Focusing on Customer Retention: Steve Apicella Explores the Disconnect in the Automotive Journey

Brooke C Furniss: Hello and welcome into the Facts Not Billings podcast, powered by BZ Consultants Group with your host Brooke Furnace. Each week I sit down with experts in the respected fields as we discuss how we can move this wonderful automotive industry forward by differentiating facts from fillings. Our conversation, explore how my guests got to where they are today and how they achieve success.

Alright, let's jump in.

Hello? Hello. Hello everyone. We are, I'm gonna try saying that one more time because apparently I can't breathe. I can't apparently talk and it's Friday. And anyone that heard me yesterday, it's a, it's been a long, long week. It was Tuesday on, Tuesday on, well, it's not Tuesday, but on Tuesday I go, I don't know how it's only been 48 hours.

I feel like we've had a month and two days. Almost said two weeks, but that's, that's where we're sitting right now. So rewind it is Friday and we have the incredible stupendous, super. Any other s alliteration, entrepreneur, Steve ela. And if you don't know Steve, man, you are in luck because you are gonna get to know him and his amazingness.

Oh my goodness. And Steve, I know we just met a little, fairly recently and my mind has been blown since knowing you, and it's been incredible to get to know you and your passion. Holy crap. Passion. I just saw it was a auto collabs I saw this morning and it was, and it's like just your, your genuine, your it, your, I get.

I just go back to passion, passion, passion, passion. And before we jump into what you do in Strategic DX and your dealer experience, I wanna read a quote and because of how this week is, I was like, oh, I'll have it memorized. I was like, no, I will somehow screw it up if I memorize it the way this week's been going.

So, it's from, and I'm gonna probably slaughter this individual's name, so I apologize up front. It's Wharton, from Wharton Marketing Professor Peter Fader. If we could see C L V and C L V is customer lifetime value for anyone out there, it's customer lifetime value. So if we could see c L B as clearly as cost, all firms would get this.

But because costs are so tangible and clbs are a near prediction, It's really hard to get firms to adopt this mindset, but it's c l v, the right one, and they should be working hard to become comfortable with C L V as the key driver to this kind of decision. So I preface that because we're gonna dive in today about retention referral, that, you know, the repeat traffic and why it is so vital to have that customer, the customer digital lifecycle and connecting the disconnect.

I mean, I've heard that so much from you. So with that, I'm gonna just hand the baton over to you, let you do what you do best, which is educate everyone about what your dealer experience does, strategic ask, and connecting the disconnect because there's so many bullet points that we can touch on, and I know you do great at this.

So the floor is yours,

Steve Apicella: attitude. Yeah. Mark, it's so good to be here and nice to meet you. LinkedIn's a cool place. I mean, that's how we met, right? And. Seeing each other's posts and gravitating to that, we've been on a panel together, which was really cool, and then the opportunity here. So thank you. Very welcome.

You know, when I look at, a couple of things that I think are good foundations to a conversation, first of all, I do think we have a great industry and I don't think everything's broken. I think there's a lot of good things happening, but I do think there are disconnected parts of the dealer ownership journey together that we have to sell these vacancies if our industry desires anything more than a one-time transaction.

And it's an interesting thing, you know, as I present to the industry, our solution, I'll ask a very simple question or, or create a simple challenge, which is, is it our industry's mission to only sell a car and maybe an f and i product or two, or to also earn the recurring customer? Everybody will say, The reoccurring customer is what's desired.

But the truth is, we're a transactional based industry and we're focused on selling cars. And this 30 day cycle thing that happens when the value, and frankly the competitive differentiation of delivering something more than a one-time transaction is immense. Yeah. the, the revenue that you can earn from a customer that's already made a financial vote to buy something from you is incredibly better than going out and trying to acquire the next customer.

But yet we throw the kitchen sink and acquiring the customer. And then after customer acquisition, step two is customer abandonment in our industry. And that's a shame, and I wanna explain that so everybody understands, is that I. our industry, our, our dealers treat sales and service like two separate companies operated under one roof.

Yes. That creates a workflow issue. Our industry can refine all and does and should, all the processes related to acquiring a customer and selling them a car. And separately they can focus on fixed ops and refine those processes. But there's a gap in between the two of those, and we lose so many customers.

It's unconscionable how poor our retention is and our industry, because what happens with that structure is once the sale of the car is concluded to the customer, it feels like the transaction and therefore the relationship is over. And then somebody somewhere down the line tries to pick up the pieces, or we're just hoping people will come back.

And that doesn't work. And the, the, again, you don't need to have a PhD to see this. in our industry right now, again, I believe there's a lot of great things happening, but if you look through the eyes of the customer, the customer sentiment is not great. Most customers don't like the current car buying process, and most customers that do buy a car never return thereafter.

And that shouldn't be okay with anybody. That gives a damn about this industry. And that's why I'm so passionate about it. And the truth is, we're just executing a game plan that's been successfully executed in other industries. If you take a look at the titan of retailing, the thing that everybody who's gonna watch this knows is Amazon.

Amazon is the retailing titan. Mm-hmm. And if you take a look at what makes them a trillion dollar plus valued company, It's not because they can sell something one time. What makes Amazon, who they are today and the valuation that they have, and, and it seems the unending success that they will have, is that they figured out the desired customer engagement before and after the sale that keeps their customers coming back again and again, and again and again organically.

And the value of that, you know, if Amazon didn't have the recurring customer, guess what? It would not be the Amazon that we know. but you as a customer of Amazon and everybody watching this, 'cause everybody is, nobody has just purchased from Amazon one time. No. I've got an Amazon box on my doorstep just about every day.

I,

Brooke C Furniss: I have pre show up today. So, yes.

Steve Apicella: But again, think about that Brooke and everybody watching this, is that, why do we go back to them over and over and over again? It's because they've created this perfect environment, not only to buy, but you know what happens after you click buy, how you're gonna get the package if you have to return it, if you have an issue.

The service, everything is so simple and so frictionless that when we go to buy something else, we don't even give it a second thought. There is no number two competitor. We're not even comparing online

Brooke C Furniss: to anybody. And, and a lot of times, and I'll put this as well, because when you have a loyal customer, price is not the over overriding factor.

