How to Speed Up RV Repairs: Game-Changing Tips for Parts and Warranty Work

Today, I share my sit down interview with Todd Nuttall, President of Bish’s RV. After spending three days at Bish’s getting an inside look at RV repairs. This episode, covers game-changing solutions for RV repairs, the key questions to ask your dealer about warranty work, and how to get the parts you need—faster.

Updated information:    

• Bish Fix is now called RV Fix 
• The RV Fix Membership Prices are getting ready to change so check it out now (no code is needed)
• SEE the interview on my YouTube Channel Inspired Travels With Patti 

Thank you for listening to the RV LIFE Podcast, I would love to hear from you, please leave me a comment or question here on the podcast page or on my social media channels:
RV LIFE Podcast Instagram or RV LIFE Podcast Facebook 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Are you looking for a better solution for your RV
repairs?
I'm Pettie Hunt and you'relistening to the RV Life Podcast
.
Today, I'm sharing myconversation with Todd Nettle,
the president of Bishes RV,after spending three days at

(00:24):
Bishes getting an inside look atRV repairs.
This episode will be coveringgame-changing solutions for RV
repairs and key questions to askyour dealer about warranty work
and how to get parts faster.
The RV Life podcast was createdto entertain, educate and

(00:46):
explore the RV lifestyle, withthe mission to inspire you to
live life to the fullest.
Before we jump in, I want totalk about my friends at Open
Road Resorts.
If you are looking for someparks to stay at this year, they
have five incredible parks inIdaho, nebraska, new Mexico and

(01:08):
two in Texas.
All of their parks are highlyfavored parks and they're listed
on the RV Life CampgroundReview site.
These parks were chosen to behighly favored by you, the RVers
.
To check out what you RVers hadto say about these parks, go to

(01:28):
campgroundsrvlifecom or go toopenroadresortscom to check it
all out.
Let's jump into this episode,which is different.
I actually recorded thisepisode a few months ago and
there are some changes that Iwant to let you know about First

(01:51):
, instead of it being calledBish Fix, the product that we're
going to talk about is calledRV Fix, and to find out
everything you need to knowabout Bishes RV and the new RV
fix, you can go to rvfixcom orbishesrvcom.

(02:12):
I also have some big changesand this episode is not only
audio on the podcast, but youcan check it out on my new
YouTube channel called InspiredTravels with Patti, and there
will not only be this interviewabout fishes, but I have a few

(02:34):
others that you will see on myYouTube channel.
So let's jump into my interviewwith Todd Nuttall.
I interview with Todd Nuttall.
I want to hear a little bitabout you.
You have been with Bishes forfive years.
That's right, you're married andhave six kids?
Okay, but who are you Tell us?

(02:56):
Tell my listeners more aboutyou.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
Yeah, so Todd Nuttall Bishes RV for five years.
I've been in the RV industryreally ever since I got out of
college, so graduated college in2007 and started right into the
RV industry.
My family grew.
We had one kid when I graduatedcollege.
We have six kids now, five boysand one girl.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
Yeah, she's second to last.
We started getting a littleconfident once we had a girl.
We're like, hey, let's get hera sister.
That didn't work out, so we gotanother little boy, but he's
awesome.
And, yeah, my wife is a saint,I work a lot and she is an
awesome mom and she would tellyou she has seven kids.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
I understand that I get that kids.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
I understand that.
I get that, yeah, so, but great, we left.
I graduated from University ofUtah, moved to Chicago and then
we moved to Boise and I ran anRV dealership in Boise for five
years, then moved back toChicago for five years and then
I moved back here and took a jobwith Bishes in Boise and I've
been here now five years.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
Five years and you're the president of the company.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
That's right, yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
Well, I want to welcome you to the RV Life
Podcast.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
I'm glad to be here.
Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
Thank you for having me.
Now we are here in the Bishes.
Now you don't call it corporateoffice.
That's what a lot of peoplerefer to it as.
What is this building actually?

Speaker 2 (04:18):
called.
We call it our DealershipSuccess Center.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
Dealership Success Center.
So I have been at theDealership Success Center for
the last two days and over atthe dealership and it has been
amazing.
So I'm really glad to have you,be able to talk to you and
share some of the things thatI've learned while I've been
here at Bishes.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
Have you ever heard the term corporate from a
location employee in anybusiness where they used
corporate in a positive way?

Speaker 1 (04:49):
True.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
Right, Very rarely right.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
Right and you think like me.
We've had a lot of conversation.
I think the same way you do.
I think about words and theiractual meaning, so I like that
you call this the.
What did you call?

Speaker 2 (05:05):
it Success center the success center.
Any employee we have that'soutside of our locations,
outside of our dealerships.
We want them to considerthemselves part of the success
of the team, and if they'redealing or interacting with our
people in any way, it's theirjob to help them be more
successful.
So that's where that came from.

Speaker 1 (05:21):
And it's so true I got to say as an outsider,
coming in for two days at thedealership and here at the
Success Center, I've been to alot of corporate, quote, unquote
corporate offices, a lot ofdifferent businesses, and you
guys have an environment herethat I have never seen before.

Speaker 2 (05:41):
Oh really, yes, well, hopefully that's good seen
before.
Oh really, yes, well, hopefullythat's good.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
It is an absolute amazing experience the way
people work together,communicate with each other,
care about each other, help andsupport each other.
You could see it and feel it assoon as you walk in the door.
So great job, whoever createdthis.

(06:03):
You can take some credit.

Speaker 2 (06:04):
I always feel like it comes from the top down and
trickles down.
Well, I appreciate that, yeah,and you can't really talk about
Bish's RV and really the reasonwhy I'm here without talking
about our owner and his wife, soTroy and Stacey and really it's
a family business from thestart.
So Bish's RV surprisinglystarted in Idaho Falls, but it
was a tack and saddle Westernwear shop.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
In 1940, right?
Yes, I did some of my own work.
Wow, yes.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
And really so.
Bish is the name of our owner'sgrandpa, and he had this
Western shop.
And one of his grandsons,troy's brother, wanted to start
this RV dealership and did itout of the back of this
Westernware shop, and so theycalled it Bish's RV, because it

(06:52):
was Bish's Westernware saddle,whatever.

Speaker 1 (06:54):
Because that's the grandfather's nickname that he
had.
Right, yes, okay.

Speaker 2 (06:59):
And he has a storied history of just doing the right
thing.
Even when, as a business backin the day of trading horses and
everything else, he was facedwith a lot of things, his
mindset was always do the rightthing for the customer, and our
owners have really taken that toheart and it's just embedded in
their DNA.
They're phenomenal people.

(07:21):
They're family first andthey're awesome, and everyone in
our company knows they'reawesome and are appreciative to
work with and for them.
So I'd like to take credit butI really can't.
That is just at the very heartof who we are.

Speaker 1 (07:35):
I read about a lot of that and their whole principle
was honesty, fair dealing andtreating customers right, and
I'd love that as an overall goal.
When the goal is to do what'sright no matter what, and in the
last two days of all thefilming and interviews that I've
done, that is the mission fromeverybody Do what's right, make

(07:57):
it better.
And we're going to talk aboutall that as we go through this
interview.
I'm so excited to be sittinghere with you face to face.
Okay, let's talk.
There's so much to talk about.
I'm trying to keep us on somekind of you know, moving forward
the company goals.
What are some of Bish's companygoals?
And again, I don't expect youto have a detail, but there are

(08:21):
goals that you have set up here.

Speaker 2 (08:23):
I guess, more than goals, we have what we call our
North Star, and this is it'sgoing to, it's aspirational and
it's a little bit vague, butit's our guiding light, and so
we want to be the place thatcustomers want to shop, we want
to be the place where employeeswant to work and we want to be
the place where vendors want topartner.
It really is those three things,and we feel like if we use that

(08:47):
as our guiding light, then itinfluences so much of what we do
.
So like on the customer side.
We track things about ourcustomer sentiment, their
behavior, the things that theylike and don't like, more
severely than I ever have in mycareer anywhere else, and it
guides us.
We really, really take to heart, we want to be those things and

(09:07):
we realize customers have achoice, employees have a choice,
vendors have a choice, and wedon't take that lightly.
Ultimately, they get to choose,and so it's not about trying to
compel them to do business inone way or another.
It's trying to find ways thatwe can align our business with
the things that they want.
So they choose us and that'sreally how we operate.

