May 7, 2024 • 48 mins
Dive deep with us into the digital waves of social media as we scrutinize its role in shaping the towing industry's future. From the debated relevance of Facebook to the possibly untapped riches of Twitter and TikTok, we'll dissect platforms to reveal where real, engaged communities thrive over silent follower counts. But it's not all work and no play; we'll share personal anecdotes on why stepping away to recharge is not just a luxury, but a necessity in the relentless world of towing, and the challenges that come with unplugging from the grid.
Our latest episode isn't just about towing trucks; it's about towing hearts with exceptional customer service. Hear a story that exemplifies the power of going above and beyond—how a simple tire change led to unwavering customer loyalty and why personal follow-ups triumph over impersonal surveys. We'll also navigate the choppy waters of referrals and maintaining charge account relations, crafting a blueprint for businesses to foster long-lasting connections with their clients.
When it comes to service slip-ups and hiring practices, our hosts weigh in with invaluable insights. Learn how acknowledging missteps can fortify customer trust, and why collaboration on compensation can turn a negative into an enduring positive relationship. We'll contrast the career trajectories of job seekers—does a varied resume indicate a flight risk or a breadth of experience? Join us as we unlock the secrets behind the resumes and decode the true currency of loyalty in the towing business world.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
um, like, where is the future of towing in social
media?
Is it still like?
I feel like there's so many youknow we'll call them old dogs
um, that facebook was the thego-to be all like I.
I feel like that's like, am Imissing something by not being
on like is?
Is towing popping off on ontwitter, or x?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I don't have a twitter, so I don't know,
neither do I.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Well, actually I do, but again, I'm not on it.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
I mean towing was fairly big on Instagram with the
towing and the six account whenall the shootings and fires
were going on.
But I haven't really usedInstagram the last couple of
years.
I've only ever been on Facebook.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
I know that's because I feel like we are old dogs.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
now we're not old, though I'm not old, they're only
using the grandpa facebook andwe're not really.
You're not on tiktok.
Very often I scroll tiktok butmy whole tiktok's farm related,
not towing related.
Well, if you think about it, ifyou go on facebook onto toe
talk, there's 98.1 000 membersjust in one facebook group
called toe talk.
There's 98.1 thousand membersjust in one Facebook group
(01:06):
called toe talk.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Yeah, but how many actually are active?
Right, Like that is a bigproblem that you run into.
I never, um, I never trustthose numbers.
How many are actually active,how many actually you know, when
you run a page you can see more.
Your reach your actual viewsactual views, which are two
different things, right, andthat kind of stuff.
So that's where you really getthe true numbers.
(01:28):
We're just having a Facebookfollowing, you know, or a number
of people following, you can'treally get all that information.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Hey everyone, I'm Brad from Calgary.
This is Sean from CambridgeOntario.
I'm Terry from Cornwall,ontario.
Hey, this is Larry from PitMetals, british Columbia, and
you're listening to the TowingLife Podcast.
Welcome to the Towing LifePodcast, where the ditches are
(02:06):
deep, the trucks are loaded, butthe drivers are not.
I am your host, tow man G, and,as usual, I am joined by my
co-host, friend and formerco-worker, the man with very
strong opinions, mr Plain Guy.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
What is going on?
G.
What is going on?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
I'm proud of myself.
I haven't done that intro in atleast three weeks probably
closer to four weeks now and Ididn't mess up.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
It's actually shocking how the time off
clearly has has done you well.
I don't know about that, butlike, have you been practicing
it every morning since our lastepisode to make sure that when
the time came you would nail it?
Or was it a?
Is that just naturally engravednow?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Instead of counting sheep to try to fall asleep, I
just do the intro over and overagain in my head.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Hey man, whatever works for you, whatever works
for you, as G said, welcome backto another episode of the toe
in life podcast, episode 136,after a little bit of a hiatus
it was supposed to be two weeks,it turned into three weeks just
because of scheduling conflicts.
We could not seem to make arecording work before.
Uh, before I left again, asusual, I will take all the blame
(03:20):
.
Um, the hiatus was caused, um,or due or due to, uh, my wife
and I finally needing a breakaway.
Um, as most of you know, thetowing industry is a nonstop, 24
, seven business, and sometimeswith my wife working in this
industry as well, sometimes it'snice to just get away.
(03:40):
And and we did.
We, uh, we had an amazing 10days down in the Dominican
Republic.
I made a bet with one of mydispatchers that I would not log
into our towing software at allwhile I was down there, so I
would not see what active callswere going on, scheduled calls,
what drivers were in, whatnot.
(04:01):
I stuck to that.
How much money.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Did you win on that bet?
Speaker 1 (04:07):
He didn't bet me money.
Apparently, I don't pay mydispatchers enough to bet me
actual money but no, a coupledays we even had the phone right
turned off, right, becauseobviously when you're in another
country you're paying whileyou're down there.
I said screw it.
We spent much time lounging bythe pool, on the beach.
(04:28):
We had beautiful sunny weather.
Um, it was.
It was the perfect.
Um, it was the perfect trip.
Uh, I must say, like weatherwas good, food was good.
Um, I slept like a baby.
Um, anyone that knows me knowsthat like, it takes me about
half an hour to fall asleepevery night.
Like I'm like a baby.
Anyone that knows me knows thatit takes me about half an hour
to fall asleep every night.
I'm not a person that can justI'm tired, put my head on the
(04:48):
pillow and go to sleep.
I never have been In theDominican.
I was that person, and it wasnot just alcohol fueled.
It was legitimately because Iwasn't watching what was going
on.
I wasn't worried about anything, I wasn't thinking about
anything.
I was able to just go.
That was a good day.
I've been in the sun all day.
I'm hot, I'm going to sleep.
(05:09):
Um, and managed to fall asleepwithin 15 seconds, like every
night.
So it was, uh, it was a nicechange.
It was a very nice change.
Uh, coming back to the chaoshas obviously been back to my
old ways.
Um, I definitely missed, uh, Imissed the chaos that the towing
(05:31):
industry brings day in, day out, but, uh, yeah, so I apologize
for the hiatus.
Um, I apologize, and I don'tbecause we all deserve breaks
sometimes, including on thisshow.
Um, we always we don't complain, but we explain how hard it it
can be to find time to do thisshow.
So when we do make time forourselves, I'm not going to
apologize too hard for it.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
And for me, while I was having my break, my internet
completely shit the bed.
So I had to get an internet guyto come out, and that was a
week-long process of trying toarrange times for them to come
out and actually perform theservice.
And once they fixed my internetI got better internet speeds,
(06:14):
but unfortunately it doesn'thave the same range as it used
to have with the old modem.
So my internet in the office isalmost worse than what it was
originally.
So that's wonderful.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
that's just how it is , I guess yeah, no, the uh, the
bottom of tomanji's internet hasbeen a constant, ongoing thing,
um, since the beginning of thisshow, um, I don't know how many
times we have been right.
Well, that is not what happened.
We were about to record andthen the your internet.
Yeah, we were gonna have anepisode, were we not?
(06:49):
And then your internet.
We could not get it to work, orwe?
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (06:52):
so the internet, that , uh, the last episode that you
guys seen.
I was able it took me fourhours to download the raw
podcast, an hour and a bit toedit it and then it took
overnight to get it uploaded.
So if any of the audiolisteners noticed a bit of an
(07:12):
audio quality difference in thatepisode, it's because I
uploaded it directly from my end, because the by the time it
would have emailed the plane guyfor him to upload it.
It just I woke up, I think, atuh 5 30 in the morning or five
o'clock in the morning to go towork and it was just finished
like it finished within like thelast 30 seconds.
(07:32):
So if you notice that it cameout a little bit later on
spotify, that would be why and Ido apologize, that is
dedication.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
That is dedication on a on a four hour download, um,
and then god knows an-hourupload or something.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
So that is the dedication that we bring.
I hate leaving the PC onovernight just because you don't
know what's going onThunderstorm's power?
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Yeah, of course.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
But I was like I got to, I stayed up till like
midnight and I was like it'sstill at like 50 percent.
I was like, uh, screw it, Igotta go to sleep all right.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Well, let's actually transition away from our
wonderful break, as, as allthese listeners are sitting
there going, I don't get agoddamn break.
Why do these guys get a break,um, and so on and so forth?
Because they're the hardestworker people working people in
the in the labor industry, in myopinion.
Um, I wanted to ask you aquestion.
We didn't actually put it onthe note, it was something that
came up to me while you weretalking about.
This is how important is it?
(08:35):
And and this goes a lot more tomanagement, supervisor kind of
things but, um, it's somethingwe've we've really been working
on within our company, orsomething I've been doing my
owner has been doing it for along time is following up with
customers, right.
How many times have you knowwill a manager or supervisor
follow up with a customer onsomething like it might seem
(08:56):
like minor, like the driver willcome back and tell you hey, you
know, this guy was a littleupset, he didn't agree with the
bill or whatever the case is,and we're so quick to just
dismiss that and just go.
Well, the bills, the bill, likeyou know, you, you charge it
right, yeah, yeah, I charge themthis and this and this.
Okay, that adds up and the andthe conversation is over.
I do believe that trend is iscoming back, and it has been
(09:37):
coming back for a little while,where you know good customers
especially, and they've they'vealways kind of stayed on that
same plane, but even some of theI'm not going to say not good
customers, but differentcustomer base have gone.
I will pay a little bit extrato get good service and good
quality of service, and thatquality of service does not end
(09:59):
when the car is dropped off.
That quality of service goes inthe efficiency of getting a
copy of their invoice off.
That quality of service goes inthe efficiency of getting a
copy of their invoice.
It goes in.
You know, I don't know how manypeople who I have followed up
with, who have you know, are sograteful that we called them
just to just to follow up, justto make sure everything's good,
like there wasn't a problem,right, even if it's not one with
(10:19):
a bill like I.
Give you a perfect example.
I had a customer call us theother day.
Give you a perfect example.
I had a customer call us theother day.
He was about 70, somekilometers away from us, in an
area that is serviced by plentyof tow trucks.
And he called us and he saidlook, I've been trying to get
ahold of companies and I've hadcompanies bail on me, whatever.
I'm stuck here on this highwayand I need a tire changed.
(10:40):
I got a flat tire and I've beenon the side of the highway for
like two hours.
The customer, you know.
So we advise him.
He goes what's the price?
So we give him the price andit's like a $300 tire change.
Just because of how far away youare, just because of the
mileage Because of how far wehave to travel for it.
And my dispatcher did the rightthing.
(11:00):
She offered him she, she goesfor that price.
Instead of us changing yourtires and tire and you coming
back to our home location he wascoming to the town that we're
in I can send you out a truckfor pretty well the same price
and I can tow it back right.
And the guy goes I, I don'tneed the tow, I just, if you
want to come put my tire, Idon't care on the price, come,
(11:22):
come on out.
So they called me up.
I was out doing a job orwhatever, so I was in my pickup.
I was the same distance away,but on our second location, and
I said, yeah, I'll go do thelike, I'll go take care of it.
So I get thinking.