And I know for, I know that I'm going to pay more for the convenience factor. And I think too often we're like, whoa, well price. Well, when you're dealing with a loyal customer and the reward factor and that customer lifetime value, price is not the overriding factor. I know that I can go to Target and it's gonna be less, or I can go to whatever, insert, whatever.

It's gonna be less. But I also know I can click a button and it's gonna be here in two hours or overnight, and I don't have to go to the store. So once again, you're, you're dealing with a, whether it's the gamification portion of it or whatever it may be, is that, oh, I see this, I can do this and I can get that a lot quicker.

Or just this simplification portion of it. Make it easy for your

Steve Apicella: consumers. What if you have to return something with Amazon? Oh my, they've made that, right? I don't have to

Brooke C Furniss: get a box anymore. I don't have to have a box. I don't have to. I, I just go to Whole Foods and drop it off.

Steve Apicella: It's great. And here's the cool part.

It used to be, there used to be a day with anybody online that if you returned it, they had to get back to their distribution center. Somebody had to open it up, audit it, and go through that process. Today, the minute you drop it off and somebody checks it in, or the minute u p s picks it up, you got your money back.

And that's the kind of relationship and transaction that inspires you to do what? Immediately go back to Amazon and go get the right thing. You don't even think about it. Well, even

Brooke C Furniss: that is, you think going to Amazon as as well, and, and you've brought this up and it's oddly enough, and I've had a, I've had a other talk with other people and had 'em on the show as well, is not just Amazon, the online?

Well, Brooke, it's online. So how, what does this have to do with this, with us? It's not just online. There's Whole Foods. You have Amazon, there's Amazon is everywhere. Just even the outlier. You know, and I'm really

Steve Apicella: glad you brought

Brooke C Furniss: this up because GrubHub, I had a free reach out. So he goes, do you know the GrubHub right now if you have an Amazon Prime account?

And so anyone out there, this is just so shout out, dusty Sutherland, dusty goes, Hey Brooke, do you know if you have a GrubHub account you now have free, you don't have any free delivery for next year. I go, what? He goes, go to Amazon right now. Click on Glub Pub and you have free delivery for next year.

I go, hold up. What? So now they're in the delivery service. So

Steve Apicella: this, here's the cool thing. Even the online Amazon thing, Is just a process. Mm-hmm. That's all it is. Amazon is chockfull of brick and mortar and chockfull of people to deliver its products and services, just like the automotive retailing industry.

Okay. It's exactly the same. They're everywhere. They've figured out the desired mechanism to make that process simple and frictionless. But again, the important part for anybody watching this, they did that. Contrary to what the automotive retailing industry is doing, when we talk frictionless, the automotive retailing industry, we're talking about selling a car.

Mm-hmm. what Amazon did is they wanted to frictionless that whole thing. You know, if you've ever seen the smiley face on Amazon is A to Z, right? It, it points to the letters A and Z and Amazon, and what they're talking about is not A to Z selling you a car. They're talking about the whole damn thing, the whole customer journey.

And they're brilliant at it. And it's something that we shouldn't dismiss in the automotive retailing industry. We shouldn't be afraid of it. We should learn from it. And again, just, and I love, I love the Amazon thing because everybody can relate to it. we can apply the same principles to the automotive retailing industry.

If we start to embrace our customers beyond selling them a car, they'll start embracing our selling dealers thereafter. It's a really simple combination. And you asked me earlier, what do we do? So the, the short of it is, we de deploy a dealer branded environment that allows dealers to stay organically d connected to their customers beyond the point of sale.

When should retention begin? Not six months after you sell 'em a car. I. Immediately with the sale of the car. So this is a way for a dealer to communicate with their customer, but we focus on a couple of pillars. One being f and I, and I take a look at F and i, you know if, if you ask any dealer, how critical is f and i revenue to your success?

And I wanna underscore this in any economic reality. How important is it when you have inventory, when you don't have inventory, when you're selling at M S R P or above? The answer is critically important. If f i revenue is so critically important to a dealer's financial success, and it is if it's valuable to a customer's ownership experience and it is, and if it's valuable to the customer's loyalty back to their dealer.

And it is. If all of those things are true, why the hell do we leave all that value to just the f and i menu presentation alone. Now I wanna be clear for everybody watching this. 'cause sometimes people misinterpret what I'm saying. I'm not saying to stop the f and i menu presentation. That's not what I'm saying.

What I'm saying is why do we let it all reside just there? And if you think about it, Burke, it's amazing that our industry does as well with f and i as it does. You know that a customer goes through it, whatever, whatever you wanna say, one hour, two hour, three hour car buying process, and then they're jettison into the f and i environment where they're introduced to products they've never heard before for the first time, and then required to make a decision right there or never again.

It's amazing to me that we do as well, but the question is, leave that alone because that's important. But what about making this available to a customer on their smartphone in the dealer branded app after they leave the dealership? What about making it available to a service advisor on behalf of a customer for when they come back?

And then further to that, this is about the experience before and after the sale. Yeah. What about when a customer needs service support from an f and i product that they purchased? Should that be the world's most difficult process? And if you take a look at it right now, and it's, people don't like to talk about it because it's ugly, but these f and i administrators, which again, I'll honor them because they should be honored, provide a very important financial work center for a dealer.

And they, they play a critical role and so do their agents. but when it comes time for service, it's not pretty. Most third party administrators deploy a one 800 number with phone queues and called wait times and manual claim processing when services needed. And what's bad about that 1980s process is every dealership has to navigate multiple of those.

When services needed. 'cause every dealership has more than one third party administrator. So what we do is unify that process in one digital application so that a customer or service advisor on behalf of a customer can see all the products they purchased, God forbid, right on their smartphone in 2022.

Hold

Brooke C Furniss: up. What, what do you, what? What are you talking crazy? Talk right now, Steve, what are

Steve Apicella: you doing? And then have a digital pathway to service in that same unified environment. And then by organic extension, because you can see everything you did buy, you can also see everything you didn't buy. Be able to explore that and even buy it digitally on your phone.

