I am joking about, I run multiple companies, multiple shops, software company,
real estate company.
What I've really experienced is it has become my Jarvis.
It has become something that's allowed me to do jobs and do tasks that used to take me
a while to do.
Now, almost instantly, trust but verify karma.
I'm not saying I trust the machines wholeheartedly.
I'm saying I trust but verify and the amount of work and the amount of things that I do
when it comes to processing spreadsheets, data, a lot of things that leaders do,
we're allowing ourselves to exponentially get to our answers quicker and our solutions
that much faster.
So I think this book, it should be required reading.
Now, I'll give one guy on my team, Scott Smyer, I just come back from a conference
and it was an AI conference and it just blew my brains about, oh my God, like what have I
been doing?
And then he said, hey, I just read this book, you need to read it.
And pretty much everybody on my team has read it in the leadership capacity on my
software team.
And it's had a major impact in the way that we're moving into AI.
And I appreciate you calling me an expert karma.
I'm like everybody else.
I'm as lost as everybody else.
But like you said, I'm constantly consuming it, reading about it, trying to understand about it.
You know, once I read the book, it allowed me to have AI become my friend.
Let me explain.
I had no idea how much it was really knowing about me.
And it says, in the vernacular karma of the things that you've said before and where you're
taking your company and this or that, let me offer you this bit.
And I'm sitting there saying, what's it?
You mean it actually remembers the stuff that I ask it and the stuff that it writes for me
or the stuff that it comes back?
For example, I'll take a transcript, Chris, from a discovery call that I have with guests.
And I'll take that transcript and I'll feed it up to AI and I'll say, look,
I really know what I want to do here.
You know, Fathom will give me the outline, but I wanted AI to give me more of a wonderful,
a little bit better structure than I was willing.
You're buried, you're busy.
Everyone who I'm talking to, the top shop operators are listening to this.
Please get this down to the lower tracks for us, please.
And we're so busy and crazy.
I have been relying on AI to make me more efficient, Chris,
and relying on the things that is telling me back because it's gotten to know who I am.
Without question.
And you know, there's a lot of fear around, oh, you know, telling the machines too much
because they'll, Craig brought this up and Craig's part of your network.
And he brought this up, which was brilliant.
And he goes, Chris, how long have we been using Google Docs for?
And I'm like, man, for 10 years, 12 years, 15, he goes,
yeah, they've already been stealing our data, right?
I mean, all their models are built out because it was free.
And it's free.
You're the product, right?
I'll give you a good example, Karma, of how it saved me in buying this third shop, right?
Anybody who's gone through and gone through trying to get an SBA loan,
there's a lot of documentation paperwork that's going to go with it.
There's forecast projections, all these other things you need to do.
Usually it takes some time.
Now, all the financials and stuff, I have a good accountant, so I was able to get that quick.
It should start getting caught in the minutiae of all these little documents you've got to provide.
Karma, I was able to return this around in hours.
Here's my old projections.
Here's what my current business is doing.
Hey, go fill this sheet out that they need for me.
And within a couple of prompts and a couple of different massages,
here I had all this information that Karma, that was going to take me a week.
And I know how I work, and I probably work like a lot of entrepreneurs.
I'm going to start here, I'm going to work on it, and then, oh, squirrel, I got to go over here.
Let me go over here, and then I'm going to go back to it.
And we know that context switches are super expensive anytime we've got to switch from task to task.
So it allows you to focus on this thing, get a good result very quickly, and then massage it,
and then really complete it versus this context switch going back and forth.
But I'm telling you, Karma, I save days and of paperwork that I would get for this SBA.
Like you're using it, here's just one of a thousand examples of how you can leverage once again the machines.
Thousands, were you the one who told me that you loaded up some resumes?
My funniest story about the resume is that me and Cody, which works for my software company,
we had this brilliant idea that we're going to get AI to write all our job descriptions of what we want,
which was great. We fed it. Now, here's the thing, what's going about AI?
It's as dumb as you want it to be, but it's as smart as you allow it to be.
So we loaded it with all the things we wanted and all the criteria and all this.
And so we posted this job ad. And then we started getting these really great, you know,
resumes, but we started getting flooded with resumes. So we took and I'm like,
I got this idea, let's take them all and let's put them back to the machine
and let the machine go through and grade them. Well, then we started grading them and getting,
you know, really good ABC based off this criteria. Here's what we see.
