At Rohrman Auto Group, the struggle isn’t getting techs to make MPI videos. It’s getting them to smash that send button.
Managers need to communicate the importance of sending them, according to Nick Ruffolo, who thinks dealers are losing service customers to independents for one main reason: Failure to communicate.
As fixed ops director for Rohrman, Ruffolo oversees 10 stores in Illinois and Wisconsin. And he’s working on making communications at all the rooftops more uniform.
"The customer's gonna have to service that vehicle somewhere,” Ruffolo told Daily Dealer Live host Sam D'Arc. “The ‘where’ is the important part."
Between the lines: Ruffolo aims for consistent and timely messaging.
Rohrman runs one DMS, Tekion, for all stores. Tech videos, text messages, consumer portals, etc., all exist on one screen and one platform.
Texting is their primary communication tool: “There's no faster response and form of communication…,” Ruffolo said. They use templates to help with speed and consistency.
Templated outreach is written and managed centrally by one BDC, so the communication quality doesn't depend on any individual advisor's judgment or bandwidth on a given day.
Then, of course, they have their ever-important video outreach.
MPI work: Rohrman is at a group-wide rate of 85% with MPI. Ruffolo said that the videos are generating an average of $390 more per repair order in parts and labor.
Here are their standards:
Technicians wear black gloves in the video.
They use finger pointers.
And with that, the background looks neat, and the gloves help eliminate fingerprints.
"The last thing I want is a tech video that shows greasy paw hands all over in the background," Ruffolo said.
Must hit send: Ruffolo understands the reasons why some advisors might hesitate getting the videos to customers.
One, they don’t understand the why. (Management has to communicate the importance, he says).
Or maybe the advisor got overwhelmed at write-up, so skipping send saves time.
Made a promise they couldn't keep, creating a backlog that pushed video off the to-do list.
The Tekion platform uses an icon that techs can see that shows if videos are opened and forwarded. Ruffolo said that visibility, managed correctly, makes for a great coaching tool.
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Training together: No matter what the mode of communication, Ruffolo aims to keep it uniform. And their training helps.
Rohrman has its own learning management system (LMS) with onboarding modules for advisors to kick off the training, then they move on to in-person.
Ruffolo pulls advisors out of stores and into small breakout groups in an effort to keep training groups small.
The group rents a college campus, gets staff fully off-site, and runs structured training away from the day-to-day three times a year. Going off-site improves focus.
Rohrman built an internal coaching and development team that ran a multi-month advisor academy, using weekly sessions, until advisors reached minimum standards.
Why it works: Ruffolo said the communication allows programs, such as their widely talked about $50 oil change, to work.
The program, for one, helped spark an increase in customer pay RO volume by about 17%. Ruffolo said their communication standards help make it successful.
"You're gonna tell 'em it's gonna be 45 minutes, they should be out of there within or less than 45 minutes," Ruffolo said. "If you're gonna take that $50 oil change in the Rohrman group and take two hours, a lot of customers are not gonna be coming back."
He says anyone out there who wants to try it needs to plan.
"You do it without a plan, without understanding all the different implications and the unintentional consequences, you could create a train wreck behind it as well,” Ruffolo said.
Looking ahead: Ruffolo's focus for the rest of 2026 is retention. That’s cars in the drive, next appointments set, customers staying out of independent shops.
"Greater people plus a consistent process equals an awesome store,” Ruffolo said.
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