Motor Age: How do you continue to differentiate yourself from your competition?
Striegel: We're still very much ahead of the pack. The local competition as far as independent shops really has not changed to match what we're doing. My biggest unique position I have over all of them is the fact that we provide free loaner cars. We run six loaner cars. I try and model our facility as much as I can to my real competition, which are new car dealerships. I really don't want to take business away from the local shops. What I'm trying to steal is the new car dealership customer: a newer vehicle, a little more maintenance-minded, more invested in their vehicle at this point, and I want to be as close to them as possible. A lot of the dealerships around me have stopped providing free cars, and that's one of the things we promote heavily. We've got a bunch of them on the road, and they're logo'd up. When they're parked in people's driveways or people have them at work, it's kind of a moving billboard for us.Motor Age: How do you see dealership closings playing out in the long-term?
Striegel: I think long-term it will be a different problem altogether for the independents. As the dealerships start to close, if they actually go out of business, there's going to be a glut of technicians, there's going to be a glut of service advisors. There's also going to be the dealership owners themselves, who are still entrepreneurs. I can't help but feel that they're not going to all give up their business completely. If they elect to keep their dealerships operating as a service-only platform, they're going to become what I call "super independents." They're going to have to find out how to market. They're going to have to find out how to provide superior customer service, and I think it's going to open the door for a whole new competitor, something we have not seen before.
Motor Age: Has the economy affected your diagnostic tools and procedures?
Striegel: It seems like there are fewer trainings going on right now, which is a problem. We have purchased some new diagnostic equipment in the last eight to 10 months. Actually, it's a good time to buy equipment because the deals have never been better. If you have the cash, now is a good time to invest. The economy really hasn't changed our platform — the performance diagnosis or the equipment that we use. I'm a little concerned with declining dealerships, what that's going to pose for diagnostic work in the future. As technicians, we love to do diagnostic work, but quite frankly, it's not as profitable as basic maintenance work or standard repair services. If your best technician is being bottled up with nothing but diagnostic work, that greatly restricts your ability to create a profit with that technician.
