Ted: Welcome back to the Fixed Ops Roundtable And with us now is one of the founding fathers of the Fixed Ops Roundtable going all the way back to the very beginning. Please welcome Cesar Augustus, the CEO of dealer scanning to the event. Cesar welcome.
Cesar: Thank you, Ted. Great to be here. Just, excited that after a couple of years, this thing has blown up and it’s just amazing. We started at a conference room in New York. And look at this.
Ted: Hey, I think, we've all come a long way and I need to congratulate you and dealer scanning on all the success you're having and the success you're having for dealers as well, all over north America. So Cesar great job in, um, in really taking us to the next era here in automotive retail dealerships.
Cesar: No thanks. Thanks, Ted. And thanks for your support all along and yeah, we're just excited to be working with hundreds of dealers around the country. They're becoming raving fans and they love our product and we have a pretty solid, extremely solid, solution. And, it's, uh, it's a great, it's a great thing.
Ted: You know, I got a couple pictures to show you because, you know, typically we talk about things as you know, at the Fixed Ops Roundtable, we talk about pain points for dealership and things that really hurt and things that can be improved. And I got a couple pictures to show you that I wanted to share with you because I think it really drives home the pain point, if I can. And this is a dealer that we visited recently. And I think everybody on today can recognize what this is here.
Cesar: Yeah, this is exactly what happens when you run out of file room space and, Ted, can you imagine trying to find, row number of 55342, it's going to be pretty impossible to find it in this, in this setting
Ted: and, and Cesar, there's more. Check out this one here. This looks like it's out in the shop.
Cesar: Yes! You'd be amazed, because you do run a space, right? You have thousands of rows. People get creative and you know, it's not secure. It's not the most efficient way of storing data or documents. And obviously it's not compliant.
Ted: And Cesar, I could not, I could not believe this one right here. Look, this looks like it's outside.
Cesar: It is. Unfortunately, they were storing these RO’s in the back parking lot. And obviously this is as bad as it gets. You would think that in the year 2022. This is not happening, but yeah, we are all in the car business. So we know that we can be surprised
Ted: and Cesar, it's obviously not compliant. Um, I was going to ask you, how does dealers scanning at value to dealerships? But I think the pictures tell a million words, right? what do you think?
Cesar: Oh, yeah. So exactly. So the way we add value to dealers is obviously it's common sense code. We have this scanning station right behind me. We provide that small enough that it can fit in your receptionist desk, cashier's desk. They used to scan it, repair orders, very easily load up the repair order, click a button, scan, read the barcode, read the repair order number. So they don't have to type any information in. Send it creates a PDF, saves a secure in the cloud. We integrate with all the major DMSS makes it super easy. Then all your dealership personnel can just type in our own number or last six of the van or a customer name. And there's all the information. You don't have to go search in the back of the file room, or go down to the parking lot, or get a repair order, or in any other files that we just saw in this picture. So that alone saves hundreds of thousands of dollars a month for dealerships.
Ted: and Cesar, you've really grown this thing. So congratulations with dealers, scanning, you know, a lot of dealerships rely on the DMS, you know, to provide the scanning, but you really make it a solution. That not only works for the retail dealership, but it's affordable as well. Tell us about that.
Cesar: Exactly. So our pricing is the best in the industry, so it's $500 a month. Unlimited scanning. So we don't charge you for each page. Uh, like many of the other competitors do, and the data's always yours. We don't hold your data for rent. It's a month to month agreement, which puts us in basically always making sure that we're providing the best service. We don't have to buy any equipment. It this thing breaks down, if this scanning station breaks down or the. Or the scanner or the touch screen, we basically replace it. No cost, no hidden fees. It is the lifetime warranty and the equipment. Stuff works. So it's, uh, it's a good deal for the dealers.
Ted: Now I could not believe this, but I was up in Albany, New York, on a winter day at our good friend, Tom Restino’s dealership, up to DePaula Chevrolet Ford, you know, Big juggernaut of a dealership. I've been there doing a service install and who do I see in there the same week I'm in there, but I see Cesar Augustus from dealer scanning and I took my iPhone and I took a picture because you personally were in there doing the install. And can I show that to the audience?
Cesar: Oh man. Of course you can. And it's the old school days, right?
Ted: Yeah. Now watch how easy this is. Everybody
Cesar: What's up. I'm here at the DePaula Chevrolet. We're just installing the new scanning unit. I'm showing the ladies how to scan and repair orders. It's so simple. You basically take your typical repair order. Put it on the scanner. Bring up the scan application, click on the scanner repair order. It's going to scan the front and back. If there's any multi, any pages that are stuck together, it'll tell you that they're stuck together or they're any multi feeds. It'll tell you
Lady: very nice.
