111 - Never Miss a Call Again - How The Hive Automotive Repair Uses AI to Capture Every Opportunity

111 - Never Miss a Call Again - How The Hive Automotive Repair Uses AI to Capture Every Opportunity

February 19th, 2025 - 00:47:52

 

Show Summary:

In this engaging episode, Jimmy Lea interviews Rob Borden, owner of The Hive Auto Repair in Moscow, Idaho. Rob shares his unique journey from civil engineering student to taxi company owner, and eventually, to successful auto shop operator. He discusses how entrepreneurial grit, strategic decisions, and excellent customer service helped grow his shop to over $2 million in annual revenue. The conversation also dives into how Rob implemented an AI-powered voice system to capture missed calls and increase appointments. This episode is filled with laughs, great stories (including a pet deer named Jorge), and actionable business insights for shop owners.

 

Host(s):

Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development

 

Guest(s):

Rob Borden, Auto Repair at the Hive

 

Episode Highlights:

[00:00:43] - Rob introduces his Great Dane puppy, Coco Chanel, and reminisces about a pet deer named Jorge.

[00:04:36] - Rob explains how a fraternity conversation shifted his path from civil engineering to entrepreneurship.

[00:05:56] - Rob and his business partner start a taxi company to solve a local transportation problem.

[00:08:15] - A tire machine purchase turns into acquiring a full-service tire shop.

[00:10:08] - Rob opens his own shop after a business split and grows it to a nine-bay facility.

[00:13:11] - Rob buys a neighboring car wash for extra parking and considers its long-term use.

[00:16:03] - Rob shares his $3M revenue goal and how he differentiates by being the most expensive shop with unmatched value.

[00:19:09] - Rob discusses implementing Voice Controller AI to capture missed calls and book weekend appointments.

[00:31:00] - Rob reveals how AI helped capture $3,000 in revenue in one week from missed or after-hours calls.

[00:41:25] - Rob shares his wish to elevate the perception of automotive professionals as industry experts.

 

In every business journey, there are defining moments or challenges that build resilience and milestones that fuel growth. We’d love to hear about yours! What lessons, breakthroughs, or pivotal experiences have shaped your path in the automotive industry? Share your story with us at info@wearetheinstitute.com, and you might be featured in an upcoming episode.

 

Links & Resources: 

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• Want a complimentary business health report? Click Here
• See The Institute's events list: Click Here
• Want access to our online classes? Click Here

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Jimmy Lea: Good afternoon, good evening, or goodnight, depending on when and where you're joining us from. Today or tonight or where in the world. Oh my gosh, I'm so excited that we are here to have this discussion. Good to see you, my friends. My name is Jimmy Lee. I'm with the Institute. Our discussion today is going to be epic.

Jimmy Lea: It's one that you definitely do not wanna miss. It is going to blow your mind. This is some pretty dang cool stuff on the horizon. And, they talk about the future is here. Well, the future is here. It's pretty dang cool. My guest today is Rob Borden. He is the shop owner of the Beehive beehive.

Jimmy Lea: I apologize. It's the Hive Auto Repair in Moscow, Idaho. Rob, thank you for joining us. How you doing, brother? Good. Thanks for having me. Oh, good. And you know when Rob's not out saving the world one car at a time, he does spend a lot of time with his Great Dane puppy. What's your puppy's name? 

Rob Borden: Coco Chanel.My wife named him. Named her. 

Jimmy Lea: Named her. Coco Chanel. Coco Chanel. All right. So how old is she and how big is she? 

Rob Borden: She's a year old and 110 pounds, and she should be another 10 or 15 pounds. What time? She's full grown, so she's 110 pounds. We just had her at the vet the other night actually. 

Jimmy Lea: Oh my gosh. She's a big puppy. Does she still think she's a lap dog? 

Rob Borden: She is a lab dog. She doesn't think she is. She is.

Jimmy Lea: She is a lab dog. Oh my gosh. Kyle says, that's not a dog. That's a horse. 

Rob Borden: It is. Yep. We had a pet deer once upon a time out at our property, and and I swear this dog looks just like the pet deer that we had. 

Jimmy Lea: You had a pet deer, like serious.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. 

Rob Borden: Serious. Yeah. 

Jimmy Lea: How do you have a pet deer? 

Rob Borden: Yeah, the long and short of it is is we have some property and we came across this little tiny fawn that was brand new. And so we're driving down the road right in front of our property and we see that the mom has been hit and is in a ditch and dead.

Rob Borden: And so the little fawn is right next to it. So we took the fawn in and then we bottle fed it, and we brought it in our house. I don't know if there's rules against that or whatever, but we totally had a pet deer and we fed it and all the things and anyway, it, it kept getting into the neighbor's garden and they were mad about it.

Rob Borden: And then it was eating the neighbor's cow feed. And so then all of a sudden one day the deer was just gone. And my guess is that the neighbor took care of it. So, I don't know. We had it for almost two years. It was a ton of fun. 

Jimmy Lea: Yeah, I let's see, what was it? My parents used to tell us that that the dogs or the pets had gone to a better home.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. Just happens. It happens. Wow. Was and I have so many questions about this deer. Was the deer house broke 

Rob Borden: no. 

Jimmy Lea: Oh no, you're kidding. 

Rob Borden: No. We only had it in the house for like a couple nights and then we made a little place for it in the garage, and then it got big enough that we put it outside.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I agree. Everybody's saying we need pictures, ASAP. 

Rob Borden: So yeah. I don't know if I can find 'em fast enough, but Yep. 

Jimmy Lea: After we're done, we've gotta post them in the show notes or something. We 

Jimmy Lea: had a pet deer. Alright. What was 

Jimmy Lea: the pet deer's name? 

Rob Borden: We called it Jorge. The way we got to that was my wife used to chase deer when she was a kid and she always wanted to catch Jorge.

Rob Borden: So then now we had the deer. 

Jimmy Lea: Jorge. 

Rob Borden: Jorge. Yep. 

Jimmy Lea: And Jorge, was Jorge a buck or a fawn? 

