Welcome to another edition of the Car Dealership Guy Industry Spotlight Podcast Recap newsletter—the key lessons from top operators, founders, and execs shaping the future of auto retail.
Today’s guests are Paul LeBlanc, Service Director at Longo Toyota, and Derek Simonds, Executive VP Automotive at Numa.
The pair discuss how massive-scale service operations stay competitive, why traditional communication methods are killing customer retention, and how AI is transforming the service experience.
Scaling up often creates communication challenges at the dealership.
Operating at Longo Toyota's volume requires fundamentally different approaches to customer communication and workflow management.
"The daily average is about 370 repair orders input per day at the moment. So, we're generating 9,000 ROs a month here through our service department." — Paul
With 88 main shop technicians and over 200 total service team members, the sheer volume creates communication bottlenecks that smaller operations never face.
Industry-wide call mismanagement is reaching crisis levels.
National statistics reveal a stark reality about dealership communication effectiveness across the industry.
"One out of every four calls into a dealership ends up getting completely mismanaged. And actually in service, the stat ends up being a lot higher. 82% of customers have chosen to cut ties with the dealership on poor communication alone." — Sam
These numbers reveal a threat to dealership profitability, especially when customer acquisition costs continue rising.
Proactive communication is key to preventing customer frustration.
The most successful service departments operate on the principle that customers should never need to call for updates.
"I've always said if your guest is calling you, your customer is actually seeking out you to do business, then you failed. They should never have to call you. You should be calling them before they need an update from you." — Paul
The goal is eliminating the need for customers to reach out for information by providing updates before they're requested.
Retention strategies outweigh hiring challenges in technician management.
When facing technician shortages, the most effective approach focuses on keeping existing talent rather than constantly recruiting.
"My best source really is retention. I mean, I would say if you retain your current team, then it makes hiring pretty simple. You don't need to. When we do need to, it's really promoting from within." — Paul
This approach includes creating clear advancement paths from entry-level positions like valets to master diagnostic technicians.
Presented by:
1. Numa - In the world of dealerships, service is everything — but it’s also where everything breaks down. Missed calls, unreturned voicemails, and long hold times are the leading causes of low CSI, poor customer retention, and cost dealers millions in revenue per year.
That’s where Numa comes in — an AI communication platform for dealerships. Numa AI Agents answer 100% of missed calls, book appointments, deliver repair updates, automate operational tasks, and—perhaps most powerfully—coach service teams to be sharper, faster, and more responsive.
CDG Listeners: Try Numa risk-free with an exclusive 30-day satisfaction money-back guarantee. Visit numa.com/cdg.
Modern service operations require dedicated business development centers.
High-volume service operations often can't function effectively without specialized communication teams separate from the service floor.
"We run a service BDC here. So we do have a business development center that helps fill in our phone calls for our four stores and our immediate dealer group. We currently have 23 team members total in our BDC." — Paul
This separation allows service advisors to focus on technical work while ensuring customer communication doesn't suffer.
Employee buy-in starts with honest conversations about technology's role.
Paul learned that the biggest obstacle to technology adoption isn't technical—it's human. When employees think new systems are coming for their jobs, they'll resist or sabotage implementation.
"I think we have to make it clear to our team members is, ‘hey, look, we're not looking to reduce headcount in this. We're not going to be terminating anybody. If anything, I wanted to repurpose people.’" — Paul
The key is showing staff how technology will handle the mundane tasks they hate anyway, freeing them up for more meaningful customer interactions that actually require human skills.
Text messaging has completely taken over customer communication preferences.
The shift in how customers want to communicate with service departments has been dramatic and swift.
"Over 90% of service customers would rather text with the service department than they would talk to them. When we first started with Longo in the first quarter, I think it was around 7,000 text messages that were sent. Last quarter, in the last 90 days, they sent 34,000 text messages." — Derek
That nearly 5x increase in text volume suggests customers were already wanting to text but couldn't until the system supported it. Once the option became available, adoption was immediate and overwhelming.
Upset customers can now be identified before they explode.
One of the more innovative developments is the ability to catch customer frustration in real-time, before it turns into a disaster.
"If you miss a call, you're an advisor, you're back talking to another tech about a car, right? The phone rings at your desk. You don't answer it. Obviously goes to your voicemail and the customer goes, this is ridiculous. I'm so frustrated. Immediately the system grabs that call, summarizes that call and passes it to whoever's on the heat case escalation team." — Derek
Instead of angry voicemails sitting unheard for hours or days, upset customers get flagged immediately so someone can actually do something about their problem.
Quick response times directly translate to higher customer spending.
The correlation between communication speed and revenue is stronger than most dealers realize.
"Their median response time to a missed call or missed text message to their store is 26 minutes. Anything under 30 minutes drives customer satisfaction and dollars per repair order. If you respond to a customer quickly, they spend more money with you and they're happy." — Derek
Twenty-six minutes might sound reasonable until considering they're handling 9,000 ROs monthly. Customers who get fast responses don't just stay happy—they actually spend more money per visit.
Many AI solutions are creating massive security risks for dealerships.
The rush to implement AI has created some serious blind spots around data protection.
"There are a lot of smaller companies that are basically just throwing a shell over the top of ChatGPT, and that is so problematic for dealers. We were running this test on anonymized voicemails. We were getting bleed-through of real customer data where the AI was hallucinating and giving us back customer data." — Derek
When supposedly anonymized customer data starts bleeding through AI systems, dealerships face potential regulatory nightmares and massive liability exposure from mishandled personal information.