On the way down I said I know acompany that's really close by,
like a good company that Itrust.
So I called them up and I saidhey, how long would it take you
to get a guy to here?
(11:43):
And they, you know, they say 20minutes.
Okay, and what would your pricebe to do this service?
And they said we'd be lookingabout 120 bucks, right, so less
than half of my car, like ofwhat I'm going to charge.
Yep.
So I call my, I call thecustomer up, I say, look, it's
not that I don't want yourbusiness, I absolutely want your
business.
But at the same time, like Ihave cost of running this call
(12:07):
and I have a company that I knowis good and is in your area,
closer to you, because it'sgoing to take me, you know, 45
minutes, 50 minutes to get outthere, they can be there in
about 20 minutes and this istheir price.
If you're good with it, I'mgonna.
I'm gonna send them out and youand give them your contact
information.
Customer's super grateful, hey Iappreciate that You're not just
(12:28):
trying to charge me because youcan charge me Right and it's
good business practice,especially this guy being a
local Right.
Like you're going to get youknow this guy's going to, you
know get.
So I'm going to get servicefrom this guy again, yep.
And the biggest thing that wedid, going back to the whole
original point of thisconversation, is an hour later I
called him and I said hey joe,I just want to follow up.
(12:52):
I want to make sure you were alltaken care of.
I want to make sure everythingwas good with the driver.
Like you know you were, likeyou got the service you were
expecting and you're and you'regood to go, and he goes,
absolutely.
He's like I'm just rolling backinto you know, into town.
The guy was great, it was theprice you told me, everything
was great.
I'll call you know, no matterwhat, next time I'll call you.
I'm like, even if you're,you're not in my area, you can
(13:13):
call me.
Because if it's something thatis feasible for me to go do and
make sense for you as theconsumer, I'll do it.
If not, I will find yousomebody who I trust or know in
that area or recommend somebodyin that area to do it.
Now I'm sure there's a guyscreaming at his phone right now
going like whoa, why wouldn'tyou just take the money Right,
like, hey, it's an easy call.
(13:34):
You're in a pickup truck,you're going to drive out there,
your margin is going to begreat on that call and 100% it
would be.
But my customer servicewouldn't be Right.
But my customer servicewouldn't be right In my opinion,
although the customer iscommitted to it and knows that
our times and everything else, Ihave made a long-term customer
by not subbing out the workCause I didn't have my hands on
(13:56):
any of the finances on it.
Right, I let him pay themdirectly.
And even the company that elselike what did you cause?
Originally they were like youknow, I think they were like uh,
95 bucks.
Like when I asked them and shesaid I'm like, well, you're like
that's what I quote.
And she's like, well, do youmind if I ask what you quoted?
And I'm like 200, I think itwas 290 and she's like, well,
would you be upset if I did 120?
(14:17):
I'm like no I think that'sreasonable for what the call is
like.
I think that's a fair value forthe call.
If she would have said do youmind if I do 250?
I'd be like, no, if you'regoing to do 250, I'm going to do
290 from where I am.
Like I'm not going to you knowwhat I mean.
Like I'm not going to add thatmargin all to you.
But yeah, if you want to add anextra $20 because it's on the
highway or you know whatever itis that you're calling the guy
(14:39):
and that's reasonable, fairbusiness.
So I made a good relationshipwith the towing company, which I
already had a greatrelationship with, but I
solidified that relationship.
I made a good relationship withthe customer because he said
not only did these guys makesure I was taken care of and
didn't want to overcharge me,but they followed up after the
(14:59):
fact.
That follow-up it's amazing howmany times and it takes two
seconds and I'm the worst to notthink about doing it, because
I've had a driver come in andtell me something and then I'm
just like, okay, cool.
And then I look over at myowner and he's sitting there
like and I can just tell by thelook he's given me he's like
you're going to follow up withthat guy and I'm like I should
(15:19):
follow up with that guy.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
And you just what I mean.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
You just call them up and you say hey, you know, just
wanted to check in.
I uh, you know I was talkingwith my driver.
I just want to make sure youwere happy with the service.
The pricing was fair, likethere was nothing.
You know nothing we could havedone differently or better.
Is there anything that we needto work on?
Customers take that like,because it looks like the
company cares and they don'tcare in the sense of I have
their email address, that'swhere I send them invoices.
(15:43):
They don't go, oh, it's justsending a.
You know Amazon.
Every time you buy something,they send you this.
How would you rate yourtransaction?
Yeah Right, it isn't that level.
It's literally, you knowsomebody within the company is
giving you a call and genuinelywants to make sure that
everything was okay with yourservice.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Well, I think in that situation you put up, it was in
your best interest, because thecustomer was fed up with the
people that he's already talkedto.
He's called you, he's agreed onyour price, he wants to deal
with your company.
And then, 20 minutes after heagreed upon dealing with your
company for a said price, yousay hey, listen, I've got
another company that's local toyou, it's going to be cheaper.
You've pretty much brokered ajob, even though you didn't get
(16:32):
paid.
But that's pretty much what youdid.
You brokered a job for yourcustomer to get him taken care
of, because you know that he'sgoing to be a customer of yours
in future.
So that's exactly what you did.
So in that position you prettymuch have to follow up because
if the company that yourecommended did a piss poor job,
(16:53):
for whatever reason, that alsolooks badly on you because you
recommended and sent them out.
Of course, in your genericday-to-day calls, following up
with customers I think is alittle less needed because,
especially, we get a lot, we geta lot of volume through
roadsides and stuff like thatand with those roadsides they
(17:14):
have the ability to follow uproadsides also, send out that
generic survey or whatever.
Right what you're saying, um,but when it's a lot, of, a lot
of times the people that aregoing to have the issues is like
what you're saying is they'reupset with the bill or they
think that something is coveredunder the roadside but isn't in
(17:37):
the call doesn't get done forwhatever reason.
Or if they said, oh, myvehicle's 10 feet off the road,
but it's actually 200 feet offthe road and the wrong truck got
sent out, stuff like that, themajority of the customers, if
they have a bad experience,they're going to say something
right and I'm not saying it hasto be up to them to say it.
(17:59):
But in your specific locationand your setup, yes, you have
the ability to do that.
That.
It makes a lot more sense foryou.
But a lot of smaller operationssix guys, ten guys they might
just not have the manpower orthey might not think of that the
same way.
Because, hey, I'm just heredoing calls, doing call after
(18:22):
call after call and of you wantyour customer service to be good
, but if someone in your day, ifyou've dealt with 20 people
that day, if one person justseemed a little off to you, you
don't know if he's off becausethey're having a bad day,
because their tire blew out onthe highway or whatever, or if
they're off because of somethingthat you said or did Right.
(18:45):
So yeah, would it make would itmake a difference if you called
that person?
Sure, but if you called everycustomer you dealt with, or even
20% of the customers you dealtwith, that's almost a full-time
job for some operations.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
But I'm not saying like this isn't your like
drivers that should be doingthis followup?
Yeah, right, and no, your likedrivers that should be doing
this follow-up?
Yeah right and no?
I don't believe, unless thereis a major issue following up
with a roadside customer.
I have followed up withroadside customers.
If there is like a you know, ayou know whether it be a driver
that told me something about thecall, whether it be a complaint
(19:20):
that came back through theroadside, obviously those you
have to follow up with.
Um, you know, very rarely,though, is there scenarios with
those roadside customers.
But your retail customers, thecustomers that have made the
decision to pay you directly,right, the the customer who has
made the choice to spend theirmoney with my company, right,
(19:44):
and we're seeing that a lot ofcompanies don't, do you know, or
do a mix of roadside and retail?
Yeah, so you know of that, I do40 roadside, I do, uh, 30
percent um retail.
And then I do you know 30charge accounts?
Yeah right, charge accounts andretail are different.
(20:05):
For the sake of this argument,they are still companies that
have made the choice to to dealdirectly with us.
But, that being said, it'sthose 30% of the retail and then
your charge accounts, of course.
Yeah, your charge accounts, youshould be following up
regularly, but that's not afull-time job.
It is nothing to pick oneretail call a day, right, let's
say one, let's say, even if youdo 20 retails in a day, right,
(20:29):
you are grabbing five percentand mate and having a two to
three to eight if they'retalkative minute conversation a
day.
That is not unreasonable and isnot a full-time thing, right?
Yeah, like it is something thatgoes that you know that extra
(20:52):
distance and, yes, follow upwith your charge accounts once a
week.
Hey, take a day a week and govisit your charge accounts.
Hey, you know, I just did thaton friday I had to stop by.
That's a new, it's an accountwe've dealt with before, from
another city that set up abranch in our location.
I stopped by and he told mecome on by one day.
You know, I'll give you a tourof the new, how we set up and
cool.
So I just stopped in on friday,randomly, friday afternoon, and
(21:14):
you know, seeing the managerand we we just talked about, you
know because, hey, I want youguys to do my, you know this or
this or this.
Um, cool, no problem like whatdo you?
You know even pricing, right, Ireached right out to this
customer and we had moved avehicle inside for them, like
did a shunt for them, and uh, Isaid hey, before I send off the
(21:35):
bill because we hadn't done oneyet for this location.
I want to talk to you about whatis a reasonable price for this,
what is something you arecomfortable with that is going
to be re-added to the bill.
Right, I'm not going to devaluemy services but at the same
time, right, those little jobslike shunting into shops.
We used to do it for body shops, remember, we used to shunt the
(21:55):
cars in the body shop.
Those little jobs, you knowyou're not running and always at
your full retail because you'regetting the.
You know, in the case of thebody shop, you get the full
retail accident toes thatthey'll call you for.
You're getting the, you know.
And the same thing when you getinto the bigger shops, they'll
call you for disabled tractortrailers and stuff.
Right, so, moving just atractor in their shop, not doing
full retail.
But I want to make sure it's aprice that you're comfortable
(22:17):
with so that you don't get myinvoice and go oh man, they can
charge me that every time I'mgonna, you know, let's have a
discussion about it.
What is it that you want tocharge to your customers?
What is your percentage?
Okay, so let's add yourpercentage onto this.
Are you happy with that rate?
Yeah, no, I think that's agreat rate, perfect, right?
So now the customers also feellike you know they're taken care
(22:37):
of, right, it's not like I callthese guys and, and you know,
and especially you know, acompany like ours and companies
get reputations as they getbigger, right, the.
The biggest reputation is that,oh, they don't need my work,
right?
Or it's just, it's set Like.
There's.
When you go away from familybusiness and you start to grow
bigger and bigger and bigger,that corporate idea ideology can
(22:57):
kind of set in and that'llscare some customers away, right
, because they go.
Well, these guys don't careabout me because they have so
much volume, they have so muchcustomers.
I'm just another and I'm anumber, exactly.
And when you give them thatpersonal acknowledgement and
that opportunity to you know,voice your concerns with them or
to whatever it brings you backto, that, you can be a bigger
(23:21):
company but still have be intouch with your, with your
customer base, and I think thatis important when it comes to
growing and and I think of a lotof smaller companies like the
ones that we've worked for wouldmake those phone calls.