And that's taking what something that exists. If you listen to every great innovator, it's never existed. Apple, you know, I'm a fan of Apple. I'm surrounded by Apple right now because I'm an Apple guy. but Apple, you know, Steve Jobs when he was alive would say, Hey, we didn't create this. We figured out the pain points and we made it much, much better.

We didn't create the personal listening device in what used to be an iPod. there were Walkmans back in the day and Discmans and all that stuff. Right. But we made it better because we made it smaller, lighter. You can have more than one album or CD or cassette. Yeah. you could have your whole library on there and listen to it with better, audio quality than ever.

We didn't create the cell phone. We made it smarter. You know, we, all these things that they did, if you think about it, they didn't create the category. They refined the category that democratized it, that made it accessible to everybody on their terms. And Amazon is the same thing. They weren't the first online retailer.

They figured out how to unify that journey. Think about the difference between Amazon and eBay, right? They're essentially the same kind of platforms, but why is Amazon in the stratosphere and eBay's not? It's because when you buy something through Amazon and you have to return something or deal with it, you're not dealing with somebody in the Philippines.

You're dealing with Amazon and they have a refined process that you can trust every time. Yeah. To make sure that they get it right. So for the automotive industry, you know, Brooke, the simple thing is we've put energy kind of trust into digital retailing. and the industry's put a lot of emphasis on that, but that further underscores the problem, which is the associated digital experience with digital retailing, which I'm an advocate for.

I think we should have that as a channel. But the associated digital experience with digital retailing abruptly ends with the vehicle sale. What does that tell our customer? It says that the transaction and therefore the relationship is over, it's part of the process problem. So what we do is we pick up that proverbial baton at the point of sale and continue it throughout the dealer and customer's ownership journey together to create all these organic touch points so that selling a customer a car isn't the end of the relationship.

It's just the beginning.

Brooke C Furniss: So a couple things on that that I just wanna drive home. We all know that having a cust should try to retain a customer and then have a new cust bring on a new customer is way harder. The stats are anywhere from like five to like seven times more expensive to get a new customer.

Steve Apicella: And then actually, it's not the proverbial money laying on the table, it's the actual money laying on the table waiting to be earned. Yes. That's it.

Brooke C Furniss: Yeah. Yeah. So if you go, going back to what you said before we dumped, a, a little bit ago, is that I, I went through and I just was kinda like, okay, I wanna put pen to paper on how much it actually costs when we say, Hey, we only care about.

When we sell the car and then we don't really care about service. And it's not that we mean that, but like I just went through this a little bit. So loyal customers are, are five times are more likely to repurchase, five times are more likely to forgive, and are four times more likely to refer and seven times as likely to try a new offering.

So when you have, okay, I like, for instance, I had an instance with Amazon late, very recently. In fact, the now screen behind me is, it was supposed to be here in two days. Well, four days go by and it doesn't show up. And I finally called and I was like, Hey, Amazon, this was supposed to be delivered and I kept holding off.

It was gonna be here, it didn't get here. So if I would've known, I would've just reordered. Well, It's so rare that you have a bad experience with Amazon, but I also period, very, very period. Yeah. So when you do, you already are automatically like, Hey, you know, I, I know this is so rare, it never happens. If I would've known, I would've reordered.

And they're like, Hey, you know, we'll fix it. What can we do to make this right? How can we make this right? And they've, they've set the precedence that, Hey, our, so let's take it into the dealership. Hey, or wherever. I don't insert whatever business is that. When you set the precedence that this is, this is the norm.

And then when the exception happens, the consumer's like, Hey, no problem. I know this doesn't normally happen. We'll, we'll, we'll take care of you. How can we make this right? So going back to just customer loyalty, it's gonna cost more. And there's so many stats as I was going through. It's like, no joke.

Audience here, there are two pages worth of stats, two pages worth of stats about. How, how important it is to have that repeat and referral customer. And I know that we

Steve Apicella: talked, we're missing and the truth is broker are missing it. Well, a a hundred percent. We're completely

Brooke C Furniss: missing it. And when I go in, and Steve, I know, I know you and I have talked about this, is that I, whenever I buy a vehicle, when it's a new, I've, I've had new vehicles for, for a very long time.

I always, you know, I usually lease because I like new vehicles. I always, always, always, always have a copy of my vehicle service contract because I have been trained is that when I go in, I get asked, Hey, well, so, I'm sorry, what did you buy? Well, what, what, what did you buy? Well, I bought it from you all, but I just, Hey, I, I understand how the auto, what I bought.

Steve Apicella: Yeah. Ima imagine again what that translates to a customer. It literally happens every day. It's one of the things that, again, our industry does a poor job, job at, which is equipping our great service advisors. To be able to champion that moment. Right now, you or anybody else that comes back to their selling dealer, because they thought they bought something.

they think they have coverage. They're not sure. They never read their service contractor warranty, but something amazing happened organically. They thought, let me just go back to the dealer. I'll roll up another service drive Many times unannounced, they'll be able to take care of me. Right? That's what they think and that's what we want them to think.

We want them to think, go back to your service drive. That's where you get it done. F And I likes to talk about, Hey, these are retention tools too. They should be. They should be. But the problem is when that customer rolls in and says, Hey, I bought my car here. I bought some protection products that need service support.

The service advisor, the poor service advisor, has to ask the customer very awkwardly happy to help you. What products did you buy from us? And do you know your contract number? Do you have a copy of it with you? Do you know who it's through? And the customer? Is it, it is the same whether they're saying it or thinking it is timeout.

I bought this stuff from you. Don't you know? Yeah. What did that tell about, you know, were you just selling me something or did you truly intend to back it up and, and be there? And did you care about what you sold me? And I, you know, I look at dealers today, this should be one of the table stakes things when you look at an f and i administrator in their products is, okay, I understand.

'cause right now it's, it's turned very much into a commodity. Tell me the difference between one gap program and another, or one road hazard wheel entire program and another, they're all replications of one another. but then you get to the service side of it and I would, if I were a dealer, I would say, you know what, these are my customers.

