Ted Ings:
Welcome back to the fixed ops round table. This is the panel with superstars. This is the Dealer Scanning panel with our good friend and colleague, Cesar Augustus from Dealer Scanning joined today by Sarah Vantine from the Fixed Ops Round Table, Tully Williams from the Nilo company, Ed Roberts from Bozart Ford Lincoln, and Shon Kingrey from the Kaiser Automotive Group. Everybody welcome back to the Fixed Ops Round Table. Cesar, you've been the talk of the town lately. I know you're giving away later today.
We're doing the, well, we're closing registrations on the Apple vision pro. You had a lot of vision there to be able to, you know, help us with the events. So, you know, great move there.
Today though, Cesar, we want to talk to you a little bit about the Dealer Scanning and how you help dealers all around the country.
Cesar Augustus:
Thank you, Ted, again, for, for having me and having us, and this is the fifth year going on five years of the Fixed Ops Round Table. And I'm just amazed to be here with such incredible panel, Sarah, you know, Tully, Ed, Shon, these are the giants of the Fixed Ops Round Table it's an honor to be here.
Ted Ings:
I got the phone call the day before the first Fixed Ops Round Table. He was in Chicago. He says, I'm coming to the first round table and I have a scanning product that helps dealers all throughout the dealership.
So Cesar, let's talk about it a little bit today and get some input. How does Dealer Scanning, add value and help dealerships today?
Cesar Augustus:
You know why that when we started this project 13 years ago, we, we come from the auto world. We worked, we used to work at jam Lexus down in, in sunrise. And, um, it was about how can we help the dealership?
And we were thinking around with some, DMSs and working with Reynolds and CDK, but we saw, we saw a need for streamlining the document scanning process. We saw the pain that it takes to store these files, the ROs, your, your, your deal jackets in a file room and how unsafe it is. And, and basically the most important thing is the time that it takes to find one of these documents, if you can find them, because if one of these arrows gets lost, the time you're wasting trying to find that repair order, it's, it really matters to a dealership.
And it's, it kind of gets thrown, it gets thrown and not even thought about, but it does, it does take time. So by having these documents in a digital format, secure and easy to access, you cut average recall for a paper. I wrote, if you can find it, I can be 20, 30 minutes with us.
You can pull it up in less than 10 seconds. So that in itself, that's massive value.
Ted Ings:
Tell me this is the nineties rewind in the nineties. We were scoring with paper, but, that's not the way to do it today.
Tully Williams:
It's not, I'm telling you, it is so funny. I I've been blessed where I've been, you know, you know, my tenure, we did find, we had a filing cabinet. We hired two people to do nothing but file.
ROs, when he had a warranty audit, they give you the work, they give you the audit the day before. And then you did what you found? About 75% of the ROs.
It's just, it is what it is. No matter how clean you did today. When we need an RO, I mean, you hit the button and there it is for us today.
I cannot see how you can operate a business today without not having ROs scanned and at your retrieval. When a customer's in front of you and you need to have an answer right now, you can't say, hold on a minute, I'll send, I'll go, let me call the warranty lady or call the file clerk to go pull it for you. You might as well go over and have some lunch and I'll get back to you in an hour.
Where, where now we can have those answers in seconds and make those critical decisions that we need to make. And then too, when you have a warranty audit, the warranty wants to see scanned. They don't want to see paper anymore.
You don't, you don't need that liability. And the fun thing about it is, is where the needle company, we did not have scanning when I got here. I couldn't believe when I hit the button and there was nothing there.
What we were able to do is convert all of the rooms into new offices. So, our gals and guys that were in the, in the work, what we did is we had them file themselves away a room and we scanned it all the way and we got backed up. So, it was really exciting.
I cannot believe a dealership today can run without scanning.
Ted Ings:
Ed Roberts, big volume in what basically one location there. Um, your thoughts from St. Augustine.