I really do believe it builds abigger you know, a stronger bond
in your community, a strongerbond with your customer, a
(23:42):
stronger you know I might'vejust called them because they
were the first one that showedup on the list, but that
personal phone call will willyou know what I mean Push the
fact that I want to call themagain and and you know what I
mean Really reiterate that uhwith our customers.
Cause you know, I think weforget I do, at least I forget
about the empathy side of this.
(24:03):
I forget that these peopledon't deal with this every day.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Right To me it's oh yeah, well, they, uh, you know
what I mean.
They, they, they seem a littleupset because the garage,
whatever, the God knows whateverthey seem a little off about
and test, we just go.
Oh, that's normal, that's partof the business.
But to these people this has.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
You got to.
Really, that's something likeif you're planning on doing
something like this andimplementing it, you're going to
have to get a little bit moreinformation from the driver
who's coming in and saying thesethings to you Because, let's
(24:50):
say, their car is parked 90degrees on their lawn, off their
driveway, and you got to putone tire on the back or like
onto the grass a little bit andyou leave a little indent on the
grass, and that's just becauseof how they had their disabled
vehicle parked and it wasunavoidable unavoidable.
But if they're upset about that, yeah, it could be warranted a
phone call.
But what are you going to sayto them?
That I'm sorry that this had tohappen just because of how the
truck was and where the car wasthat we had to pick up them.
That I'm sorry that this had tohappen just because of how the
truck was and where the car wasthat we had to pick up.
(25:11):
Well, that's not making anyprogress into making them
happier, because they think thatyou're in the wrong to begin
with.
Right?
not aware to where okay, let'ssay, um, you're in their
driveway and the driver didn'ttilt the bed up quite far enough
and you left a scratch in theirdriveway.
That is warranted a phone call,because then that's a little
(25:33):
bit of damage control.
Just say I'm sorry that thishappened to you.
Yada, yada, yada.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Try to smooth things over, right, but but I think two
things, okay, two things thethere's two different times that
you're referring to in phonecalls here.
Both of the ones that you youmentioned are literally because
something went bad.
It doesn't something doesn'talways have to go bad or have
that complaint in order for youto follow up.
(25:59):
You can just follow up too forthe sake of following up, which
goes just as far.
But as for you know, how areyou going to make that better?
By just apologizing?
You're not really makinganything better, you are.
The reason I say that is thisIf you have a plumber come to
your house and tell yousomething that doesn't quite
make sense to you, right,because of your understanding of
(26:23):
the scenario, which may belimited, but you go, but you go.
That really doesn't make sense.
Then you have another plumbercall you and reinforce that fact
.
That, unfortunately, like youknow, given the situation like
this, was the best approach, andit's all how you approach it.
In that conversation, there isthe opportunity to put them a
(26:44):
little bit more at ease.
That is okay, that is, you know.
I mean one person telling me adriver on scene and god knows,
our drivers have bad days too,and some of them aren't the best
at explaining things, right?
So, oh, no, I have to, and thenyou call the customer up and
you go.
Okay, so you know I spoke withthe driver, given the angle of
the vehicle.
Um, you know, we looked, youknow I looked at other options
(27:04):
that would make sense.
This was the most practical waythat we could avoid doing any
further damage.
Right, and you and you get thatreinforcement on the customer
while not throwing your guyunder a bus.
Right, you can absolutelyhandle that situation where a
customer is happier after theygot a phone and you're telling
them.
You've told them the exact samething, just in a different way.
(27:26):
Right, the scraping thing.
I mean I've gone out and, andyou know little thing, like you
know, I dropped oil on adriveway and I've gone out there
with the dish, soap and theabsorb, all in the different
things, and sat there andscrubbed a driveway little
things like that, where you knowit doesn't cost as much to take
care of.
No, but it shows the companythat you know the customer that,
(27:48):
because you do have very pickycustomers, right, how many?
times you had those very, verypicky customers where, like you,
you hate to even like,especially when you know they're
the picky customer.
It's one thing when you get oneand they're picky like.
I had a complaint the other day, I believe or not, still have
not followed up with this one,because I actually meant to.
(28:09):
So one of my drivers gets acall to go impound a vehicle for
the police.
Now, this person that we areimpounding and I am not
exaggerating, I have had five ofhis vehicles in my yard in the
last two years.
He is a frequent flyer yeah,frequent flyer.
Younger kid suspended license,registers a car and everybody
(28:32):
else's name, or never registersthem and anyways, keeps getting
caught over and over again andthen he's a pain to deal with at
our yard.
I got a complaint.
My dispatch called me on Fridaynight no, it wasn't Friday, I
don't remember what night shecalls me.
She said hey, I just gave you aheads up.
I got a complaint about, youknow, driver A, that he was rude
to them on scene and everythingelse and they were trying to
(28:56):
take photos and videos and hewouldn't let them and I'm like
not tell me much about the callother than the complaint, you
know, and luckily we haverecorded phone lines so I can go
back and listen to it.
So I looked at the call and Iseen the details and I remember
the repeat customer and I gookay, so talk to my driver.
What happened?
Nothing, he's like I loaded thetruck and I walked around the
(29:18):
truck and they were videotaping,probably doing a tiktok,
because we always see this guyon tiktok with our trucks, his
videos inside her impound and,um, I walked in front of her to
to do the uh, like to go aroundthe truck and she wasn't very
happy about that.
Like I was blocked, like Iblocked her video or I messed up
(29:38):
her video.
First of all, the customer isnot my customer, the police are.
I have a job to load thisvehicle and get out of here.
Second of all, if you are in myway and he's not like she's,
like I wasn't, like she wasn'tin my way and he's not like
she's like I wasn't, like shewasn't in my way, like I didn't
bump her, I didn't, you know,nudge her on the way by, like I
was nowhere near touching her,but like I'm not going to, oh,
you're taking a video.
Let me go all the way aroundyou.
(29:59):
I have a job to do.
Right, I'm being hired by thepolice, not you.
If this was a retail customer,yeah, I just want to get a video
before it leaves.
Cool no problem.
All right, like you're paying me, no problem.
Police are paying me for aseized vehicle.
Please aren't paying me, butthe police have called me for a
seized vehicle.
I don't have time to you know,you know.
(30:20):
And then what was there?
Well, he looked at, he gave hera mean look and I'm like is
this really the society we're innow?
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Yes, is that your complaint.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
Yes, it is that he looked at you funny, yep.
So he proceeded to load thevehicle.
They asked, while it was on thebed, to get stuff out.
Of course he had the vehiclesecured, it wasn't down, the bed
wasn't up yet.
He allowed them to get stuffout and then at one point, like
they just kept going on aboutwhatever and he's like, well,
like we got to get going, likeyou know, and the cop came over
(30:51):
and told them as well, like he'staking the car go.
Yeah, so does that deserve afollow-up?
In my opinion it still does.
I knew they were going to becoming to the yard the next day.
I was hoping to see them andthey came to the yard.
I didn't actually notice thatthey were at the yard.
I never got to speak with them.
So now I gotta call them andfollow up, because I figured
(31:11):
I'll let them just come to theyard and we'll have a
conversation right in person.
Hey, you know, I just want tomake sure you're good.
I heard those complain about youknow my driver was being rude.
Again, it's a police call.
I I still my drivers can't berude right, like I don't think
walking in front of her andgiving her a mean look after
probably you know five minutesfor trying to get stuff out of
(31:33):
the car after she probably beensitting there 20 minutes before
we got there.
You know I'd roll my eyes atsomebody and like, if you know,
I'm not exactly taking that as acomplaint.
I'm not, you know, given adriver flack for did you roll
your eyes at this?
This police impound.
He's like, yeah, when I rolledup and I seen it's the same guy
that we've had for five times inthe area, he's probably like,
oh God damn it.
You know, but no, you, you dohave to follow up with that.
(31:58):
As petty as it seems, you haveto follow up on it.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
But do you though, because, like you're just
feeding into this society of thesqueaky wheel, gets the grease
even when the wheel shouldn't besqueaky in the first place?
Speaker 1 (32:14):
I'm not saying you have to apologize, no, I'm
saying you got to follow up.
There is a difference.
There is a difference.
Right, I know what this isgoing to be.
I I can almost predict, becauseI've done this enough now, that
that phone call is going tostart with his complaint to what
my thoughts are on what my youknow ideas are and voicing them
(32:37):
to him.
Then, followed up by how muchis the bill?
Followed up by?
Well, I think I should get adeal followed up by thank you,
have a great day and we'll seeyou in seven days to get your
vehicle right like I'm.
It's not feeding into the youknow.
Oh, you complained.
Okay, let me, you know, let mefix your bobo, let me fix where
(33:02):
the words hurt you, right, orthe mean look, hurt you, no, no,
but, but you do need to followup with it, right?
Because there's nothing worsethan, hey, I called and had this
complaint and they saidsomebody would reach out to me
and nobody did.
That is worse than you knowwhat I mean.
And, like I say, you don't haveto apologize, but you do follow
(33:23):
up with it, hear out theirvoice and then tell them where
it stands when it comes to theimpound stuff and especially,
like what you're saying, a veryfrequent flyer.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Those are the type of people that will never say yes,
I was in the wrong.
They're always looking to blamesomeone else for their mistakes
and unfortunately we deal witha lot of those types of people
in this industry because of thesituations they put themselves
in.
But they won't admit that theyput themselves in that situation
and it is a fine line to walk,because they can normally be
(33:58):
rude in that situation becauseof they're blaming you for
whatever you did, which is justnormally your job.
Normally they're they'relooking for either an apology or
money off, like you were saying, and it's very easy just to say
okay, shut up, get away from me, I'll knock 50 off the bill
(34:20):
just to make the situation goaway.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
But then you are now feeding into that because they
got a reward for being an asswhen they really anyone who
knows me, anyone who knows meknows that that will not be my
response, I know, but I'm sayingfor other people yeah right, we
, we do that in other avenuessometimes.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Um, so let's say you do have that scrape in the
driveway and the guy would be.
He's a little blown out ofproportion for what the damage
is he wants.
Oh, it was a thousand dollartow bill for one little scratch
on the driveway.
He specs the whole bill to becomped right yeah, well, the
service needs to be free becauseI got to scratch my driveway
(35:02):
and be like, well, I can't dothat here, I'll knock 200 off
your bill.
And well, now that guy feelsrewarded, right, because he got
something off the bill whenrealistically, all it should
have really been was I'll comeout with a sharpie and put a
mark in your driveway and you'llnever notice it again well,
that's it.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Sometimes you do overcompensate compensation, for
, you know, the sake of goodbusiness practice and the sake
of you know and and again.
And that's where you got toreally evaluate the customer to
see where they're at on thisright, like I've had some,
whether it be for damage, like Ihad one.
We blew a line right in thisguy's driveway.
Driveway is like two yearsfresh paved yeah, blah,
(35:43):
hydraulic fluid everywhere soand we went to clean it and it's
still like we could not get itfully out.
There was a stain right.
We cleaned and cleaned andcleaned and you know we brought
in different chemicals on theset.