Karma, the problem was, and this is in tech. I don't, we haven't seen this over in auto repair
shops with technicians, but for software engineers, what we started seeing was,
wow, these resumes start looking very similar to the last ones we got. Oh, and the last ones we
got. And so you've got AI versus AI. You've got AI writing the resume and then you've got AI
grading the resume and then you've got, and I swear we did one interview, Karma, where we were
talking to a guy who was using AI. It was not a person. It was really like an AI persona of this
guy and it was insane, but it was taking a couple seconds to respond and it was just this real awkward
interchange. So yeah, we thought it was funny AI versus AI and it was just crazy.
Wait a minute. You didn't hear Will Robinson, danger, danger.
Close, Karma. It was insane. The delay was like, hold on, this is weird. Like, why are you waiting?
You think you got duped?
Well, we didn't hire them. So without a question, there's a lot of people that are leveraging it
in all kinds of different ways. And what technicians, I have not seen this yet, service advisors and
those resumes that we do feed into the machines to say, hey, let's look at some of their qualifications,
anything that stands out, any red flags that stand out, go do a little research on them.
See if you can find more on them. If you got a Facebook or, you know, I know there's some
legalities around, you know, you're not supposed to do some of this stuff. But, you know, I think that
allowing it to kind of go and do some background checks for you is okay.
You know, as long as you're, I don't know, if you're having somebody
file a resume and you tell them you're going to do a background check and all that on them, then
it's all legal, right?
So at your stores, Chris, are you saying to your service advisors, whatever you call them,
client advocates, to use AI to improve RO descriptions and for your guys in the back
to write a little bit better pros to send up front?
Yeah. So a practical sense was auto flow back a year and a half ago,
we launched AI technician rewrite notes. Where is exactly that? And Karma, I wrote this,
you know, here's the thing, you know, I'm going to claim to be still a shop owner who is still
writing software for the industry and I eat my own dog food. I do. So I had one of my technicians
who had a problem with English. He's just not great with English.
We had this joke and it was like, oh, you know, so-and-so, he likes to use the word sipping
whenever there's a hose leak instead of seeping, he puts sippi ng versus sepa, which is a simple
mistake. I could probably make the mistake too. And so we're like, how can we solve this to where
a customer doesn't read it and go, oh my God, what is, how can my hose zip? So we wrote the AI
technician rewrite note to where you can click a button and then basically it rewrites it to say,
hey, this is leaking and here's the reason why it's leaking and here's, you know, some remedies
for it. Now, it's funny, as of recently, I've had shops come back on me and they're like, oh,
your AI notes is not very good. And I'm like, okay, once again, context of what it is helps.
So, you know, if you have something and it's like air filter bad needs replacing or air
filter dirty needs, like the more you tell it, the better it is versus air filter bad.
Okay, like, how bad is it? Like, it's with any human that you communicate with,
to what degree do they interpret what you're trying to tell them. So once again, the more
context you can put around what it is, they're, it's trying to rewrite for you, the better the
outcome will go. And once again, I've come you probably got 1000 examples of people have come
to you and said, I just don't work. I tried to chat to you BT, I put in like, it wiles the world
round and it gave me a bad answer or, but as an example of just AI technician rewrite notes,
give it a little context. And it does a great job, Carm, of making your shop
seem very intelligent and your technicians seem 10 times more intelligent than
what they appear to be, even though we know technicians are extremely intelligent,
but they didn't go to school for grammar. What I just heard you say about people
trashing something that comes back to them that they don't like, or they don't believe in,
I'm an individual and I think like you, I have a wider attitude on things.
And I think people have to have a wider attitude and not jump on the first time
you are uncomfortable. And because I always believe garbage in, garbage out, you lived
this your whole life having been in software. And so if you're going to say something that's not,
AI is not going to understand three words that I'm asking it to do something for me. It's just
not. And that's what the thought leader book brought me is you've got to really communicate
with that AI bot or whatever. You've really got to tell it a little bit more about what you're
looking for and a little bit of the why you're looking for it. Then it's going to come back
and even ask you a question. Oh, in the vein of the last time you did this or blah, blah,
blah, and I can do this and then it writes something, you don't have to accept it.
You could go on and say, do this, shorten it, make it right. I'm loving the fact that,
damn it, Chris, I'm having a damn relationship with a computer.
So in the book, it talks about that, right? It talks about prompting and saying, hey,
tell it that it's your strategic thought leader and that you're going through this drill with
financials and then say, hey, ask me a question one at a time until you get enough context behind
understanding what it is that I'm trying to do. A lot of people don't realize you can tell the
machines to ask you the questions one at a time and then you can get that context like you're
talking about. So it gets the context of what you're truly trying to do.