Ed Roberts
Well, like Tully said, they didn't have scanning when, when he started there with a needle group. And when I started here, we had a room that was dedicated to just Valley. And that wasn't the only room there was, there was two, depending on what the transaction was.
Then you'd have an advisor go back and they need it because of a part coverage or a manufacturer wants it or whatever else and have it on their desk. And then they set an appointment for the customer and the customer comes in three days later and that advisor is on vacation. Now, nobody knows where the folder is.
Nobody knows where the RO is. Nobody knows where the backup information is. And so, we haven't talked about efficiency yet.
Well, I guess Cesar did a minute ago about how quick you can get it. But the efficiency of looking for something that's not there, you're not going to, no matter how many times you go back to that closet, it's not there anymore, it's on somebody's desk. And maybe somebody might tell you where it's at.
And I talked to whoever the other day and you go look at their desk. It's putting it all in one spot and allowing us all. And in addition to that, it's not just one.
If Sarah needs to see it, she can look at it. If Sean needs to see it, he can look at it. It's, it's, you're pulling up a file out of the system that we can all have access to.
So, it makes it really available to all of us and talking about efficiency that allows us to have more efficiency and use those file rooms as additional space to do the things with, yeah, that's a good point on the file rooms.
Ted Ings:
Sean, how about you?
Shon Kingrey:
So, I'm on the other wing and good news. Totally. He's not above me during this panel.
So, he can't throw things down on me. Like you did the last panel guys, we are still filing here. Caesar knows that Caesar and I met, actually I was, I was with Sarah and totally standing at any DA in Dallas last year when I met Caesar for the first time and guys, we are still filing the good news is we are getting out of the, and I, I know I get in trouble for saying this, the Fred Flintstone era.
We have now converted as I'm in the corporate office right now, we are converting those offices. And Ted, as you and I have spoken, we're going to bring the BDC in-house and those file rooms are now built for yeah. Stone age.
Thank you. You're right at those BDs that, that, that old file room. And it was really a file room, which is now upstairs in parts, by the way, and all the stores, the ultimate end goal they've built.
Yeah, I know. I know that it's so many, but again, being here a year, year and a half, whatever it's been, it's one step at a time. It, I got it.
I understand it. It's the only way they knew how to do business. So long story short, I'll make this quick.
I'm at the green Bay store yesterday. And there's a client there who's, who's a bit upset and to add until his point, guys, we spent 25 minutes looking for a file, which by the way, was on the service manager's desk buried deep. So that temperature of that client didn't go from zero to a hundred.
It went zero to 200 because we look like idiots by the way. And even if we were right, by the end of the conversation, we were wrong. Cause we couldn't prove our point that they had signed a repair order.
We knew they had, I believe the person that told me they had, but until you had it in your hand, you couldn't prove it, that they signed off knowing that when they left, they had the issue and they thought they had us to be very honest. But that didn't make it any better. We're still going to participate.
A, it's the right thing to do, but B, because quite frankly, we couldn't produce the document. Eventually we did, but that didn't make it any better.
Ted Ings:
Caesar, you must hear things like this all the time.
Cesar Augustus:
I, yes, it's Sean's a hundred percent. And we always say, service in cars makes money, looking or shuffling documents. That's not, and these are all perfect examples of what's going on out in the real world.
And you know, in Sean's case, Ed's been doing it for a while. Tully's been doing it for a while. It's a lot of clients.
A lot of dealers are still, they're still unaware of, of the requirements of the safeguard requirements. They're not aware of the law. They're not aware of, of the, the compliance that in, in the risks that you're taking by scoring, by storing this paper files and, but it takes education.
It takes trust. And they truly don't believe how simple our system is. That once they see it, they're like, why weren't you here five years ago?
Ted Ings:
Sarah, I know you've got some questions.
Sarah Vantine:
Oh, yes. And Caesar, this is, it's an exciting topic because, and Sean wove some elements into it. So did Ed and Tully talking about all the different departments and, you know, the BDC that they're on the other end of that phone call a lot of times when that customer wants that information quickly.