Speaker 1 (09:28):
And that is.
I think that is great.
There, just to give somedetails, there are 23 locations.
I spent time at the Meridian inIdaho Meridian Idaho location,
which is outside Boise just formy listeners and viewers, to get
that background, and I had theopportunity to take the tour and
or take a tour.

(09:48):
I think it was just something Icreated.
I'm not sure it's somethingthat people do, but you see, all
of the things that you said,you could see that and feel that
with all of the people thatI've spoken to.
So as we go through, I want tolead people through what the
sales process looks like, whatgoing into one of your locations

(10:08):
is like, and are notsalespeople, they're sales
outfitters.
Do I have that?

Speaker 2 (10:26):
terminology right, yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 (10:27):
I got it right.
What does that look?

Speaker 2 (10:29):
like you really did your homework, I did.

Speaker 1 (10:31):
I did, and I was asking questions of people that
would share information.
So what's that look like whensomebody walks into one of your
dealerships?
That might be different thanjust going into any other
dealership.

Speaker 2 (10:46):
Yeah, I mean, I think it's a lot, probably a lot the
same, right, you walk in thedoor and there's someone there
to greet you.
We do want our outfitters togreet the customer, so we have
what we call a rotation wherewhen someone walks in, they take
turns greeting the customer.
Our outfitters again, wordsmatter and been in this industry
over 15 years and people don'tlove to be sold.

(11:09):
They do like to buy things, butwhat they really like is to
make a good decision.
And I think a lot of times as aconsumer for myself, if I put
myself in the situation going tobuy in a car or whatever else.
You want to make sure you get afair deal right.
You don't want to get rippedoff and you really want to make
a good decision.
So you do research, you try tolearn what product, you study

(11:30):
different features of it, we tryto train our outfitters to be
more of a resource and it's ourobjective.
I don't know if you've heard ofJosh Winters, the RV nerd.

Speaker 1 (11:39):
I did.
I've stalked you.
Yeah, I've heard of him.

Speaker 2 (11:42):
Okay.
So he's kind of a lot of timeshe's the face of our company and
rightfully so.
He's dynamic and he's awesome,but he has a saying that I steal
, which is we really want tohelp our outfitters, help people
buy their second RV the firsttime.
And sad reality is, throughoutmy career I've seen so many
people make a bad decision inwhat they bought and it could

(12:04):
have been avoided.
So we actually train our teamto slow things down just a
little bit.
Once you start going out andlooking at RVs and walking
through everything, you see alot of gadgets, you see a lot of
features, you get excited andit can be really cool.
And so then all of a sudden,you start to make concessions in
your mind.
We like to actually hear what'shappened at the coffee table at

(12:25):
their home.
What did they have on theirlist that's really important to
them, what are the features?
What are they looking for?
And really we help askquestions about how they're
going to use it, what theyintend to do with it, the
frequency of use, where they go,how far they travel, what time
of year are they going to begone.
Try to map all of that togetherand help our people.

(12:46):
Help them make a good decision,One of the things that kind of
put your money where your mouthis, and I don't know of another
dealer that does this.
But if you do purchase from us,you have 72 hours to return it
with no question asked.

Speaker 1 (13:00):
Okay, so wait.
I have to repeat that forpeople who are right now saying
wait what?
Okay, so wait.
I have to repeat that forpeople who are right now saying
wait what?
So?
I buy an RV that I chose, Itake it off the lot and 72 hours
, within 72 hours, I say thisisn't right for me.
I could bring it back.
Is that what you just said?

Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yeah, I just wanted to be clear Do they bring it
back?
And there's a whole lot ofquestions.
But one thing I think isimportant in my career so an
outfitter similar to asalesperson they do have in our
company.
We've elected to have them havecommission.
I've heard of some where it'slike they get a flat pay or
whatever, but ours do get acommission if they sell

(13:36):
something, and we do thatbecause we've found certain
people work harder, have abetter work ethic, they call
more customers, they follow upbetter with customers, and that
that is the action that we wantand we believe as they take the
right steps to help customers,people will choose to buy from
them and so we want them to berewarded in that way for what
they do.
If you brought your RV back,they lose their commission,

(13:59):
right.

Speaker 1 (14:00):
Right.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
They do not want the customer bringing back their RV,
and so the amount of focus theywill put on making sure I'm
listening to you, I understandwhat you need so that when you
drive off here you're not justdriving off the lot and I don't
have to deal with it again.
So our team, I think, puts ahuge amount of focus on actually
listening to the customer,understanding and helping get

(14:21):
them the right thing.

Speaker 1 (14:22):
And not only they listen.
There's a blue paper involved.
So I've done a lot of research,so this blue paper.
Every sales outfitter thatmeets with a potential customer
takes a blue paper.
There's no reason, I'm told,for blue unless you have a
reason for it.

Speaker 2 (14:41):
I don't know.
I don't know why it's blue.

Speaker 1 (14:43):
I was told it just stands out.
So they use a blue paper towrite all this information down
and I went through this processand we'll add it to the podcast.
I went through the process withJohn over at the dealership and
talked about the things thatI'm looking for and I mean he
really asked questions.
I was kind of trying to rushthrough it.
He was taking a lot of time.

(15:03):
So people have an example ofthat, and then everything is
written on this blue paper.
I saw people going out to theRVs and the sales outfitter had
that blue paper in front of them.

Speaker 2 (15:15):
Yeah, the blue paper originated from some training
that's been done and it's stuck.
But yeah, we've done somethings on that to just help
prompt our outfitters.
We do training and there'slittle pictures on there.

Speaker 1 (15:29):
You probably saw.

Speaker 2 (15:29):
Oh, I didn't see the pictures, yeah so anybody that
comes into our store they canask them what are those pictures
?
Those pictures are just helpfulas visual cues to remind them
what questions to ask.

Speaker 1 (15:38):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (15:39):
And again, a lot of those questions just stem from
learning why customers bringsomething back.
We study why did you bring theRV back, especially if it's
within the first couple of years?
We want to know, you know, didsomething about their life
change or did something aboutwhat they bought not fit?
And so then we try to learnthat so that we can look at what
we're asking, to make surewe're looking at the right

(16:02):
things.

Speaker 1 (16:02):
And this is great.
I mean, in my years of being onthe road and talking to people
who have gone to variousdealerships, bought RVs, you
hear over and over again thatyou know they buy their first RV
, which is kind of their trial,so to speak, and then they buy
the second RV, which is the onethey should have bought to begin
with.
So, buying your second RV firstas your goal is really helpful

(16:26):
because a lot of times and againnot to knock anybody down but
you walk into a dealership andit's quick.
I've been in a lot, a lot ofdealerships.
I've sat in an RV and asalesperson came in and is just
trying to sell that RV.
I'm sitting in without anybackground or any questions.
So this idea of really takingtime, so if somebody's coming,

(16:50):
they need time, they need thetime.
So the communication betweenthe sales outfitter and the
customer, I feel in my two yearsof experience, a lot of times
people don't know what theydon't know.
So you buy an RV, you want theRV, but there are so many things
that you don't necessarily know.
And so James or John was a bighelp with asking questions, even

(17:15):
though I bought RVs or have hadan RV.
He was asking questions.
They're like oh, I didn't thinkof that.

Speaker 2 (17:22):
Right.
Yeah, I think it's helpful forcustomers and sometimes I think
there can be a negative side toit.
Sometimes customers are like Idon't want to sit down with you,
just show me the RVs.
Right, just show me the RVs.
I know what I want.
Just get me out there.
We're not trying to.
If that's what they want, we'regoing to take them out.

(17:42):
You can go.
You can wander a lot.
Everything's unlocked.
It's not about a pressuresituation, but it's exactly what
you said.
We really work hard to trainour people to be experts as much
as they can on the RVs and onthe products.
A lot of us RV.
We take them out, we use them,we try to learn and understand
what people go through on aregular basis and what that's

(18:05):
like.
So we want to be a valuableresource really to the customers
, help them make a good decision.