Yeah, the one at a time thing. He repeated that in every chapter, one at a time. Please ask me
these questions one at a time. I found that to be so powerful. It was an alliteration inside of
that book. He was talking about, and again, we'll always bring this down to our industry,
but he's talking about big corporate executives looking at strategic plans and working with
their executive team trying to figure stuff out. And I started to think about,
I'm ready to buy my third store. Chris sounds familiar, right? In the bank, my partner needs
to give me some money because they know I can pay it back. And I've got a great plan to pay it back
in five years, but they want to see a business plan from me. I go to my account, he's busy,
it's tax season, blah, blah, blah. This machine, this computer, this quantum, whatever, can help you.
It can. Carm, this story, I'll back up. We had a third property we were looking at.
And my brother, who's my partner? He's been partner in shops for a long time. He was Technician Patrick.
We kept going to the shop and I'm like, Patrick, this is the one we need to buy. We
And he was like, man, I just don't have a good feeling about it. So I'm frustrated.
I'm negotiating a price. I get a good price. And so I'm working with AI and I'm like, okay,
you know, what is worth? What are some of the comps around blah, blah, blah. And lo and behold,
Carm, I find the third property that we purchased in communication with AI. It's like, hey, here's a
comp. This is being sold here in this area for this much. But and I'm like, why do I not know about
this? I have business brokers. I have loot net. I have people that call me all the time. And I did
not know about this funny thing, Carm. When I then started me and my brother drove out to her,
we're like, this is amazing. Then everybody's like, oh yeah, we've known about that property forever.
And it's like, but the machine helped me guide me to, you know, not only negotiating on this,
you know, trying to find this one property, but then getting all the documentation together
to purchase this property when it comes to business plans. I have business plans. I'm a
business guy, you know that. But my business plans aren't always up to date. So running it through
and saying, hey, let's update a couple numbers, up tape a couple slides in here. It is once again,
something that has exponentially allowed me to do things in a much quicker fashion.
As a leader, right? Versus, oh man, it's gonna take me some time. You know, as a leader,
Carm, and you do a lot on leadership in your podcast, leadership, a lot of times we're doing
one off tasks, right? When you get to true leadership position, you're not doing the things
over and over again, because you've already hired somebody to do those things over and over again.
So the one off tasks are those things that you have to think about. They're the strategy sessions,
they're the forecast, they're the SWOT analysis, they're the this, the that, you can't go give it
to an admin, you can't give it to, you have to put thought through it. So I think once again,
what I've learned with AI is, wow, I've really allowed myself to exponentially expedite some
of these tasks that I've done as far as leadership goes. Now that you know what it takes to become
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dot com. You just nailed something so powerful. I've offered some classes this year to some
of the conferences to do my mastermind but put a twist in it doing a SWAT SWOT with a
selected group of CEOs. And you just bombarded me with I just recently also did a SWAT for a
friend of mine here in Buffalo. He had his annual meeting and I went in and I've never believed
that the owner should do the SWOT on his own because he may challenge some of the think and
that's not what they're there for. So we wrote all these papers that can you imagine typing that
up inside of AI and say can you develop me I'm going to give you the A's and S the
B's and the C's how we've designed and can you come up with a strategic plan or the things that
we need to start doing right now to reach these particular goals and to be able to fight these
threats and to improve our weaknesses. In fact, you know what I'm going to do? go to
my friend I'm going to ask him to give me those results again and I want to put him inside of AI
and compare and contrast absolutely and not everything that it tells you is good but it
will tell you good things. Yeah you're right it could charge your brain not that you're 100%
right it may not be perfect but it could get you to 45 RPMs not 33. Correct. I've used it
multiple times not only for the outer repair shops look opening up in Farmersville smaller
location it's the smallest population we've ever had Carm when it came to our other shops
right so super small I spent a lot of time on statistics marketing area what small shops do
what how have they been successful and a lot of this is yeah sure it's common knowledge go support
the high school and stuff like that but there's other ideas and other things that you can ruminate
on and go why I never really thought about that in that way so let me take that and start adding
on to this idea not necessarily giving you the idea but helping you like say ruminate and come up
with some different strategies that you yourself may not have thought of got it wow and talk about
being able to look at a shop in a market that you'd love to be in in an owner who's interested in
selling and yeah there's the affordability piece I get that but also the decision that you think
I want to buy this place I love it I can do a million things with it but if you could let AI do
a market sweep or an opportunity for you how much income how many vehicles what's the age
it's going to tell you all that yeah some of it's accurate not I mean you can kind of
piece pieces together the good thing is we have a lot of marketing companies that can get you that
information as well as you know that's calm feeding some of that in with the you know the machine and
saying here's some data that I got from other companies there's some data I got from here here's
