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Charles Vickery brings over a decade of tire expertise to his role as Store Manager at Beggs Tire & Wheel. Hailing from Prineville, Oregon, his journey in the tire industry began in the small town where the choices were clear-cut: either work at a mill or dive into the world of tires. Inspired by the legacy of Les Schwab, Charles started as a tire tech at Beggs in 2010. He quickly showcased his unwavering commitment to the job and has since climbed the ranks to his current role.
In this episode…
Consumers typically have plenty of options when tire shopping, from the store down the street to a multitude of websites at their fingertips. In a world where online comparisons and price competition are prevalent, what can a store manager do to set a location apart from the rest?
According to Charles Vickery, his team at Beggs Tire & Wheel is focused on providing top-notch customer service, evident in its 4.9-star rating from over 3,200 reviews. Beggs Tire takes pride in treating every customer with equal respect, and Charles prioritizes the importance of creating a positive experience for everyone who walks through the front door, whether they have $1 or a million dollars. The team goes beyond mere transactions, ensuring that customers understand the value they receive when purchasing tires. Charles is committed to educating the younger generation on the long-term value of their purchases. To be able to thrive in the ever-evolving business landscape, he emphasizes the importance of adapting to changing customer preferences.
On this episode of Gain Traction, Mike Edge welcomes Charles to discuss the intricacies of customer service in the tire industry. Charles emphasizes the importance of providing quality service and fostering a positive customer experience. They explore the challenges of explaining value in a market driven by online comparisons and the evolving preferences of a new generation.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- Charles Vickery explains his interest in joining the tire industry
- Why customers trust Charles for tire recommendations without price-checking
- How Charles climbed from a tire tech to store manager
- What are Charles’ favorite tires to sell and why?
- The importance of return on investment while offering road hazard programs
- Charles reveals his love for hunting big game in the mountains
- Words of wisdom: know your product and your customer, prioritize their needs over personal interests
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Beggs Tire & Wheel
- Prineville, Oregon
- Les Schwab
- Danny Smith on LinkedIn
- Same Day Auto Repair and Tire Pros
- Mike Edge on LinkedIn
- Tread Partners
Transcript
Announcer:
Welcome to the Gain Traction podcast, where we feature top automotive entrepreneurs and experts and share their inspiring stories. Now let’s get started with the show.
Mike Edge:
Welcome to the Gain Traction podcast. I am Mike Edge, your host.
So today’s episode is brought to you by Tread Partners. That’s our parent company. Tread Partners specializes in PPC marketing for multi-location, tire and auto repair shops. I know everybody has somebody that they say, “Hey, we’re, they’re doing a great job. We’ve got this covered. We know what we’re doing.” But are you sure? Could it be better? Do you have a partner that specializes strictly in this industry, only specifically tires? Tread Partners discovered tens of thousands of dollars per month in wasted spending with Google for its clients in the tire industry. Many of these shops were very successful already, but Tread showed them that they could spend less and still do more. So what are you waiting for? Get to Tread Partners. You can go to Treadpartners.com and check us out.
Also, I always like to reinforce interviews that I’ve had in the past. Recently, I interviewed Danny Smith, owner operator of Same Day Auto Repair and Tire Pros with seven locations in Oklahoma. Awesome interview, awesome guy. He’s one of the good guys in the industry. Check it out at gaintractionpodcast.com. That’s gaintractionpodcast.com. And overall, it was a good interview and you’ll learn a lot from a guy that’s been in the industry a long time.
So today’s guest is Charles Vickery. He’s the store manager at Beggs Tire in Albany, Oregon Charles came recommended by Chelsea Harris, business development representative at ITDG. Charles, it’s an honor to have you. Welcome to the Game Traction Podcast.
Charles Vickery:
Hey, thanks for having me, Mike.
Mike Edge:
Yeah, so we’ve talked just a little bit and I’ve gotten a little bit of background. But for our audience’s sake, where’d you grow up? And then everybody likes to know how’d you end up in the tire business?
Charles Vickery:
Well, I grew up in a little town about an hour out of Bend, called Prineville Oregon. That’s where I was born and basically raised. And anybody knows anything about Prineville, which if they heard the name Les Schwab, I’m sure they will. So that’s what we were known for. That, and then logging and wood. So you either worked at a mill or you did tires. Back then, that was right, if you worked for Schwab, you were somebody. So yeah, that was always my goal growing up was I was going to be Schwabby.
Mike Edge:
That’s awesome. Well, they got a great reputation in the industry, period.
Charles Vickery:
Yeah, the old man owned it.
Mike Edge:
That’s awesome. Well, so you’re still in tires and you’ve been in it with Beggs since what, 2010?