Speaker 1 (18:11):
In today's environment, being able to
Google everything under the sun,and people could go on your
website see what's available.
So Bicious does sell used andnew and pre-owned RVs.
So you have those options andsometimes people come in and say
, okay, I did all my research,this is the RV I want, but they
may have missed something else,something that just came in,

(18:34):
that, hey, we now have thisavailable, that might be a
better option for you.
But yes, and again, it'smeeting that customer where they
are and I feel like that's howyour sales team, your sales
outfitters, have been trained.

Speaker 2 (18:49):
That's the goal.
I think sometimes we'll backthem up a little bit to say, hey
, walk me through.
You've done your research.
Come to this.
Can you give me some insightsas to why?
What prompted you to do thisone?
Why do you like this one somuch?
We really want to understand.
For that reason, if there issomething else that makes sense,
if there's something theyhaven't considered, if there's
any way we can be of a resource.
But you're right, in today'senvironment, more and more

(19:13):
people are coming to a decisionbefore ever having anybody else
involved.
They know what they want.
They've talked to their family,they've talked to friends,
they've talked to other people,they've done a lot of research
and they know what they want.
And if that's where they're atand they're confident, awesome.
We don't want to interfere.
We're just here to help.

Speaker 1 (19:30):
So yeah, we kind of see a whole spectrum of
customers like that Right, andwhat I've seen and in talking to
you and a number of your peopleI mean, I've been talking to
your people for probably eight,10 months, so I've talked to a
number of people the integrityis there.
It really isn't about let metry and get somebody in a
different RV, for whateverreason.

(19:51):
It really is about doing thebest for your customers and
let's talk about that, becausethat's bottom line.
You guys look to do thingsbetter all the time.

Speaker 2 (20:01):
I talked about a North Star.
We also have four pillars ofour business.
The time I talked about ourNorth Star, we also have four
pillars of our business.
So, if you think of a building,our foundation is our culture.
So we believe that everythingstarts with culture and that who
we are and what we are, ourintegrity it serves as the
foundation.
Then we have these four pillarsthat we talk about, but one of

(20:21):
them is innovation and that wefeel like, in order for us to
have a very stable organization,a long lasting organization
that can stand test of time, wehave to be on the front edge of
things, not on the back, and aswe innovate, we want to do it
around the framework of thecustomer.
So a lot of times people willinnovate and in businesses I've
been in, you'll innovate, you'lltry to do new things, but

(20:43):
sometimes, when you back it outand say, why are we doing this,
it's interesting the answers youget and I'll talk to people a
lot about that because I'm veryinterested in the subject.
But a lot of times it's aboutwe're going to speed up our
processes or we're going to makemore money or we're going to,
and it oftentimes is around thecompany.
So we've kind of made it amission to say our pillar here
is innovation, but what wereally want is to innovate

(21:05):
around the customer framework.
What is it that they experience?
So we are working on a lot ofthings based on insights we've
gathered from customers.
Sometimes it's just thingswe're saying.
I think this is where customersneed to go.
Like, we all have iPhones.
No one knew you needed aniPhone until you had one.

Speaker 1 (21:22):
Right.

Speaker 2 (21:23):
Until it was invented .
But if you would have askedsomeone with a flip phone what
do you really want in a phone,they probably wouldn't have said
an iPhone.
Right, someone had to createthat.
So there's other things we'reworking on that we believe are
that that are creative, that areforward thinking, that we don't
even think a customer wouldknow that they think they need
until they see it.
So we've got several thingsthat we're working on, but

(21:43):
you've experienced, I thinktoday or yesterday, an
opportunity to see kind of someof the things we're doing in
service that I think aredifferent.
You talked to our director ofoperations today, our VP of
operations rather, and he toldyou a little bit about what
they're doing on the financeside of things, which I think is
different.
But all of those are patternedafter ways we think customers
would rather do business.

Speaker 1 (22:04):
And I'm seeing that we're going to break some of
those down, because this iswhat's important when somebody
is looking for a dealership,they want to make sure they're
going to be treated fairly allthe things you spoke about.
So let's break some of thosedown.
We talked about the salesoutfitters.
Now I decide I'm going to buyan RV.
There are things that are goingthrough my head, so we'll talk

(22:26):
about the finance side of it,because that is very innovative.
I talked to James about that,or John about that.
Yesterday, the manager at thedealership let's talk a little
bit about you saw a pain pointfor the customers, so you
created innovation that is goingto help the end customer.

(22:48):
So can you talk a little bitabout that?

Speaker 2 (22:51):
Yeah, a lot of this stemmed actually from our own
experience, and it's not justthe RV industry, but even if you
buy a car you mentioned it butI mean it takes forever to get
through the paperwork.
And I was talking with somecustomers the other day and the
last RV they bought it took themfive hours at like just sitting
at the dealership after they'dfound what they loved, wanted.

(23:12):
It was like they were there allday.
Uh, we didn't want that.
And so and we know customersdon't want that we also have
experienced in our own business,as we've evolved, customers
that come in to pick up their RVand when they show up they're
waiting and waiting and waitingfor our finance team and
sometimes it's hard to controlthe schedule.
Customers come in and do anorientation with our technicians
on their new RV.

(23:32):
Sometimes it takes 30 minutes,sometimes it will take them
three hours and you never reallyknow.
And so when a customer getsdone in 30 minutes and you were
expecting it to take an hour,now they're sitting for 30
minutes.
And so we kind of looked at alot of different factors and,
honestly, covid kind of helped,because now you had to have this
contactless and over this timewe really figured out a way to

(23:56):
automate a lot of what we'redoing on the finance side and on
the paperwork side, and sotoday nearly every one of our
customers is signing theirpaperwork in their home.
So we'll pop in and 30 minutesover the phone on a video
conference and they're doing alltheir paperwork on their couch.

Speaker 1 (24:14):
And that's what John was sharing and that's
incredible because it's a verystressful kind of situation.
The other thing he was talkingabout is when you're sitting
down and you're negotiating thesale of that RV and that
salesperson gets up and walks tothe finance people behind the
door.
I have sat at car dealershipsand you can see them and we were

(24:36):
sitting there for so long Isaid I swear they are there
arguing over what they're havingfor lunch.

Speaker 2 (24:42):
That is what it felt like.

Speaker 1 (24:43):
It was like their mission to make us sit weak.
I'm not even kidding, I'm likethey are discussing lunch and
where they're going to order it.
And it's just so frustrating.
I'm trying to buy a car, so itshould be a happy, exciting time
, and I think the same thingwith an RV.
For me it's my home, I live init, or for somebody it's their

(25:03):
vacation.
So to have that person get upand now they're walking to the
finance people at the dealershipI was at it's all glass windows
.
You could see what's going on,and John had talked about how
they minimize that back andforth process to speed things up
, to get things sped up.

(25:24):
So I love that.
It's all about the customer.
We talked a little bit aboutthe Google reviews and I think
for most businesses companiesthey're looking at the five star
.
Many five-stars do we have?
Obviously, that's the goal youpride yourself and your team on
looking at the one and the twostars to see how to improve

(25:47):
right.

Speaker 2 (25:48):
Yeah, I mean I could go a long time on Google reviews
and customer feedback andthings like that.
But I look at Google reviewsevery day.
I read every single one of them, I watch them.
We have a saying in our company.

(26:09):
It's one of our values.
We're a values-drivenorganization and one of our
values is we get it right, wedon't make it right.
And then, underneath that, wealso say no, if we don't get it
right.
We got to make it right, butit's our goal to get it right.
So look at your processes, lookat what we do to make it right
so that when you, the firstexperience you have is right.
And that's really our goal isto design our processes so that
when a customer goes throughyour workflow and is purchasing

(26:32):
an RV and it goes throughservice and then it goes through
orientation, there's a lot ofpieces that you have to
coordinate as a dealer and youwant to make sure that those go
right.
So you don't always get itright.
And we have another value thatsays we may not always win, but
we never forfeit and we alwayslearn.
And so when we don't get it,review it's not going to cost

(26:54):
them their job.
But if they're not willing tolearn and change because of what
they learned, they're probablynot going to make it in our
company, because we will listenand we'll learn and we'll change

(27:16):
things.
And so there are certainprocesses and features of the
way we do business that I couldpinpoint and I could tell you
customers' names and be likethis is because of, this is
because of Because we're neveron that side of the table, so
it's really our way of gettinginformation, and so the problem
is not everyone's gonna leaveyou a negative review.