some data I got from the internet hey let's kind of turn this together and look at it as a whole
piss picture because it's peace that it may have may only be a little piece of it so I agree with you
Carm like taking this data that you can get from other sources and feeding it to it
to get a more well which is and once again go back to like your extended brain the more
information we have as a leader the better decision that we're equipped to make well AI is the same
way the more information you give it the better it's going to be able to distinguish and give you
a better direction for where you're going caveat emptor caveat emptor please enlighten me isn't
that latin for buyer beware yeah sure yes okay probably buyer beware and so if i'm going to push
that information and it's going to tell me yeah buy this place real good and you didn't check the
sourcing that you got from your AI again what a tool and if that tool can be accurate up to 75
percent or allow you some more time to do the other things that were time challenged for I would
say that that document that you're printing that you're putting down inside all the work you need
to do needs to be referenced but you're sitting down with one of your people and they've got an
opinion and an idea you have them on your team for the right reasons but it doesn't necessarily mean
they're right in every case Carm you're absolutely right and if you see it as that other person as
another person on your exact team that's going to give you their opinion you don't have to act on
any of your people's opinions you're the leader I'll tell you this Carm right now so that you've
heard this term probably right now is the worst AI is ever going to be but right now is the cheapest
AI is ever going to be so let's think about technology and technology turns and what recently
happened let's say with Netflix and streaming remember streaming 568 years ago
Carm you could tend to holders and you could have no commercials and you could have every
movie you ever wanted for next to nothing what has happened to streaming it is worse than cable now
it is oh well you're paying this when you got to watch commercials now oh you're going to pay more
oh but you have to have 17 subscriptions to because that movie well yeah only they have access to it
so you see what I'm saying like it's going to turn into that so I would suggest anybody listening
like now is the greatest time to get in because tokens are cheap right and that's everything's
based off of these tokens so you go to talk chappy chap GBT or Claude or whatever is your
favorite grok there's so many out there it's all based off tokenized data and right now we're getting
in at the ground floor in five years from now Carm it's going to be subscription on subscription
on subscription on subscription it will be killed with the amount of costs that we have so that's
another thing I keep you know trying to emphasize to people like man you can go for 20 bucks and buy
these subscriptions to these genius models and leverage a run one versus the other versus the
other I mean Google's got Jim and I like there are so many platforms and apps out there right now
that you can run against that are just wonderful you gave me a chart chachi bt mid journey is that AI
it's a picture you video yeah picture thing yeah I give you a couple yeah a video thing
Claude I mean god so front of shop backup shop let's talk about some of the uses that you are
currently doing in your shop in the software and all the people that you know in the industry
what's going on front of house are we using it to help translate some of the junk we're
getting from the back to have a much more warm and friendly are all yes I'm a software guy too so
in autoflow we're about to launch AI rewrite everything so that's from any time there's any
type of writing back to the customer you can then basically use the you know and we've improved our
prompting and all this right because what we've noticed is yeah why go one place to generate
something and then have to go back into tool so basically what we're doing is we're encompassing
and all into our tool so any type of customer communication whether it be the workflow and
the workflow message carm it's the same thing every time right carm comes in it's like hey your car
was being checked in hey now we're working on your vehicle the vision is in the future it's like
hey carm hadn't seen you all oh thanks for coming back with this hey you know what we got Jim he's
looking at your vehicle where it's very much more personalized because we have this data on you
and this understanding of who you are which a lot of our I guess routine are automated responses to
customers or they're scripted we could do so much more with unscripting those and making it very
seem very natural and that's what we're working on that's what we're going to improve AI technician
rewrite notes was kind of our first place because we collected a lot of data understanding
a lot of improvements right and that's software in general right you put something out you hope
it's good and then you improve on it so yes front of the house absolutely you know right rewriting
even our own notes that can go out to customers and we're even talking about rewriting the summary
right of what goes out to the customer so there's a summarized understanding of what they're seeing
because we understand the inspection is not necessarily a good thing it's so
yes dvi is a good thing but carm when you have 20 items you got to go look at and you got to go
through all these different sections and you don't really understand it gets confusing so how can
you simplify that so a consumer can get a summary of what's going on what needs to be addressed what
can be later yeah what your service advisor does but in a more natural language way of communicating
with the customer I just love what you said I wrote too many notes I'm not sure I can get to all
my thoughts here Chris but you said something so powerful and you kept talking about the customer
and the reception of the customer to the wording that we're giving them and part of me going on
doing my keynote on the rise of the specialist and try it's all invoked in the professionals