The, I want them to be in my relationships. When something occurs, how are you gonna service that? and that would be an awkward moment for a lot of people, but it would be a championing moment for some that have already adopted solutions like ours to say, no, we're absolutely prepared ourselves, but not only that we're prepared to support your dealer and your service drive so they don't have that awkward moment.

And they could champion that and actually turn it into the retention moment that it should be. And that again, that's the immense value is that all of these things, and when I look Brooke, at how much energy people put into refining the processes that they know we're good at, that our industry is. but what about the processes that are vacant, that are missing?

This is one of them. You know, whenever I hear a digital retail platform say, Hey, this is gonna be the Amazon-like experience, my initial response is, no, it's not. Because Amazon is not just trying to sell a product. and their digital experience, their frictionless experience doesn't abruptly end with the sale.

so again, that, that's where we're, we are passionate about it and it's easy to be passionate about it. Brooke, for me is that, somebody had a saying that they said once before to me, that I've adopted because I feel the same way, which is every day a Saturday for me. Like, I love what I do so much that it's not a grind.

I love getting up in the morning. I love contributing. I love making our, our industry and the people that also desire to do it. I love contributing to that. And you know, I said it, recently that. It's all of our responsibilities to, oh yeah. To do this for our industry, to contribute beyond our own personal pursuits.

That, you know, if we truly care about the health and the longevity and success of our industry, then we have to contribute to it. And we, what we can't do is look for just like-minded people. What we have to do is embrace all the different mindsets and all the different opinions, and navigate that to gain the greatest result that our industry's capable of doing.

It's a topic like, you know, there's, there's big voices out there that I respect, like Brian Benstock that talks about the gargoyles at the gate, and what he's talking about primarily is these online retailer only disruptors that have come along and made the car buying process really simple. And that's gonna challenge the brick and mortar industry that we better catch up to that.

We're gonna be annihilated by. That is the premise of a lot of what Brian says, and when I hear that, I respect it. I understand what he's saying. But I also say that we're making a mistake if we're trying to catch up to the a hundred percent online retailers, because our industry can offer so much more than they can.

The unique attribute, the very essence that separates a brick and mortar dealer from a hundred percent online retailer, is the brick and mortar's unique ability to also locally service their customer better than anybody. That's the differentiator. Oh yeah. Huge. So shouldn't we be focused on the lifecycle of a customer and not just the sale of a customer to differentiate what a brick and mortar dealer is compared to a hundred percent online retailers, because a hundred percent online retailers for now are just selling cars, but the challenge for the brick and mortar industry, so that's kind of what we're doing too.

So that's where we have to take these attributes and make 'em better. And then the other thing about EVs is interesting. How will EVs impact fixed ops? A lot of people are talking about that. Well, what about if you take a, what you would call a critical revenue stream, like f and i, what if you take that and make it a benefit to post-sales as much as it is to during the sale,

Brooke C Furniss: why are you outsourcing all your EVs?

Like why are you not selling, sending Susie or Jimmy or Jimbo to say, Hey, lemme go install that charger out at your store or out at your house. Like, why are you

Steve Apicella: outsourcing that stuff? Much more value. Just, it's right there to be, and again, I use the word very selectively earned. this is, you know, and I, again, I, I sometimes I get pushback on this because I know what we want to be, which is a relationship business.

We want to be a relationship business. The truth is we're a transactionally minded business. We have to look at that relationship business and get better at it because that relationship business earns more transactions over the lifetime of the customer. There's linkage there, but we have to understand the difference between the two.

And we'll never fix the problem that we have if we don't fix that gap between sales and service. And that's what we're really focused on doing is how do you take that transaction and turn it into a lifetime customer? Well, you have to speak their language. You gotta connect with them the way they want to connect, and you have to do that right from the point of sale and not sometime thereafter.

Brooke C Furniss: Well, I think, and you and I have talked about this a lot, a lot is, okay, so you have something, you, you, you fine tune your process and everything's going great. You always have to be thinking, okay, great. What now? Great, what's next? And don't, not that you're. Not that you're not doing a great job. It just always think, okay, so what?

Now, what next? Because the customer is, is even with Amazon, I mean they're, they're loving Amazon. That's great. Going back to the Amazon, they're always thinking, okay, what next case in point, they decided to partner with GrubHub. Now, that wasn't like really readily advertised, but they're always thinking, okay, what next?

And there's other things that they're partnering with or doing behind the scenes. They're always thinking, okay, great. What now, even inside the processes is, okay, so we have this going, but process-wise, what, what's next? Like, what is the customer going to do? So, okay. With the,

Steve Apicella: and you know, there's great, there's great books written about this process of continuous improvement, right?

Yes, yes. That is constantly happening and great companies continuously evolve. Yeah. And evolve or die. Great. Ies continuously evolve. We should, because no matter how good we think we're doing, The question is, could we be doing better? Always. And the answer is always. Yeah. And, and that's what we have to do.

And I, I think too, in order to make this, 'cause that's kind of the, the lack of continuity that exists in our industry is we need, for conversations like this, we need people like you, we need events, where people get together and share ideas and learn from it so we can elevate the bar for everybody.

And if, if our industry is going to survive all the threats that exist, it cannot just be one dealer at a time. It's gotta be our whole industry has to do it. Yeah. And I

Brooke C Furniss: love how I was, so Paul and Kyle said, it's like, you know, if, if you have 1% or 10%, the other 90% aren't doing it. So it, it really does take all of us.

'cause it can't just be 10% or even 50% of the dealers out there and the automotive body doing it because you need all 50%. Doing it and pulling. And I, I always go back to, I'm a sports junkie, so I go back to a sports analogy that if you've got someone in the boat and everyone's rowing in the right direction, great, you're gonna cross the finish line.

But it takes one person rowing in the wrong direction to flip that boat. Now, it could be the simple as, hey, the person is just a dick and wants to flip the boat. Or the person, Hey, I didn't hear, I didn't hear the command. Oh, we're supposed to row in this direction. I'm sorry, I didn't hear that. Or didn't understand, didn't understand the directions.