(27:38):
I mean, how many businesseshave you gone to where you
didn't like the service or youdidn't like something so you
just don't go back, right, right.
So Google review is, like,honestly, one of the last places
we get our negative feedback.
A lot of that will come throughother channels, because not
everybody wants to be publicabout that, which it's funny.

(27:59):
I'm rolling on this, but it'sfunny because our guys get a
Google review and they want thecustomer to change it because
it's so public.

Speaker 1 (28:06):
Right.

Speaker 2 (28:07):
And I'm not worried about that.
I actually think it's okay forcustomers to see a negative
review.
What I want them to see is howwe respond to it.

Speaker 1 (28:14):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (28:15):
Right.
So I make a concerted effortwith our team to make sure when
we get something, let's makesure that our other customers
know what we're doing about it.
Most of the time when we get anegative review, it's because we
did something wrong.
Honestly, I see a lot of timesour guys went well, we did this,

(28:37):
this, this.
At the end, we did somethingwrong and it didn't come across
right, and so we want to letpeople know yeah, we screwed up
here, and then we work throughit, and some of our best
customers are people thatactually started that way and
they had a bad experience, and Idon't care if they ever changed
their review.
I'm grateful for theopportunity to work with them.
We do surveys, though, and if Iwere setting up a dealership, if

(28:58):
I was giving any advice to anyother RV dealership if you're
currently not measuring this,you should.
So every customer that comesthrough whether you buy an RV,
you get your RV serviced, youbuy a part, anything in our
process we're going to send youa text message with a very
simple survey.
It will take less than a minute, but we ask a very important

(29:19):
question, and that is how likely, on a scale of one to 10 are
you to refer your friends orfamily?
And it's called the NetPromoter Score Index and that
score means more to me thananything else and the feedback
we get from that survey meansmore to us.
So we have thousands uponthousands of these surveys that
have come back and we review thedata and we have a way of

(29:43):
organizing that data into somesentiment and we can take and
see the commonalities.
And you can see thecommonalities by store, you can
see it by department, you cansee it by individual and you can
actually learn like consistentthings that customers are
experiencing.
And when you have that, it'snot an anomaly, you're getting
this regularly and so you canadjust what you're doing.

(30:06):
We had a dealership in theMidwest Kearney.
Our Kearney location had apretty low score in service
earlier this year and it waslike fire alarms going off, like
hey, what is going on.
We met with the team, we workedon a plan and literally within
three months their index turnedaround, turned around completely
.
But we could never have donethat.

(30:26):
We didn't know what to reallyaddress until we dug into what
the customers were saying andonce we did, we found a theme of
about four things that keptsurfacing and they attacked
those four things.
And now it's I think they'renumber like five in our group
with customer service scores.

Speaker 1 (30:43):
Yeah, that's incredible and that's what it's
all about.
Nothing is perfect, nobody'sperfect, nothing is perfect, no
company.
I want that feedback.
I want feedback on the podcast,like, okay, be nice, I'm asking
for it.
But I'd rather have feedbackand say, okay, this is a common
thread, this is what I couldwork on, you know, just for me,

(31:06):
and this podcast always lookingto get better, so I'd like that.
There's absolutely nothing,nobody's perfect, so the
willingness to keep improving.
I want to interrupt thisinterview to thank my sponsors.
First, I'd like to thank NIRVC,who is the host of the Music

(31:28):
City Motorhome Expo.
I'm going to talk a little bitabout this event, which takes
place May 31st to June 4th inLebanon, tennessee.
June 4th in Lebanon, tennessee,and at this event you could be
the first to see the 2026 modelyear coaches from all the major
manufacturers.
There's a link in the shownotes to this event.

(31:49):
Again, you could check outthese new, brand new coaches and
so much more going on at thisevent.
I attended this event last yearand it was amazing.
I highly recommend it.
But I've got to say in June itwas a little hot.
So those people staying in anRV, I have a solution and that

(32:15):
is Cool RV.
Cool RV is also called ACConnect and what it does is it
keeps the cooler air coming outof your vents 44% cooler and
there's more airflow that comesout of your vents.
And not only that, it keepsyour AC quieter.

(32:36):
This is a DIY installation andit costs you just $84.95.
I want to say how much it costsbecause that is an incredible
price for something that does somuch for you and you could go
check out everything there is toknow about CoolRV by going to

(32:58):
CoolRVcom.
There is a link in the shownotes.
I'm also going to put myinterview with the inventors and
owners of CoolRV in the shownotes Now as we go through the
RV buying experience and peoplehaving an RV.

(33:21):
You guys do service Well.
Besides that, you have parts,so anybody needs a part.
I even asked John if, for my2002 Monaco Diplomat, they could
buy parts.
He said they would do their best, but so you have a parts
department.

Speaker 2 (33:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:39):
And I did a video of that and people will get to see
that video.
Pretty amazing operation backthere.
And you also have service,which another amazing operation
and I did video on that.
Talk a little bit about how youguys again are innovative,
doing things different when itcomes.
That is a pain point for rers.
You have to bring your RV infor service.

(34:01):
You're stressing it's painWhether you live in it, like I
did, or you're just travelingdoing vacations weekends.
So talk about the difference inyour service departments.

Speaker 2 (34:15):
The reason I left where I was at and came to
Bishes is because of RV serviceand I truly believed, believed.
I had a vision of what I wantedto see, I had a focus on this
and I really believe it's theopportunity in our industry to
keep people camping.
Reality that a lot of peopleget out of the RV lifestyle

(34:38):
because of service and theproblems that they associate and
creates a lot of headaches.
You've seen that.

Speaker 1 (34:45):
You've traveled for a lot of years.

Speaker 2 (34:47):
You probably know some people that do.

Speaker 1 (34:49):
Yes, personally yes.

Speaker 2 (34:51):
Yeah, so we're attacking that and while it may
seem very simple from theoutside, looking in, this is one
of those things where, as youget into it, there's a lot of
layers to this onion that youpeel back.
But at the very core, werealized that service is a

(35:11):
function of a couple of thingsand on a dealership side, it's
coordination, it's planning,it's communication and really
the other piece of that I wouldthrow in there is processing.
So coordination, planning,processing and communication.
And when you our team, ourdealership most people don't

(35:35):
know this 70% of our employeesare dedicated parts and service
and 30% sales.
So you have far more peoplethat you have to coordinate and
you've got to work with.
And there's just, you know,while you may sell, like in one
of our, the store you're intoday, we'll sell upwards of
around 1,700 RVs a year out ofthat facility, but we'll process
tens of thousands of warrantywork orders or, I'm sorry, not

(35:57):
warranty but work orders.
A lot of those are warranty,but so there's just a lot more
moving parts and pieces and thecycle time and everything is
just.
It's a lot busier and there's alot more opportunity, or far
more opportunities for things tofail and failure points.
So we have gone to greatlengths to map the flow, what

(36:18):
happens, the parts of entry,everything that has to do with
from a customer, from the timethey say I want my RV fixed, to
the time it leaves, andeverything in between.
And there are hundreds ofdifferent tasks and steps and
procedures that either happen orcan happen, depending on
different scenarios.
And so that's where we started.

(36:41):
But in the light of all of this,we started to recognize a
couple of things.
I have a really good friend.
His name is Kevin, and heworked with me in service for a
lot of years.
So Kevin actually his son andmy son were on the same baseball
team growing up, and so I wascoaching the team and I found
out he was fixing RVs in Yumaevery winter and it was summer,

(37:05):
and I was like, why don't youjust come work for me?
I got a shop I could keep youbusy all year, and so he did,
and then we worked together fora lot of years.
Well, when I take out an RV, ifI had an issue, I would call
Kevin.
I'm out in my RV, something'swrong.
I'm calling Kevin, kevin,what's up with this?