Rob Borden: No, it was a fawn. Oh. But we didn't know. That's okay. So to be fair, when we first got it right, I mean, it's so tiny and small and we didn't wanna just, you know, look and 

Jimmy Lea: Right, right. Eventually you do, but you're being modest.

Rob Borden: Yeah. Eventually you figure it out. But, 

Jimmy Lea: well, and my sister and her husband, they have a female cat named Henry, so I understand. It's okay. Sure. Not no judgment here. 

Rob Borden: House guests, they can be named anything. 

Jimmy Lea: Okay. Especially if you're feeding them. Yeah, exactly. So, I have so many questions for you, but before we get into talking about voice controller, and this webinar today is co-sponsored by voice controller.

Jimmy Lea: I wanna know a little bit more about you, Rob. How did you get into the business? What was that point of you discovering? Oh, I'm working the auto repair business now. 

Rob Borden: Sure. I came to it different than I think a lot of shop owners do. I went to school, I was in a fraternity house. I had a fraternity brother that I was gonna school to be a civil engineer and I had a fraternity brother that said, Hey, what are you gonna do as an engineer?

Rob Borden: So I was telling him, and he is like, do you know how much money Elon Musk makes? Do you know how much money you know Jeff Bezos makes? Do you know what they do? They all own businesses. So he was a business major, right? So he convinced me that it was, I should shift my focus to business. I did finish, I actually have a master's in civil engineering.

Rob Borden: Wow. But after I graduated, I was still in town. I liked hanging out. And so we were trying to figure out what to do with life and he said, where there's a problem to be solved. There's money to be made. 

Jimmy Lea: True story. Nice. I like it. 

Rob Borden: And so, we were having a couple drinks and we wanted to go to downtown to go have a few more.

Rob Borden: And and so we got on the phone and we tried getting ahold of a taxi 'cause we were being responsible young adults and we wanted to, you know, get a ride. This is before Uber days, so it's hard to remember. 

Jimmy Lea: You're dating yourself now. 

Rob Borden: It is hard to remember that it's not that long ago. I mean, really like 10 years.

Jimmy Lea: It's really not ago. 

Rob Borden: Uber didn't exist, so, so anyway, so we were trying to figure that out and and there was no taxi companies in town and we said, oh, well perfect. There's the problem to be solved. So we started a taxi cab company. Oh my gosh. So we ended up with a fleet of almost 10 of them. 

Jimmy Lea: And where were you?

Jimmy Lea: Where was this? 

Rob Borden: Yeah. So this is still in Pullman, Washington, Moscow, Idaho. We're on the border two college towns. 

Jimmy Lea: Which colleges? 

Rob Borden: So, Washington State University and University of Idaho. 

Jimmy Lea: Okay, and what fraternity? 

Rob Borden: Phi Gamma Delta. Also known as Fiji. 

Jimmy Lea: Okay. I did not know that one. I'm a Sigma Kai.

Rob Borden: Ah, nice. 

Jimmy Lea: Yep. Very nice. Okay, continue on. You now have 10 cars in the fleet and you have a taxi company, you and your buddy responsible adults. 

Rob Borden: Yep. And and I had learned, my dad worked on cars, not in a professional capacity, but you know, in the driveway. And and I said. 

Jimmy Lea: So is he your head mechanic?

Rob Borden: No, he lived too far away. But but I always knew I didn't want to do that. I said, I'm not gonna do that. I'm not gonna fix cars. That's not what I'm gonna do. I, and I like he always did, and he always kind of wanted to be a mechanic. And so he was a driveway mechanic, right. But he had a. A real job.

Rob Borden: Right. He was a sales professional in a totally different industry, but oh yeah, on the weekends he worked on the cars in the driveway. He loved doing that. And so, and I said, I'm not doing that. Did a remodel frame up restoration on a 86 Jeep with him as a project, as a kid through high school.

Rob Borden: So I had some 

Jimmy Lea: And that cured you. 

Rob Borden: So Yeah. So I had lots of experience from a young age and anyway, so. Both my business partner and I both had some automotive experience in fixing cars. Not that we like doing it, so we were fixing these 10 cars. Well, 10, 10 used cars. I'll tell you, they, they need a lot of maintenance.

Rob Borden: So the thing they needed most was tires. And so we ended up and we didn't, we got tired of buying those from the tire shop. So we bought a tire machine. Okay. And we went to go buy a tire machine. And when we were talking to the local distributor, he said, I actually know of a tire shop that's for sale.

Rob Borden: And so instead of just buying the tire machines, just go buy the whole shop. And so we bought the shop. 

Jimmy Lea: Sure. 'cause that's a great idea. 

Rob Borden: It seemed like it. Yeah. 

Jimmy Lea: So, okay, keep going. 

Rob Borden: So that's how I got, that's how I got into the shop ownership game. Eventually the partnership fell apart as a lot of partnerships sometimes struggle.

Rob Borden: Sure. I learned a lot. We learned a lot. It was he is a good friend of mine. We still talk sometimes today. 

Jimmy Lea: Still friends. 

Rob Borden: We can be. 

Jimmy Lea: That's good. That's important. 

Rob Borden: Cordial. Yeah. Still cordial. Yeah. 

Jimmy Lea: Okay. 

Rob Borden: We sometimes share employees actually 'cause he's, I mean, not like share, but you know, they'll leave me and then they'll go to him or they'll leave him and they'll come to me.

Rob Borden: Sure. So, I mean, we're only eight. Our two shops are only eight miles apart. I. So the other day he called me like, Hey, this you know, past employee of yours just applied for me. What do you think? And so it, it's nice to have somebody that you can bounce those things off of back and forth. 

Rob Borden: So, nice.

Rob Borden: And maybe one day you might decide to buy him or maybe he decides to buy you. 

Rob Borden: We've had that conversation. So 

Rob Borden: yeah. One day. 

Jimmy Lea: So the picture behind you, is that the tire shop? 

Rob Borden: No, this is the, so. After we split ways, the way that split happened, I took the taxi cab company. Oh. And he kept the other auto shop.

