2 dealerships use different scripts to film inspection videos

Sending customers videos that bolster suggested repairs and maintenance revealed by multi- point inspections is a proven way to amp up service and parts revenue. But persuading technicians to videotape their inspections can be as difficult as removing rusty manifold bolts.

But at Austin Subaru and Austin Infiniti, two adjacent dealerships owned by Continental Automotive Group, service managers have cracked the code by using two different strategies. At the Infiniti store, most technicians produce their own videos. But at the Subaru rooftop, where technicians balked at playing cinematographer, three professional videographers do the heavy lifting.

While the strategies differ, the results are similar: significant increases in revenue because videos move customers to say yes to suggested maintenance and repairs, said service director at Austin Subaru, and Josh Sandoval, service manager at Austin Infiniti.

"It works because you're seeing it straight from the technicians," Sandoval said. "With video, suggested maintenance and repairs sell themselves. When we send a customer a video, it's less of a pushy upsell and more an informational sell for something they can see they need.

"We'd be happy to walk every client into the service bays and show them their cars," he added. "But we can't. So instead, these videos connect our clients with our technicians."

Hoelscher agreed, noting that the videos ease customers' traditional concerns about mechanics pushing unneeded repairs.

"They love the transparency," he said. "If we show them a torn bushing or an oil leak, they believe it. The transparency and trust- building that videos provide can't be quantified; videos bring customers right into the shop with us."

Hoelscher says one customer posted his multi-point inspection video on Reddit and earned thousands of "likes," with many commenters saying they wished their dealership filmed inspections.

Both stores use the myKaarma auto-services software platform for texting, emailing and archiving videos. Hoelscher said his department pays about $700 a month for the service; the cost at Austin Infiniti was not available.

After a pilot program for just the express lane technicians, videotaping inspections went departmentwide at the Subaru store in April 2022. The department employs 44 technicians and features 42 service bays, with plans to add 26 more bays, Hoelscher said.

Since April, videos have provided an average "lift" of $279 per repair order, with that figure sometimes topping more than $300 per repair order, he said.

While the average increase for repair orders before the department went all-in on videos isn't available, Hoelscher said the department has almost doubled its customer-pay revenue from January through October 2022 compared with the same period in 2021.

"We're the biggest generator of parts and labor revenue out of all Subaru dealers nationwide," Hoelscher told Automotive News.

"And we calculate that each videographer is worth a lift of about $868,000 in parts and labor revenue" through November 2022.

"We wouldn't be having such a successful year without our video guys," Hoelscher said.

At the Infiniti store, which started videotaping multi-point inspections about five years ago, Sandoval said the average lift per RO for customer-pay work from late November 2021 through late November 2022 was $397 based on 4,336 videos. And while he couldn't compare that number with pre-video figures from years ago, he said he "absolutely" knows the videos make a difference.

The department employs 19 technicians and operates 38 service bays.

The three videographers at Austin Subaru are full-time employees. They get paid $18 an hour, plus a bonus of $1 per video.

"Sure, it's an added expense," Hoelscher said. "But fighting with the techs gets old; getting them to do the videos is like pulling teeth."

Furthermore, taking videos and narrating them in an understandable way isn't a strong suit for most technicians. That made hiring Diego Garcia, the department's first videographer and the video team leader, an easy decision.

"I highly recommend hiring someone who's well-spoken and articulate and knows their way around a camera," Hoelscher said.

The videos are about 1 minute and 30 seconds long on average. Each videographer produces about 20 videos per day, with a base goal of 400 per month. But the crew takes about 1,500 a month, Hoelscher said.

Because the videos only hit repair highlights, the videographers explain at the end of each video that everything mentioned — plus other things — will be addressed in more detail by a service adviser, he noted.

"Customers may not know what a control-arm bushing is, for example," Hoelscher said. "So it's important to go into more detail than what the video provides."

At Austin Infiniti, express lane supervisor Mark Perritte — a photographer and a YouTube video enthusiast — trains technicians to shoot effective videos. Higher-level technicians might create three videos a day while express lane technicians might produce 10 to 15 a day, Sandoval said.

The biggest initial hurdle was simply getting technicians to produce the videos. But that got easier after they saw the financial benefits, he noted.

"When we first started, we paid technicians 1/10th of an hour (6 minutes) for every video they take," Sandoval explained. "But we don't do that anymore because once they saw that the videos generate more revenue, we didn't have to push them as much.

"They see that they're making more hours and making more money."

Perritte said he thoroughly explains to technicians how they can benefit financially. He tells them if they generate even a few more tenths of an hour of work a day for a whole year, it's like getting another month of pay.

"People generally don't like to do things that make them uncomfortable," he said. "But once they get that 'aha' moment and the lightbulb goes off, you can't stop them from making videos."

Nonetheless, two or three technicians still refuse to shoot videos, which take about 3 to 5 minutes to create. So Sandoval pays an employee from a valet company the dealership uses to shoot their videos.

At first, technicians sent videos to service advisers, who in turn reviewed the videos and sent them to customers.

"We were afraid technicians wouldn't communicate clearly," he said. "Or that the video quality wouldn't be good enough."

But now technicians send videos directly to customers. Waiting for service advisers to find time to review the videos created bottlenecks that prevented customers from receiving them quickly. Or the service advisers didn't even review the videos, Sandoval said.

"We also realized that customers don't expected perfect videos," he added.

Hoelscher said he plans to hire two more videographers.

"Finding your Diego is probably the biggest challenge," he said.

Fortunately, Austin is a hub for creative, arts-oriented people so finding videographers was much easier than it might be for other service managers.

But finding good videographers and hopping aboard the multi-point inspection video bandwagon is worth the effort, Hoelscher said.

"If you're not taking videos of MPIs, you're a little behind the times and leaving a lot of opportunities on the table," he said.

"The expense is a bit of a hurdle. But once you start making more money, you'll want to hire 10 more."