(37:25):
And walking him through it.
Right, and a lot of times he'dguide me through it.
Kevin ended up going andrunning one of our other stores
at the time and then eventuallyhe drifted back into doing his
own mobile repair and had a verysuccessful mobile business.
And so I trusted Kevin so much.
If a customer called me andneeded somebody in their
campground, I'm like callingKevin.
If I'm traveling on myself, Iwas calling Kevin even though he

(37:47):
didn't work for me, like I justit's how it was.
So Kevin and I actuallymaintained this relationship.
I had lunch with him one day.
We asked several questions, butI thought this was really
interesting.
So Kevin was a mobile tech andI said Kevin, how often when you
go on site to fix someone's RVdo you have to leave because you
don't have the right part onceyou've identified what's going

(38:09):
on, and then come back and hegoes.
You know it used to be a lot,but not so much anymore.
And I was like, well, what didyou change?
So he said that he startedchanging the way he would ask
questions when a customer called, so a lot of times he was out
on jobs they'd leave a message.
Well, he would make a point toreturn those calls and say I

(38:31):
just need 15 minutes to 20minutes of your time to really
understand what's going on.
And when he did that, he saidnow I know most of the time
what's wrong before I get there.
Just by hearing what thecustomer had to say and I
thought man, when the technicianhas to drive their vehicle to
the RV, he started askingdifferent questions.

(38:52):
But when a customer drives toour lot, we don't even think
about it, because the customeris the one that's emptying out
all their stuff out of thekitchen, is getting everything
set up, pulling in the slides,hooking up, taking time off of
work.
It's their time, so it's not onour radar and we're like our
process is wrong.
So we started working onsomething.

(39:14):
So hired, kevin, I'm like Kevin.
I need you again, buddy.
So he ended up kind of shuttingup all of his mobile service
and transitioning that to one ofhis friends in the industry and
he joined us and since thenwe've added quite a team, as you
saw today, and we generatedkind of an extension of our
business that we call Bish Fix.

Speaker 1 (39:34):
And that's huge.
And that's where theconversation with us started.
And again talking from personalexperience.
Before we jump into it, we hadsomebody, had mobile tech come
out to the RV because my husband, dan, would try and do as much
as possible on the RV and hecould do a lot of it.
Came out to the RV, looked atwhat was wrong after explaining

(39:57):
to him what the problem was.
Looked at what was wrong oh, Ihave the problem.
Was looked at what was wrong oh, I have to go get a part and
had to drive to get the part.
Came back to the RV charges thesecond charge for coming back
to the RV a second time and thenfixed it.
And then said he got it allfixed.
It cost more for him to comeout twice than the part and the
labor.

(40:17):
And after it was all done myhusband said I could have done
that myself If somebody had toldme what was wrong.
There was just something hecouldn't figure out and he said
I totally could have done it.
Okay, explain, bitch, fix, jumpin.

Speaker 2 (40:34):
Well, that's it, you just kind of.

Speaker 1 (40:36):
I explained it.

Speaker 2 (40:37):
Well, that's the deal , though that's what happens on
the mobile side.
So you've had, your guy showsup and then needs to go get the
part, is able to run and do it.
You're paying multiple sitecharges because it's costing
fuel and gas and drive time andeverything else, and he's also
losing time that he could beworking on something else.
So you end up paying for all ofthat.

Speaker 1 (40:57):
Right.

Speaker 2 (41:01):
Right, something else , so you end up paying for all
of that.
On the other side of it, if youbring your RV into an RV
dealership, in most cases you'resigning up to get in line again
.
If it takes you two weeks toget in, they set an appointment.
Well, that puts you now intheir queue to get into the shop
.
Most RV dealerships don'tcoordinate to where it's.
You show up and it goes intothe shop the same day.
There are some helpful tips toany RVers out there.

(41:23):
That's a question I would ask.
If you're setting up service, Iwould ask them, when I drop it
off, what's your schedule toactually get it in the shop?

Speaker 1 (41:31):
Right.
Instead of sitting there for afull-time RVer like I was, I'm
either going to a hotel,sleeping on somebody's couch,
whatever.

Speaker 2 (41:38):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (41:40):
That's a problem.
But even if you're on vacationit's a problem, because yeah
it's ruining the vacation.

Speaker 2 (41:44):
Okay, well, and and worse, like and I mentioned this
to you earlier.
But if you're a full-time rv orif you're on vacation, they
know you're, you're like intheir, their dealership.
They're looking at you everyday, so they're probably putting
you in a red folder that movesa little quicker, that puts
priority and kind of keepspushing other people back, so
that's a secret.

Speaker 1 (42:02):
If you're in a red folder, it's a good thing.

Speaker 2 (42:04):
Yeah, red is good if you're an RV customer who wants
it fixed fast, but if you're alocal customer who just says hey
, I got back from a trip whichis most of them I got back from
the trip, these are the 10things that I need to fix, or
five or one or whatever, and youtake it in.
It's kind of just moving into aprocess and there's not really
great software systems oranything to coordinate the

(42:26):
scheduling of this.
So a lot of people are doing iton the back of papers or
they're doing it just literallyin like folders, getting stuck
in queues.
So, like I said, there's a lotof coordination there, but when
you bring it in, it waits to getin line and then it waits to
get in the shop and then, onceit goes through the shop and

(42:49):
let's say it's the same issueyou had the technician diagnoses
.
This is the part I need.
Now all that circles back to theparts department.
If you have it in stock, thetechnician can work with the
team to grab it and go put it on, and that's a pretty quick one.
But the sad reality is thatthere's so many different parts
and pieces to every RV, thelikelihood of having everything

(43:09):
in stock when you need it.
It's just impossible.
You just never can anticipateall of that and if you did, you
couldn't run a profitablebusiness and service because
you'd have way too many partsgoing stale and bad.
Some of the stats around thisand I mean there's probably
viewers that are going to listento this they take an RV in for

(43:29):
service and they're going to belike okay, this is like kind of
a transparent look in, and eventhen I think they're going to be
like I don't believe thatthat's crazy, but I've looked at
this through hundreds ofdealerships at this point and
once a technician orders a part,what would you guess is the
average amount of time beforethat part is actually ordered?

Speaker 1 (43:47):
just the ordering process, you mean yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:49):
So the text says I need xyz part right now, from
the time that they've recognizedthe technicians recognize I
need a part to the time that itactually gets placed.
The order gets placed so thatit can be put on your rv somehow
or another.

Speaker 1 (44:03):
I would hope that it happens that same day or it gets
done immediately.
I'm working on this rv.
I know it needs this part.
Go to the person, or if theycan type in this part I need and
order it, but somehow I'mthinking that's not going to be
the case.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
Well, I'll tell you my experience again in looking
at hundreds, thousands of workorders is over two weeks.

Speaker 1 (44:27):
Over two weeks, just to put the order in for the part
.
Yeah, I could have ordered iton amazon and had it next day,
kind of correct okay.
So um, and there's a lot of,there's a lot of reasons why I'm
saying a lot of people would belike that's crazy right and it
is it's nuts, it's nuts but isit because and I'm gonna kind of
stop is it because this is theway the system was back in the

(44:48):
day and it just stayed that?
Where you know what I mean, ifyou just, well, this is the way
the system was back in the dayand it just stayed that.
You know what I mean.
If you just, well, this is theway it's always been, until
people accept it, and thennobody changes it until somebody
looks at it and says this iscrazy and you're worse.

Speaker 2 (45:02):
I think that's a lot of it.
I do Not that it matters.

Speaker 1 (45:05):
It matters more that you are looking at it and saying
this is crazy, what can we doabout it?

Speaker 2 (45:11):
Yeah, that you are looking at it and saying this is
crazy, what can we do about it?
Yeah, so there's a lot of steps, like if you're a technician, I
know the part, I know exactlywhat it is and it's on the shelf
, easy right.
If you're a technician, you'relike this is what I need and
it's a 2002 Monaco Diplomat andthey're not currently making
parts for 2002 Monaco.

Speaker 1 (45:31):
Diplomats.
They're not currently makingparts for 2002.
Monaco diplomats, not evenmaking them.

Speaker 2 (45:33):
Yeah, so there are several parts that are fully
replaceable on that diplomat ofyours.
Then there's other ones thatare going to be a lot harder to
find.
So we have actually created aninternal research team for parts
.
I have a whole team.
That's all they do is researchthe parts that are needed.
Some of those can take fiveminutes, some of them can take

(45:54):
three days to try to find.
And so we've been able to breakdown what causes these delays,
right.
Why does this happen and whatcauses all that to happen?
But that's an area where youdon't realize you've just waited
to get your RV in Now.
You waited for it to get yourrv in now.
You waited for it to get intothe shop and now you're waiting
for parts.