It just there was.
Always there was that littlebit of stain that would take
forever to go away.
So I made a deal with thecustomer.
I said how about we seal thedriveway?
(36:04):
Right, it's pretty fair.
We'll seal the boulevard,because it was actually the
boulevard section between thesidewalk and the road and he
goes well.
My problem with that is is thatit won't match the driveway up
from the sidewalk to the house.
I said you're right.
I said I can talk to my guy.
I'm willing to cover and fixthe mistake that I made.
If you want, I'll see if youcan get us a deal and we'll do
(36:28):
that section too as well.
But you're paying for thesection from the sidewalk to the
house and he goes.
I think that's fair.
He's like you've wrecked my onearea.
I mean it's kind of our faultthat they won't match.
So like I wasn't gonna push thesubject, if I had to do the
whole thing, I'd do the wholething.
But he's like no, I think it'sfair, I'll do my, I'll do that
portion, if you do the portionof the road.
And like I think the bill endedup being for him like 80 bucks,
(36:48):
you know 80 bucks and he endedup paying and got his whole,
this whole thing resealed yeahright, because the guy went hey,
look, I'm paying for theboulevard, what would you charge
me?
what would you charge for thedriveway?
I'll just charge this much,okay, cool, yeah, right, so it's
fixing fixing places where youwent wrong in a spot like that
and and a lot of it.
Honestly, ask the customer.
(37:09):
That is one thing that I'velearned that I've been so
shocked by.
I had a job that I quoted outand when my driver got there to
do this job, it was lowering aboat back into a river on like a
track system and everythingelse.
But once I got there, it thejob went sideways.
It was not quite what wethought it was.
They weren't set up the waythey thought they were.
It was like a three hour jobthat took seven hours.
(37:32):
So I reached out to thecustomer and I said, hey, and?
And there was the.
What made it worse is there waspart of the delays were our
fault, part of the delays wastheir fault.
I reached out to the customerand instead of just saying hey,
look, I know this went wrong.
You know, my driver told me youguys had this, this, this and
(37:58):
this.
I'm gonna put the bill at this,instead of just telling the
customer what I'm gonna chargehim.
I asked him.
I said hey, you know, I knowthat you guys had a day.
It didn't go exactly how we hadplanned and everything else.
What do you think is reasonable?
What time do you believe wasspent because of you know, an
error, an issue that we had, orwe ran out of line, or you know,
and how much was caused by,maybe, some issues on your end
and we came up with a happynumber?
The customer is then happyabout the job, right, because we
(38:20):
always quote out on that stuffhourly anyways.
But instead of me just tellingthem I went from three hours to
five hours and you're gonna paythis bill, I said what are you
gonna be happy with?
Like, what do you think is fair?
And so we discussed it and I'mlike he's like, you know, I, if
you're well, I'm like I'mwilling to take a couple of the
hours, like as my own right,like that's on us.
If I take two hours and youtake two hours, do you think
(38:41):
that's fair?
We bring it up to five andeverybody's, you know.
And he goes yeah, I thinkthat's more fair, perfect.
Here's a copy of your invoice.
I still ate my time that ittook me, the customer.
I could have just told him hewas paying five hours, yeah, but
by giving them thatconversation, feeling that it's
not like, oh, this company isjust trying to bully me out of
more money.
Now this company's trying to befair with me.
We came up to a mutualresolution.
(39:02):
You can do that with a lot ofcustomers surprisingly, by just
you know it's something youdon't think of and there's
customers you never will like.
There's customers that justmatter.
What you say is you know you'regoing to get those.
But at the most part, likefollowing up with the customer,
having a conversation, givingthem a chance to you know, voice
whatever issues they might havehad, because I'm going off the
(39:23):
information my driver gave me.
Let's be honest, they lie too.
Yeah, right, like they lie aswell.
Like they, we sit there and wetake our driver's side a lot
over customers, but at the sametime our drivers exaggerate
things to.
Our drivers are human, right,they see things from their
perspective only as well.
So sometimes just just doingthat followup, getting that
(39:44):
extra little bit of informationfrom the customer and having the
conversation with them, go sofar.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
Yeah.
So speaking of drivers, I dowant to get into one other topic
for this show before we close.
You have a driver, you have twodrivers that come to your door
with resumes in hand.
You've got one driver that'sworked at four, maybe even five
different companies in the last10 years.
And then you have a driverwho's worked for the same
(40:12):
company for 10 years.
I see the guy that's jumpedaround to four or five different
companies in the last 10 years.
There's probably some negativethings to him because maybe he
just wasn't a very good fit atall these companies and maybe
that's good, maybe that's bad.
He could have picked updifferent bad habits over these
four companies.
But also, on the flip sidepositive thing about him, he's
(40:36):
got more experience because he'sworked with different people
and he could potentially havelearned different things.
Right.
Where the guy with 10 years atthe one company, he might be
more loyal to that companybecause he's put 10 years of his
life working with one company.
But maybe at the flip side,he's only ever been well.
He's only had the ability tolearn from whoever's worked at
(40:57):
that company over the last 10years and maybe he hasn't
learned that much in the last 10years.
What are your thoughts on that?
How?
What resume looks better justfrom years of experience?
Speaker 1 (41:08):
Yeah.
So if we're going like we're,we're putting these people as
identical people.
You know same skill like same.
You know appearances, sameideologies.
You get from them, same vibe,you get from them and everything
.
But one's been at five, four orfive companies ten once.
Once they was one.
The only question I would havefor them that that might affect
my decision on this is, um,mainly for the 10-year driver,
(41:30):
and that is why.
Why did you leave?
The reason I say that is, ifyou've, if you've been 10 years
in a place, I feel like that guyis more likely to jump ship
than the guy that's been there,that's been to a couple every
two years.
The reason I say that isbecause there is so much loyalty
tied up into the company.
Right, like I had that problem,like, no matter, I worked and
(41:55):
and I'd moved around back when,when I moved up to, you know,
towards toronto and everythingelse, I always carried loyalty
to the company that I'm with now.
Always I compared everywhere Iworked to the company that I'm
at now.
Right, because I had a long.
It wasn't a 10 year, but it wasa long.
You know, it was a decentstretch with them before I,
(42:16):
before I went anywhere, anywhereelse.
As somebody who's moved arounda couple of times in companies
and and finding the right fitand everything, I don't look
poorly upon the guy with fourcompanies in 10 years.
I think that's a good run.
You know the towing industry isis and it depends what those
companies were, right, you know,um, um, we've worked with a guy
(42:37):
who jumped around a lot ofcompanies.
That guy jumped around a lot ofgood companies yeah I look at
that more negatively than Iwould if it jumped around for
shady companies, because you'relike, okay, this guy's just
trying to find his spot, yeah,um, but you are right, I
probably.
Which one would look when you,when it says looks better on a
(42:57):
resume, it's obviously going togo to the one year, 10, the one
place, 10 year guy yeah, onpaper that looks better.
The reality is, I think I likethe other one more.
I think I would be more likelyto look a little deeper into the
move around again, depending onthe companies and whatnot
there's.
There's so many variables.
That's why I hate these genericquestions sometimes, because
(43:18):
they're not as easy as just youknow a or b, um, depending on
what the companies were,depending on what the age is.
I mean, if he's not 10 years,he's old enough.
Um, yeah, you know, like I take.
You know we had a phone callwith him, davey.
Davey would be one of thoseguys that his resume shows one
(43:39):
company, yeah, right, for 30years or whatever that number
was that he had told us Right.
And a lot of people go yeah,it's true, he only got the
experience from one person.
Like I did learn a lot fromdifferent companies that I
worked at Right.
I learned a lot from thecompany I'm at now.
Before I left, I learned what Ididn't want in a company.
To the company I went todirectly after I left um and
(44:03):
then I went up tron away and Ilearned a lot from guys like
davey, from guys like chris.
Right like I learned you knowand then you know.
For me it was a growth time too, for learning how to deal with
different people in differentscenarios.
Right Then I spent time with asmall little company as a filler
.
We always knew this was afiller, this was never a career
path with this company, um, butit was just to kind of scratch
(44:26):
that itch and I learned thingsthere too.
You can learn things at acompany.
It isn't about what you learn.
It's not always about learningwhat you want.
It can be just as much learningwhat you don't want, right, or
what not to do, right like I'veworked for companies where I
went what do you know?
Like, this is exactly what Idon't want and I wouldn't have
(44:48):
known that unless I worked thereI think it a I think the actual
resume topic can be broughtback up again of okay.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
so it's one thing to put the name of the company on
your resume and say I was a towtruck operator, but you need to
put descriptions underneath ofwhat you actually did.
And I think, especially if youhave worked at two or three
towing places, the descriptionof your job pretty much stays
the same.
So it starts to make you think,well, maybe should I put some
(45:18):
different experience on thisresume because realistically
you're yeah, becauserealistically you can normally
only got room for three priorjobs on a resume, right?
so then how do you like breakapart one towing company from
another towing company and theexperience that you've had?
Speaker 1 (45:36):
no, I've absolutely looked.
Um, you know, we we always dowhen I review resumes and a lot
of it comes down to um, you know, following up with companies,
sometimes right, and and thetowing industry is notorious for
not following up, I think a lotof them are for not following
up and then for following upindirectly with the.
(45:58):
You know, you know a guy thatworks at the company, so you're
going to call that guy and belike, hey, what did you think of
working with Joe and thatdriver?
Especially if it's a driver ifthat just happened to be one
might not be able to give youthe best example, or might not
be able to give you the best youknow example, or might not be
able to give you the true.
It's just his side by side,working as, if, you know, g and
(46:20):
I were working side by side.
When you do speak with theirdirect supervisors, a lot of
times you'll find out some ofthe more you know interesting
deals about things, whether itbe that they were late more
often, whether it be all theselittle things that a driver
working side by side with themwouldn't really know.
Um, so, seeing those names, aslong as you're doing the
(46:45):
followup and you're doing somehomework on them.
I'm like I'm the first guythat'll take a, that'll take a
flyer on somebody.
I have made hiring decisionsthat I would question, that I
still question to this day, um,and then I've made some of those
decisions that I did not thinkwould work out and they turned
out to be great operators, um.
So, comparing the experience,I've always been a big believer.
(47:06):
I'd rather somebody with verylittle experience.
10 years is a lot, um, but thatbeing said, you need those guys
.
You need that stability withinthe company, these guys that
have that experience that, theseguys that can do.
You know a little bit ofeverything.
Maybe teach some of these newerguys you have coming in.
So my opinion on paper it looksbetter.
(47:29):
One place, 10 years.
Reality of things depending onthe situation, I think the four
years can be an ideal.
Uh.
Four companies in 10 years isuh is still a good candidate.
That being said, ladies andgentlemen, we have lost mr toman
g.
His internet has gone out.
While I was on that rant, Imanaged to save it on my own, so
it is a great time, uh, to goout on this show I do.
(47:52):
Thank you all for joining usagain.
I apologize again for thehiatus, the three episode delay.
I'm much more tanned andrelaxed because of it.