So you gotta figure out why the person is not rowing in that direction. It could be a slower reason, beginning to the core reason of why the person's not rowing the direction and everybody needs to be rowing in that same direction. And

Steve Apicella: I think too, I really like this a lot. So some of that is, honoring their voice.

Yeah. Too. Mm-hmm. Is that, you know, sometimes it's so interesting how people look at like experience. Sometimes experience is a really good thing and sometimes a bad thing. Yes. you know, because you can tell visioned about, you know, oh yeah, it one way to do it. But, you know, I love listening to even naysayers about what we do.

Even though we've had so much growth and we've created so much revenue for dealers and third party administrators and process efficiencies and, and customer experience enhancements, there's still those people that think you can't file a claim on a smartphone. And I don't mind listening to that and trying to overcome it.

That, you know, I think great technology when it's done correctly, doesn't remove the in-person engagement and enhances it. And so, you know, I'm not the guy that says, I don't think digital retailing is saying that I call our platform digital lifecycle category. I don't think the idea is to lock the front doors and never personally engage anymore.

That's not what I think all this is about. I think it's about removing the longstanding pain points that distract from a, an enriched experience. When you do that and you can propel the in-person engagements, now we've got something that can really make our industry great. And again, I challenge people to really think about that Amazon thing.

they are chock full of brick and mortar, just like the automotive retailing industry, and they're chock full of people, to deliver their products and services exactly like we do. But they figured out a process that enriches that and makes it more organic and creates that reoccurring revenue stream.

And that's, we should see, see that not as a threat, but as a model.

Brooke C Furniss: Yeah. And, and just another stat for everyone out there, 80% of your future profits will most likely come for 20% of your 16 customers. So when you're thinking, oh, you know, we're done, the sale's done. No. And if we all know the stat, if they don't come back to service, they're not going to buy another car from us.

And if you want to continue having those profits come in and having all the, having all the wonderful money that's flowing in, Service is so insanely vital. Fixed. I'll also, sorry, fixed ops. 'cause parts and service fixed ops is so insanely essential and unnecessary. And any other synonym you wanna throw on that point is so vital.

Steve Apicella: So you and I talked about this, we share this so, in, during the pandemic and that because of desire, because of just our, our rotation of cars in our family, we purchased three cars over the past 18 months. And when I do that, I've always practiced this. I don't go to the friendly places I know and that know me and that can give me a great deal.

I just enter in these transactions like I'm a consumer because I think there adds a lot of credibility when you actually see how this works through the consumer's eyes. And I know I'm gonna pay a little more, but the value I get outta the experience is, is worth way more than a little bit I may have lost on the purchase, so, but I, I tactically chose three different pathways.

AutoFi was one of 'em. A to Z sync was another. And then just a purely traditional transaction walking into the front door. And I've got lots of things to say about all three, and I think all three bring value to our industry. but the thing that was common, and these were big prominent dealers. I'm in the Denver metro area, very respected dealers, but the one thing all three had in common is after the purchase of my vehicles, I've never been contacted since.

And that's sobering. Like what, what do we expect with retention in a lifetime relationship if everything abruptly ends? The sale of the vehicle.

Brooke C Furniss: Well, that goes back to if what's next, what's next? And you and I talked about this, like when was the last time as a, whether it sells or service whatever and it or whatever you do, when was the last time that you picked up and actually talked to your client, your customer?

That wasn't happy birthday. Your lease is coming to you. Oh, you know what? You, you, you should be in your, your, your, your contract's up what? Call and talk to your customer. That's the customer lifetime value. Talk to your customer

Steve Apicella: or communicate too with them, Brooke, on, you know, again, I, I tell people just to be reflective, you know, a phone call today in any other term is a phone solicitation.

Mm-hmm. junk mail postal or email is junk email or Oh yeah. Junk mail. text messaging. Even people falsely believe that a text messaging platform, Is the modern way to do it. It's really not because it's random. Unless your dealer's contact information is in your contact list on your phone, it's a random phone number.

And worse, if you're using a text messaging platform where the phone number comes over as two three dash oh mm-hmm. Who the hell's engaging in that? you know, again, they're just, and I, I use this term disconnected from reality, is if you ask the people that deploy those, how would you answer that? And they'd be like, I wouldn't, I wouldn't touch that with a 10 foot pole because people are conditioned that this is probably some kind of annoying attempt.

Or worse, it could be fraud. So go ahead, click on something random and you just might lose part of your identity. That's what people believe and that's where we take even things like communication a step further. modern smartphones have been a around since 2007. Isn't it about time our industry start leveraging these things to its fullest capacity?

Like notifications, you know, again, notifications is something organic on a smartphone. We interact with them all the time. Like you missed a phone call, you missed a text message. If you've got the Weather bug app on your phone, you get the latest updates to the weather. Or if you've got E S P N, which I bet you do, Brooke, I sure do.

And

Brooke C Furniss: the

Steve Apicella: score, and then you get the latest updates to the things that you like to follow. Well, dealers can communicate in our platform, their dealer branded app in the same way where it's personalized, it's organic, and it leads to a more enriched, interaction. And again, it far transcends random text messages and, and phone calls and emails or even, you know, I hear people say still like, You'd mentioned a second ago that we send them a postcard on their birthday.

It's like, what? Or we send a coupon in the mail, or even worse. The truth is, a lot of times, you know, if you take a look at a dealer's website, it's a great illustration about what our intent is, how much of a dealer's website is dedicated to selling a car, and how much is to the lifetime value of the customer.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. 99.9% is about selling a car, and then there's some non updated page with really anemic information about anything thereafter. If we're waiting for people to toengage our website or we're waiting for them to call us up, or we're gonna deploy a better phone system, so it's easier, but we're still waiting for them.

To come back. That's the vacancy, that's the missing part. Yeah. That we're talking about is don't wait for them to come back. If you want to have a relationship, like personal relationships, if we stop talking to each other, Brooke, we're not gonna have a relationship. But even more important, this is the old language of love thing.

Yeah. If we're not talking to each other in a way that we appreciate, we're not gonna have a relationship either. And that's the thing about our great industry is that things have evolved. There are certain principles that are still core and still centric to our industry, but how we connect with our customers and the definition of what our mission is, are we just selling cars and maybe an f and i product or two, or we also desire to earn a reoccurring customer that's not semantics.