And so I want to, wanted to ask this, you know, a lot of dealerships right now I'm hearing through friends and connections, they're going through the dreaded a word and audits. And it is, you know, that's a scary time for dealerships. It's a scary time.
You know, everybody's all hands-on deck. How does Dealer Scanning help from a compliance standpoint with warranty audits?
Cesar Augustus:
Yeah. Thank you. Such a great question.
And, you know, we, unfortunately we've come, we've gotten some clients at the, the aftermath of a warranty audit when their dealership has been charged a hundred thousand dollars for not being able to produce their repay orders. And now that's, unfortunately, as you all know, we all learn, a lot of us learn by having pain and if you are with our, our clients that are scanning the warranty audit is no longer such a dramatic experience and the reason is that we have the data readily available. So, if you have a hundred repay orders, you can easily find those hundred repay orders and produce the data that's needed for your, for your auditor.
And that process takes two hours. And tell your Ed and Sean, you've known that some of these warranty repair, warranty audits can take two weeks if you're lucky by trying to find some of these documents. So that in itself, it's a no brainer.
But unfortunately, some people have to go through the pain of a audit fee, warranty audit fee to come to the senses of, of coming back and making their life easier. But yeah, that's basically literally the most valuable part of this whole process.
Sarah Vantine:
Tell me your perspective on warranty audits and compliance.
Tully Williams:
You know, I used to be scared of warranty audits. You know, I'm not scared of warranty audits anymore. I mean, as long as you're doing the right thing, but here's the deal.
If you don't have the repair order, you need to be deftly as scared of warranty audits because they assume that it's the worst, right? You know, back in the day, if you did something wrong, you threw the RO away. You know, that's not what you do.
That's not the right thing to do. And the goal now is that we have all of those repair orders. Also, the manufacturer knows that you scan also will trust you more because they know that you have a process to maintain those records.
And two is that a lot of times is that with, with warranty audits is they're doing remote. They asked for it. Can you send us 20 ROs or 50 ROs?
You know how hard it is to download 50. You just go in there and say, click, click, click, click, click. PDF it.
Pam off. It goes. A customer calls.
Hey, I need a copy of my ROI. I'm in, I'm in New York city, you know, from California. What happens?
No problem. Mr. Customer, what email would you like it to? And you send it within a matter of seconds.
This is why scanning is a must. Sean Kingrey, a must. Because I don't, I don't see how you can operate a business without it.
Sarah Vantine:
And I'll go to your perspective next before I jumped to Sean, but Ed, what's your take on compliance, warranty audits and how this can help?
Ed Roberts
Well, the key to when, when we have an audit is to build a, produce the documentation. And if we can't, we're automatically accused of being at fault, whether we are or not. And so, from a, from an audit standpoint or to be able to go through that, it's about having the information available to us from a compliance standpoint, there's stuff on my desk, there's books behind me or whatever else we leave stuff behind.
And when we leave that stuff behind and we leave it open, then we have a compliance issue. And if it's not there, if it's scanned, if we're referencing it off the computer, it's on our screen. And as soon as the screensaver comes on or the screen goes out, we're good.
We're safe. We don't, we don't have those issues. So it's about protecting ourselves as well as being prepared when something like an audit arises.
Sarah Vantine: Sean.
Shon Kingrey:
First of all, Tully, I own it. Okay. I pick my battles one at a time.
You know that. But listen, Tully and I more than a hundred times have had the same conversation together. Audits don't scare me guys.
Just do the right thing. Audits don't scare me. The compliance scares the living heck out of me.
And I, and I don't, I want to say another word, but I know Ted will jinx me if I do. Guys to walk through here. Yes, I know.
But you know, to walk through, I was in, I was in the, in this, in the store on Sunday doing some work. And you walk through there and you see the files that are laying around and they're scary because you know it. You're going to find that one person that's going to get you in trouble.
I understand it. I get it. I go back to the other client issue and to Ed's point.
