Navigating Auto Repairs With Empathy With Lee McWilliams of Midas

Episode 123

Lee McWilliams

Midas

Listen Transcript Share this on:

Lee McWilliams is the store manager for Midas in Eden Prairie, Minn., where he oversees a customer service team in the automotive repair industry. With a keen understanding of the pivotal role customer interactions play, Lee emphasizes the importance of empathy and adaptability in his role. Raised in a family where small-town values translated to warm customer service, Lee learned the art of building rapport with customers early on, making it easier to navigate conversations and provide practical solutions, whether a brand-new BMW owner or someone with a trusty truck of 30 years.

In this episode…

Customer service, especially in the auto repair industry, can be a draining and challenging job. Customers are never happy when their vehicle has a problem that needs a potentially pricey fix. With these challenging interactions, it’s essential to uphold the right attitude.

According to Lee McWilliams of Midas, maintaining empathy while providing customer service is paramount. Lee stresses the need to build rapport with customers, regardless of background or vehicle type, by asking questions and communicating in layman’s terms. He emphasizes that customer retention is most often driven by fostering trust and providing quality service.

On this episode of Gain Traction, Lee joins Mike Edge to discuss the crucial role of customer service in the auto repair industry. Lee emphasizes empathy when dealing with customers, especially considering financial constraints and anxiety surrounding auto repairs. He shares insights on building rapport, educating customers, and the significance of customer retention.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

Lee McWilliams says empathy is critical in customer interactions, especially in tough financial times
Why building rapport with customers helps to understand their needs better
How seeing oneself as a “repair solutionist” rather than just a salesman changes perspectives
Quality service and customer care drive repeat business more than advertising
Why having enough bays for efficient workflow is crucial
How ingenuity in repairs can be surprising; sometimes makeshift solutions work best

Resources mentioned in this episode:

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:

Welcome to the Gain Traction podcast. I am Mike Edge, your host. So today’s episode is brought to you by Tread Partners in the ReTread Marketing Program. What the heck is a ReTread Marketing Program? I’ll tell you what it is. It is a customer re-engagement program using IP targeting to win back your best lost customers. It’s a one-time, 120-day program that guarantees a 10-to-1 return on investment, and the best part about it is it’s guaranteed. That’s correct. A 10-to-1 guaranteed ROI, no tricks or gimmicks. These are customers in your point-of-sale system right now. They already know you. So if you invest $4,000 today, for example, you will receive a return of investment of $40,000 within 120 days from that very list of best lost customers. Tread Partners works only within this industry, they specialize in tires and auto repair. To learn more, visit treadpartners.com.

So if you haven’t already, which I suspect you probably have, please listen to an interview I did with Sonny McDonald and another one I did with Cody Lang last year. Sonny’s with Toyo Tires, Cody’s with Tire Solutions out of Minnesota. Both of them were a guest of mine at different times. Sonny was first, and then he recommended Cody. Well, today’s guest is recommended by Cody, and today’s guest is Lee McWilliams, store manager for Midas at Eden Prairie, just outside of Minneapolis, Minnesota. So I’m glad to have you, Lee. Welcome to the Gain Traction podcast.

Lee:

Thanks, Mike. Thanks for having me.

Mike:

So, you came highly recommend it. We’re expecting a big positive podcast today. Cody said a lot of nice things about you. I don’t know if he told you, but he really thought highly of you.

Lee:

Well, I really appreciate it. Cody’s a great guy. I’ve known him for several years. Him and his family, Rick, his brother Jason, they’ve been just spectacular people working with over the years.

Mike:

Well, isn’t that the best part about this industry, the people?

Lee:

It is a small world when it really comes down to it, it really is. You meet a lot of people that you knew years ago, and they come back into your life. It’s amazing how that comes about.

Mike:

Yeah. And then I’d even asked you, I mean, you and I knew that we were connected to Cody, but then I asked you if you knew Sonny, and you played golf with Sonny.

Lee:

Yup. Yeah.

Mike:

Yeah.

Lee:

Tire Solutions has a golf tournament every year, and I’ve crossed and swore with Sonny many a times on the golf course.