So, as I said in the beginning,I'll never apologize too hard.
But I want to thank you forjoining us for another episode
of the Towing Life podcast.
We are out every Tuesday.
We will be back again next weekwith more towing content.
(48:13):
I hope you enjoyed.
I can't wait to see you.
Don't forget, head over to thewebsite, wwwtowinglifeca, email
us directly at thetowinglife atgmailcom, or find us on Facebook
at the Towing Life Podcast.
If you're watching over on theYouTube side, do not forget to
comment down below.
Hit that thumbs up.
Thanks for seeing you.
We'll see you again next week.
(48:33):
Take care.
um, like, where is the future of towing in social
media?
Is it still like?
I feel like there's so many youknow we'll call them old dogs
um, that facebook was the thego-to be all like I.
I feel like that's like, am Imissing something by not being
on like is?
Is towing popping off on ontwitter, or x?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I don't have a twitter, so I don't know,
neither do I.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Well, actually I do, but again, I'm not on it.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
I mean towing was fairly big on Instagram with the
towing and the six account whenall the shootings and fires
were going on.
But I haven't really usedInstagram the last couple of
years.
I've only ever been on Facebook.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
I know that's because I feel like we are old dogs.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
now we're not old, though I'm not old, they're only
using the grandpa facebook andwe're not really.
You're not on tiktok.
Very often I scroll tiktok butmy whole tiktok's farm related,
not towing related.
Well, if you think about it, ifyou go on facebook onto toe
talk, there's 98.1 000 membersjust in one facebook group
called toe talk.
There's 98.1 thousand membersjust in one Facebook group
(01:06):
called toe talk.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Yeah, but how many actually are active?
Right, Like that is a bigproblem that you run into.
I never, um, I never trustthose numbers.
How many are actually active,how many actually you know, when
you run a page you can see more.
Your reach your actual viewsactual views, which are two
different things, right, andthat kind of stuff.
So that's where you really getthe true numbers.
(01:28):
We're just having a Facebookfollowing, you know, or a number
of people following, you can'treally get all that information.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Hey everyone, I'm Brad from Calgary.
This is Sean from CambridgeOntario.
I'm Terry from Cornwall,ontario.
Hey, this is Larry from PitMetals, british Columbia, and
you're listening to the TowingLife Podcast.
Welcome to the Towing LifePodcast, where the ditches are
(02:06):
deep, the trucks are loaded, butthe drivers are not.
I am your host, tow man G, and,as usual, I am joined by my
co-host, friend and formerco-worker, the man with very
strong opinions, mr Plain Guy.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
What is going on?
G.
What is going on?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
I'm proud of myself.
I haven't done that intro in atleast three weeks probably
closer to four weeks now and Ididn't mess up.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
It's actually shocking how the time off
clearly has has done you well.
I don't know about that, butlike, have you been practicing
it every morning since our lastepisode to make sure that when
the time came you would nail it?
Or was it a?
Is that just naturally engravednow?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Instead of counting sheep to try to fall asleep, I
just do the intro over and overagain in my head.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Hey man, whatever works for you, whatever works
for you, as G said, welcome backto another episode of the toe
in life podcast, episode 136,after a little bit of a hiatus
it was supposed to be two weeks,it turned into three weeks just
because of scheduling conflicts.
We could not seem to make arecording work before.
Uh, before I left again, asusual, I will take all the blame
(03:20):
.
Um, the hiatus was caused, um,or due or due to, uh, my wife
and I finally needing a breakaway.
Um, as most of you know, thetowing industry is a nonstop, 24
, seven business, and sometimeswith my wife working in this
industry as well, sometimes it'snice to just get away.
(03:40):
And and we did.
We, uh, we had an amazing 10days down in the Dominican
Republic.
I made a bet with one of mydispatchers that I would not log
into our towing software at allwhile I was down there, so I
would not see what active callswere going on, scheduled calls,
what drivers were in, whatnot.
(04:01):
I stuck to that.
How much money.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Did you win on that bet?
Speaker 1 (04:07):
He didn't bet me money.
Apparently, I don't pay mydispatchers enough to bet me
actual money but no, a coupledays we even had the phone right
turned off, right, becauseobviously when you're in another
country you're paying whileyou're down there.
I said screw it.
We spent much time lounging bythe pool, on the beach.
(04:28):
We had beautiful sunny weather.
Um, it was.
It was the perfect.
Um, it was the perfect trip.
Uh, I must say, like weatherwas good, food was good.
Um, I slept like a baby.
Um, anyone that knows me knowsthat like, it takes me about
half an hour to fall asleepevery night.
Like I'm like a baby.
Anyone that knows me knows thatit takes me about half an hour
to fall asleep every night.
I'm not a person that can justI'm tired, put my head on the
(04:48):
pillow and go to sleep.
I never have been In theDominican.
I was that person, and it wasnot just alcohol fueled.
It was legitimately because Iwasn't watching what was going
on.
I wasn't worried about anything, I wasn't thinking about
anything.
I was able to just go.
That was a good day.
I've been in the sun all day.
I'm hot, I'm going to sleep.
(05:09):
Um, and managed to fall asleepwithin 15 seconds, like every
night.
So it was, uh, it was a nicechange.
It was a very nice change.
Uh, coming back to the chaoshas obviously been back to my
old ways.
Um, I definitely missed, uh, Imissed the chaos that the towing
(05:31):
industry brings day in, day out, but, uh, yeah, so I apologize
for the hiatus.
Um, I apologize, and I don'tbecause we all deserve breaks
sometimes, including on thisshow.
Um, we always we don't complain, but we explain how hard it it
can be to find time to do thisshow.
So when we do make time forourselves, I'm not going to
apologize too hard for it.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
And for me, while I was having my break, my internet
completely shit the bed.
So I had to get an internet guyto come out, and that was a
week-long process of trying toarrange times for them to come
out and actually perform theservice.
And once they fixed my internetI got better internet speeds,
(06:14):
but unfortunately it doesn'thave the same range as it used
to have with the old modem.
So my internet in the office isalmost worse than what it was
originally.
So that's wonderful.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
that's just how it is , I guess yeah, no, the uh, the
bottom of tomanji's internet hasbeen a constant, ongoing thing,
um, since the beginning of thisshow, um, I don't know how many
times we have been right.
Well, that is not what happened.
We were about to record andthen the your internet.
Yeah, we were gonna have anepisode, were we not?
(06:49):
And then your internet.
We could not get it to work, orwe?
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (06:52):
so the internet, that , uh, the last episode that you
guys seen.
I was able it took me fourhours to download the raw
podcast, an hour and a bit toedit it and then it took
overnight to get it uploaded.
So if any of the audiolisteners noticed a bit of an
(07:12):
audio quality difference in thatepisode, it's because I
uploaded it directly from my end, because the by the time it
would have emailed the plane guyfor him to upload it.
It just I woke up, I think, atuh 5 30 in the morning or five
o'clock in the morning to go towork and it was just finished
like it finished within like thelast 30 seconds.
(07:32):
So if you notice that it cameout a little bit later on
spotify, that would be why and Ido apologize, that is
dedication.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
That is dedication on a on a four hour download, um,
and then god knows an-hourupload or something.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
So that is the dedication that we bring.
I hate leaving the PC onovernight just because you don't
know what's going onThunderstorm's power?
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Yeah, of course.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
But I was like I got to, I stayed up till like
midnight and I was like it'sstill at like 50 percent.
I was like, uh, screw it, Igotta go to sleep all right.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Well, let's actually transition away from our
wonderful break, as, as allthese listeners are sitting
there going, I don't get agoddamn break.
Why do these guys get a break,um, and so on and so forth?
Because they're the hardestworker people working people in
the in the labor industry, in myopinion.
Um, I wanted to ask you aquestion.
We didn't actually put it onthe note, it was something that
came up to me while you weretalking about.
This is how important is it?
(08:35):
And and this goes a lot more tomanagement, supervisor kind of
things but, um, it's somethingwe've we've really been working
on within our company, orsomething I've been doing my
owner has been doing it for along time is following up with
customers, right.
How many times have you knowwill a manager or supervisor
follow up with a customer onsomething like it might seem
(08:56):
like minor, like the driver willcome back and tell you hey, you
know, this guy was a littleupset, he didn't agree with the
bill or whatever the case is,and we're so quick to just
dismiss that and just go.
Well, the bills, the bill, likeyou know, you, you charge it
right, yeah, yeah, I charge themthis and this and this.
Okay, that adds up and the andthe conversation is over.
I do believe that trend is iscoming back, and it has been
(09:37):
coming back for a little while,where you know good customers
especially, and they've they'vealways kind of stayed on that
same plane, but even some of theI'm not going to say not good
customers, but differentcustomer base have gone.
I will pay a little bit extrato get good service and good
quality of service, and thatquality of service does not end
(09:59):
when the car is dropped off.
That quality of service goes inthe efficiency of getting a
copy of their invoice off.
That quality of service goes inthe efficiency of getting a
copy of their invoice.
It goes in.
You know, I don't know how manypeople who I have followed up
with, who have you know, are sograteful that we called them
just to just to follow up, justto make sure everything's good,
like there wasn't a problem,right, even if it's not one with
(10:19):
a bill like I.
Give you a perfect example.
I had a customer call us theother day.
Give you a perfect example.
I had a customer call us theother day.
He was about 70, somekilometers away from us, in an
area that is serviced by plentyof tow trucks.
And he called us and he saidlook, I've been trying to get
ahold of companies and I've hadcompanies bail on me, whatever.
I'm stuck here on this highwayand I need a tire changed.
(10:40):
I got a flat tire and I've beenon the side of the highway for
like two hours.
The customer, you know.
So we advise him.
He goes what's the price?
So we give him the price andit's like a $300 tire change.
Just because of how far away youare, just because of the
mileage Because of how far wehave to travel for it.
And my dispatcher did the rightthing.
(11:00):
She offered him she, she goesfor that price.
Instead of us changing yourtires and tire and you coming
back to our home location he wascoming to the town that we're
in I can send you out a truckfor pretty well the same price
and I can tow it back right.
And the guy goes I, I don'tneed the tow, I just, if you
want to come put my tire, Idon't care on the price, come,
(11:22):
come on out.
So they called me up.
I was out doing a job orwhatever, so I was in my pickup.
I was the same distance away,but on our second location, and
I said, yeah, I'll go do thelike, I'll go take care of it.
So I get thinking.
On the way down I said I know acompany that's really close by,
like a good company that Itrust.
So I called them up and I saidhey, how long would it take you
to get a guy to here?
(11:43):
And they, you know, they say 20minutes.
Okay, and what would your pricebe to do this service?
And they said we'd be lookingabout 120 bucks, right, so less
than half of my car, like ofwhat I'm going to charge.
Yep.
So I call my, I call thecustomer up, I say, look, it's
not that I don't want yourbusiness, I absolutely want your
business.
But at the same time, like Ihave cost of running this call
(12:07):
and I have a company that I knowis good and is in your area,
closer to you, because it'sgoing to take me, you know, 45
minutes, 50 minutes to get outthere, they can be there in
about 20 minutes and this istheir price.