increasing the professionalism of our industry and a lot of the things that you were saying to me
that it looks like you're driving is the sophistication of the language that we use
and if that can be stronger to this client then the perceived value coming back is professionalism
that's it carm we have great people in our shops but I said this earlier they're not grammar experts
they're not language experts they're not spelling experts this absolutely gives them an avenue
and your shop to look professional which is exactly what you've been promoting for all the
right reasons and it gives us an avenue to very quickly look professional trust but verify don't
trust everything it rewrites but there's absolutely I think a major change coming out you want skin
to the industry we always say this you know you said it before AI is that man this is just not
going away it's only going to improve it's only going to get better this is the worst it's ever
going to be which means that wow if this is the worst what we have is going to be amazing I'm
going to bring it off to quality control for what and I think the industry has done a good job of
now doing quality control in shops I know as one of the early person to talk about quality control
the reason is because I come from the software industry and hey it's something you did in software
I know Aaron Stokes was somebody who believed in quality control and there were a couple and there
wasn't a lot but I pushed it hard and I think a bunch of people pushed it hard and it came out
well a lot of shops the first objection they get with quality control is why are you double checking
my work do you not trust me why are you doing that and it has nothing to do with that it's
that professionalism that you talk about which is making sure the customer gets their car back in
better shape you can ruin the whole visit of that $2,000 spin fix all their problems and if there's
a glob of grease on their steering wheel you've ruined it all so think about that you're sending
out an inspection to a customer you're communicating to them and every misspelled word or incorrect
grammar for somebody who really is like there are people in this world who love language and love
grammar you're given an opportunity to go wow they don't even care enough to spell that right and
that's not even a properly worded sentence there are people out there like that why would we ever
give ourselves an excuse not to deliver that professionalism to them you know Chris to your
point on the QC my son went to a shop my shop one of my greatest friends and customers back in the
day drove his car away and his left rear tire was further ahead of him than his car was they felt
really really bad about it and I tell this story occasionally when you bring up the QC the QC is
not done after the QC is done one of the specialists does it and then they yell out for a check
and an individual who will be free they will make themselves free to go back and to check
that the lugs were torqued right and if anyone says what do you mean you're checking me
just tell the story about the wheel coming off because anybody worth their salt who's been
around a while realizes the humbleness of making a mistake that big and that goes to prove that if
we were going to give the best client experience in the world and be untouchable in the marketplace
we have to verify what we do we just must and why because we're human and there's mistakes that happen
there's things going on at home there's things going on at work there's things going on in the world
and sometimes every once in a while we draw a freaking blank and we just can't see straight
I agree and QC is just one of those professionalism just like language we speak to customers
it's one of those things that we could fall into a gap that we don't need to right we don't need to
fall into this gap of not doing this thing we now have this ability to do this thing and do it very
professional like you said okay software is really stepping up and helping out in that in that regard
and after I was listening to your last rant I wrote this down your words need to flow through
the curtain of professionalism excellent you love that your words need to flow through the curtain
of professionalism you're your own ai karm that is a beautiful ai statement right there
if you're wondering why there's a why do I have to do this when you put in some of the words that
you want to use and it comes back and it says damn I'm not that smart would I really have ever written
that and the point of it is it's the curtain of professionalism use it go with it change a word
if you want if it doesn't sound like you then you start sounding like that
exactly karm in this industry there's a lot of fear when it comes to adopting technology
I think the good thing is I've seen a lot more people I think like okay ai is here we're using
it to some degree even though I just read the study not too long ago it was like a lot of people in
their jobs although they have the tools they're not using it it was Gen Z specifically they're like
nope not using it it was like 33% or something we're just like yeah sure we tell our boss that
we're using it but we're just not going to use it because we don't care as small business owners
independent business owners right hey one of the SWAT analysis you know that I've done with golden rule
with AI and I'm like hey what do you think is going to kill our industry and it's technician
training right electrical the vehicles a technician shortage and I'm like hey I don't know last time
we put on an ad for technicians we've gotten a lot it's aptitude and ability and training
which you know you're very big on and then it was you know the consolidation of the industry
all of the private equity money has come in that that's in private equity money that man changes
the game so we're not on the same playing field as other shops that have private equity money
behind them that is you know go do a lot of research on private equity whether you love it
hey don't care it changes what they have the capability of doing versus what we have and it