Mike:

That’s awesome. Well, so the theme of today’s podcast, I love interviewing the guys that have to interact and gals that have to interact with customers all day long. And I think it’s an underestimated role in this whole industry because, really, that’s the group of people that pushes the tires. I mean, that’s the ones that are recommending what tires go on what cars. That’s the ones that’s interacting with the customers, and I’m sure you’d go with only happy customers all day long, right?

Lee:

All day. Everybody loves coming to our automotive repair shop. Absolutely. Nobody ever wakes up in the morning and says, “I get to go to the automotive repair shop today. Hooray.”

Mike:

Can’t wait to go down there and spend some money, right?

Lee:

Absolutely.

Mike:

And they come in with their wallets open, don’t they?

Lee:

They do. Absolutely. Just eager to spend money.

Mike:

Take what you need, right?

Lee:

Absolutely. We don’t need to get discounts. It’s fine.

Mike:

Out of all the things you’ve been doing this a long time, what stands out to you most about that position and the disposition you got to have?

Lee:

You really got to be a chameleon when it comes to talking with customers. Empathy is of the utmost at certain times because not everybody has a lot of money, and especially in today’s world, we all see the inflation rates and the inflation prices and what it’s doing to the car repairs. So yeah, it’s tough for customers coming in when they have a budget and nobody likes that big expensive automobile repair bill, or “Hey, by the way, you’ve got cord showing on your one tire, and guess what? It’s all-wheel-drive. So now we got to put all four on and it’s shots.” It could be a challenge. It could be a challenge.

Mike:

Where did you feel like that you learned empathy? Was it something that was ingrained in you in your family, or were you able to pick it up kind of like a straight smarts?

Lee:

My parents, my mom especially is a very sympathetic, empathetic person. My dad is as well. Growing up in small town USA, it comes down to customer service and how you can just relate to them on a day-to-day basis. So if you can relate to them, it makes it a lot easier to have a conversation with the customer. And that’s really what it comes down to. It’s just building rapport with the customer and just getting to know them and understand where they’re coming from, whether it’s that guy pulling in a brand new BMW or the guy that’s had the same truck for 30 years and he’s just limping it along, it doesn’t matter. You got to be able to talk to the guys and girls, so.

Mike:

I had a guy tell me recently, he said, I’m not… He goes, “I sell tires, Mike, but I’m not in the tire business. I’m in customer service. I just happen to sell tires.”

Lee:

I always tell people, I’m not a salesman, I’m a repair solutionist.

Mike:

I like that. But that’s true. I mean, really, because people are walking in that store. I mean, they got a problem. They’re not happy. Like you and I just joked about, they’re not in the mood to spend money. They already feel like maybe they’re going to get ripped off. I mean, if they don’t know, and especially if you’re… And I don’t mean ignorant in the sense, in a derogatory way, but just sometimes people know more about another topic than another, and they may not know a lot about their car, but they may be very sharp people, but they still feel intimidated, or I’m going to get ripped off here because I like the knowledge that I need to know or what have… Yeah. Do you feel like your job’s to educate as well?

Lee:

The biggest thing is you’re right, 98% of the customers out there that don’t really know 100% of what you’re talking about all the time. So the way that you can relate the information is just layman’s terms. It’s tough sometimes when you’re talking about this, that, and the other, what it’s going to benefit them. That’s why you ask questions of the customer and get to know what their day-to-day operation is, what they do with their vehicle, how they use it. The guy that sits there with their car that he takes out once a week versus the day-to-day driver that put on 5,000 miles a month. It’s a big difference. You just got to get to know the customer and what they’re doing. Yeah, so.

Mike:

Yeah, that makes sense. So you would say asking questions is critical, then?

Lee:

Absolutely. Getting to know the customer.

Mike:

Do you feel like most customers are open to answering your questions?

Lee:

A lot of them are. Again, it all depends on, some customers don’t want to be there, and it makes their skin crawl anyways to be in that place because their anxiety goes through the roof. Because I don’t know if you’re like me. If I’m talking to a guy and I don’t know what they’re talking about, if I don’t know what they’re talking about and they’re trying to tell me what it is the problem, you’re in the headlight look. Yeah. So just the comfort level’s got to… You got to build up that comfort level for the customer. How you do that is everything.

Mike:

Yeah.

