Forgotten Service Pays Off

[Music] [Music] Main Street, USA. A fine location in any town or city in the nation. A fine location for a tire dealer, a garage, or a service station. At the moment, back in the office, Jack Brown, one of the owners, has been talking things over with Don Johnson, his partner, who's just returned from his first real vacation in years. A full month in celebration of his 20th wedding anniversary. And now Don's thoughts turn to business. Well, back to the grind. Say, as I drove up, I saw Mr. Davis out there buying gas. How come? I thought he was Ferguson's customer. He stopped by one evening when Ferguson had closed early. So, I went right to work on him with a certified air service approach. And it worked, too. Pretty soon, Davis was saying, "I had no idea you fellas gave such fine service." Next thing you know, he was coming in here regularly. Well, I'll be darned. Never would have thought we could make money by using free air service as an approach, but in the last month, that's just what we've done. Well, you know me, Jack. I'm from Missouri. Well, let's take a look at the record. Picked up four new steady customers. Gas and oil sales have increased. Pull in some extra lube jobs, some tuneup and brake and wheel alignment jobs, tire repair business shows a gain. And get this, we sold quite a few new extra tires and tubes. And you say all this is due to your using the Shraider certified air service approach? Yes, sir. Well, how come? Well, well, we give a customer service. We can discover his needs and then sell him tires, tubes, lube jobs, and so on. I see. Better tell me the rest of the story. Well, a few days after you left, the packages with that shredder material I ordered arrived, and I went over it with Harry so we'd know how to use it to try and get some more business instead of letting it go somewhere else. First thing I told Harry was this. Surveys among dealers gauging and inflating equipment have shown as high as 51% inaccurate and 33% dangerously inaccurate. Is that a fact? Well, from now on, we're never going to lose a customer because of inaccurate air service because I just bought this Shraider True Test Special Gauge. It's certified accurate. And it's going to stay accurate because I'm going to keep it right here in this drawer to be used only for weekly checks on all our everyday working equipment. And another thing, the industry has come up with a formula we can use and show our customers to make sure we're giving them the right air pressure at all time. Now, here's how the formula works. Using a 24 lb tire for an example, and a 3 and 5 lb figure is the same summer or winter on any passenger car. When a car has been doing steady city driving, ordinary riding around town at 25 or 30 mph, gauge and inflate for 27 lb. Thus, 3 lb for heat buildup plus 24 lb cool pressure equals 27 lb. When a car has been doing steady highway driving, that is pulling in after driving along at 50 mph for a while, gauge and inflate for 29 lb. Thus, 5 lb for heat buildup plus 24 lb cool pressure equals 29 lb. Got the idea? Sure, that's easy. Now, the third thing that shows customers we know our tire service is a display of quality tire accessories. So, we're going to put Shredder tire valve caps, cores, and glove compartment gauges with our accessory display. Sounds like a good idea. Now, so we can start off right, I bought each of us a Shraider pocket gauge, let's go out and check all of our gauging equipment. Okay, I'll round up all the hand gauges. Harry and I carefully gauged and inflated a tire. Then we checked the readings on our own equipment and on the true test special gauge. We did the same thing with all our regular shop service and pocket gauges, taking several readings to see that they were right at any pressure. Whenever we found a gauge inaccurate, we replaced it. Or for the fairly new ones, we sent them back for repairs. That goes, of course, for all our automatic equipment. And to let the customer know he's getting the very best kind of air service from us, we posted a sign right by the airline explaining that our equipment is checked with a master gauge every week. So now each of us is using our pocket gauges not only as service instruments, but as real sales tools. The Schrader man called it a dipstick for tires. It's shown the way you show an oil dipstick. Say that sounds like a bright idea. You see, after filling their tank and checking under the hood, but before we collect the money, you check the left front tire where the customer can see you. They appreciate the okay check if the pressure is right. But where the pressure is off, we show them and take the car to the airline so we can apply the 3 lb or the 5lb formula. Naturally, we let the customer know just what we're doing. Another thing, we've stopped giving away tire valve caps. After all, we know valve caps do a real job for the customer, and they provide important safety and sealing qualities. So, with us pointing out to the customer the quality parts we're selling to him, most of them gladly pay for them. And boy, they really appreciate this kind of thorough service. You can tell they're going to be interested in what we have to tell them about their car's tire condition. They'll have confidence in our advice and they'll come back. Davis did. I think he's a pretty good example. When I got around to the spare in his truck, we found his son had had a flat which Davis had forgotten was now in the spare. Naturally, he wanted it repaired. And during the repair, we found inside damage. So Davis could see for himself that he needed a new tire. In that case, certified air service discovered a customer's need and led to the sale of a tire. Of course, this doesn't happen every time, but it happens often enough to add up to some nice extra profit. In another case, Certified Air Service discovered a slow leak, which led to a tube repair job. And while you're doing tire repair work, that's a good time to build for future sales. The fact that you use only quality parts is continually selling your customer. So why not tell him that you put in a fresh shraider valve core on every tube repair. Yeah, I can see this type of operation ties right in with increasing our tire business. And what's more, the Schwrader man also helped us save a lot of time and trouble around the shop. Remember whenever we fixed a flat, we used to have to walk all the way over to the airline and back several times? A real nuisance and time waster. Well, we installed an air outlet with a Shraider quick acting coupler. So, we can just plug in an airline with a Shraider chuck gauge and stop all that cross-country hiking. We also found that a coupler teed into our pipeline in several spots saves us a lot of waste motion and effort. For instance, we use air service and air tools in our repair, brake, and lubrication sections. It's real easy to change that airline from one outlet to another. To change a shraider chuck gauge to a shraider blow gun, which comes in mighty handy, or to a dual foot chuck to reach inner dual truck tires, or to any of the many air operated lubrication tools. The hose lengths easily made up with shraider fererals, threaded couplings, quick couplers, check units, and adapters practically paid for themselves the first few weeks in time, trouble, and labor saved in our daily work. And speaking of the lubrication department, we've been using certified air service to discover the need for lube jobs, too. After all, steering ease, riding comfort, top performance depend on both good tire service and good lube service. Same tie-in approach goes for tuneup jobs and brake jobs and wheel alignment. So, like I said, certified air service has sure been bringing in the bacon around here. Well, all I can say that anything that helps us make more money, boy, that's for me. Yes, that's just one typical case of how dealers all over the country. Garages, service stations, tire and accessory dealers are pulling in more business and profits with Shraider certified air service. You can do it, too. To get the gauges and other products, the displays, the signs, and an easy to follow guide on how you can make more money through certified air service, read this manual, which you'll be given here and now. And if you want to make more profits, look over the shop as soon as you get back and start certified air service with a dipstick approach right away. Other dealers are making money with it. Why not you? [Music]