is a threat regardless of your like hey you know this one I'm not going to name one oh they don't
really service their customers well yeah but they they charge like really low prices they have massive
budgets for marketing they have you know all these things that we don't have access to so once again
here we are on this next revolution of technology let's jump on it let's leverage it what we can
because the small business owners we need this right we need to jump on it early get these wins
in build our businesses up I'm all about small business owners Karm you're all about small
business owners it's a hard job for us and what we do I love small business owners because I really
do believe we make the world go round right and we make the world better truly well said Chris
in the shop your specialists in the bays are they using AI maybe to punch in look for a TSB
or a code or anything we have used the chat GPT in some of the AM models to see and try and go down
diagnostic trees to see what's going on I'm not going to promote any tools there's some on the
market that are starting to rise and pop and then it goes to okay how well of their is their data
trained right so you have these large LMS these smaller LMS we're not going to get the technical
details but like some of the bigger ones your chat GPTs and your quads like they're not bad
when it comes to some diagnostic but then you know there's the slippery slope of oh they're
idiots I can't believe that they try to diagnose this there are some in the industry they're now
trying to train models specifically with repair data so say take this data set leverage it with
this data set and let's get more specific and we will see that coming more and more Karm I mean in
the future what is our front counter going to look like will there be one person at the front
counter and two texts in the back of the shop and that's all you're going to need right because
your phones are going to be answered by an assistant and they're going to make any outbound
calls by the assistant and your technicians are going to be able to get to the solution that much
quicker because in me they're going to go hey here's the code here's a couple pictures here's this
that's coming so are you going to need as many people in the future probably not I think that's
definitely going to change yeah I love it you know estimates in half the time as an example
that's it yes but the productivity the production the flow the car count should be able to be
increased and you know if labor is one of the highest costs of an industry and we could use
tools computers systems AI technology I don't know if I covered them all to make us more effective
more efficient than damn sign me up but buyer beware you know everything that you did I put
the right switch so the estimate is there is no simple vanilla ice cream cone out there you
don't want to be careful because you said like you can read the doom and gloom on the internet
about how AI is going to take all the jobs and nobody's going to have any jobs and you can read
the other rosy side which is like no everything's going to be great there's going to create more
jobs I think there's an in between there will definitely be jobs going to wait I can see that
from the software side I can already tell you this like our software engineers are capable of doing
so much more than they ever were before junior devs are going to go away unfortunately they're
probably already gone so it's interesting the industry are the world said shift over come a
software engineer and then it's like yeah if you're a software engineer you're graduating right now
you're probably hurting and you know micro you know and you and there's been a lot of influences
were like hey go get a you know blue collar job you know plumbing auto repair ac repair go do it
now and everybody's like nope go get a job college degree and you get a good job and now
it's like oh crap should have been listening those jobs are probably going to be around for a long
time thank you for laying this in my lap which sometimes you do very well it's not a trade anymore
and that's one of the big things that I talk about it's a career I don't care if you're a plumber
you're a carpenter you're an electrician you're a mechanic which even people are saying it's the
worst ugly word that Hollywood has made us look so bad and you're a specialist in so many areas
and highly educated and you're working on computer systems it's a high tech career it's not a job
it's a career and all the trade schools that are out there have got to stop saying we're a trade
school but they're you're a skilled a career center that's what they are and I don't care if
plumbing hasn't changed in a hundred years or electrical you still have to have a special
skill to know respect and understand and in fact you gotta be licensed don't get me started yes
agree with you karm your rise of the specialist I think all of the things that you have been
promoting you wrote that two years ago a year and a half the year and three quarters ago yeah
so you're on the cusp of what is coming and so I love you you know I do and I love what you
promote I love that you help the industry but man you're really on to yes you know and man you
know kudos for you for seeing this understanding this and helping this industry rise AI will help
it rise to the veil that you're talking about of you know language and I look one of the other
things we have problem with sometimes in our own shops is oh crap we don't speak Spanish we're in
texas well hey you know what it's pretty easy to translate back and forth with you know AI and
and all the so just think about some of the communication barriers and some of the things
we're going to be able to help us once again stay professional and that's it trust but verify too
don't just blindly go off and trust everything it says but I think these breakthroughs that we're
seeing now and will continue to see will be big gains for this industry huge gains well how interesting
I've got this client of mine that really speaks a little English but not a lot and and I got by
with him on the phone and in front of me but here it is I want to send him this estimate