Rob Borden: Okay. So I had the taxi cab company, I had it for about three months without owning a shop. And I said, oh, the whole reason we bought the shop was because the taxis need so much maintenance. So I opened another shop, I found a building, rented it, and here we are. 

Jimmy Lea: That's the building that's behind you. Four bays,

Rob Borden: Nine actually.

Rob Borden: So they, you enter in from the back, so they're doubled up. Okay. So there's another base set of doors on the backside plus an extra door. So nine Bay. Got it. Nine Bay facility. 

Jimmy Lea: Nine Bay facility. So how long ago was it this taxi scenario versus now you're in renting and you have your own facility?

Rob Borden: Yeah, so we've been here in this building since 2018, so seven years. So it's been a while. Oh. 

Jimmy Lea: Dude, I was thinking 2018. Oh yeah, this is like a couple years ago. 

Rob Borden: Yeah. Time flies. 

Rob Borden: Yeah. See Uber was only 10, 12 years ago. 

Jimmy Lea: YY yeah. Okay. So do you still have the taxi company or is that done? 

Rob Borden: So sold it a year ago to.

Rob Borden: There was a new competitor that launched and like shortly after we did, so remember there was no taxis in our town. Yep. We launched this big company. We make it fun and cool to take taxis. We didn't continue to grow because we bought this other shop, so we were focused on the shop and we didn't just keep adding cars.

Rob Borden: Right. So it allowed room for another company to start. So that other company started and they did, they're doing a good job. Good job. And so we, when we were getting ready to, we were realizing the shop was just making so much more money than the cab company was. For our time. You were happy, the amount of time.

Jimmy Lea: You were happy part ways.

Rob Borden: Yeah. The time versus money scenario made more sense to focus on the shop. So, my wife and I were talking about it. We decided to let somebody else do the taxi thing and we evaluated a couple different suitors people that, you know, trying to buy it out. And we ended up going with the compe our com.

Rob Borden: We gave it to our competitor. So now they have a cute little monopoly in the town. And it, I think it made the most sense. 

Rob Borden: You, you said for all parties. 

Jimmy Lea: Gave you, gave it to them. 

Rob Borden: No. 

Jimmy Lea: So you sold it? 

Rob Borden: We did sell it, yeah. Okay. So in, in selling it, we had multiple people who were interested in buying it.

Jimmy Lea: Got it. 

Rob Borden: And we made the decision to sell it to our competitor, even though technically their bid was a little less, but I knew that they would have a higher chance of success. 

Jimmy Lea: Oh, for sure. For sure. That's super awesome. And congratulations and for doing that. That's a good way to go out. So, you've sold the Cab company.

Jimmy Lea: 20 18, 7 years ago, right? 

Rob Borden: Nope. Sold the cab company last year.

Jimmy Lea: Last year, yep. And so now you're focusing a hundred percent on the auto repair. And w So now what? 

Rob Borden: Yeah, so we've dabbled in a handful of different things, kind of serial entrepreneur trying really hard. This year my wife and I, we decided we just need to focus on this business.

Rob Borden: We've done a number of other things that we don't need to go into today, but trying to start other various business ventures and make things happen. Yeah, including a car wash that we just bought. I mean, so we're doing lots of things but we're trying to focus, there's a lot of potential still that the shop has to offer.

Rob Borden: We did 2.2 million last year. When you look at congratulations. That's awesome. Thanks. When you look at what the shop could do I think that there's a lot of upward movement and probably more so than what I could get out of another venture, just tweaking of a few small things. I could get a lot more out of this venture than trying to go do a whole new something different.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so why buy a car wash? 

Rob Borden: So as you can see in the picture behind me, there's only there's only room for a handful of cars. Yeah. So our this, you're looking at the entire parking lot. I'm taking the picture from the street, so it's very Well you got like eight spaces. Yeah. So in total on property, 'cause there's a few behind the building as well.

Rob Borden: We have room for about 15 cars. So you need a car wash for the parking. That's what it was for. So, it's, you could literally throw a football behind the building and hit it on the backside of it that way. 

Jimmy Lea: Okay. 

Rob Borden: Anyway, there's a car wash back that way. It went up for sale and I knew that if they were to tear the building down and turn it into apartments or something, I would lose the parking of the street that we used too. So, 

Rob Borden: And then there's a big grassy space that we're gonna pave over there. So, I mean, that's kind of a bummer, but it'll then give us a bunch more parking stalls. 

Jimmy Lea: Nice. Nice. Good for you. 

Rob Borden: It was kind of been a necessity. 

Rob Borden: Yeah. You needed it for the parking space, not necessarily the car wash. So will you keep the car wash or will you flatten it?

Rob Borden: Yeah, I've kind of gone back and forth. We'll see if it's profitable. Okay. For anyone listening? Car wash. The car wash industry, at least so far, my experience three months in has not been as profitable as I would've guessed. So it might get flattened. We'll see. 

Jimmy Lea: Interesting. Interesting. 

Rob Borden: Yeah. I always thought laundromats and car washes were like just. Little quarter gold machines, but this one doesn't seem to be doing that.

Jimmy Lea: And the car wash that when I was in college, there was a car wash, laundromat. Pet wash. Altogether. And he did quite well, but he was the only one. 

Rob Borden: Yeah. We do have three other car washes in town, so. 

Jimmy Lea: Oh, interesting.

Rob Borden: Well, Kyle says, keep it value your clients. Do a quick wash after every repair. Yep. Do you do that? 

Jimmy Lea: It's not something that we do yet. We're still trying to get the, it's everything over. There's currently on quarters, so we're trying to, we have credit card machines that are going in. Those credit card machines will then have a, an employee pass, and then we'll run our cars through it after we're done.

Jimmy Lea: So we will do that as a value add, but right now my employees would have to go over there and then put quarters in the machine to try and make the machine wash. So that just doesn't work. 

Rob Borden: No, I hear you. 

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. 

Rob Borden: Which I think is maybe why it's not getting a lot of business. 'cause who has quarters? 

