"If you’re going to say you offer proper vehicle inspections, you have to put yourself ahead of the game,” says Cindy Ferrell, manager of the Neighborhood Tire Pros & Auto Service store in Decatur, Ga.
That’s precisely what Neighborhood Tire Pros & Auto Service is doing by providing digital vehicle inspections (DVIs) at its four locations in Decatur, East Cobb, Avondale and Suwanee, Ga.
Offering DVIs lets customers know that “we can (perform) the same services as car dealerships,” which Ferrell says is important when working with the owners of expensive vehicles.
“We want to make sure we’re presenting ourselves in the same manner as a high-end car dealership. DVIs help with that.”
'Customers want to know’
Neighborhood Tire Pros & Auto Service doesn’t reserve DVIs exclusively for affluent customers. The dealership performs DVIs on all customers’ vehicles.
Farrell says the DVI process begins with good communication. "We let (customers) know, ‘Your vehicle is going to receive a DVI,’ so you’re not just sending them a weird text and they think it’s spam. We also set the expectation that we’ll need a certain window of time to complete the inspection.”
Neighborhood Tire Pros & Auto Service’s technicians then take photos of cars before pulling them into service bays. “If there’s something going on with the body of the vehicle, we no longer just mark that ‘a bumper’s hanging.’ We take a picture of it. Then when we drive the car into the bay, we start a multi-point inspection. It could be a 15-point inspection. It could be a 60-point inspection. We’re going to complete all maintenance-related checks.”
Technicians continue to take photos during the inspection process. When the DVI process is done, service advisors review and edit photos and share the images with customers. Videos are available, too. The idea is to provide customers with transparency so they can make better-informed decisions.
“Customers want to know,” says Ferrell. “DVIs give (them) a better understanding of what’s actually going on with their vehicle and helps the conversation you’re trying to have. You can type out details. You can send links with videos. It helps make the case (for a repair.) The show-and-tell aspect of our business has always existed. DVI is digital show-and-tell.”
Neighborhood Tire Pros & Auto Repair’s Decatur store is nestled among several colleges and universities, “so sometimes we’re talking to the parents (of local college) students” who may live in other states. “It’s a whole lot easier to explain to a parent what’s going on with their kids’ car through a DVI than by trying to tell them what’s going on. DVIs eliminate the back and forth,” quickly securing estimate and repair approval.
Proper procedures
Beyond burnishing Neighborhood Tire Pros & Auto Service’s reputation as a trusted source for auto repair service, as well as boosting the dealership’s profits, the use of DVI provides procedural benefits, according to Ferrell.
“For example, I can aways go back to the DVI from the last time (a customer) was here and everyone’s on the same page again. It’s also easy for any technician to refer to previous recommendations and repair data."
Technicians who are used to documenting inspections with paper and pencil can sometimes be “intimidated” by the prospect of performing DVIs, according Ferrell. “They think they’re going to have to do something extra. It’s not extra. It’s doing something you’ve always done – just in a different manner.”
She believes tire dealerships that aren’t offering DVIs “are doing their customers a disservice. They aren’t presenting themselves as the top dealerships they say they are. It’s how you present yourself and your company. And it’s what you want your customers to see.”