There's real intent behind that and how it takes process, it takes leadership, it takes people, to pull that off. And every dealer's capable of it. We just have to realign to remember what are we trying to do here? And then make sure our actions are commensurate with what our desires are.

Brooke C Furniss: No, I love it, dude.

I love everything about that. It's, we, you've always gotta go back to what, what are we, what is our end goal here? What are we trying to accomplish? Anytime that you're, if you're setting new New Year's resolution, what is our end goal? What are we trying to do? And are we checking in every step of the way?

Are we accomplished and does everybody on everybody know the end goal? 'cause if you're, once again, it's sports analogy. The kosher says, all right, though, go out there, your do your thing. Hold up. What? So hold up. What's the game plan? I don't even know what the game plan. Oh, I'll just win. Well, how, how are we supposed to win if we don't have a plan?

So making sure that f n i, that, b e c, that sells a service, that parse it. Every single person, everybody knows what the game plan is. 'cause too often it is, we have this great idea in our mind, but nobody even knows what's going on. Or, Hey, we're gonna bring in a new, we're gonna bring in, a new DR tool or a new, trading tool that nobody even knows what's going on.

Like, wait, wait, we, we put something new on the website, or we brought in a new whatever and nobody even knows what the hell's going on. How many

Steve Apicella: times I go back to the F and I thing, how many times does a service advisor find out about what's being sold in f and i for the first time when a customer's standing in front of them requesting service from it?

Yep. We can't ever expect Yeah. To solve this problem until we have our actions match our intent. Which is we have to go beyond the transaction and we have to be prepared for that. And everybody's gotta elevate their understanding and their game to be able to deliver that. it's not that far apart, like I said in the beginning.

we have a great industry. I don't think everything's broken, but we gotta get refocused on the mission and then deliver the processes and the mindset to earn that because there's so much to be gained. By doing that just with the customers we have right now. And I do think it'll go with the, the way things are transitioning.

the value of being able to do that is only gonna increase moving forward.

Brooke C Furniss: I'll end with, and we'll head to the light around here. I think

Steve Apicella: it was, I need to know, I got a personal thing before I forget. I got a post in the right here. Yes. So for, for all the legions of people that play golf like I do, yes.

I've never gotten a hole in one. Okay. I need a post that gives me the details of your husband's hole in one. Yeah. In my head I'm like, you know, 210,

Brooke C Furniss: you know, almost another one yesterday too. It was like we had massive, massive brain, so it was like interesting. He gets home and our friend in town and he's like, he always like, and then actually his friend, his friend name is Scott, and his Scott goes, He almost had another one.

I go, oh, seriously? I go, I, I know the floodgates are gonna open up. He's gonna have like more, but yeah, no, the truth is

Steve Apicella: we all have fishing stories.

Brooke C Furniss: Okay. I'll be, I'll be true. I'll

Steve Apicella: be true promise. Yeah. We all had fishing stories. There are times where I came close and the truth is we've all come close, right?

But, the ball missed a hole and went, you know, 10 yards off the green and, you know, but whatever. the

Brooke C Furniss: best one was, he was the club championship and, he, you know, the crowds are all around and he was like that far away from having a whole one on the club championship. And yeah, it was, it was pretty cool.

And he, he didn't have it, but this one, he had

Steve Apicella: one. Yeah. The only time I really golf, to be honest, I wish I had more time, but I, I go to a lot of these dealer charity things, right? And I love doing it. And my golf game's good enough. I will say Brooke, where I'm not, I don't embarrass myself. Like good, good.

Yeah. I'm a bogey golfer right around there. Nice. I'm good in a, you know, shootout kind of thing where, you know, we can have, somebody else can pick you up when you have a bad shot or whatever, but Shotgun, shotgun, yeah, the, I had one where it was one of these, you know, win a car on a par three. Oh, nice.

Yeah. And, the, the, the, the green was kind of mass where you couldn't actually see it. I could see the pin coming up, but you couldn't see the green run adjacent to it. And I hit this shot and it's semi lucky. I mean, I got, I got a hold of it and it hit like this eyebrow on a bunker and bounced the right way.

And I see the spotter kind of stand up and put their arms up. I. And I'm like, holy shit, I got it. I got it. And when I got down and the whole time I'm thinking like, all right, what am I gonna do with this extra car? You know, maybe there's a way I can donate it back to the charity. I'm like running through all it.

'cause I really thought I did it. And then I get up there and I look and there's no ball. And she goes, no. She's like, that came so close. You're like, thanks. It's here. It's 10 yards off the green. You're

Brooke C Furniss: like, thanks for getting my hopes up.

Steve Apicella: I appreciate that. Yeah. I mean, we've all, but see that's the beautiful thing about golf, and I know it's cliche, people have said it is, a, we do cheer for others.

Like when I heard your story, you talk about your husband's. I'm like, yes. You know, because it's so elusive. Oh yeah. And, and so many things just have to happen perfectly. But I'm hoping his story is. The weather wasn't great. There was a strong wind. Oh, I

Brooke C Furniss: can tell you right now, it was, they didn't, they weren't planning to play because it had, we had like flash floods.

We'd been up most of the night because the, it was thunderstorm to lightning storms. And he actually, they, he took, he was gonna go play, obviously pickleball. It was like taken off in the United States. Yeah. And so they were planning to not play because it, there was so much rain. So much rain. So he sends you the picture and he is got, he is just like drenched in water.

So it was horrible conditions and he got it. So I, that part, yeah, I don't know. I can't remember the yardage on it, but I Yeah, I will, I'll sit over the details for sure.

Steve Apicella: I know in Denver, you know, I'm a Chicagoland guy originally. I wanna know details like what hole, what course. I wanna hear it.

Brooke C Furniss: Well, yeah, I, I was royal you're out here.

So was Royal Melbourne, that's our, that's our country club. So's that's, yeah, but I'll get y'all the details on it For sure. For sure. So fun. Yeah, we're, we're

Steve Apicella: all cheering. I love stories like that. So, because, you know, I mean, how hard did, how, how many rounds of golf did he have to play?