(46:15):
And I guarantee you've heardthis.
If you go on any reddit thread,you go on facebook groups,
you're gonna hear this.
You're gonna hear a customerthat says I bought my rv from
so-and-so dealership and theysaid they'd ordered the parts
and they're waiting on themanufacturer.
I, I called the manufacturerand the manufacturer said I've
never received an order fromthat, right.
So you get dealers that arelike trying to save face or

(46:38):
something and will say somethingthat we've sent it to the
manufacturer or waiting.
The manufacturer's like, well,I don't have an order for that,
right, and it's because there'sjust it's quite a process.
It's actually very difficult tocoordinate and organize in our
industry, but most customersdon't know that is the biggest
issue Parts not in shop.
If you don't have parts onstock or in shop, that's one of

(47:01):
the biggest draws to lengthenyour repair time.
The other one is warranty.
If you're bringing it in forwarranty, the process and the
coordination with themanufacturer for warranty can be
a little bit burdensome.
Plus, we both peak at the sametime for how busy we are.
So the amount of warrantyrequests that come in in April,

(47:25):
may and June are very high andthey're all coming in at once.
Also, the volume of sales likefor us are also very high.
So the work you're doing to getout, so everything culminates
at the same time, right and sothat's another issue.
And then the coordination withthe warranty.
A lot of them they're trying tokind of scrutinize the repairs,
make sure that they're gettingtreated fair, which is the right

(47:47):
thing to do as a manufacturer.
But it's requiring you'retaking these pictures, it's
requiring certain feedback.
Sometimes they're like I needanother angle of that picture or
I need this or that and allthis coordination so it's very
difficult.
So I only give you thatbackstory, because no matter
what happens when you bring yourRV in, there's all these moving
pieces.
As a customer you really don'tcare.

Speaker 1 (48:09):
No, I don't care, I just want my RV back.
Get it fixed and give it backto me, right?

Speaker 2 (48:13):
right, and so that's where we've put our mindset, is
that we really track.
The most fundamental things arewhen did they drop it off and
when did they get it back andwas it fixed correctly, right?
So we actually measure that too.
I didn't mention that withcustomer service, but in our
survey we ask everything thatwas fixed on the rv, we ask was
it fixed correctly?
And every technician can tellyou their quality score what

(48:35):
percentage of the time did theyfix it right?
That's a big deal.
We found that's a huge driverof customer satisfaction.
So anyway, so whether you hadthat tech come out or you drop
it off, those are kind of thetwo varying things that are
happening the process that ittakes, where the time is where
your tech had to leave and goget that part, and where our

(48:57):
dealerships struggle to get theprocess of parts and warranty
and all that communicated.
All of that has to happensomewhere right.
The problem in both cases isyou'd already gone down the path
of hiring a technician who wason site.
He did the diagnostic and thensaid, okay, this is what I need.
And in our shops they do thediagnostic, they give the
information to the partswarranty teams and then

(49:19):
sometimes got to get customerapprovals and all that in
between.
And then it begins.
We said, wait a second, couldwe get our more and more of our
RVs diagnosed without them evercoming into the shop?
And if we could, could we getmore and more of our RVs
diagnosed without them evercoming into the shop?
And if we could, could we startordering parts, could we start
writing the warranty?
Could we start having all ofthe administrative stuff done?

(49:40):
So when the RV shows up, wejust fix it.
And that was kind of thethought process and that's what
Bish Fix is designed to be andto do.
So what we've seen early on,what we do, our process is
pretty simple.
We're training our customersand they're getting more and
more used to what BishFix can befor them.
But instead of coming home onSaturday night or Sunday and

(50:04):
Monday morning making the callto the service shop, we're
encouraging our customers whenyou take it out and it's
Thursday and your awning's notcoming out, don't wait until
Monday to bring it into a shop,call us.
And what we're finding is moreand more customers are starting
to realize they have access totechnical support and help now
anywhere, wherever they're at,and 40% of the time.

(50:26):
This is crazy to me.
40% of the time when ourcustomers call with an issue,
we're able to fix it over thephone.
Several of those repairsinvolve, like your husband,
someone who's handy they'redoing it themselves.
We're guiding them Open that.
Use your screwdriver here.
Here.
Our technology allows us to seewhat they're seeing and they

(50:46):
guide them through, and a lot ofthe customers can fix it
themselves once they know theissue Right.

Speaker 1 (50:49):
They guide them through and a lot of the
customers can fix it themselvesonce they know the issue Right,
and so I want to just go back alittle bit, because I had the
opportunity to look at how thatwhole fish fix process works.
So I call and I say, okay,there was a problem with the
electric.
That's what the problem was.
I'm on video.
I watched the technicianupstairs.
They move the camera a littlehere, let me see this, let me

(51:10):
see this, let me see that, andthen they'll guide me even me,
because I'm kind of handy.
I don't like electrical stuff,but I'm pretty handy to exactly
what to do and how to fix it, totake it apart so it could be
diagnosed, or I could go order apart.
Now, upstairs, one of yourtechnicians was working with

(51:30):
somebody.
They were having a problem withthe toilet, so I couldn't hear
what they were saying, but youcould see on the video.
And then he was ordering a newone for them.
So right then, and there,toilet was a problem.
Here's the order that is nowbeing placed right now.
That customer never had to comein.
They didn't have to wait inline, they didn't have to wait
for a you know, an appointment.

(51:53):
What a great idea.
Now I'm I'm going to state thisstatistic.
It is mind boggling to me.
You said on a phone call thatyou had 10,000, about 10,000
customers and that with Bish Fixpeople calling in being able to
handle an issue with atechnician $4 million was saved

(52:15):
in repairs because the customerswere able to do it themselves
$4 million.
I have to say to my listenersand my audience I have confirmed
this with everybody I talked toin Bishes over the last three
days I said look, is this right?
Did Todd say this right?
I have it written down in mynotes, is it right?
And what John said to me wasthat's a conservative number and

(52:40):
that was from January to July,not even a full year.
$4 million, that's amazing,yeah.

Speaker 2 (52:49):
And I'll tell you there's a lot of crazy things
we've learned here too.
Um, but when a customer takesin the rv, if a technician on on
average spends probably betweenit's probably averaged out to
about 30 to 45 minutes ondiagnostics, sometimes it can be
like super fast, but a lot ofsometimes it'll take up towards
of an hour or more.

(53:09):
Those technicians don't workfor free, so it gets built into
the pricing, whether theyspecifically itemize it out and
say here's your diagnostic feeor not, it's in there.
They've got to account for thattime and that lost time.
So our customers that call inand we have currently, if you

(53:30):
purchase an RV from us, we givethem a membership to Bish Fix
and there's really only twomodels we could think of for
Bish Fix, like how to support itfinancially.
One was a subscription or likean annual fee and then you could
just call as many times as youneed.
Or the second one was do it percall, and so we opted to look
at something that's more annualand you pay an annual fee and
then you just call in wheneveryou need to.

(53:52):
We've had customers have called15 times like just anything they
need.
So it's pretty cool.
But when they call in.
That fee, like right now andwe'll subscribe up to 20,000
members, is what we havecapacity for.
That we'll add and we'recharging introductory.
Partly this is low, we knowit's low given our model.

(54:13):
It's $200 that we're doingintroductory right now for these
first group of members andpartly because we're asking them
, we're going to give them anintroductory price.
Normally we think it will bearound $399 a year to $499, and
it may vary depending on whatkind of RV you have.

Speaker 1 (54:28):
I got it, so I was talking to James upstairs, who's
the director of Bish Fix right,he said that the membership was
$16.50 a month.
Yeah, okay, it comes out tolike $199 a year.
Okay, so you could pay for ityearly.
I just want to be clear,because that would be put in
this.

Speaker 2 (54:45):
Yeah, most people.
That's what we use.
I mean, I think everybody has.
Like I got this every month andI don't know subscriptions are
getting crazy.

Speaker 1 (54:50):
Right, everybody has like I got this every month and
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (54:52):
Subscriptions are getting crazy, right, so I think
a lot of we've.
We've done it, we've justprocessed it.
But yeah, that's monthly,that's the rate.
Okay, okay, let's just 50 centsa day we could go down to it,
yeah exactly less than a pizzaweek yeah, right, the key is for
us is like we're keeping itvery low, partly because we're
learning a lot right now.
Um, a lot of what we're doingis new and we're trying to have

(55:14):
as many people come throughbecause it helps us understand
more and more and more and more.
So I think what we're doingtoday offers a great value to
the customers.
We can run through more of whatwe're seeing but at the same
time we have a long way thatwe're going.
We have a lot of future plansfor how this will evolve but,
like I said, at an early ratewe've been able to help.