Jimmy Lea: I don't. No, me neither. No, not at all. Not at all. In fact, we went on a trip on a cruise. We figured after we were done, we're gonna hit a hotel and go do some Disneyland. So we brought a bag full of quarters. 'cause we figured we'll hit the laundromat credit card. Yeah, you don't need quarters anymore. So I think you're onto something there.

Jimmy Lea: Hopefully you, you keep that and it works well for you. So what does the, what's the next steps? What's the future look like for you? 

Rob Borden: Yeah. Our goal this year is to do 3 million. Wow. Which is a pretty big jump from the two two, but we did one eight the year before. So I don't know. We've found that we just need to keep putting another person in another bay and keep making more and more people happy and keep sending out the advertisements and people just keep knocking down our door and, for what it's worth, we are the most expensive shop in town by the dollar. Like the amount of actual money it costs to have a break job done. Yeah. We are the most expensive shop. Yep. We do all makes, all models. Cool. But the, our differentiating proposition, if you will, is that we offer amazing customer service three year, 36,000 mile nationwide warranty.

Jimmy Lea: Nice. 

Rob Borden: Three loaner cars. By the time you start stacking up all that value master certified technicians, everybody in the building except for one guy who's currently working on it. So we have four master certified techs, a fifth person who's working on it. So we offer a ton of value. So, dollar per value. I think we probably offer more value than anybody else in town and we justify the price. 

Jimmy Lea: Oh, for sure. Congratulations. That's awesome. So I've always said that the positivity becomes a magnet and you just attract the right people. You have the right technicians in the bays, you have the right front counter.

Jimmy Lea: They're taking care of the people. The people. People want that. They want that. Yes. More than they want The inexpensive repair. 

Rob Borden: Yeah. They want that perfect experience. That just goes well. 

Jimmy Lea: I love that. Congratulations, Rob. That's awesome. So dollar amount wise, are you also more expensive than the dealerships too?

Rob Borden: Yeah. 

Rob Borden: Yeah. That's. 

Jimmy Lea: Congratulations. 

Rob Borden: That was kind of, that was actually kind of tough, to be honest. That's a tough barrier to when a customer comes in and says, Hey, I was just at the dealer and they quoted this and you have it at this. How do you justify that? And I'm like, well, when you were at the dealer, did you ask for a loaner car?

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. 

Rob Borden: When you look at the bottom of their estimate, what's their warranty? 

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. 

Rob Borden: I'm not sure that they're offering a better service. 

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. 

Rob Borden: So oftentimes what we'll do in that moment, in full transparency is we'll just match the price. Right. But we do have a conversation about the added value that they get. And the reality is that's why they came back to us. 

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. 

Rob Borden: Because, 'cause if it truly was just about price and they didn't see the value, they would've just settled for the cheaper brake job at the dealer. 

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. And if you don't want the loaner, okay, we can match the pricing, but if you're gonna need a loaner, this is what it's gonna be.

Rob Borden: Yeah. And we sometimes have those negotiations. Yeah. Yeah. 

Rob Borden: You just, you just, it's always on the up and up. Always smiles. I love it. Always having a good time. Yeah. 

Jimmy Lea: I love it. Congratulations. That's super awesome. So, let's talk about the the phones. Phones ringing. Yeah. Sounds like your shop is very busy.

Rob Borden: Very busy. 

Jimmy Lea: And you've implemented a program in your shop with ai, with voice controller. Tell me a little bit about this. Why implement something like this into your shop? 

Rob Borden: Yeah, so a couple things. One, we're in a college town, so Okay. We have lots of students who come in. The students we're finding, I mean, mailers are generally a pretty good way of advertising in our industry.

Rob Borden: And we do them still, but we get so much more return from our Facebook and Instagram ads or Snapchat ads, TikTok, I mean, but we're on all those social media. 

Jimmy Lea: That's where they are. 

Rob Borden: And so we have to go where they're at. So we do advertise in all those medias. And so we're trying to stay on the leading edge of all that as best as we can.

Rob Borden: So having an AI help answer the phone just kinda makes sense. I did actually in my journey to finding voice controller I almost paid a hundred grand to have a a virtual AI service advisor built for me. So there's there's some god, ah, yeah. So I had the whole quote put up together and was really considering 'cause a hundred grand in the scheme of things Really?

Rob Borden: Well, a lot of money. That's what I paid my advisor a year and I got three of them, so, right. 

Jimmy Lea: So that adds up quick, but that would be a hundred grand today and then nothing to up keep. 

Rob Borden: Maintenance cost. 

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. 

Rob Borden: So anyway, so I didn't end up doing that. A hundred grand seemed like a lot. The technology I don't think is quite there yet.

Rob Borden: So, and so in really digging in, I just don't think it would actually provide the user experience that I'm really trying to provide at this time. I think the future's coming. 

Jimmy Lea: Oh man. It is so close. So what is your ai, what does voice controller do for you right now? 

Rob Borden: Yeah, so voice controller, what it's doing for us is, it's answering the phone when we don't, and so prior to finding voice controller, we never, we didn't have a voice machine set up. And it technically I think, went there after maybe two or three minutes, but we never checked it. We were just too busy. There's just too much happening. Yeah, it just fell there and they'll call back if it's important, so.

Rob Borden: Okay. And so it was really helpful for us. It then helped pick up the calls during the week, on the weekend when we're not here, 'cause we're Monday through Friday. So what happens on the weekend? People still call you a shop? I didn't know how many people called my shop. Actually kind of was embarrassed when I realized how many people called and we weren't open.

Rob Borden: So, I did pull some stats for whatever value it is. Last week. 

Jimmy Lea: I wanna know. 

Rob Borden: Yeah. So last weekend just couple days ago between Saturday and Sunday, we had 11 people call the shop over the weekend. Okay? So 11 people called. Out of those 11 people that called, three of them had meaningful conversations with the AI chatbot that they were talking back and forth with, and one of those ended up actually being a new appointment.

Rob Borden: So the other two were somebody saying, Hey, one guy, he was little. Interesting character. He called and he said, how do you justify? He's asking the ai, it's an elderly, it's an elderly gentleman. Yeah. He's asking the ai, how do you justify charging $180 for a headlight on my daughter's car? And he is, and he doesn't even talk about what car it is or who he is.