Cesar: So right now you just, all you have to do is put in the repay order numbers 7 31, 8 64.
Lady: Okay. So now it's in there.
Cesar: Yep. click ahead. You click “view”. You can review the contents of the repair order.
Lady: Oh, very easily.
Cesar: It's right there. Excellent. And you have this small. Battery test receipts, put them on the side and click scan all items. It just adds it to, to the repair
Lady: and that won't get stuck in there?
Cesar: It won't get stuck but if it does, it'll tell you, and it's very easy. We'll test one out, but you can view it. And what I'm going to do later on is I'm going to add a viewer to your machines so that everyone can look it up. I repair her number, big number of testimony.
Lady: That'll be great.
Cesar: It is that simple. I'm done, man. I can go back to West Palm beach now.
“END VIDEO”Ted: it doesn't get any more real than that. The CEO of the company installing it. Tell us about the DePaula, they had success?
Cesar: Yeah. And that was day one, scanning station one., the system wasn't set up yet. The barcode was not on the repair order, so that's why we had to type it in. but yeah, they've been great clients of us. I think now they're doing all their dealers and more than five scanning stations, to do all their repay orders. So yeah, they're having a really good time with it and it's helped a lot. They have a lot of volume, so our scanning helps them tremendously.
Ted: You work with a lot of dealers that do all kinds of volume and like you just mentioned high volume and you know what? I think the proof is in the pudding because dealers are sold on it. And like you just said at DePaula, they keep adding, they get more scanners and they give you more of their business. Cesar, How does dealer scanning help with things like warranty audits?
Cesar: Uh, that is probably one of the biggest benefits of our scanning system. Imagine getting a warranty audit, and you have one of those file rooms where the pictures you showed, it's a nightmare. Even if you have a well kept file room, if your manufacturer comes and asks you for a hundred repair orders that a task alone, and you know, I'm not lying, Ted can take you a week. For two weeks, depending on how well the rows had been stored. And if someone did not forget to put one back in where it was supposed to. So with warranty audits, you know, as they keep increasing lately in, in, in the, in the auto industry, uh, our dealers are, they love our system because when the warranty audit comes, they just pull up the rows numbers and they're there. So it's super easy.
Ted: Not to mention the labor that the dealership needs to go out and find those polos. A hundred! because it's not a question of if that's going to happen? it's a matter of when that's going to happen and you make it so easy for dealers. How do you also help with things like warranty labor rate increases at dealer scanning?
Cesar: Exactly. It is similar to a warranty audit is. Now, if you need this labor increase, you basically just pull hundred rows, get them all together, lined up. Instead of having to have someone dig them in, dig out of some file room, and then you send them out to your warranty, uh, to your manufacturer. So it's just a simple process. It makes it easy for the person that's doing it. Help for the managers, for your fixed up director, for your service manager. It's just one thing that makes their life easier.
Ted: And I gotta come back to this because this is a dealer, a typical dealership. This is the before, okay? and we can all relate to it. And I'm looking behind you, is that the after? is that the system set up on that desk right behind where you're sitting now?
Cesar: Exactly. That's exactly what it is. They get this system and every advisor warranty admins people at the dealership will have a viewer so they can pull up their repair orders, very easily, parts, invoices, rental agreements. We keep it simple. Yeah.
Ted: And it's really clean and you know, it doesn't get any more real world than we just showed you, helping the ladies at the dealership to start using it and implement it. And your hands on Cesar, you do that yourself, but you don't just do the back of the store. Do you? You're scanning, deal jackets and custom items. Tell us more about that.
Cesar: Right. Exactly. So a couple years ago, as we saw the need for more scanning, our clients were saying: “Hey, you guys, you guys have done this a real stuff. Pretty, pretty, pretty amazingly, because it's very simple” So we took the same concept and we added deal jacket scanning and we call it custom items. because it allows you to scan vendor receipts, HR documents, just any dealership document that needs to be stored instead of filed. we handle that for or for our clients. So It's a great add on to our service. People usually start with the rows scanning. They love it. And then they come on board with the deal jacket scanning and the custom items. So yeah, it's been an incredible success.
Ted: And again, month to month, there's no big long term commitment.
Cesar: No man, we are car guys, man. And we got used to it. These long contracts and complicated contracts that some vendors brought to us, when we worked at the dealerships, and we don't want be that guy. Our agreement is one page long. And yeah, we're just a partner. I mean, we want the dealership to succeed. We want to make their life easier. And, we do whatever it takes, man.