If you're good with it, I'mgonna.
I'm gonna send them out and youand give them your contact
information.
Customer's super grateful, hey Iappreciate that You're not just
(12:28):
trying to charge me because youcan charge me Right and it's
good business practice,especially this guy being a
local Right.
Like you're going to get youknow this guy's going to, you
know get.
So I'm going to get servicefrom this guy again, yep.
And the biggest thing that wedid, going back to the whole
original point of thisconversation, is an hour later I
called him and I said hey joe,I just want to follow up.
(12:52):
I want to make sure you were alltaken care of.
I want to make sure everythingwas good with the driver.
Like you know you were, likeyou got the service you were
expecting and you're and you'regood to go, and he goes,
absolutely.
He's like I'm just rolling backinto you know, into town.
The guy was great, it was theprice you told me, everything
was great.
I'll call you know, no matterwhat, next time I'll call you.
I'm like, even if you're,you're not in my area, you can
(13:13):
call me.
Because if it's something thatis feasible for me to go do and
make sense for you as theconsumer, I'll do it.
If not, I will find yousomebody who I trust or know in
that area or recommend somebodyin that area to do it.
Now I'm sure there's a guyscreaming at his phone right now
going like whoa, why wouldn'tyou just take the money Right,
like, hey, it's an easy call.
(13:34):
You're in a pickup truck,you're going to drive out there,
your margin is going to begreat on that call and 100% it
would be.
But my customer servicewouldn't be Right.
But my customer servicewouldn't be right In my opinion,
although the customer iscommitted to it and knows that
our times and everything else, Ihave made a long-term customer
by not subbing out the workCause I didn't have my hands on
(13:56):
any of the finances on it.
Right, I let him pay themdirectly.
And even the company that elselike what did you cause?
Originally they were like youknow, I think they were like uh,
95 bucks.
Like when I asked them and shesaid I'm like, well, you're like
that's what I quote.
And she's like, well, do youmind if I ask what you quoted?
And I'm like 200, I think itwas 290 and she's like, well,
would you be upset if I did 120?
(14:17):
I'm like no I think that'sreasonable for what the call is
like.
I think that's a fair value forthe call.
If she would have said do youmind if I do 250?
I'd be like, no, if you'regoing to do 250, I'm going to do
290 from where I am.
Like I'm not going to you knowwhat I mean.
Like I'm not going to add thatmargin all to you.
But yeah, if you want to add anextra $20 because it's on the
highway or you know whatever itis that you're calling the guy
(14:39):
and that's reasonable, fairbusiness.
So I made a good relationshipwith the towing company, which I
already had a greatrelationship with, but I
solidified that relationship.
I made a good relationship withthe customer because he said
not only did these guys makesure I was taken care of and
didn't want to overcharge me,but they followed up after the
(14:59):
fact.
That follow-up it's amazing howmany times and it takes two
seconds and I'm the worst to notthink about doing it, because
I've had a driver come in andtell me something and then I'm
just like, okay, cool.
And then I look over at myowner and he's sitting there
like and I can just tell by thelook he's given me he's like
you're going to follow up withthat guy and I'm like I should
(15:19):
follow up with that guy.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
And you just what I mean.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
You just call them up and you say hey, you know, just
wanted to check in.
I uh, you know I was talkingwith my driver.
I just want to make sure youwere happy with the service.
The pricing was fair, likethere was nothing.
You know nothing we could havedone differently or better.
Is there anything that we needto work on?
Customers take that like,because it looks like the
company cares and they don'tcare in the sense of I have
their email address, that'swhere I send them invoices.
(15:43):
They don't go, oh, it's justsending a.
You know Amazon.
Every time you buy something,they send you this.
How would you rate yourtransaction?
Yeah Right, it isn't that level.
It's literally, you knowsomebody within the company is
giving you a call and genuinelywants to make sure that
everything was okay with yourservice.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Well, I think in that situation you put up, it was in
your best interest, because thecustomer was fed up with the
people that he's already talkedto.
He's called you, he's agreed onyour price, he wants to deal
with your company.
And then, 20 minutes after heagreed upon dealing with your
company for a said price, yousay hey, listen, I've got
another company that's local toyou, it's going to be cheaper.
You've pretty much brokered ajob, even though you didn't get
(16:32):
paid.
But that's pretty much what youdid.
You brokered a job for yourcustomer to get him taken care
of, because you know that he'sgoing to be a customer of yours
in future.
So that's exactly what you did.
So in that position you prettymuch have to follow up because
if the company that yourecommended did a piss poor job,
(16:53):
for whatever reason, that alsolooks badly on you because you
recommended and sent them out.
Of course, in your genericday-to-day calls, following up
with customers I think is alittle less needed because,
especially, we get a lot, we geta lot of volume through
roadsides and stuff like thatand with those roadsides they
(17:14):
have the ability to follow uproadsides also, send out that
generic survey or whatever.
Right what you're saying, um,but when it's a lot, of, a lot
of times the people that aregoing to have the issues is like
what you're saying is they'reupset with the bill or they
think that something is coveredunder the roadside but isn't in
(17:37):
the call doesn't get done forwhatever reason.
Or if they said, oh, myvehicle's 10 feet off the road,
but it's actually 200 feet offthe road and the wrong truck got
sent out, stuff like that, themajority of the customers, if
they have a bad experience,they're going to say something
right and I'm not saying it hasto be up to them to say it.
(17:59):
But in your specific locationand your setup, yes, you have
the ability to do that.
That.
It makes a lot more sense foryou.
But a lot of smaller operationssix guys, ten guys they might
just not have the manpower orthey might not think of that the
same way.
Because, hey, I'm just heredoing calls, doing call after
(18:22):
call after call and of you wantyour customer service to be good
, but if someone in your day, ifyou've dealt with 20 people
that day, if one person justseemed a little off to you, you
don't know if he's off becausethey're having a bad day,
because their tire blew out onthe highway or whatever, or if
they're off because of somethingthat you said or did Right.
(18:45):
So yeah, would it make would itmake a difference if you called
that person?
Sure, but if you called everycustomer you dealt with, or even
20% of the customers you dealtwith, that's almost a full-time
job for some operations.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
But I'm not saying like this isn't your like
drivers that should be doingthis followup?
Yeah, right, and no, your likedrivers that should be doing
this follow-up?
Yeah right and no?
I don't believe, unless thereis a major issue following up
with a roadside customer.
I have followed up withroadside customers.
If there is like a you know, ayou know whether it be a driver
that told me something about thecall, whether it be a complaint
(19:20):
that came back through theroadside, obviously those you
have to follow up with.
Um, you know, very rarely,though, is there scenarios with
those roadside customers.
But your retail customers, thecustomers that have made the
decision to pay you directly,right, the the customer who has
made the choice to spend theirmoney with my company, right,
(19:44):
and we're seeing that a lot ofcompanies don't, do you know, or
do a mix of roadside and retail?
Yeah, so you know of that, I do40 roadside, I do, uh, 30
percent um retail.
And then I do you know 30charge accounts?
Yeah right, charge accounts andretail are different.
(20:05):
For the sake of this argument,they are still companies that
have made the choice to to dealdirectly with us.
But, that being said, it'sthose 30% of the retail and then
your charge accounts, of course.
Yeah, your charge accounts, youshould be following up
regularly, but that's not afull-time job.
It is nothing to pick oneretail call a day, right, let's
say one, let's say, even if youdo 20 retails in a day, right,
(20:29):
you are grabbing five percentand mate and having a two to
three to eight if they'retalkative minute conversation a
day.
That is not unreasonable and isnot a full-time thing, right?
Yeah, like it is something thatgoes that you know that extra
(20:52):
distance and, yes, follow upwith your charge accounts once a
week.
Hey, take a day a week and govisit your charge accounts.
Hey, you know, I just did thaton friday I had to stop by.
That's a new, it's an accountwe've dealt with before, from
another city that set up abranch in our location.
I stopped by and he told mecome on by one day.
You know, I'll give you a tourof the new, how we set up and
cool.
So I just stopped in on friday,randomly, friday afternoon, and
(21:14):
you know, seeing the managerand we we just talked about, you
know because, hey, I want youguys to do my, you know this or
this or this.
Um, cool, no problem like whatdo you?
You know even pricing, right, Ireached right out to this
customer and we had moved avehicle inside for them, like
did a shunt for them, and uh, Isaid hey, before I send off the
(21:35):
bill because we hadn't done oneyet for this location.
I want to talk to you about whatis a reasonable price for this,
what is something you arecomfortable with that is going
to be re-added to the bill.
Right, I'm not going to devaluemy services but at the same
time, right, those little jobslike shunting into shops.
We used to do it for body shops, remember, we used to shunt the
(21:55):
cars in the body shop.
Those little jobs, you knowyou're not running and always at
your full retail because you'regetting the.
You know, in the case of thebody shop, you get the full
retail accident toes thatthey'll call you for.
You're getting the, you know.
And the same thing when you getinto the bigger shops, they'll
call you for disabled tractortrailers and stuff.
Right, so, moving just atractor in their shop, not doing
full retail.
But I want to make sure it's aprice that you're comfortable
(22:17):
with so that you don't get myinvoice and go oh man, they can
charge me that every time I'mgonna, you know, let's have a
discussion about it.
What is it that you want tocharge to your customers?
What is your percentage?
Okay, so let's add yourpercentage onto this.
Are you happy with that rate?
Yeah, no, I think that's agreat rate, perfect, right?
So now the customers also feellike you know they're taken care
(22:37):
of, right, it's not like I callthese guys and, and you know,
and especially you know, acompany like ours and companies
get reputations as they getbigger, right, the.
The biggest reputation is that,oh, they don't need my work,
right?
Or it's just, it's set Like.
There's.
When you go away from familybusiness and you start to grow
bigger and bigger and bigger,that corporate idea ideology can
(22:57):
kind of set in and that'llscare some customers away, right
, because they go.
Well, these guys don't careabout me because they have so
much volume, they have so muchcustomers.
I'm just another and I'm anumber, exactly.
And when you give them thatpersonal acknowledgement and
that opportunity to you know,voice your concerns with them or
to whatever it brings you backto, that, you can be a bigger
(23:21):
company but still have be intouch with your, with your
customer base, and I think thatis important when it comes to
growing and and I think of a lotof smaller companies like the
ones that we've worked for wouldmake those phone calls.
I really do believe it builds abigger you know, a stronger bond
in your community, a strongerbond with your customer, a
(23:42):
stronger you know I might'vejust called them because they
were the first one that showedup on the list, but that
personal phone call will willyou know what I mean Push the
fact that I want to call themagain and and you know what I
mean Really reiterate that uhwith our customers.
Cause you know, I think weforget I do, at least I forget
about the empathy side of this.
(24:03):
I forget that these peopledon't deal with this every day.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Right To me it's oh yeah, well, they, uh, you know
what I mean.
They, they, they seem a littleupset because the garage,
whatever, the God knows whateverthey seem a little off about
and test, we just go.