Rob Borden: But then the AI's like, oh, I'm so sorry to hear that there's a price discrepancy. Can I have a service advisor give you a call back? And he and the guy says, no, I don't need anyone. Call back. I'm just mad. And the AI's like, oh I'm so sorry. You're frustrated. And the AI just responded perfectly all the way through.

Rob Borden: And by the time the call was over, the the guy said, well, I guess have somebody call me. Thanks. And hangs up. So of course, Monday morning now, I get an email from Uhhuh a summary of this phone call and I go listen to the recording. And I realize he is kind of a crackpot. But anyway, I call the guy and make sure that everything's fine and talk through the, how we came to that pricing on that car.

Rob Borden: And anyway, so it was that was a call that we would've just missed maybe. Oh, totally. And I mean we did kind of miss it. Right. But the AI picked it up and was able to then have a conversation. The guy was able to get enough of his anger in that moment out that then Monday morning, he wasn't standing at our front lobby complaining.

Jimmy Lea: Yes. 

Rob Borden: Right. He got enough of the complaint out that then. 

Jimmy Lea: And then when you called, he was more receptive. 

Rob Borden: Totally. So I think for all the shop owners on here, you guys have probably experienced, when you have a angry customer up front that's mad at your service advisor comes and finds you and then says, Hey, this is what's going on.

Rob Borden: You walk up front, you say hi to the person, you say, hi, my name's Rob. I'm the, you know, I'm the owner. What? What can I help you with? Everything just goes like this. 

Rob Borden: It just drops. 

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. 

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. 

Rob Borden: And it's because the person just wants to talk to the second person. They don't wanna talk to the first person.

Rob Borden: Yeah. So sometimes the AI can help you be the first person. 

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. The AI is the first. Now you become the second. Oh, I love it. Yeah. So, okay. I want to do, can you put dollars to Yeah. Donuts here? 

Rob Borden: Yes, I can. So I think it's worth going just a little further. So, out of the three calls that came in this weekend, yes.

Rob Borden: One of them was the angry older gentleman. 

Jimmy Lea: Okay, well, hold on a second. Let's go back. So there's 11, that means that eight of 'em what? Eight of them didn't, yeah. Engage. 

Rob Borden: Eight of 'em heard. Eight of 'em heard that it was an AI and said, I don't want to engage and hung up the phone. Okay. So, so there is a very real amount of people who just aren't willing to accept the technology yet, so that is a thing.

Rob Borden: Yeah. Okay. So eight. Don't engage. Three do. One guy complains, the other person said, Hey, I'm just calling to check up on the status of my vehicle. 

Jimmy Lea: Okay. 

Rob Borden: And the AI informs them that we're closed and does it in a really nice good way that then the customer's like, oh, okay. I guess that makes sense. Can you, and then the AI asks, would you like me to schedule a service advisor to give you a call back on Monday when we open?

Rob Borden: Okay, great. We'll do, so the customer ends that, fine enough. Right. But they had a conversation with it. I mean, they, I sometimes, I think when you listen to the calls, you can tell the customers are just trying to see how smart is this thing. 

Jimmy Lea: Right? Yeah. I'm gonna test it. 

Rob Borden: Yeah. Which is pretty cool.

Rob Borden: And then the third the third person called and they said, Hey, I'd like to schedule an oil change. And the AI just responded perfectly with, sure, no problem. Is there anything else going on with your car? No, nothing else going on with my car. Great. I can set you up on Tuesday or Thursday at this time or this time, what works best for you and literally just scripted right through it and the customer scheduled book the appointment.

Rob Borden: And then we got an email that then said all of the things that all the hit points so that, that way Monday morning we were able to enter that into our point of sale system. We're currently using tech metric. 

Jimmy Lea: Okay. Is there talk of that going directly into tech metric or, yeah, that's, that is always stay apart.

Rob Borden: My fingers are crossed. My fingers are crossed that's coming. It sounds like it's in the pipeline. I've I've just been told that there's some beta going on, so hopefully I get to be a part of that. 

Jimmy Lea: Oh, that'd be fun. 

Rob Borden: But that'd be cool if it could go directly in there. Yeah, I do know that it goes directly into their other shop management system.

Rob Borden: They have their own voice controller has their own shop management system. 

Jimmy Lea: Shop controller. 

Rob Borden: Yep. And so it does work with that. So if you have it, it's auto integrated already, but. 

Jimmy Lea: Wow. Oh, that, that's cool. So you imagine that the customer experience, here it is, the weekend, I know I need an oil change, but I'm so busy during the week, this is the time I can call, I can now call.

Jimmy Lea: Now I, I want an oil service. Now what if I add to my order? What if I want? It just says hot tires rotated. I need new windshield wipers and I want to air filter. Will it look for a block of time that is appropriate? 

Rob Borden: You know, that's a great question. I don't know the answer to that. 

Jimmy Lea: Probably. 

Rob Borden: Yeah. Sounds like, so I know that at least with currently the way my system is set up Yeah. Or the way that we're utilizing it is we get an email that tells us all these things. So it's, when it's evaluating time of day, we have it set so that way it'll not do more than two appointments in any given hour.

Rob Borden: That's just how we set it up. 

Jimmy Lea: Oh, nice. 

Rob Borden: So it's just gonna call that an appointment, whether someone says it's a DAG or whatever, it's just gonna call it an appointment. Yep. And you can't have more than two appointments in any one hour. 

Jimmy Lea: Nice. So it won't schedule more than two or. 

Rob Borden: Correct. 

Jimmy Lea: Okay. 

Rob Borden: But it doesn't necessarily currently know what things we have in any given time.

Rob Borden: So that's, we have nine bays. Right. 

Jimmy Lea: There's. They're still separate. You got nine bays, so you could take a lot more than a guy with four bays or six bays. You two an hour. 

Rob Borden: That's some flexibility. Yeah. Yeah. Two an hour is no problem. 

Jimmy Lea: Right. 

