Service advisors know how video multi-point inspections (MPIs) work. Customers see the problem for themselves, understand the repair, and are more likely to approve the work.
But at Crain Automotive's 22 Arkansas stores, advisors weren't doing them consistently.
Driving the news: "We had an issue where the advisors didn't see the value," vice president of operations, Christian Crain, told Daily Dealer Live hosts Sam D'Arc and Uli de' Martino. "I mean, they should have because it was going to increase their hours per RO. Yeah, but they didn't see the value, or they were lazy."
So, Crain Automotive built video MPI completion into the department’s compensation structure.
How it works: The group now ties a percentage of service advisor gross directly to video MPI completion rates on customer-pay and warranty work.
Advisors earn their full gross percentage only if they hit video MPI benchmarks.
Miss the benchmark, lose part of the percentage.
And while the exact structure is still being refined, the concept is simple: performance = pay.
"Anything that you put in the pay plan will be their job description," Crain said.
OUTSMART THE CAR MARKET IN 5 MINUTES A WEEK
Get insights trusted by 55,000+ car dealers. Free, fast, and built for automotive leaders.
Why it matters: From Crain’s point of view, many customers already think dealers will mislead them, but video evidence removes that doubt.
"The customer has such a poor view on a car dealership," Crain said. "Whether they're buying a car or they're going to take it in for service, they feel as if, 'The dealer's going to screw me over in some form or fashion.'"
"When you completely take that lack of transparency out of the equation— you've got the tech videoing the problem and getting underneath the car and showing them every issue that the estimate has— it really makes the customer understand why they need to do it," he added.
The impact: Crain expects a 50% increase in labor gross and a 0.4 hours per RO lift across the group.
"Video MPIs is something that we as a business should have been doing 10 years ago when the iPhone came out," Crain said.
Bottom line: For Crain, MPI adoption wasn’t a technology problem or a training problem, but rather, an incentive problem. The group stopped waiting for advisors to see the value and made it non-negotiable.
A quick word from our partner
ChatGPT can write emails, plan trips, even tell jokes…
But it can’t tell you which VINs are at risk of sitting too long, how your dealer performs against your competition, or how to improve your VDPs.
That’s where LotGPT comes in. It's the only chatbot built exclusively for car dealers. It knows your market, dealership and inventory.
Fueled by Lotlinx’s decades of VIN and Shopper data, plus your live inventory, Google Analytics and CRM, it delivers relevant answers and guidance to help you sell cars faster and more profitably.
LotGPT is free for dealers, but invite-only.