Brooke C Furniss: Oh man, he plays a lot.

So, yeah, it's, yeah, he plays a lot. he's, he is a single, I think he's like a, I wanna say he's got four handicap or something like that, which is awesome.

Steve Apicella: Yeah, he's pretty good. So this is a great time of year with a FedEx Cup too, going on. And, you know, I, I'll be in front of the TV over the weekend for sure.

Yeah. Ugh.

Brooke C Furniss: But yeah, so I'll, I'll get to the details. Well, I, I'll, I'll, I'll do it that soundtrack, star magic. Alright, so we're, alright, we're gonna jump with a, we had a little sidetrack there about doing a little golf, a little golf talk there. But, we'll jump in here. I'm gonna pull up here about how to connect you all, all right.

I know for those that are watching, we've got up on the screen now how to connect with Steve. But Steve, for our listeners that are, are listening, how can they find you? Where can they find you? What can, how can they get in touch with you? You

Steve Apicella: know, LinkedIn is a great way. my company, strategic Dx, is on a corporate page, or Steven ela, my personal page, this is one thing that, you know, LinkedIn, how you and I met, I, I'm blown away by, I do tell people I'm not great at LinkedIn.

I'm not one of those, you know, this marble know how to do it and algorithms and, but you know, I think we have 21,000 followers on our corporate page, which blows me away. It just blows me away. But it's not because I put cute photos on there. I think it's because we have great content, a great solution that is really resonated with a lot of people.

So again, I'm grateful, grateful that our website is strategic dx.com. there you can learn about our solution and connect with us as well. And then obviously upcoming events. You mentioned, Paul and Kyle will be a Soto Con. Yeah. And the speaker and a Soto Con coming up in Philadelphia. I think it's the 11th through the 13th, something like that.

I think dealers, I think everybody should participate in. I love if you don't have your

Brooke C Furniss: tickets, go, like, we've done so many things on Paul and Kyle. Were on the show couple weeks ago and Yeah, go to the show. I mean, everyone's gonna, all the, like I said, all the cool kids are gonna be there, so I'll be there.

So, you know

Steve Apicella: what's interesting too? I'm gonna say this. 'cause you know, I, I don't think I'm a cool kid. I think you are, but you know, when I first met those guys, I, I was kinda like, oh boy, you know, like I, I'm, I'm never, and I've told them this, that I'm never gonna be the flat bill. Kap. I can't grow facial hair better than this, and

Brooke C Furniss: you've got some, I went like this when I let go.

Steve Apicella: but the more that I've learned about them and their intent, even though I'm not gonna be the guy hopping around and, and, you know, being loud and boisterous and all that, what they're doing resonates with me. And, for that I want to support it and honor it and tell people that they, if you're not a part of it, you should at least consider it.

there's other people tings out there, that's where you and I were on a panel. I think he's great. The fixed op on table I think is really good for bringing different voices together. Mm-hmm. there's a guy, Brian p that I met just a year ago that's got a modern retailing event coming up in November that I think is really, really smart to be a part of because these are opportunities to define our collective future and to be a.

Active contributor to it, not just let it happen and then figure out how to navigate it, but actually define it. And I think every position, every voice, every amount of experience you should have, you should be a part of it. I just think it's so important for our industry to, to pull together and do that.

So podcasts, like these events, like those, that should all be, a part of people's agenda. They're very, very valuable. And it's not to attend, to contribute, to be a voice, to learn to contribute to it. So, Agreed.

Brooke C Furniss: Agreed. It's, it's like I said at the end

Steve Apicella: days, no, no. Modern retailing conference. I think that, I think Brian's, he's doing a lot of great things there, just like Paul and Kyle are just like Ted Ss is.

Mm-hmm. and just like you are. So I think, you know, it's time well spent for sure. It is.

Brooke C Furniss: And right now, Brian, there's, there's, I think it's 80 plus, businesses, companies, dealerships included, that we're all pulling together to do the GA four council. and it's just, it's been a, been a pleasure to be on that council just to see everyone, everyone pulled together.

It's the first time I've, I've personally ever seen this, that to have everyone pulled together to build, I mean, you're having everyone reach across the aisle, which has been phenomenal to see this. And Brian's heading up the whole thing and it's, it's a lot of work and it's been awesome to be a part of that.

So yeah, it's, shout out to them. So, and like I speak with Ted this morning, so Yeah. Fix up round table if you have not got your tickets to that, they're R v p. With that, they're complimentary, obviously. Our two beautiful pace will be on there. So get there. They're awesome and incredible content. Incredible content.

So I agree. I agree. Alright, so we've got that outta the way. And, Brooke,

Steve Apicella: I'm sorry, we're at 51 minutes. Oh, holy crap. We're

Brooke C Furniss: we're good. We're good. We're good. I'm, I'm all, I'm watching the time dude. We're watching the time. I got you. I gotcha. No, we're gotcha. Alright. What is your favorite thing to do outside of work?

hobbies,

Steve Apicella: anything like that? I love golf. You know, and, and again, I, this is one thing that I openly admit. I'm terrible at work life balance. I wish again, 'cause I love what I do and I'm blessed to have, I. My wife and my family on this journey with me. Without it, I couldn't possibly do it, but the other hobby of late has been, and again, you mentioned pickleball.

God bless you. You know, I used to tell people I was going to the court because I was embarrassed to say pickleball. Right. yeah, that's a retirement thing. Like what are you doing? It's fun as hell. I love it. I know. I, but then also e biking, you know, like I've just suddenly gotten into this and I live in an area in Colorado, we're at 6,700 feet.

and if you just go three miles from me, there's a 400 foot elevation change and you gotta be an athlete on a regular bike to go up and down these hills. and actually they train the road bikers, train, like literally outside my door here, because the elevation changes so much just in a very short amount of time.

And Colorado's really good with bike lanes and bike paths, and there's lots of places to bike. So my wife and I have, We have e-bikes. Nice.

Brooke C Furniss: Okay. All right. So this could be in a personal life or in business, what is the number one thing that you're constantly have to distinguish Facts from? Feelings.

