Video is going to make life so much easier (and profitable) for the service technicians and advisors in your dealership. But launching video requires a lot more than just incorporating it into your DMS. Once you’ve partnered with a video vendor, you need to determine when the dealership will “go live” with video. In the weeks leading up to that launch date, it’s important to give yourself enough time to complete the required setup tasks. What follows is a handy timeline that will ensure your video launch is successful and stress-free.

A wise service director once said: “For years, customers have been asking us to sing them a tune, and we’ve been handing them a piece of sheet music.”

“Why don’t we just play them the song?”

The “song,” in this context, is a video directly from a technician reporting the findings from their multi-point inspection versus our decades-old piece of “sheet music”: a paper MPI sheet. MPIs, as a reminder, were designed roughly forty years ago because about 70% of customers were defecting after their warranty expired. Today, roughly 70% of customers are still defecting after their warranty expires. And we’re still using the same paper MPI. 

We know that your customers love video. Every time one of your service technicians sends an inspection video, it’s viewed more than once and shared nearly 40% of the time. We also know that the use of video reduces Net Promoter Score detractors by 77%. Customers appreciate how video pulls back the curtain on auto service and takes the mystery out of the technician’s explanation of what needs to be repaired or replaced. Video allows customers to trust that the services being performed on their vehicle are necessary and worthwhile.

Human beings are creatures of habit. Once they find a routine or a methodology that works for them, they hold onto it with grim determination. Even if a better, more efficient way presents itself, they still cling tightly to the familiar.

That being the case, it should come as no surprise that service technicians will often resist when inspection videos are integrated into the shop. They’ll find any number of reasons why they can’t or shouldn’t be doing an inspection video with each RO. Their most common refrain will likely be some version of this:

“I don’t get paid to take videos!”

The word is out: Using video and texting in your service department is a consistent, reliable driver of approvals on recommended work and the increased revenue that comes with it. Oh, and customers love it.

With the majority of franchise dealers in the US now leveraging inspection videos and advisor-to-customer texting to create a better, more efficient mode of communication with their customers, many quickly find themselves in phase two: maximizing tech utilization, view rates, and video/texting quality.

This is where dealers—who have switched platforms at least once—have gained a key understanding about video/texting software. It’s not all created equally.

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