Oh, that's normal, that's partof the business.
But to these people this has.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
You got to.
Really, that's something likeif you're planning on doing
something like this andimplementing it, you're going to
have to get a little bit moreinformation from the driver
who's coming in and saying thesethings to you Because, let's
(24:50):
say, their car is parked 90degrees on their lawn, off their
driveway, and you got to putone tire on the back or like
onto the grass a little bit andyou leave a little indent on the
grass, and that's just becauseof how they had their disabled
vehicle parked and it wasunavoidable unavoidable.
But if they're upset about that, yeah, it could be warranted a
phone call.
But what are you going to sayto them?
That I'm sorry that this had tohappen just because of how the
truck was and where the car wasthat we had to pick up them.
That I'm sorry that this had tohappen just because of how the
truck was and where the car wasthat we had to pick up.
(25:11):
Well, that's not making anyprogress into making them
happier, because they think thatyou're in the wrong to begin
with.
Right?
not aware to where okay, let'ssay, um, you're in their
driveway and the driver didn'ttilt the bed up quite far enough
and you left a scratch in theirdriveway.
That is warranted a phone call,because then that's a little
(25:33):
bit of damage control.
Just say I'm sorry that thishappened to you.
Yada, yada, yada.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Try to smooth things over, right, but but I think two
things, okay, two things thethere's two different times that
you're referring to in phonecalls here.
Both of the ones that you youmentioned are literally because
something went bad.
It doesn't something doesn'talways have to go bad or have
that complaint in order for youto follow up.
(25:59):
You can just follow up too forthe sake of following up, which
goes just as far.
But as for you know, how areyou going to make that better?
By just apologizing?
You're not really makinganything better, you are.
The reason I say that is thisIf you have a plumber come to
your house and tell yousomething that doesn't quite
make sense to you, right,because of your understanding of
(26:23):
the scenario, which may belimited, but you go, but you go.
That really doesn't make sense.
Then you have another plumbercall you and reinforce that fact
.
That, unfortunately, like youknow, given the situation like
this, was the best approach, andit's all how you approach it.
In that conversation, there isthe opportunity to put them a
(26:44):
little bit more at ease.
That is okay, that is, you know.
I mean one person telling me adriver on scene and god knows,
our drivers have bad days too,and some of them aren't the best
at explaining things, right?
So, oh, no, I have to, and thenyou call the customer up and
you go.
Okay, so you know I spoke withthe driver, given the angle of
the vehicle.
Um, you know, we looked, youknow I looked at other options
(27:04):
that would make sense.
This was the most practical waythat we could avoid doing any
further damage.
Right, and you and you get thatreinforcement on the customer
while not throwing your guyunder a bus.
Right, you can absolutelyhandle that situation where a
customer is happier after theygot a phone and you're telling
them.
You've told them the exact samething, just in a different way.
(27:26):
Right, the scraping thing.
I mean I've gone out and, andyou know little thing, like you
know, I dropped oil on adriveway and I've gone out there
with the dish, soap and theabsorb, all in the different
things, and sat there andscrubbed a driveway little
things like that, where you knowit doesn't cost as much to take
care of.
No, but it shows the companythat you know the customer that,
(27:48):
because you do have very pickycustomers, right, how many?
times you had those very, verypicky customers where, like you,
you hate to even like,especially when you know they're
the picky customer.
It's one thing when you get oneand they're picky like.
I had a complaint the other day, I believe or not, still have
not followed up with this one,because I actually meant to.
(28:09):
So one of my drivers gets acall to go impound a vehicle for
the police.
Now, this person that we areimpounding and I am not
exaggerating, I have had five ofhis vehicles in my yard in the
last two years.
He is a frequent flyer yeah,frequent flyer.
Younger kid suspended license,registers a car and everybody
(28:32):
else's name, or never registersthem and anyways, keeps getting
caught over and over again andthen he's a pain to deal with at
our yard.
I got a complaint.
My dispatch called me on Fridaynight no, it wasn't Friday, I
don't remember what night shecalls me.
She said hey, I just gave you aheads up.
I got a complaint about, youknow, driver A, that he was rude
to them on scene and everythingelse and they were trying to
(28:56):
take photos and videos and hewouldn't let them and I'm like
not tell me much about the callother than the complaint, you
know, and luckily we haverecorded phone lines so I can go
back and listen to it.
So I looked at the call and Iseen the details and I remember
the repeat customer and I gookay, so talk to my driver.
What happened?
Nothing, he's like I loaded thetruck and I walked around the
(29:18):
truck and they were videotaping,probably doing a tiktok,
because we always see this guyon tiktok with our trucks, his
videos inside her impound and,um, I walked in front of her to
to do the uh, like to go aroundthe truck and she wasn't very
happy about that.
Like I was blocked, like Iblocked her video or I messed up
(29:38):
her video.
First of all, the customer isnot my customer, the police are.
I have a job to load thisvehicle and get out of here.
Second of all, if you are in myway and he's not like she's,
like I wasn't, like she wasn'tin my way and he's not like
she's like I wasn't, like shewasn't in my way, like I didn't
bump her, I didn't, you know,nudge her on the way by, like I
was nowhere near touching her,but like I'm not going to, oh,
you're taking a video.
Let me go all the way aroundyou.
(29:59):
I have a job to do.
Right, I'm being hired by thepolice, not you.
If this was a retail customer,yeah, I just want to get a video
before it leaves.
Cool no problem.
All right, like you're paying me, no problem.
Police are paying me for aseized vehicle.
Please aren't paying me, butthe police have called me for a
seized vehicle.
I don't have time to you know,you know.
(30:20):
And then what was there?
Well, he looked at, he gave hera mean look and I'm like is
this really the society we're innow?
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Yes, is that your complaint.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
Yes, it is that he looked at you funny, yep.
So he proceeded to load thevehicle.
They asked, while it was on thebed, to get stuff out.
Of course he had the vehiclesecured, it wasn't down, the bed
wasn't up yet.
He allowed them to get stuffout and then at one point, like
they just kept going on aboutwhatever and he's like, well,
like we got to get going, likeyou know, and the cop came over
(30:51):
and told them as well, like he'staking the car go.
Yeah, so does that deserve afollow-up?
In my opinion it still does.
I knew they were going to becoming to the yard the next day.
I was hoping to see them andthey came to the yard.
I didn't actually notice thatthey were at the yard.
I never got to speak with them.
So now I gotta call them andfollow up, because I figured
(31:11):
I'll let them just come to theyard and we'll have a
conversation right in person.
Hey, you know, I just want tomake sure you're good.
I heard those complain about youknow my driver was being rude.
Again, it's a police call.
I I still my drivers can't berude right, like I don't think
walking in front of her andgiving her a mean look after
probably you know five minutesfor trying to get stuff out of
(31:33):
the car after she probably beensitting there 20 minutes before
we got there.
You know I'd roll my eyes atsomebody and like, if you know,
I'm not exactly taking that as acomplaint.
I'm not, you know, given adriver flack for did you roll
your eyes at this?
This police impound.
He's like, yeah, when I rolledup and I seen it's the same guy
that we've had for five times inthe area, he's probably like,
oh God damn it.
You know, but no, you, you dohave to follow up with that.
(31:58):
As petty as it seems, you haveto follow up on it.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
But do you though, because, like you're just
feeding into this society of thesqueaky wheel, gets the grease
even when the wheel shouldn't besqueaky in the first place?
Speaker 1 (32:14):
I'm not saying you have to apologize, no, I'm
saying you got to follow up.
There is a difference.
There is a difference.
Right, I know what this isgoing to be.
I I can almost predict, becauseI've done this enough now, that
that phone call is going tostart with his complaint to what
my thoughts are on what my youknow ideas are and voicing them
(32:37):
to him.
Then, followed up by how muchis the bill?
Followed up by?
Well, I think I should get adeal followed up by thank you,
have a great day and we'll seeyou in seven days to get your
vehicle right like I'm.
It's not feeding into the youknow.
Oh, you complained.
Okay, let me, you know, let mefix your bobo, let me fix where
(33:02):
the words hurt you, right, orthe mean look, hurt you, no, no,
but, but you do need to followup with it, right?
Because there's nothing worsethan, hey, I called and had this
complaint and they saidsomebody would reach out to me
and nobody did.
That is worse than you knowwhat I mean.
And, like I say, you don't haveto apologize, but you do follow
(33:23):
up with it, hear out theirvoice and then tell them where
it stands when it comes to theimpound stuff and especially,
like what you're saying, a veryfrequent flyer.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Those are the type of people that will never say yes,
I was in the wrong.
They're always looking to blamesomeone else for their mistakes
and unfortunately we deal witha lot of those types of people
in this industry because of thesituations they put themselves
in.
But they won't admit that theyput themselves in that situation
and it is a fine line to walk,because they can normally be
(33:58):
rude in that situation becauseof they're blaming you for
whatever you did, which is justnormally your job.
Normally they're they'relooking for either an apology or
money off, like you were saying, and it's very easy just to say
okay, shut up, get away from me, I'll knock 50 off the bill
(34:20):
just to make the situation goaway.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
But then you are now feeding into that because they
got a reward for being an asswhen they really anyone who
knows me, anyone who knows meknows that that will not be my
response, I know, but I'm sayingfor other people yeah right, we
, we do that in other avenuessometimes.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Um, so let's say you do have that scrape in the
driveway and the guy would be.
He's a little blown out ofproportion for what the damage
is he wants.
Oh, it was a thousand dollartow bill for one little scratch
on the driveway.
He specs the whole bill to becomped right yeah, well, the
service needs to be free becauseI got to scratch my driveway
(35:02):
and be like, well, I can't dothat here, I'll knock 200 off
your bill.
And well, now that guy feelsrewarded, right, because he got
something off the bill whenrealistically, all it should
have really been was I'll comeout with a sharpie and put a
mark in your driveway and you'llnever notice it again well,
that's it.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Sometimes you do overcompensate compensation, for
, you know, the sake of goodbusiness practice and the sake
of you know and and again.
And that's where you got toreally evaluate the customer to
see where they're at on thisright, like I've had some,
whether it be for damage, like Ihad one.
We blew a line right in thisguy's driveway.
Driveway is like two yearsfresh paved yeah, blah,
(35:43):
hydraulic fluid everywhere soand we went to clean it and it's
still like we could not get itfully out.
There was a stain right.
We cleaned and cleaned andcleaned and you know we brought
in different chemicals on theset.
It just there was.
Always there was that littlebit of stain that would take
forever to go away.
So I made a deal with thecustomer.
I said how about we seal thedriveway?
(36:04):
Right, it's pretty fair.
We'll seal the boulevard,because it was actually the
boulevard section between thesidewalk and the road and he
goes well.
My problem with that is is thatit won't match the driveway up
from the sidewalk to the house.
I said you're right.
I said I can talk to my guy.
I'm willing to cover and fixthe mistake that I made.
If you want, I'll see if youcan get us a deal and we'll do
(36:28):
that section too as well.
But you're paying for thesection from the sidewalk to the
house and he goes.