Charles Vickery:
Yeah. Yeah, I’ve been here 14 years. I started actually low man on the totem pole. He’s a great family-owned business, has always had a really great reputation. But yeah, so when I came on, we actually were quite a bit smaller, didn’t do as much stuff. But I always have a lot of drive and I hate staying in one spot and treading water.
Mike Edge:
That’s awesome. You say you started out in low man of the totem pole and now you’re store manager, where did you start out exactly? Were you a tire tech?
Charles Vickery:
Yeah. I was a tire tech out in the shop, and I was the guy where all the other guys that had more seniority above me, I’d end up out in the junk trailer, relacing stacks of tires in the wet and rain, and come in soaked. But I was always the first one here and the last one to leave. And man, it didn’t matter if we had cars pulling it or not, I either had a broom in my hand or I was rearranging something.
So everybody else was standing around watching me and got noticed and I’d sell tires just directly out of the bay and not even up at the counter. Somebody would come in for a rotate a flat, just by informing them and showing them and bring them out to the car and walking them around and giving them my expert advice on why they should do things and what. Because people don’t even think those little fore tires and those little contact patches they got is the only thing holding up to the road, really and keeping them from going in somebody’s lane or keeping them from going off the roads. So that’s how they started.
Mike Edge:
I can tell in your voice, Charles, you have a passion about tires, don’t you? You really know them well.
Charles Vickery:
You know, I do actually. And I’m only 39 right now, almost 40. And I’ve been around, we’ve had a lot of people, older gentlemen coming here, been in tires all their life. And I’m expecting to usually learn some extra knowledge from them. And it’s a lot of old school. I came in at a time where you still had a lot of the old school shop. You really didn’t see a bunch of girls that would come in at first, ordering their own stuff or having their own ideas about things. Usually dealt with a lot of men. And man, a lot of them, they have no idea about rubber compounds or what siping was or 3D… they know what siping was, not 3D gauge micro siping and all the fancy rubber compounds they got. So I love reading and taking in knowledge. And it’s funny, I don’t read a lot of books unless it’s Bible. But when it comes to just information on tires and all the Michelin and Toyo programs that you can take, I’ve already passed all of them.
And so I really like going in depth about it and explaining it. Because anybody can sell a tire, honestly. A monkey can sell a tire. But to gives somebody the proper tire that fits their needs and their car is actually a big deal.
Mike Edge:
And with your knowledge, you sell confidence. One of the things that Chelsea, before she recommended you, I said, “Look, I’m trying to interview a lot of people that have been at the counter dealing with the public, the counter sales guy that”… and not all counter sales reps are equal. But she said basically, I’m paraphrasing, but she’d put you up against anybody and I can feel it and hear it in your voice that you’re passionate about tires, you know it. But I got to say that you probably deal with a lot of customers that just throw you their keys then. “I mean, hey, they need a set of tires. They trust you, that you’ll put the best on for the best price and you know what you’re looking at.
Charles Vickery:
Right. Honestly, very rare do my standard normal customers ever price check me anymore. They always know that I’m going to give them a great deal. I’m not the cheapest out there and I never will be the cheapest out there because I do have service and knowledge, and I expect extremely high professionalism and everything with my guys even out in the shop. So I’m not just a manager that sits behind the counter. I’ll go out there and I’ll bust tires with my guys all day long, or I’ll do a custom set of wheels for my customer if I need to. I’m all over this store. I don’t just hang it up and then that’s the end of my day.
I’m all about follow through from the beginning to the end with the customer. Really, it’s their experience. That makes them come back and word of mouth, I have… I don’t pay advertise really. I save that money and we get so much word of mouth. I did start us with just podium and I made this little app that they sent to a customer and I got our Michelin BDF funds to pay for it. So no money out of pocket. But yeah, we have over 3,000 Google reviews at a 4.9. We smoke Schwab, nobody’s even closed it.
Mike Edge:
That’s awesome, man. Well, let me ask you this. What’s your favorite tire to sell if you have-
Charles Vickery:
Michelin and BFGoodrich line. Those are the main ones I do sell. And it’s funny, even with a bad economy, I do notice that people are more apt to try some other stuff where they just ain’t got it in their pocket. But sometimes it’s not always feasible. But for the long run of it, they’re actually saving money in the long run. But yeah, the Michelin and BFG product is in main stuff we sell.
Mike Edge:
What about, do you have any tier threes that you would recommend?
Charles Vickery:
Well, what do you consider a BFG in Michelin? Is that your top tier, right?
Mike Edge:
Yeah. Oh yeah, of course.
Charles Vickery:
And then Toyo, Cooper’s make my second tier. My third tier, we do a lot of the Sailun product even and they seem like they have a good product. And then I have some road hazard programs that we paid through this other company. So I do look at return on investment and I try to make sure that, one, I can take care of the customer, but two, that the company I’m watching overall also doesn’t lose money taking care of the customer too much. But sometimes you lose money trying to make somebody happy, and that’s just the way it is.