Steve Apicella: You know, I think it's, you know, this, this whole concept of, sometimes I hate the term disruptor because it has connotations to difficulty and, you know, you're gonna turn things inside out. And the, the concept of disruption is to give you another viewpoint, another way to look at something, to do a better job at accomplishing the goals that you ultimately want.

It's just not conventional, you know, conventional, you know, the opposite of that is disruptor. And, and so I think sometimes getting through that is, like I said, it is illuminating to people that I'm not trying to throw away all the great things that got our industry to where it's at. It's this process of continuous improvement.

And there are things that, you know, I think of my third party administrator partners that have adopted our platform. Most third party administrators spend the most amount of money doing claims, the least desirable way, and that needs to be improved. And that's part of what we help to do, is to really refine that so that, again, you remove all the pain points and all the undesirable things and get right to the core of serving customers, protecting reinsurance positions, protecting reserves, but doing a world class job.

God forbid, delivering service for service contracts. you know, it's really important. So I think that's the thing that we separate is between the two, is there's a lot of emotion applied to and feelings applied to protecting what was, and I'm not here to throw all that in the garbage. I'm here to say that you might want to just take a look.

There might be a better way to do it, but that ultimately achieves the result better, faster, and with longer term results than the way you're currently doing it. Agreed.

Brooke C Furniss: Agreed. All right, we're gonna end on a hopefully easy one for you. What's your favorite

Steve Apicella: car? Oh my God. Oh,

Brooke C Furniss: I thought it was gonna be an easy one.

Maybe not.

Steve Apicella: I, you know, so I'm lucky I'm in this industry 'cause I'm a guy that loves cars. I love cars, you know? Yeah. But, you know, I'm, I'm a, so it might be boring to some, but I, you know, I'm a big sedan guy. I just, I always have been so, I drive a B M W seven 50 and it's a great car. I love it. Great car.

It's got this. What attracted me to it is it's, it's Matt Silver is the color. Okay. they call it frozen is the what B m w calls the paint. I just think it's the coolest car. But I'm also an old time. I could tell a story that would take an hour, Brooke, which I Wait. You could tell

Brooke C Furniss: story that takes an hour.

Steve. Never. Oh, yeah, yeah. I know.

Steve Apicella: I grew, I grew up, my mom and dad had in the garage a 1970 Mustang Mach one. Oh. And I love this car. That's great. It is. A short story of it is when I was 15 years old, my dad invited me to, at that point, the ve I'll age myself here. The, the vehicle was, you know, 15 years old in 1985.

My dad says, Hey, we're gonna get this thing restored. And bring it back to its original glory. And he goes, why don't you come with me? We'll go to the restoration place. He took me every week to see the progress. And Brooke, in my head, I thought, okay, they're fixing this thing up for me 'cause I know how much I love it.

And right before it was finished, my dad called me up and said, Hey, guess what? Somebody went into the restoration place and offered us a lot of money to buy the car. And I'm like, yeah. And they're like, yeah, we couldn't turn it down. We sold it. And I'm like, what? And then when I told my dad, I'm like, I thought you guys were doing that for me.

And my dad's like, are you kidding me? You'd kill yourself in that car. Oh, I would cry. So one of my, one of my dreams, someday, you know, you see these things on tv, like mic of auction and stuff like that. Every once in a while I'll see one of those old 1970 Mustang Mach ones roll by and I'm like, boy, someday I might just buy one of those.

Like,

Brooke C Furniss: yes, please. Thank you. Oh, they're gorgeous. Oh, so pretty. No, I, I, oh, good. Choice is good too, by the way, when you say frozen, all I can hear is I have 14 nieces and nephews, and I have quite a few nieces, so all I can hear is like, let it go, let it go. Comes. I hadn't seen that. My nieces were like, aunt Brookie, how can you not see frozen?

I was like, whoa, okay. I just got annihilated by a bunch of nieces. I'm like, okay, I gotta see frozen now. So

Steve Apicella: that's, that's what happened. I am a blessed guy with, a beautiful wife, two sons that are now a part of my company and have achieved a lot themselves, and I'm proud of them. They're a millennial and a Gen Z.

They're anything but lazy. They're ambitious. Nice. they're great contributors, but I'm also a grandfather now. Oh. That's like the best part. It's so cool. So my eldest son, and his beautiful wife had twins a year ago. One boy. One girl. Yeah. And boy, what a joy. you know, when you talk about today, like the things that take me away and depart me from.

The day-to-day thing that I do when I'm with them. Even though I can't get my arm around time, Brooke time just goes by so fast. Oh yeah. When I'm around them, time stands still. Mm-hmm.

Brooke C Furniss: Everything melt away. I love it. It's right in the world. Man's good to be grandpa. Yeah. No best thing ever. Awesome. Well Steve, thank you so much.

So appreciate you being on the show, being a part of it. Everyone, if you've not had a chance to, to, obviously you're not able to listen to Steve, but if you haven't had a chance to have a conversation with Steve, check out Strategic Dx and it takes you about 15 times to say strategic or spell it. That's something I Google all the time.

Like, how the hell do you spell strategic? At this point, Google's like, Hey Brooke, just learn how to spell it or you can't spell it. it's tx hyphen dx.com and your dealer experience. Go check it out and we, both of us will be at a soda con so you can see both of our smiley faces and obviously I'm fixed out on table.

And just thank you so much. So appreciate it and everyone. Please find a way to serve the day. Go find a way to help your hello fellow or yellow fellow bean and your neighbor, your coworker. Open up a door for someone. Smile at someone. It is amazing what a kind smile will do to someone, but just find a way to survey and help someone with everyone.

We will see you all next week. Can't wait. We have a some awesome lineup for the rest of the month, so everyone have an awesome rest of your day and we will see everyone next week. C e o.

You've been listening to Facts Not Fillings, with Brooke Furnace. Thank you for taking the time to listen. If you haven't already, go ahead and hit that subscribe button. Leave us a rating. If you know a friend or a colleague will benefit from today's episode, share it with them. Until next week, find a way to serve someone.

Find a way to help your neighbor. Remember, we are all in this together.