I think that's fair.
He's like you've wrecked my onearea.
I mean it's kind of our faultthat they won't match.
So like I wasn't gonna push thesubject, if I had to do the
whole thing, I'd do the wholething.
But he's like no, I think it'sfair, I'll do my, I'll do that
portion, if you do the portionof the road.
And like I think the bill endedup being for him like 80 bucks,
(36:48):
you know 80 bucks and he endedup paying and got his whole,
this whole thing resealed yeahright, because the guy went hey,
look, I'm paying for theboulevard, what would you charge
me?
what would you charge for thedriveway?
I'll just charge this much,okay, cool, yeah, right, so it's
fixing fixing places where youwent wrong in a spot like that
and and a lot of it.
Honestly, ask the customer.
(37:09):
That is one thing that I'velearned that I've been so
shocked by.
I had a job that I quoted outand when my driver got there to
do this job, it was lowering aboat back into a river on like a
track system and everythingelse.
But once I got there, it thejob went sideways.
It was not quite what wethought it was.
They weren't set up the waythey thought they were.
It was like a three hour jobthat took seven hours.
(37:32):
So I reached out to thecustomer and I said, hey, and?
And there was the.
What made it worse is there waspart of the delays were our
fault, part of the delays wastheir fault.
I reached out to the customerand instead of just saying hey,
look, I know this went wrong.
You know, my driver told me youguys had this, this, this and
(37:58):
this.
I'm gonna put the bill at this,instead of just telling the
customer what I'm gonna chargehim.
I asked him.
I said hey, you know, I knowthat you guys had a day.
It didn't go exactly how we hadplanned and everything else.
What do you think is reasonable?
What time do you believe wasspent because of you know, an
error, an issue that we had, orwe ran out of line, or you know,
and how much was caused by,maybe, some issues on your end
and we came up with a happynumber?
The customer is then happyabout the job, right, because we
(38:20):
always quote out on that stuffhourly anyways.
But instead of me just tellingthem I went from three hours to
five hours and you're gonna paythis bill, I said what are you
gonna be happy with?
Like, what do you think is fair?
And so we discussed it and I'mlike he's like, you know, I, if
you're well, I'm like I'mwilling to take a couple of the
hours, like as my own right,like that's on us.
If I take two hours and youtake two hours, do you think
(38:41):
that's fair?
We bring it up to five andeverybody's, you know.
And he goes yeah, I thinkthat's more fair, perfect.
Here's a copy of your invoice.
I still ate my time that ittook me, the customer.
I could have just told him hewas paying five hours, yeah, but
by giving them thatconversation, feeling that it's
not like, oh, this company isjust trying to bully me out of
more money.
Now this company's trying to befair with me.
We came up to a mutualresolution.
(39:02):
You can do that with a lot ofcustomers surprisingly, by just
you know it's something youdon't think of and there's
customers you never will like.
There's customers that justmatter.
What you say is you know you'regoing to get those.
But at the most part, likefollowing up with the customer,
having a conversation, givingthem a chance to you know, voice
whatever issues they might havehad, because I'm going off the
(39:23):
information my driver gave me.
Let's be honest, they lie too.
Yeah, right, like they lie aswell.
Like they, we sit there and wetake our driver's side a lot
over customers, but at the sametime our drivers exaggerate
things to.
Our drivers are human, right,they see things from their
perspective only as well.
So sometimes just just doingthat followup, getting that
(39:44):
extra little bit of informationfrom the customer and having the
conversation with them, go sofar.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
Yeah.
So speaking of drivers, I dowant to get into one other topic
for this show before we close.
You have a driver, you have twodrivers that come to your door
with resumes in hand.
You've got one driver that'sworked at four, maybe even five
different companies in the last10 years.
And then you have a driverwho's worked for the same
(40:12):
company for 10 years.
I see the guy that's jumpedaround to four or five different
companies in the last 10 years.
There's probably some negativethings to him because maybe he
just wasn't a very good fit atall these companies and maybe
that's good, maybe that's bad.
He could have picked updifferent bad habits over these
four companies.
But also, on the flip sidepositive thing about him, he's
(40:36):
got more experience because he'sworked with different people
and he could potentially havelearned different things.
Right.
Where the guy with 10 years atthe one company, he might be
more loyal to that companybecause he's put 10 years of his
life working with one company.
But maybe at the flip side,he's only ever been well.
He's only had the ability tolearn from whoever's worked at
(40:57):
that company over the last 10years and maybe he hasn't
learned that much in the last 10years.
What are your thoughts on that?
How?
What resume looks better justfrom years of experience?
Speaker 1 (41:08):
Yeah.
So if we're going like we're,we're putting these people as
identical people.
You know same skill like same.
You know appearances, sameideologies.
You get from them, same vibe,you get from them and everything
.
But one's been at five, four orfive companies ten once.
Once they was one.
The only question I would havefor them that that might affect
my decision on this is, um,mainly for the 10-year driver,
(41:30):
and that is why.
Why did you leave?
The reason I say that is, ifyou've, if you've been 10 years
in a place, I feel like that guyis more likely to jump ship
than the guy that's been there,that's been to a couple every
two years.
The reason I say that isbecause there is so much loyalty
tied up into the company.
Right, like I had that problem,like, no matter, I worked and
(41:55):
and I'd moved around back when,when I moved up to, you know,
towards toronto and everythingelse, I always carried loyalty
to the company that I'm with now.
Always I compared everywhere Iworked to the company that I'm
at now.
Right, because I had a long.
It wasn't a 10 year, but it wasa long.
You know, it was a decentstretch with them before I,
(42:16):
before I went anywhere, anywhereelse.
As somebody who's moved arounda couple of times in companies
and and finding the right fitand everything, I don't look
poorly upon the guy with fourcompanies in 10 years.
I think that's a good run.
You know the towing industry isis and it depends what those
companies were, right, you know,um, um, we've worked with a guy
(42:37):
who jumped around a lot ofcompanies.
That guy jumped around a lot ofgood companies yeah I look at
that more negatively than Iwould if it jumped around for
shady companies, because you'relike, okay, this guy's just
trying to find his spot, yeah,um, but you are right, I
probably.
Which one would look when you,when it says looks better on a
(42:57):
resume, it's obviously going togo to the one year, 10, the one
place, 10 year guy yeah, onpaper that looks better.
The reality is, I think I likethe other one more.
I think I would be more likelyto look a little deeper into the
move around again, depending onthe companies and whatnot
there's.
There's so many variables.
That's why I hate these genericquestions sometimes, because
(43:18):
they're not as easy as just youknow a or b, um, depending on
what the companies were,depending on what the age is.
I mean, if he's not 10 years,he's old enough.
Um, yeah, you know, like I take.
You know we had a phone callwith him, davey.
Davey would be one of thoseguys that his resume shows one
(43:39):
company, yeah, right, for 30years or whatever that number
was that he had told us Right.
And a lot of people go yeah,it's true, he only got the
experience from one person.
Like I did learn a lot fromdifferent companies that I
worked at Right.
I learned a lot from thecompany I'm at now.
Before I left, I learned what Ididn't want in a company.
To the company I went todirectly after I left um and
(44:03):
then I went up tron away and Ilearned a lot from guys like
davey, from guys like chris.
Right like I learned you knowand then you know.
For me it was a growth time too, for learning how to deal with
different people in differentscenarios.
Right Then I spent time with asmall little company as a filler
.
We always knew this was afiller, this was never a career
path with this company, um, butit was just to kind of scratch
(44:26):
that itch and I learned thingsthere too.
You can learn things at acompany.
It isn't about what you learn.
It's not always about learningwhat you want.
It can be just as much learningwhat you don't want, right, or
what not to do, right like I'veworked for companies where I
went what do you know?
Like, this is exactly what Idon't want and I wouldn't have
(44:48):
known that unless I worked thereI think it a I think the actual
resume topic can be broughtback up again of okay.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
so it's one thing to put the name of the company on
your resume and say I was a towtruck operator, but you need to
put descriptions underneath ofwhat you actually did.
And I think, especially if youhave worked at two or three
towing places, the descriptionof your job pretty much stays
the same.
So it starts to make you think,well, maybe should I put some
(45:18):
different experience on thisresume because realistically
you're yeah, becauserealistically you can normally
only got room for three priorjobs on a resume, right?
so then how do you like breakapart one towing company from
another towing company and theexperience that you've had?
Speaker 1 (45:36):
no, I've absolutely looked.
Um, you know, we we always dowhen I review resumes and a lot
of it comes down to um, you know, following up with companies,
sometimes right, and and thetowing industry is notorious for
not following up, I think a lotof them are for not following
up and then for following upindirectly with the.
(45:58):
You know, you know a guy thatworks at the company, so you're
going to call that guy and belike, hey, what did you think of
working with Joe and thatdriver?
Especially if it's a driver ifthat just happened to be one
might not be able to give youthe best example, or might not
be able to give you the best youknow example, or might not be
able to give you the true.
It's just his side by side,working as, if, you know, g and
(46:20):
I were working side by side.
When you do speak with theirdirect supervisors, a lot of
times you'll find out some ofthe more you know interesting
deals about things, whether itbe that they were late more
often, whether it be all theselittle things that a driver
working side by side with themwouldn't really know.
Um, so, seeing those names, aslong as you're doing the
(46:45):
followup and you're doing somehomework on them.
I'm like I'm the first guythat'll take a, that'll take a
flyer on somebody.
I have made hiring decisionsthat I would question, that I
still question to this day, um,and then I've made some of those
decisions that I did not thinkwould work out and they turned
out to be great operators, um.
So, comparing the experience,I've always been a big believer.
(47:06):
I'd rather somebody with verylittle experience.
10 years is a lot, um, but thatbeing said, you need those guys
.
You need that stability withinthe company, these guys that
have that experience that, theseguys that can do.
You know a little bit ofeverything.
Maybe teach some of these newerguys you have coming in.
So my opinion on paper it looksbetter.
(47:29):
One place, 10 years.
Reality of things depending onthe situation, I think the four
years can be an ideal.
Uh.
Four companies in 10 years isuh is still a good candidate.
That being said, ladies andgentlemen, we have lost mr toman
g.
His internet has gone out.
While I was on that rant, Imanaged to save it on my own, so
it is a great time, uh, to goout on this show I do.
(47:52):
Thank you all for joining usagain.
I apologize again for thehiatus, the three episode delay.
I'm much more tanned andrelaxed because of it.
So, as I said in the beginning,I'll never apologize too hard.
But I want to thank you forjoining us for another episode
of the Towing Life podcast.
We are out every Tuesday.
We will be back again next weekwith more towing content.
(48:13):
I hope you enjoyed.
I can't wait to see you.
Don't forget, head over to thewebsite, wwwtowinglifeca, email
us directly at thetowinglife atgmailcom, or find us on Facebook
at the Towing Life Podcast.
If you're watching over on theYouTube side, do not forget to
comment down below.
Hit that thumbs up.
Thanks for seeing you.
We'll see you again next week.
(48:33):
Take care.
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