Rob Borden: And then we don't let it set anything for eight o'clock just 'cause there's so much that happens at eight that someone wants to schedule with the ai. We make a schedule after nine o'clock. 

Jimmy Lea: Yes. 

Rob Borden: It's just a little nuance. 

Jimmy Lea: Well shoot. You're just barely showing up. Clicking on the coffee pot. You're, I mean, come on, we, and you're walking in the door. Hey, wait a second. We just got here five minutes ago. 

Rob Borden: Yeah. 

Jimmy Lea: Nine o'clock. 

Rob Borden: So maybe that's my key. Maybe that's my key to the 3 million. Maybe I need to open it. Maybe I need to have the AI schedule at eight o'clock. We'll see. 

Jimmy Lea: Well, do you have the night drop? You have a key drop? 

Rob Borden: We do, yeah. 

Jimmy Lea: Yep. There you go. They could drop anytime. Yep. 

Rob Borden: Yeah. We do actually have people at the front counter at seven, so. 

Jimmy Lea: Oh, well. 

Rob Borden: We just, the technicians by the time we have a morning meeting and all the things. I just don't like having people wait in my lobby at eight in the morning. 

Jimmy Lea: Oh, I, yeah, I agree. I agree. I think it's wise. And if you have the choice to be able to do it that way, 

Jimmy Lea: I mean, shoot, test it. Test it. Rob, for a week you do it 8:00 AM for a week, you do it 9:00 AM for a week, you do it 8:00 AM a week, you do it 9:00 AM what's the experience?

Rob Borden: Right. And when a customer calls and they're set on eight, we'll give it to 'em at eight. 

Jimmy Lea: Sure. Sure. 

Rob Borden: So that, so I just shared with you what happened over the weekend. Yes. Let's talk about during the week. So during the week. Okay. I have three advisors. Right. 

Jimmy Lea: During the week, are you talking about last week or were you talking about so far this week?

Jimmy Lea: What do you where? Give us reference. 

Rob Borden: Oh, recall. Yeah. Last week. So I pulled the information for last week. So Monday through Friday last week I had three advisors working the front counter. We handle just under 400 cars a month. Okay. Just in terms of size, that's what we're doing. Phone rings all the time.

Rob Borden: It's ringing. Yeah. And it seems like it's always ringing, but we got three people up there to answer it, right? 

Jimmy Lea: Yes. 

Rob Borden: But I'll tell you, it's amazing how many calls get missed. You don't even know that you're missing 'em. Like I think that we run a good business. I like to think that my guys don't miss any phone calls and that they're excellent.

Jimmy Lea: Right. 

Rob Borden: But life happens. And if you're not on the front counter, you won't see that. It gets missed. They get missed. So we had 21 total calls last week that were missed. 

Jimmy Lea: Missed. 

Rob Borden: So we had 21 phone calls that the advisors didn't answer. That's an average of what, four a day? 

Jimmy Lea: Yeah,.

Rob Borden: It's busy. I. It was very busy.

Jimmy Lea: Well, okay, so we're blessed because you're busy and then you're, I mean, you missed 21. Okay, so gimme some numbers here. Now, what's some results from the 21? 

Rob Borden: Yeah, so out of the 21, 7 people had a meaningful conversation with the ai. 

Jimmy Lea: 30%. Okay. Keep going. Yep. 

Rob Borden: And I say meaningful, you know, we kind of talked about two different examples of what meaningful meant, right?

Rob Borden: For sure. But during the week, most of what those are is the person is frustrated. They didn't make it to somebody, but at least they're being talked to and told. An advisor will call them back when we're no longer busy. 

Jimmy Lea: Excellent, excellent. Okay. 

Rob Borden: And so it at least appeases them in that moment to some extent.

Rob Borden: And then an advisor can then give them a call back. 

Jimmy Lea: Caller number one. 

Rob Borden: Yep. And then out of that, we actually had three people book an appointment during the week. So we had four total appointments between last week and the week and this last weekend. And we have an average a RO of 750 bucks. Times four.

Rob Borden: So that's $3,000 of business that potentially we would've missed. 

Jimmy Lea: True. 

Rob Borden: Would we have, maybe they would've called back. Maybe they would've called back a later time. Maybe they would've waited till Monday. But on the same token, I know when I've had my service advisors, every time I have a new service advisor in the first week of training, I have 'em call all of our competitors.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, wow. Okay. 

Rob Borden: And I want them to ask some just basic questions. So they're calling some of you guys. 

Rob Borden: Yeah. Not really. You're not my town, but. 

Jimmy Lea: Well, and what's interesting too is you give them a solid foundation that says. This is why we're better because you've called everybody. You know what they're saying.

Jimmy Lea: And this is our script. This is what we're doing. This is why we're better. So, yeah. Okay. Keep going. You have 'em call everybody in town. 

Rob Borden: Yep. And so they then get to hear how that process goes. And some people are not as good at answering the phone as others. And, so what I, how I believe a customer's mind works when they're wanting something fixed.

Rob Borden: I gotta check engine light and I'm frustrated. I don't know where to go. They go to Google, they look it up, and they start calling. They start at the top and they work their way down and they go until they find somebody that they like. I. It's not about money, it's about who they like. And so somebody says 150 bucks, someone says 120 bucks.

Rob Borden: Someone says 180. They're, it's not about price. They're asking you price, but it's not about price. They finally get to you and you have compassion and care and offer a solution, and the money doesn't matter, and then they come in. So I like that the AI answers the phone and has the compassion. And that piece of it and understanding, and I think that the caller, not all callers, right, we just talked not all of them, but some of them do then enjoy getting that moment and are willing to then set the appointment.

Rob Borden: 'cause they say, wow, that's kind of a cool shop. They're. Implementing, you know, state-of-the-art technology. 

Jimmy Lea: Love it. 

Rob Borden: Which is kind of a big thing, right? So maybe, 

Jimmy Lea: oh yeah, 

Rob Borden: I'll use that on my car. State-of-the-art technology. 