(55:36):
I mean those 40%.
If you just take the 40%, wehave over 10,000 customers that
have gone through the process.
40% of them had them fixedright.
They were able to fix it overthe phone.
Several of those were done bythem doing their own kind of
work, but it's still.
I mean in some cases we're onthe phone navigating through the
repair 30 minutes to 40 minutesto an hour or more, but they're

(55:58):
not paying that labor time fora technician, and when they call
in and we do the diagnostic,they're not paying that
diagnostic fee.
And so the average dealer rightnow the average service shop is
somewhere between $150 to $200or more an hour and the average
diagnostic fee is somewherearound an hour.
So if you just take that at anaverage of $200 an hour, that's

(56:21):
$200.
They save just on thediagnostic alone.
That's getting expensive, andthe more expensive service gets,
the more likely people aregoing to say I don't know if I
can keep this in my lifestyle,and so we think this is a very
inexpensive option.
We've had people sign up andthey're like I paid more for a
site charge for a mobile servicetech to come out to my facility

(56:45):
than I paid for your servicefor an entire year and you fixed
three things already.
So they're getting a value out.
They're getting a return.
We're learning in the processand the best part for us is it's
nationwide.
It's the first part of ourbusiness that can be done coast
to coast.
So we have facilities, like youmentioned.
We actually have 22.

(57:06):
Our website still says 23.

Speaker 1 (57:08):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (57:08):
So you're not wrong, but two of those well, 23,
technically.
Two of those are servicecenters.

Speaker 1 (57:15):
Oh, okay.

Speaker 2 (57:16):
So we closed up our RV sales dealership in Virginia,
but we still do service mobilythere, and then in Myrtle Beach
we do mobile service, okay, andso we're trying to learn and
better understand all walks ofthe service experience and how
to make it better.
We have actually coordinatedthis is cool.
We've coordinated with over 500different technicians not

(57:37):
Bish's RV techs, mobile techs,different dealerships, service
centers between US and Canadaand have actually fulfilled work
orders that were originatedthrough the Bish Fix process but
were fulfilled anywhere fromall through Canada to Florida,
to New York, all over.

Speaker 1 (57:54):
Because the other side of it for people.
So, if it is something, our RVbroke down in Memphis, tennessee
, and it wasn't a quick fix, soit ended up being the fuel pump,
an $8,000 plus job.
But while we're going throughthe process, in the middle of
nowhere, I could have calledinto BishFix and said, listen,

(58:15):
this is what's going on.
So that's the added benefit,even if obviously I'm not fixing
the fuel pump, we're not fixingit ourselves.
That's the added benefit ofbeing able to have a technician
from BishFix right.

Speaker 2 (58:27):
Yeah.
So if you did that, our team ofpeople, our processors, would
take the information that cameout of your call with the master
tech and you got to meet them.
But those guys, on average Ithink, have over 20 years each
of experience and these are allcertified master techs.
Two of them actually helpedwrite the curriculum for the

(58:48):
standardized RVI training fortechnicians.
These are very qualified,competent technicians, but
they'll walk through it.
Based on their assessment, oneof our processors will actually
do a write-up and give you anaccelerated repair plan and in
that plan it will itemize outwhat you're seeing, what our
technicians were able todiagnose.

(59:08):
So we talked about 40% of thetime they're able to fix it, but
that leaves 60% that didn'tWell, 85% of the time we're able
to diagnose it.
So there's 15% we can'tdiagnose right now.
On average, however, even whenwe can't diagnose it, nearly
every time we're able to ruleout a number of different things

(59:32):
which should helpfullyeliminate steps that would go on
in a normal diag.
So, for example, I had acustomer early on.
Their slide out wasn't comingin and out, and so we went
through it.
We couldn't actually pull upwhat we needed to see the gear
mechanisms on the slides and so.
But we were able to identify itwas one of three things and we

(59:52):
were able to give them anestimate on all three of those
things and say, if it's this,these are going to be need,
parts are going to need to beordered, this would be the cost
and this would be the timeframeyou should expect to have it
fixed.
And so, at least in thecustomer's mind, they knew what
to do, they were in control,they had a good estimation of
what it was going to take, andwhen they found out what it was,
it was all.

(01:00:13):
It was one of those threethings.

Speaker 1 (01:00:14):
Right, and that's really helpful with.
You know again, especially withthose huge repairs, I didn't
know anyone.
There wasn't a lot of choice ofplaces for us in this
particular situation.
It wasn't like I could sitthere and Google like the RV was
not going anywhere.
So it's not like I could say,oh, you know, google like the RV
was not going anywhere.
So it's not like I could say,oh, you know, 30 miles down the

(01:00:37):
road there's a better, you know,repair place.
I didn't know if that wasadvisable to drive.
So it's nice to be armed withthe information that I could get
.
And a lot of the customers alsoare dealing, and I see this a
lot.
Somebody will say, oh,something's wrong with the water
, you know the water's notflowing Well, they just didn't
push the button for the waterpump, right.

(01:00:58):
So you deal with a lot of that.

Speaker 2 (01:01:01):
Yeah, there's that.
You know one of the things,though, the majority of what we
deal with and, I wouldanticipate, most any other RV
dealership deals with, and Iwould guesstimate that the
majority of customers who arefrustrated with service a lot of
those are people who've justpurchased and their RV is under
warranty.
The average repair time inAmerica.
There's a.

(01:01:21):
Actually one of the computersoftware systems that a lot of
dealers use.
They aggregate these stats andif your RV is in for service,
and it has, it needs warrantyand there's a part that's needed
that they don't have.
It's averaging and it changesdepending on the time of year,
but it averages anywhere from 60to 100 plus days to get those

(01:01:42):
out.
So even on the low side like 67is, I think, the lowest I've
seen 67 days, like that's twomonths.
That's a huge part of thesummer, right.
So warranty is a big deal and,like I said, the parts is a big
deal when you get thisaccelerated repair plan.
We have broke down a lot of thebarriers to processing, so we

(01:02:04):
have right now there are somerepairs like parts that you have
to research, but usually thoseare with RVs that are a little
older and parts are no longerbeing built, but on the warranty
side it's usually a little bitfaster.
80% of our part requests rightnow are actually processed for
research, meaning they getidentified what the pricing and

(01:02:26):
availability is within 13 to 15minutes.
So where we were talking before, our ability to get parts
ordered is now measured inminutes, not weeks days.

Speaker 1 (01:02:37):
Wow, that's incredible.

Speaker 2 (01:02:38):
And so what we're able to do, just like you saw
with that technician with thetoilet.
We get your information, wefigure out what's going on, we
immediately have parts andwarranty, jump on it and on your
accelerated repair plan,whether we, if you brought it
into a Bish's RV dealership forservice or you had a mobile
technician, which I'll talkabout in a second do it.
It's going to list out here arethe parts you need, these are

(01:02:58):
the vendors that you could use,these are the estimated prices
you should pay, and then here'sthe labor that you're going to
need done.
This is the estimated amount oftime.
This is what you could expectto pay, both low to high, on
labor rates.
This is what you could look aton pay.
Now, if it's warranty, we takeit a step further.
There's only a very few amountof manufacturers we don't carry

(01:03:21):
at one of our 21 sellingdealerships and we actually code
the warranty for you.
So we take it.
We look at the manufacturer'scodes, we understand what needs
to be taken.
We've already taken thepictures.
We look at the manufacturer'scodes, we understand what needs
to be taken, we've already takenthe pictures, we've already
written the stories and now wecode for you.
These are the labor rates.
So if you were to take that toyour dealership who even sold
you the RV and maybe you'veexperienced as a customer, maybe

(01:03:45):
you've experienced where youbring it in for service and it
takes weeks, months to fulfillright you could bring this to
your dealership, say here arethe parts.
It's already coded for labor,for warranty.
You've literally eliminatedweeks out of what they would
normally have.
So that's why we call it anaccelerated repair plan and what

(01:04:05):
I like most about it.
Most people don't know.
If you bought your RV andyou're struggling to get it
serviced with where you're at, Iwould give them a chance.
With the accelerated repairplan you might actually help
them do a good job.
And if they have a really goodtechnician in the back who can
do a good job for you, that'sultimately what's going to
matter, as long as they canprocess it well.
So I would give them a chance.

