An Empowered Consumer is a Buying Consumer

The traditional approach to presenting work for motorists to approve follows the belief system that service advisors are automotive experts and speak with authority to their customers, who are not automotive experts. 

During the era of paper-based inspections, this belief system led to service advisors explaining to their customers over the phone what vehicle areas needed improvement and why approving the work proposed was the best way to get back on the road safely.

Then along came Digital Vehicle Inspections (DVI). Most shops have embraced the value of DVIs, but haven't changed their process. The service advisor is still on the phone, explaining what work needs approval and why. Even though the pictures should speak for themselves, the SA still goes through the images on long phone calls one by one.

Consumers today have transitioned to a new type of buyer, a direct result of shopping online. This transition empowered consumers to research based on data, reviews, and product comparisons. Most importantly, it was on his/her timeline and under their control. There was no sales pressure, or sales person telling him/her why buying a product will change their lives forever, even if it doesn’t!

In other words, if motorists (consumers) are educated on WHY their vehicle needs the work as part of the DVI without sales pressure, they will approve more; it’s that simple. This example hits home: one shop owner with two service advisors (SA) experienced the following consistently. One SA scored $3k more weekly than the other with fewer cars. On average, customers researched his DVI for 10 minutes; the other SA's customers only studied the DVI results for 3 minutes. Seven minutes made a difference of $3k per week. The reason? Motorists were encouraged and directed to study the easy-to-understand DVI results. In turn,  they asked the SA questions instead of the SA explaining each picture and then being pressured to approve the work.

This is why we built TechAidIQ. Once the tech takes the picture in their DVI (currently integrates w/ AutoVitals and Tekmetric), TechAidIQ enhances the image by adding an arrow pointing to the problem area and a caption describing the condition and what to do about it. The screenshot below shows the image of an oil leak taken by the tech on the left and the TechAidIQ-enhanced image on the right. All the SA needs to do is review it and send it to the customer as part of the native DVI solution they use. Simple.

TechAidIQ's first release will follow guidelines ensuring technicians and service advisors are still in control. Technicians' assessment of the problem area is always correct, and service advisors can 

• Edit the image

• move arrows

• change the status (red, yellow, green) and TechAidIQ will re-enhance image and caption

• rotate and zoom in

• change the caption

In other words, service advisors are in full control and see time savings of 20-50 minutes per vehicle.

Now, the typical interaction between SA and Motorists is as follows:

• The SA manages expectations at drop-off by letting customer know to expect DVI results via text or email

• The motorist researches the DVI results and educates him/herself on their timeline, under their control.

• Either the SA calls the motorist or vice versa, and the SA fields and answers questions from the motorist.

• The motorist is confident in making the right decision and approves more

Simple.

Go to TechAidIQ.com to sign up or schedule a product demo.