And what Tully said earlier, we've all been through audits. You know, the first two or three scare you. Then you realize, listen, just do the right thing.
But if you don't have that paperwork and if you think you're above it, you don't have, you can't prove you have a signature or that you initialed or signed off on an ad online. Guys, you're eating the RO. You're eating the whole RO.
And I'm going to go down a little rabbit trail. Like I, like Ted and I've been talking about for us in the domestic world, Chrysler has gone through a ton of cutbacks in the last 60 days. 40% of their staff, guys, they're not playing anymore.
I mean, they're not playing. Every RO is getting scrutinized. We have to scan and send everything in and we're doing it the old fashioned way.
I mean, today, today in my, one of my other stores, they pulled 21 ROs from 30 days ago. Guys, they were all legit. But guess how long it took to pull those ROs to send to them.
And again, all the ROs are legit. I looked through them all. There's nothing.
I'm great. I'm good with it, but it doesn't make it any easier. And it's a store right now that doesn't have a manager in place for a leave reason that, by the way, I have to go put out the fire because I'm not going to let that fire grow because go ahead and don't send them back.
You're going to eat the repair. Caesar.
Ted Ings:
There are some dealers who this year and last year have been filing for warranty, labor and parts rate increases, Sean Kingrey and Caesar. How would this help with a, with a dealer or dealer group like that?
Cesar Augustus:
Oh, and it's, it's exactly the same. It's exactly the same process is that your data is there. You can always refer back instead of having to pull a hundred physical ROs, you can easily go through a thousand and find the best, your case much easier than having to go through this physical paperwork.
So yeah, this is another major for those, for those service managers and fixed up directors, I know where the, where the money is. this is a big, big game changer because your, your data there, you can review it very easily.
Ted Ings:
And Caesar, let me set, let me set you up for Sarah here. Because when I met you five years ago at the first fixed ops round table, your company was called service scanning, and then it changed to Dealer Scanning. Tell us why you did that.
Cesar Augustus:
Yeah. So originally, our founding partner thought we were just going to do the, the, the, the service department, which is where 90% of the paperwork resides at a dealership, then we started seeing a need for obviously scanning deal jackets, parts invoices, um, accounts payable, everything that the dealership uses. So, we, we figured we changed the name to something more generic than Dealer Scanning it is, and that's, that's been a, what we've been doing for the last couple of years.
Sarah Vantine:
Well, Caesar, that, that component of it. And I want to get Tully and Ed and Sean's take on this too, but that's such a big element in the whole dealership process, because I mean, we have all had the experience with WIOs or trying to track down, okay, where was that in the deal jacket? When did we say we'd get that part ordered?
What are we paying for it? Who's paying for it? But, you know, as Ted mentioned, you went through the, the name adjustment now Dealer Scanning.
So, when it comes to scanning deal jackets, custom items like WIOs or things like that, tell us a little bit more, like how does that process work?
Cesar Augustus:
Yes. It's just as easy as our regular scanning. We give people that the ability to scan on their computers or they can use our scanning system and they can scan any dealership documents.
So, like I said, deal jackets is the, is the big, is the big one here, but you know, floor plans we have dealerships scanning their human resource files. Bank statements, just anything that's paper that can be shared securely throughout the dealership can be used to scan and that we're seeing a huge growth in demand on that side. We're the best in the industry.
People love it.
Sarah Vantine:
Tell me, I'm seeing things like, you know, the warranty policies someone can buy after they purchase a vehicle, all of these different documents living in one place, but how does it, how does it work at your stores?
Tully Williams:
So, we, you know, the issue when it comes to deal jackets is that, you know, we're trying to become this digital deal jacket. In California, there was some gray area about, you know, the wet signature, right? So, we scan everything and I'm telling you, the business office loves it the best.