and smart me says let me throw all my right words after I've done it in English and worked with AI
and my team let me pop it in there and says can you give me the Spanish translation for that
and then I send it and they light up because they now understand a whole lot better than me
or them listening to my broken English or their whatever but that's dazzling
that's what makes for a great client experience thinking outside the box okay so I had a wild
thought about okay I'm bought in and I'm not going to fight it anymore and I'm going to go play with
it and I'm going to do these things and I'm going to go read that book and I'm going to listen to
this episode a couple times can I go to a vision last year and I don't remember is there a seminar
where people are going out and teaching how this how AI works in the shop I'm going to do something
that's you're probably going to never invite me back on your podcast for but there's a podcast
called All In and it's got David Saxon it's all these guys from basically from the valley from
Silicon Valley a bunch of angel investors and big investors I'd suggest to you too Karm it is probably
one of the best other than yours outside of the industry this is these guys are once again all
geniuses all billionaires multiple times over and they are constantly talking about AI and the models
and how it's affecting the industry and this is a so it's called All In and once again I believe
yours is the best podcast in the world they claim theirs is the best in the world but for me it's
been a great source to hear real-time very smart guys who are very connected to this whole industry
right now talking about all the ins and outs now they do talk about some politics and wars and stuff
like that you can skip through that part but the tech part that they talk about and the real world
you know what's going you know like they just had one on it was cybersecurity risks with this
Claude Mithos so Claude Mithos right oh my god they didn't release it because basically they're
saying it is such a kickass model that they're releasing it can go find these security vulnerabilities
and all the software and it can exploit them so they're giving it right now to a certain number
of big companies and small companies and letting them fix things before they release it because
it's so badass that is truly scary when you're thinking oh so that could be some publicity
there but they talk about this new model and what's going on and why it's
smart to hold it back why it's not good one of the guys is like giving somebody a hundred days to fix
this is not going to happen because you realize in software it takes so long before you can patch
these things so it's really kind of more you know smoking mirrors or whatever but very insightful
so you know a lot of people are starting to talk about it karm in our industry but i'm finding more
resources outside of the industry that probably have more expertise in it right because there's
so much to it there's so much depth to it to understand kind of this higher level and this
has been one of my sources that i'd suggest strongly i can see shop owners though going out
and submitting a class to some of the conferences and says how to ai they're not an expert they
didn't write it but they can share how they've integrated it and so i'm challenging anyone out
there who says hey i know i i i get it well i think the industry needs a class or two even
if it's a video if it's an online class every time i think of ai i think about the computing power
chris this can be my our final thought the computer power that it takes to do what it does
in microseconds okay and i just wonder if in these data centers they're actually ibm is building
quantum computers to put in there oh yes quantum computing is the like that is the holy grail of
computing right because it's you know they talk about how it's another qubits right holding all
states at all times but then they're unstable like hey we can use ai to stabilize it
which i go do some there's some interesting articles on how now bitcoin is worried about
quantum computing because basically it was like it could break bitcoin you know cryptography or
cryptology and like seconds you know where it was like oh no bitcoin's going to take a thousand
years with the technology and so now they're trying to figure out how they can improve this
so when this thing does come out because it will there's absolutely a problem with computing power
with energy i was just in louisiana spending some time there for business and pleasure in the small
area where we go a lot they're putting up a couple data centers like and i'm like oh my god like and
i'm like yeah that makes sense right everywhere right in these small towns and states and stuff
like that they're going out in there just they're gonna build these things like crazy they have to
because the amount of energy that's used to run these machines and feed these machines is extraordinary
if do any research on it it's just i mean it's small cities in like hours of what they're using
i had a crazy reason to bring that up last week i was at the breaks for breasts check
presentation that this year it's a year to date 2.4 million dollars they've raised for the industry
that it's just the people at cleveland clinic are just aghast at how the industry has rallied
around this cause for a vaccine for triple negative breast cancer that just finished phase one trials
and they had like a most incredible result of the immunity that people i tingle when i hear about it
but the cleveland clinic has one of the first ibm quantum computers in it and it is on display
it is interesting space and every year they seem to take us to the space and tracy and i got another
picture in front of it and they describe how this thing works all the circuitry in it and you could
go behind it and you could see things i mean there's a lot that they don't show you in this
glass room standing all alone in this big if you will you walk into a hotel what do they
call a lobby it's on display in the lobby and then i asked the doctors i says you guys are using