Mike Edge:
No, I get it. And that’s just, well, that’s part of any business, right? Let me ask you another question. Have you got any encounters? Because you have dealt with the customers straight on and look, everybody on this podcast knows I like a good funny story. Do you got any funny stories of customers that you’ve had to deal with over the years?
Charles Vickery:
Oh, I do. And usually, I’d rather laugh at myself than somebody else.
Mike Edge:
Well, and that’s fine. Listen, there’s been a lot of… hey, I’ve had a lot of guests give me some self-deprecating, funny, embarrassing moments that they’ve done themselves in the industry.
Charles Vickery:
I actually got a good one because. We had a customer that had a Dodge, I think it was a ’09. It was a little newer back then. We just put wheels and tires on it. He was, man, anal. Honestly, he was just that way and was being super careful. All of us were, and it took a little longer because of being careful and we get done and torque it and everything, and we’re looking for the keys and we can’t find the keys anywhere, and we’re looking everywhere somehow.
We looked for the keys for 30, 40 minutes, and after 15 is when I told him, “Hey, I don’t even know how this happened, but I can’t find your keys.” And the guy started wigging out, that’s his only key he has. He just got the truck, not happy at all. He’d already been there for an hour and a half, well now two hours. And I said, you know what? I’ll give you a ride. We’ll go handle this and we’ll go to the dealership, see if we can get you another key. We get my truck and I had an, ’08 Dodge, diesel. I went to put the keys in my truck and start it, my truck wouldn’t start. I’m like, oh, great. What the frick? He won’t even turn over. And he was sitting in my passenger seat and looks over and he says, “Those are my fricking keys.”
And I had my keys in my fricking left pocket. So I pulled the vehicle and took the keys out of the ignition and threw them in my pocket. I’m yelling at my guys. I’m like, “Are you guys serious? How’d you lose the keys?” Yeah. So the whole time we had these keys in my pocket. The funny thing is I was waiting for him just to blow his lid on me, and he just sat there and laughed until he cried. And took his keys and got out and paid, was happy as could be, and actually gave me an awesome review, give the store an awesome review and didn’t even mention it.
I was like, “Go ahead, give it to me,” because I earned that one. But yeah, so after it was all said and done, it was all right. But man, I tell you what, that makes you feel like an idiot, right?
Mike Edge:
Well, yeah, but there’s something to be said to eat a little humble pie once in a while. But my gosh, that is funny that you got in your own truck and tried to start your truck up with his keys.
Charles Vickery:
There was the same amount of keys on the rings.
Mike Edge:
One of the owners of Tread Partners, he told me a funny story. He came from a family that had body shop and he said, after you’ve painted a lot, he said, you can see when paints don’t match. You just know, you have an eye for it. You can see a bad paint job from a mile away and it just may not stand out to somebody else, but it stands out to you.
And he said, we had this guy come in the shop one time. He said, “You all messed up my bumper.” He said, “It doesn’t match my paint.” And he said, “I’m sitting there looking at it going, no, it matches.” And he said, “But I’m not going to argue with the customer. So I just basically say, yeah, well let me have it and we’ll work on it overnight and see what we can do.” He said, “All I did was wash the car.” He said he comes back the next day and the customer was like, “Man, this looks awesome. You all did a great job fixing that.” He said, thank you.
Charles Vickery:
Oh, yeah.
Mike Edge:
He gave him customer service. He just knew that the paint job was not bad. He said, but this guy was trying to be so particular. He goes, “I don’t know the way the light was affected him, but I knew the job was done well.” Anyway, but it all worked out. But yeah, customer service, it comes in many forms and fashions and yeah, I admire the way you handled that. But you still ended up with a great review out of it. And you said you guys have 4.9 stars out of how many reviews?
Charles Vickery:
We have like 3,200 and something reviews.
Mike Edge:
Yeah, that’s a great ratio. That’s a great ratio.
Charles Vickery:
A lot of it is there’s some people that just leave the five stars and leave it at that. But we have a time that they’ll leave a paragraph of how pleased they are and how well they are. You have to Google it some time and check it out.
Mike Edge:
I’ll do that. I did Google you guys, I just didn’t look at the reviews. But you got me curious.
Charles Vickery:
Yeah, you’ll have to check that out. We really take pride in impressing our customers and just making sure they have the best experience when they get here. I don’t care if you have a dollar or if you got a million dollars, you’re going to get treated the same once you walk through that front door. And I think a lot of other places lose that. They see people as just a number and they really don’t care what they throw on there. They’re like, well, this is my market. This is what I need to do. And of course, we have certain tires we like to push, and there is always backside money, which you have to take, especially with the internet and all the competition.