(01:04:27):
But I would ask the rightquestions up front.
I would ask when's it going togo into the shop?
Are you going to take thisinformation I have and basically
say I don't care that youalready got that and start all
over, or will you take this intoconsideration and I can give
you a bunch of information ofwhat we've already found and do
the work, and if they do andthey follow it, they're going to
get paid from the manufacturer,just as though they didn't

(01:04:49):
Right, literally make their lifeeasier.

Speaker 1 (01:04:51):
Yes, and so and I just want to reiterate, when we
talked several months ago,bixfix was, there was people on
a waiting list.
You're now saying it's opened.
So anybody out there that wantsto try and from what James told
me correct me if I'm wrong hesaid that people could try, they

(01:05:13):
could call in, they could tryit the first time without having
a membership, without signingup for the membership yeah, okay
, just want to confirm myinformation.
And there's no pressure, likeit's not about pressuring people
to buy this.
I personally think this is fromthe time I heard about it this
several months ago.
It's a no brainer for the cost.

(01:05:33):
You use this one time andyou're more than paid for itself
and you're just adding on allthis extra stuff that really is
going to help the end user gettheir RV fixed, get on the road
or something that you just don'tknow how to operate.
And that's a big hold back withpeople.

(01:05:54):
I had somebody who was at acampground.
He didn't know how to dump thetanks.
I don't know how you take an RVout without knowing.
I showed him, but you know it'sgood to be able to call and say
how do I do this and make sureyou're doing things right, so
that is awesome, and peoplecould go to bishfixcom to get to

(01:06:14):
that.
Okay, so check it out.
On bishfixcom.

Speaker 2 (01:06:17):
I think there's a discount code that they need to
know to get the introductorydiscount, so we'll have to put
that in the notes or somethingWe'll put it in the show notes.

Speaker 1 (01:06:26):
Okay, so you have a code.
I'll get that code.
So there you go.
There's openings.
You have given a lot ofincredible information.
I am sure there is a ton morewe could sit and talk about.
So we're going to have to do apart two of this.
All right, I'm going to comeback here to Idaho in the summer
.
I hear it's beautiful here inthe summer.

Speaker 2 (01:06:46):
You'll love it.
You might not leave.

Speaker 1 (01:06:49):
We'll talk about that .
Love it.
You might not leave.
We'll talk about that.
I might get a job here.
Bish, that sounds good.
It might be a whole new careerfor me.

Speaker 2 (01:06:57):
You never know.

Speaker 1 (01:06:58):
Certainly love the environment.
That is for sure.
But now it's time for thequestion of the week and it's
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This toll pass covers all 48states All 48 states $24 a year.
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(01:07:19):
That's going to be in the shownotes.
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Solutions.
This question is for you what'sone of your top places?
You would recommend for mylisteners to put on their bucket
list Something you want to door something you've already done
.

Speaker 2 (01:07:36):
Oh, that's hard.
I know I'm putting you on thespot.

Speaker 1 (01:07:38):
We did discuss this.
I'm going to talk, to give youa minute to come up with a place
.
I know you travel in an.

Speaker 2 (01:07:46):
RV.

Speaker 1 (01:07:46):
Now you have a Class C, right, you have bunks in
there for six kids.

Speaker 2 (01:07:53):
Well, it has bunks.
It's a 31-foot Greyhawk, Prettytraditional floor plan.
It's got the bunks and theslide out, but we have six kids.
But you got the overhead caband then the we call it a taco
sofa.

Speaker 1 (01:08:09):
Right, oh, taco sofa.
Yeah, aka jackknife, there yougo, I like that taco sofa.
Right, oh, taco sofa.
Yeah, AKA jackknife, there yougo, I like that taco sofa.

Speaker 2 (01:08:15):
We like food, so here we go, and so we got everybody,
then the two bunks.
So you know, when I got an RV,everyone asks you when you're in
the RV industry, what would youbuy if you?

Speaker 1 (01:08:24):
you know what one would you buy?
Oh, people ask me that all thetime yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:08:28):
Well, I always said like I buy a fifth wheel, I
think they're cool, I love howroomy they are, like how big
they are and open they are.
But then when you actually getin the moment, like the real
thing, the real question, youshould ask what rv would you buy
if you were in my shoes?
Right because then I was likewait, I have six kids.
If I buy a fifth wheel where,like what truck?
How am I going to move thisthing around?

Speaker 1 (01:08:50):
and drive the the kids yeah, I'd have to have a
second like a chaser vehicle.

Speaker 2 (01:08:53):
So motorhome really was the most logical thing, but
anyway, we love it.
Okay, the bucket list location.

Speaker 1 (01:09:00):
That was just to give him time to think of a place.

Speaker 2 (01:09:03):
yeah, yeah, that's hard.
That's why I asked and I don'tknow if I'm saying this because
if you haven't been there, itand I don't know if I'm saying
this because if you haven't beenthere, it definitely is a place
you should see, but it's alsothe most recent trip we've took
in it.
So, maybe it's fresh in my mind,but we had an amazing time at
Banff in Canada, up in Calgaryarea or Alberta.
If you haven't been to Banff,it is a wonderful place to

(01:09:27):
experience in an RV.
There's so many places you canstay.
Wonderful place to experiencein an RV.
There's so many places you canstay.
I was surprised at how muchnon-advertised camping spots in
the national parks up there, butyou probably need to know the
length.
They have some requirements andif you do that, there's no
hookups.
So you got to be prepared toboondock it boondock?

Speaker 1 (01:09:50):
okay, yeah, and that's a great question that I'm
sure your sales outfitters askpeople as far as whether they're
going to boondock or be in fullhookups, a very important
question I have.
A lot of my listeners aredreaming of the rv lifestyle in
one way or another, so I'd liketo give them that education.
Okay, so canada, bamf, canadabamf canada I've never been, so

(01:10:11):
I'm going to put that on mybucket list.
Thank you so much for being onthe podcast giving so much
incredible information, andagain we're going to do a part
two in the summer.
See how much Bish Fix isgrowing and look at those
percentages and people thatyou've been able to help.

Speaker 2 (01:10:31):
Awesome, outstanding.
Well, thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (01:10:35):
After the interview, todd and I talked about diesel
fuel and I shared the Open Roadsfuel card with him.
That is a fuel card it is easyand free to sign up for.
You get the card in the mailand then you could use that card
at many of the major truckstops and you will be able to

(01:10:56):
save money on diesel fuel.
This card has saved me so muchmoney.
There is a link in the shownotes and you could go to
myopenroadscom Again.
Just click on the link to findout all about this fuel card.
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(01:11:17):
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(01:11:40):
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It has a solid 8.0 rating onthe RV Life campground site,

(01:12:02):
with 142 reviews.
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Go to campgroundsrvlifecom typein Mount Hood Village RV Resort
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(01:12:25):
and, what's really nice, becauseit is a featured park there is
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(01:13:06):
Check that out.
Rv Life Pro Suite of Productsis the greatest way to travel in
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I want to thank Todd and thewhole Bishes RV team for the
warm welcome and all of theincredible information they

(01:13:27):
provided.
As I said, you could check outBish's by going to Bish'sRVcom
and you could check out RVFixwhich, as I said, we mentioned
in the interview.
It was previously calledBishFix, so you could go check
that out at RVFixcom and youcould see all the videos of this

(01:13:51):
interview and other videos thatI will share by going to
Inspire Travels with Patti.
I would love for you tosubscribe like comment.
You know all those things youdo on a YouTube channel.
It is just starting out, so Iappreciate your support, as
always.

(01:14:11):
I would love to hear yourthoughts on this podcast on the
YouTube channel, and you couldgo to RV Life Podcast on
Instagram and Facebook and letus know questions, comments,
things you'd like to hear,topics you'd like for me to
cover would love your support.
I want to thank you, mylisteners, and remind you life's

(01:14:36):
a journey.
Live each day to the fullest,without regrets.
I'm Pettie Hunt and you've beenlistening to the RV Life
Podcast, thank you.