Jimmy Lea: So it's a progressive shop, so chances are they're trained, they know what they're doing, they're implementing future technology.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. Yeah. Okay, so I'm gonna do some quick math here. Sure. $3,000. In one week times four weeks, let's call that $12,000. I don't know if that's what you've done with your, 

Rob Borden: I haven't broken down the math over all time. I literally just pulled the stats for this last week, just outta curiosity before I hopped on the call. 

Jimmy Lea: And I love it.

Rob Borden: So you assume that's an average 12 grand a month worth of revenue. That is at least indirectly related to that appointment being, I mean, it's directly related to that appointment being set. 

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. 

Rob Borden: We had to do a lot of other things to earn the business. Right? 

Jimmy Lea: Sure. Oh yeah. 

Rob Borden: But but directly related to an appointment set by voice controller 

Jimmy Lea: because the call would've been missed it. 

Rob Borden: Yeah, it was missed. It was the weekend or my guys were busy, or it happened after hours. 

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. And even if the projection is half off and it's not 12,000, it's $6,000. 

Rob Borden: Yeah. And you gotta figure out what your a RO is, right. What your profit margin is. Yeah. What's, I mean, I mean, we. Our industry shoots for typically 20%, but even if you figure 10% for quick numbers, 10% of 12 grand on a month, 1200 bucks.

Rob Borden: Man, that's a killer. ROII, I don't know exactly what they're charging new customers these days, but I think it's about a hundred bucks though. 

Jimmy Lea: So how long have you been on voice controller? 

Rob Borden: Yeah, good question. We've been doing it for about a year. We signed up last August. 

Jimmy Lea: Whoa. Yeah, so oh, August. So August will be a year for you. 

Rob Borden: Yeah. So maybe eight months. Yeah. Okay. August. Yeah, something like that. 

Jimmy Lea: And wow. Did you see it with immediate results or was it like something that had to progressively get.

Rob Borden: Honestly, it felt like I. It felt like right in the beginning, the results were honestly the best.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. 

Rob Borden: And I think that's because it was so new. 

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. 

Rob Borden: And I do think some of those people who called have probably called us before. They're repeat customers. Yeah. And they said I'll just wait and I'll call back. Right. And they understand maybe that we're busy. So in the beginning we had a lot, I think we had more engagement with it than we do now.

Rob Borden: And I think it's just because people have kinda learned what it can do. 

Jimmy Lea: Oh yeah. Yeah. So your clientele is becoming more comfortable with it as well, which is awesome. And you're able to capture those calls on nights and weekends. Okay. So Cliff's got a question here. What's your hours, what are your 

Jimmy Lea: shop hours?

Rob Borden: Yeah, so our front door is open seven 30 to five 30. 

Jimmy Lea: Okay. 

Rob Borden: And our technicians are here eight to five and we're Monday through Friday.

Jimmy Lea: Eight to five. And so are people there answering the phone? Seven 30 to five 30? 

Rob Borden: Yep. And to be fair, we have like two guys that are here at seven that are answering the phone early, and they're here till six.

Rob Borden: I mean, our official store hours are seven 30 to five 30, but I, everybody here is all on profit sharing. So they're all encouraged to get here early, stay late and work hard. And I mean, I got texts sometimes that are here until 10. So, I mean, they're not supposed to be, but they, you know, if they're trying to get a project out and they wanna make the money, their flat rate they'll get it done.

Jimmy Lea: There you go. There you go. I like that. All right. Kyle has a question as well. Is this only for landline services or does this also stretch into mobile cell phones? And I don't know if you'll know that answer, Rob or not. 

Rob Borden: I don't, we use a VoIP phone VoIP or our phones voice over ip. Yep. Yeah. So that would be, and the way and I would guess that it actually probably does work on mobile would be my guess 'cause the way that our system is set up is what happens in. We've set our VoIP system up. So instead of going to a voicemail after a certain amount of time, it forwards the call to a different number that voice controller gave me. So it calls that number. So I would assume with a mobile phone that if you could set it up to forward to a different number, you, it would work just fine.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Interesting. 

Rob Borden: And I think you can do that. 'cause I'm thinking back to my taxi cab business days. Yeah. And we used we used a different phone system for that, but our competitor, they went to, I don't know, Verizon, at t, whatever it was, and they had it, so it rang the first phone and then when they didn't answer, it rang the second phone cell phone.

Rob Borden: And then when it didn't answer, it rang the third phone. And so they had three drivers. And the drivers were always fighting over who had phone one. 

Jimmy Lea: Oh, for sure. 

Rob Borden: So, the way our system worked is we used RingCentral and it hit all the phones at the same time, so it was whoever could answer it fastest good.

Rob Borden: We had 10 of them. Right. It wouldn't have made sense to be the 10th phone. You'd never have gotten any business. 

Jimmy Lea: No. Never. Yeah. 

Rob Borden: So I'm sure that voice controller works great with mobile. I'm sure that they could figure out a way to make that work. 

Jimmy Lea: Wow. All right. So your advice here for anybody checking out phone systems, ai, voice controller what advice would you give anybody checking out this system?

Rob Borden: Yeah. I think maybe temper your expectations. I mean, it, I just shared last week's data. It's excellent, but if I look at it. 

Jimmy Lea: But you're also eight months on the program. Yeah. Typical results, not typical in month one. 

Rob Borden: Yeah. And you know, so 21 plus 11, we had 30. Two calls last week, right? And out of those 32 calls, only 10 people engaged and only four people actually booked an appointment.

Rob Borden: So if you start looking at all the ones if you view life from a half empty perspective instead of a half full perspective, you could say, well, it's not working it's not doing anything right. But I'm excited about just the little bit that it does do that I was gonna miss anyway. 

Jimmy Lea: Yes. 

Rob Borden: And now I turned the little bit that I was gonna miss anyway into something awesome.

Rob Borden: And I mean, we do, you know, 200, 250,000 a month, so 12 grand. I mean, what is that? 5% of our business? That's pretty big. That's a pretty big chunk. 

Jimmy Lea: That's beautiful. That is a beautiful scenario. I really like that. I like that it's working for you, so definitely need to check it out. And you're on tech metrics, so hopefully in the future there's some two-way integration with it probably.