When you have a deal that happens the next day, it's scanned and in the jacket. As soon as a digital signature thing comes out for the, for the 262, which is, I think is actually happening this year is that we can now be fully digital, which means that we have access to that file day one. So, when you're, when you're, when you're due bill coordinator needs to look at something, when a service writer needs to look at something more importantly, when your business office needs to look at something, guess what it's sitting in the file the next day, if not that day, the deal happened, that is what helps us all.
And another thing that Ted brought up and Cesar also brought up is warranty. When you were looking for a warranty rate adjustment, you have to send the ROs to the manufacturer, scan, you know, walking back to the file room, Sean, and grabbing each one and getting a Xerox machine. I said Xerox because that's how old it is and scan them all and then say, okay, I'm going to put it in a freight train to ship you all the freight, is crazy.
Sarah Vantine:
And what, what are you seeing across Bozard?
Ed Roberts
Well, some, another thing that we haven't talked about yet is the labor savings on all of it, because yes, if it scans automatically, there is no labor charge. If it, if it doesn't, then we got to, we'll, we'll pay somebody to run through and separate it out and scan it. But then I don't have to pay somebody to go pull them out of the file and go put them back in the file and whatever else is accessible for all of us.
And so yes, like Telly said, you got to send something, certain things to manufacturers for various different reasons. Sometimes it's for ownership verification and various other things. And to be able to have those things readily at our fingertips is instrumental to all of us.
And, from an efficiency standpoint to a cost saving standpoint, all the elements tie together.
Sarah Vantine:
Sean.
Cesar Augustus:
Yeah, let me add there just to add on Ed's, on Ed's comment is that we find a lot of our dealerships, the receptionist or the cashier, um, they can scan while they're answering phones. So it gives them some of these people have downtime and you're, you're optimizing their time. You'd be amazed.
Sometimes I go into a dealership and people like, they love me. They're like, oh my God, thank you so much. Cause you gave me something to do other than just answering phones.
So, and, and especially the tax, um, they, they call me the scan man. I said, be careful with the, with the N or the M the scan man, because they're like, dude, it's so easy when I'm working on a car, I can pull by the last six of the van or, or their customer name. And I can pull that.
Repair order that I did six months ago. And it makes it so much easier. He saves them time.
Sarah Vantine:
Sean.
Shon Kingrey:
I feel a little bloody now. Thanks Tilly. I appreciate it.
And I deserve it. And so, I own it. I own it.
There are two different things I want to say. First of all, cause everyone, for those that know, and Ted made a comment, we've done a really good job with the warranty uplift. We have stores approaching 300 and some over $300 for warranty reimbursement guys.
That was a lot of work. And it was a lot of work because of what we're talking about, because you're right. We find that sweet spot.
We can do that in the DMS, but when you get done finding that sweet spot, you got to go pull those hundred ROs because you're now sending those to the manufacturer and just like an audit, you better make sure those things are straight and narrow and every T's crossed and I's dotted and signatures are where they're supposed to be. Again, more time probably pulling the ROs than it did to accomplish where you find that sweet spot and you find out where the number is. The second thing we haven't talked about, I'll make this quick.
As we're in acquisition mode, we bought some new stores. Guys, scanning takes the buy-sell thing out of it too, because every state's different. I get it.
Who holds those files during a buy-sell? Who has them? Because ultimately it's the old owner's responsibility, but they've got to be on premise, which means you're sitting on those things for five to seven years.
Again, depending what state you're in and every state's different. California, it's probably a hundred years, but every state's different. We're sitting on these buy-sells.
We're sitting on boxes that we're moving month after month because we're running out of room because we're holding old owner's information that quite frankly is digitally. It can be stored in the cloud. We wouldn't have to do all that.
That's happening more than you think. Our Green Bay store, we've now moved those files three times since I've been here in a year and a half because we're just out of room. We've outgrown the store.
We're at capacity. Where do you store them? We're required to store them for five years.
There's no option.
Sarah Vantine:
Sean, I'm getting the Raiders of the Lost Ark scene at the very end in my head right now. This is just what I'm envisioning. This cuts down that whole end scene.