this he says oh yeah every day for research minus 472 degrees fahrenheit
is the cold that they have to have keep the chips responsive
i'm sorry i'm blown away by it and where our world in technology is going so everyone
if we are building hardware that's going to keep up with our software then you need to make a part
of your world make it a part of your world now get in it's the early stages of netflix get your
subscriptions now use it abuse it figure it out because if you get in later it's just
going to cost you more money eventually you're going to have to get in right eventually you're
going to have to buy the subscription get in now well it's cheap is what i'd say and i would say
too calm also trust but verify we're going to see new vendors popping up we're going to see
and i'm always man ask you know shop owner man ask who they are where they came from give them
some history be careful of the fly by nights that come in get a bag of money and swoop out
because you know we'll see that it seems like kind of you know i've seen it once or twice
in the industry and i always hate it because once again i like i love shop owners and what we do
everybody's trying to work hard for their dollar that we don't we take care of a lot of people
that are in our flock that you know the lords you know asked us to shepherd and so when outside
wolves come in it bothers me so yeah trust me if i ask me ask my team ask harm we're open books
when it comes to trust but verify thank you for your smarts and your wisdom always a pleasure to
have you on the show chris gludier auto flow dot com golden rule auto care now with their three stores
and also a sponsor with me in the remarkable results toast masters we have a toast masters page
on our website forward slash toast masters go and get involved in that and you know i continue to be
active in there twice a month every first and second thursday there's a little plug for it right
plug it away hey regardless what ai does being a better communicator a more effective communicator
is a good thing oh i love your point oh my god let's go back here it is ai is sending me stuff now
you have to read which is like listening to ai yes it all ties in listen no one has to pay for this
episode it was there's so much value here thank you for having me karm i appreciate it it's always
great talking with you thanks chris appreciate it man 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 arp n listening app at automotive repair podcast network dot com also enjoy the
podcast on our karm capriato youtube channel karm is all for advancing the professional automotive
service industry until next time
About this episode
AI shows up as a strategic thought partner for auto repair leaders and beyond—helping streamline shop workflow, hiring, documentation, and customer communication. Chris Cloutier of AutoFlow discusses using algorithms to move from inbound appointments to work assignments and promise times. The hosts also cover how to prompt AI for better context, turn transcripts into structured outlines, and rewrite repair-order notes so customers understand issues. Across the conversation, “trust but verify” and quality control keep recommendations grounded.
Original notes
Thanks to our Partners, NAPA Auto Care and NAPA TRACS
Watch Full Video Episode
In this forward-looking conversation, Carm Capriotto and Chris Cloutier, CEO of AutoFlow and owner of three Golden Rule Auto Care locations, explore how artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming the automotive repair industry; not as a replacement for people, but as a powerful tool that helps shop owners lead smarter, communicate better, and operate more professionally.
Chris shares firsthand experiences using AI inside both his software company and his repair shops, revealing how the technology can dramatically reduce time spent on leadership and administrative tasks while improving workflow efficiency and customer communication. From refining technician notes to helping build business plans and expansion strategies, AI is becoming what Chris describes as a 'thought partner' for today’s shop owner.
What You’ll Learn:
- Why AI should be viewed as a strategic business partner, not a threat to the automotive repair profession
- How effective prompting and providing context can dramatically improve AI-generated results
- Ways AI can streamline major business tasks such as SBA loan preparation, SWOT analyses, and growth planning
- How AI-powered technician note rewrites improve customer communication and strengthen professionalism
- Why clear, polished communication acts as a “curtain of professionalism” that builds customer trust
- How AI can help bridge language barriers by translating repair orders and inspection results
- The risks and humor of “AI versus AI” hiring practices, where both employers and applicants rely heavily on artificial intelligence
- Why Chris believes today is the least expensive AI will ever be, and why shop owners should begin learning it now
The biggest takeaway from this episode is simple: AI will not replace highly skilled automotive professionals, but it will absolutely enhance the shops that learn how to use it effectively. From improving efficiency and communication to elevating the image of professionalism, AI offers tremendous advantages for modern repair businesses. However, Carm and Chris emphasize one critical principle throughout the conversation: trust, but verify. Just like quality control in the service bays, AI-generated information should always be reviewed carefully before being shared with customers or used to make important business decisions.
Chris Cloutier, Golden Rule Auto Care, and CEO of Autoflow. Listen to Chris' other episodes HERE
Thanks to our Partners, NAPA Auto Care and NAPA TRACS
Learn more about NAPA Auto Care and the benefits of being part of the NAPA family by visiting https://www.napaonline.com/en/auto-care
NAPA TRACS will move your shop into the SMS fast lane with onsite training and six days a week of support and local representation. Find NAPA TRACS on the Web at http://napatracs.com/
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