Rob Borden: Yeah, sounds like that's coming. 

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. And I would guess that anybody that is a cloud-based system would be able to have that integration possibility in the near future. There's just, there's so code to write in the background. 

Rob Borden: Yeah, there's I've noticed this last year there's been a whole bunch of partnerships between technology companies.

Rob Borden: Yeah. I mean, there's been lots of merges, right? So as those merges continue it will just continue making it better for all of us as shop owners. 

Jimmy Lea: Yep yep. A lot of friend partners. Yes. Friend partners happening in that arena. Yes. Which is, that's awesome. So from our audience, any other questions, comments, concerns, go ahead and type those into the q and a.

Jimmy Lea: We'd love to ask Rob before we let 'em go. And Rob, I do have one question that I'm gonna ask unless somebody else pipes in with their questions as well. My question is, if you had. A magic wand and you had one wish, what would you wish for the industry?

Rob Borden: that's a good question.

Rob Borden: I am not trying to overthink it, but I think the one, the thing I would wish the most is that that we could help elevate our profession. Higher in the social status arena. 

Jimmy Lea: I love that. 

Rob Borden: I think that there's a lot of people blue collar work. I think we do. I truly believe we are in an industry that is uncomparable to any other, and I'm talking with my, I have a brand new service advisor this week and I'm doing some training with them and we're talking through, and I really just don't think that there's any industry that compares to ours.

Rob Borden: And I think that a lot of other industries, you can draw similarities between each other, but I think in ours there's just, it's such a huge field and there's just so much to it that we talk about often On our front counter, we talk about how our technicians are doctors and that, and we use analogies to, you know, the di the only thing that.

Rob Borden: It's different between us and going to the doctors. When you go to the doctor, your body potentially could heal itself before the next doctor visit. 

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. 

Rob Borden: But your car will not heal itself between this next oil change, so you need to fix whatever this is today. Right. But I do think that we are up there in.

Rob Borden: Level of difficulty with some of that with those other professions. And I my one wish would be that, that the public would see us that way. So I think it's our job as shop owners to elevate the industry. And that's why I'm not afraid to, like I said in the beginning, you know, we are the most expensive and by dollar.

Rob Borden: Yeah. And I'm okay with that 'cause we provide a ton of value. 

Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. I love it. Rob. We are, we just came home from our annual meeting at the summit. Carm had a presentation, a speech that he gave that talked about the term mechanic, that our industry has changed it, it's now a technician. And over the last 5, 6, 7, 8 years, it's been changed again.

Jimmy Lea: Are you aware of this? 

Rob Borden: So we call 'em experts here. Nice. I love that. Is that the terminology? Is that what you. 

Jimmy Lea: What he determined is that it is now an automotive specialist. Ah, yeah, that's good. So an automotive repair specialist and the term technician has been utilized by so many other industries now that it has lost its luster and expert.

Jimmy Lea: Love it. Because expert is always descriptive of what we do in the automotive industry. Automotive repair specialist. It's a bit, that's a good one too, of a long name, but you know, maybe we'll work on an acronym there. 

Rob Borden: Yeah. 

Jimmy Lea: That current one doesn't work. We'll have to work on that one. 

Rob Borden: Sure. 

Jimmy Lea: Yeah.

Jimmy Lea: Yvette is asking, how did you come up with the name of your shop? The Hive. 

Rob Borden: Yeah. So, back to the taxi cab story. So, when we very first started well not, so remember, there was a competitor that launched very quickly thereafter, and that competitor said, 'cause we had 10 cabs and they only had three.

Rob Borden: And so they said the. It was a little mini cab war that happened at the airport and there was, it's a small regional airport, so there's not a lot of parking and Right. We would take up all the taxi spots. They wanted room in there anyway, so they were making fun of us and they said, you look like a bunch of bees.

Rob Borden: Just swarming around this airport. 'cause we literally took 10 cars and you couldn't be in any parking stall more than 10 minutes, but there was only a couple of them. So we just had all of ours lining up and every 10 minutes it would move and another one of us would slide into the spot and we timed it so that, that way they couldn't get in.

Rob Borden: Like I said, there's a little bit of cab going on, so, so. Because they said, we look like a bunch of bees. We said, how fun. When we then decided that when we opened a shop, when I opened a shop and now we had a new space, we said, let's just go back to the hive. Let's go back to the hive. And so the shop actually started not as an auto shop per se.

Rob Borden: It started as a place where we were fixing our taxi cabs. It was a, you know, we had couches and a lounge in there where the drivers would all hang out and watch TV and whatever. And then finally I kicked 'em all out and put in lifts and made more money. 

Jimmy Lea: There you go. 

Rob Borden: So that's how we became the hive.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. And I like the idea of the hive too, because the bees as a collective, as a community, they take care of each other. So here you are al also taking care of. Moscow, Idaho and the surrounding area to make sure everybody's safe on the roads, which is good for you as well. Yeah. Very cool.

Jimmy Lea: Well, the last couple of questions that are coming through here are about who it is. Are you talking about there's so many AI programs available in the industry right now? Who are you talking about? The company we're talking about? Let's see who asked. And Kyle is voice controller, so use this link up here in the top left corner there.

Jimmy Lea: So that voice controller knows that you are coming to them from our webinar, and it helps us to prove that these webinars are valuable, that they're of worth, that they're getting good information out there for the industry. And that's our goal. That's our mantra is to help the industry. We're gonna lock arms.

Jimmy Lea: This is a crazy storm we're in, and not every ship is created equal, but together, if we lock arms, nobody will be left behind. We can weather this storm together. So there's my hive story for you. Rob, thank you for joining us today. Rob, thank you so much for your experience. Thank you for your insight and your influence in the industry.

Jimmy Lea: Thank you for helping to elevate the automotive repair in Moscow, Idaho. Thank you very much. 

Rob Borden: Thanks, Jimmy. Appreciate you having me on today. 

Jimmy Lea: Yeah, you're very welcome and thank you everybody for joining. We'll see you again next week.