Mike Edge:
Oh, yeah. You’re talking about rebates?
Charles Vickery:
Oh man. That and then you can buy stuff on the internet, 20 bucks above what I can buy it for. It’s just you got to really explain the value that they’re getting on buying a tire from you, especially the new generation. They’re so in tuned with online and they’re on their phone quick and comparing prices because the world we live in is rough. It usually takes a few different people and a few incomes for these young kids to even rent a house. And then they are our future, whether people like to admit it or not. So you either got to grow with them and change with them, or you’re going to end up dying out.
Mike Edge:
You’re right. But it is amazing though the older and more mature that these people get no matter who you are, including myself, service has become extremely important to me because I know the time value of getting a bad product, even a tire or dealing with somebody that they’re not going to back it up or whatever you want to call it. And then it becomes a nightmare scenario. Whereas if I just paid a little extra, gone to a different shop, you know the guy that’s going to take care of you, because that’s just what he does and that service, yeah, service is big for me at least now.
Charles Vickery:
Yeah, it is. And people, they want to see that they’re actually getting what they’re paying for in the long run. We win some, we lose some, but for the most part, we always do well. We grow every year and people are happy.
Mike Edge:
That’s awesome. Well, Charles, tell me a little bit about Oregon. So you got any hobbies up there in Oregon?
Charles Vickery:
I do. I’m a big hunter. We got mountains and a ton of area all around us, and so I love hunting a lot of big game. So deer and elk season, when they hit, I’m not usually in the store. So my customers either hit me up before or they wait till I’m back because yeah, I’m not here, I’m out in the woods.
Mike Edge:
That’s fantastic. I’m in Kentucky, but we do whitetail here. And we do have a big herd in the east now that was replenished, of elk, but I’ve not ever gotten on that drawing, but it’s still pretty controlled. But that herds grown a ton in the mountain. Yeah.
Charles Vickery:
My goal, I’ll be hitting whitetail sometime.
Mike Edge:
Well, do you ever run into any dangerous, animals, bears, cougars, etc?
Charles Vickery:
Cougar once or twice. Yeah, where one time you actually seen him and he started backing off. The other time I’d never seen him, but I could just tell the hair on the back of your neck stands up and it’s starting to get dark and you’re just trying to get out of the woods and get back to your truck.
Yeah, they’re getting bad because you can’t hunt with dogs with them no more. And so yeah, a lot of them get underweight and they’ll just do whatever they can do to just try to eat. So we’ve had a couple bikers get taken by them, a hiker. Yeah.
Mike Edge:
Really? In your area?
Charles Vickery:
And every time they end up… they’ll go hunt back cougar [inaudible 00:17:31]. That’s when you get to use a dog. But they’re always underweight. They’re to a point where it’s you either kill something or be killed and it’s pretty sad.
Mike Edge:
Golly. Yeah, that’s big time.
Charles Vickery:
I know. [inaudible 00:17:46] some wolves. It’s crazy.
Mike Edge:
Wow. Yeah, you’re in a real… that’s a challenging environment. I whitetail hunt. I don’t worry about anything. I’m the main predator out there. You know what I’m saying? You’ve got competition, man.
Charles Vickery:
Oh, yeah. We got bear, wolf, cougar.
Mike Edge:
So Albany, is it in the… what side of the state?
Charles Vickery:
It’s in the Pacific Northwest.
Mike Edge:
Okay. Okay.
Charles Vickery:
And Prineville’s in Central Oregon. And so that’s where I grew up and that’s where I still go driving.
Mike Edge:
Well, man, I got to tell you, it’s been a pleasure having you on the podcast. I am glad that Chelsea introduced us.
Charles Vickery:
Yeah, me too. Thanks for having me. And heck yeah, I’m going to have to watch some of these other ones that you have.
Mike Edge:
Well, do you have any words of wisdom for anybody else that might be listening that’s in the career or they’re starting out or maybe the same way you did, and maybe they’re at a counter sales rep job right now, or maybe they’re tech, I don’t know, but anything that stands out to you that you’ve learned along the way from maybe somebody else?
Charles Vickery:
Man, no matter what you do, obviously give it your all. Give the best customer service ever, but you might be somewhere and do different product, whatever you’re going to sell, know your product, know your customer, and do it for your customer. Make sure whatever you’re selling them is best for them, not what’s either best for you.
Mike Edge:
That’s fantastic advice, Charles. Thank you. And so thanks for being on Gain Traction. To all our listeners out there, thank you for being part of the podcast. If you’d like to recommend a guest, please email me at [email protected]. Till next time, be safe and have a great day.
Announcer:
Thanks for listening to the Gain Traction podcast. We’ll see you again next time. And be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.
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