Shon Kingrey:
And how long do you think a banker box really lasts when you move it 52 times, guys? I mean, that's not what they're made for. Again, good news is I'm not in the humidity world like Ed is anymore.
Back in Florida, guys, you put those things, here we go. Sean needs a scan, man. So, here's to Tully Williams.
Okay. Tully, I promise you by the end of Q3, the scan man will be in Wisconsin. Okay.
That's my promise to my friend Tully.
Sarah Vantine:
Cesar, I have one final thought. I know we're almost out of time today, but this is something that I heard about, and I wanted to just learn a little bit more and have you share with the automotive community, because this was news to me and it was really exciting to hear about, but I heard about a soccer and technology foundation that Dealer Scanning started in Colombia. What is that about?
Cesar Augustus:
Oh, yeah. Well, thank you. The secret to living is given.
And I'm originally from Colombia, but I came here when I was 12 years old. And this country has been a blessing to me. I'm a patriot, as patriot as you'll find.
But I love soccer as my passion. I love all sports, NFL, football, but soccer is a passion of mine. And then we have some employees in Colombia, and one of them is in a very tough area of Colombia.
And for the last 10 years, we've been supporting that community through soccer. But three years ago, we started the foundation of helping at-risk kids through their love for soccer. We're keeping them off the streets and we're teaching them all the values you can learn through soccer.
But more importantly, guys, and this is something new we started doing, is we're teaching them English and we're teaching them technology. But why English? English is the universal language.
In a country, in areas of the world where English is not the main language, if you learn English and you can speak it properly, that opens up the world economy. And if it opens up the world economy, you can get jobs from down there. And then you don't have to migrate.
You don't have to migrate. You don't have to leave your land. No one wants to leave their country unless your house is burning.
So, with this, we're helping, we're empowering young boys and girls ages six to 16 through soccer. We're teaching them English, their learning technology skills with the purpose of giving them a better chance of life. So, we're very excited.
And it's every dealer that it's a client of us. Dealer Scanning is the major funding entity that helps all these kids. And it's 300 of them.
So, yeah, we're very excited.
Ted Ings:
Cesar Augustus:
, everybody, he's a humanitarian. There's a lot of good around the world. So, when you get involved with Dealer Scanning, you're doing a lot of good for the industry, for your dealership, for your customers.
And again, for a lot of the initiatives that you're just hearing about now from Cesar, and they're putting those up on the screen for everyone to see as well. Cesar, if people want to reach out to you for Dealer Scanning, what is the best way for our audience, including Sean Kingrey, to do that?
Cesar Augustus:
They can call Ted Ings:. And Ted Ings: will give us a good word, dealerscanning.com. We have our demos there.
Our pricing is there. Everything's simple, easy to use. For the Fixed Ups Roundtable crew, we offer a two-month free trial.
It means no cost or commitment. You don't have to buy any equipment. We go in, we train your people.
We're still a face-to-face company. We go to your dealership; we train your staff, and we make sure it's on us to deliver the value. And everyone that signs up for the free trial, they stay with us.
So we're that's how we do it. Dealerscanning.com.
Ted Ings:
Got a lot of clients who are sold on what you do. And it's not a long-term commitment. That's correct.
No, month to month.
Cesar Augustus:
We know in the auto world, some of these long-term agreements are kind of annoying. So we're month to month. And it keeps us on our tippy toes to keep delivering value.
And that's I think that's the right thing to do.
Ted Ings:
Cesar Augustus, thank you for all you and Dealer Scanning do for our industry. And stay tuned, everybody, to the Fixed Ops Roundtable. We're going to have a drawing coming up for the Apple Vision Pro, courtesy of Dealer Scanning and Cesar Augustus.
A lot more to come. And let me thank the A-list panel, Sarah Van Tine, Tully Williams, Sean Kingrey, Ed Roberts and Cesar Augustus with us today at the Fixed Ops Roundtable.