Lee:

And the difference-

Mike:

You know the difference is you made me think of something. The difference is, and I think of where this anxiety comes from, is that if I’m at your shop, I really could get my car maybe moved, or I could drive off with it, or I have to get it towed, or depending on the condition of it, whatever the situation is. But I still, I’m dealing with a circumstance that I really don’t want to move my car again, take it somewhere else. But if I’m at home, for instance, and let’s say something happens to my house or something breaks, or let’s say I got to get a tree cut down or something, I can call three people and tell them, “You all come here and quote it.”

And therefore, in that conversation, each one of those conversations, I kind of learned from each one. And then I realized, “Oh, I’m comfortable with this guy, but I’m going to pay him more. But I like the way he brought this.” Whereas in the auto [inaudible 00:08:39] business, it’s like you have one shot, and most people don’t want to take their cars somewhere else if you pulled it in there that first time. So it’s kind of like you got to strike and treat that customer perfectly so that they will come back. Does that make sense?

Lee:

Customer retention is everything in this business. You can go through and run a shop and just stick to every single customer with every dollar you can out of them. You probably will never see them again. I don’t [inaudible 00:09:07] that way. It’s all about customer retention. I want them to come back because I want them and their family to know… And know that they have a guy that they can count on and trust. I have people that travel two, two and a half hours away still to bring their cars. Other than an oil change or something, but if it’s something major or something like that, they drive their car all the way down from up north to come see me.

Mike:

Hey, that’s not bad. Lee, that’s a compliment, man.

Lee:

Absolutely. Absolutely. It is.

Mike:

Yeah, that’s huge. What kind of advertising do you guys do? I mean, I guess with you being-

Lee:

It’s your typical, your TV, I’m not in charge of the advertisement per se, but obviously, the internet is everything. That’s a lot, digital. The digital network is a lot of it.

Mike:

But what I’m hearing from you though… You’re saying too, though, that repeat business, they’re coming back because of the quality of work you provide.

Lee:

Correct. The customer service. Yup. Hands down. And I’ve got a great group of guys that are just great and eager, willing to help every customer, no matter what, if it’s quarter to six and we’re getting ready to close up and a customer comes in, has a flat tire or something like that, get them in, just get them taken care of. They’re on the road or whatever, they may never come back in the shop, but I know when they leave there, they’re going to know that shop did them well. So [inaudible 00:10:31] everything.

Mike:

I’m trying to put it in my head. How many bays do you guys have?

Lee:

So, we have six doors, but eight bays total. So, we have two bays that have deep, so we have hoists that are deep. So, it’s basically two or four total bays in two doors.

Mike:

Got you. Okay.

Lee:

We got eight total bays with six doors, if that makes sense.

Mike:

And how many employees do you have?

Lee:

Three technicians and two general service guys.

Mike:

Awesome. That’s awesome.

Lee:

Five guys in the back.

Mike:

What do you consider the biggest challenges in your job?

Lee:

Biggest challenges, and you can ask any guy is having enough bays. It really is. Car count’s, huge. Getting the customers in and out, in and out, in and out. Waiting on parts, that’s a lot of it, especially during the COVID era and the strike for the parts houses. That created a big challenge waiting for parts. Yeah, so it’s probably the biggest thing is having enough bays to get stuff done. Every tech would love two of their own bays. Realistically, one and a half is about average per tech. You can get two, two and a half per tech. They are doing marvelous, so.

Mike:

So, I’m curious too, on another level, how do you pay your guys? Do you do it through, I mean, is there a bonus structure of getting-

Lee:

Yeah, so it depends on what you do. So, all of our techs or technicians are 100% commissioned. Well, if they don’t touch a car that day, they didn’t make any money. Our general service kids, there are [inaudible 00:12:16] oil changes, tires, alignments. They get an hourly plus a very small commission, but it’s competitive. I don’t have anybody in my shop that’s hungry, so that’s for sure.

Mike:

That’s awesome.

Lee:

And that is with my company, there’s not much turnover. They’ve had the same techs, same front guys for a long time.

Mike:

That’s what I was going to ask you.

Lee:

They’ve been with the company for… This is my seventh year with them. And these front guys, there’s people in the company who’ve been with the company for 20 years, and it’s not just one or two. There’s several 10-plus-year employees.

Mike:

Man, that, to me, says everything.

Lee:

It was everything to do with the owner. Mr. Hendrickson was a phenomenal man, and he treated his employees like family. And when I moved down to the metro, that was my biggest fear coming from my dad’s shop, was the pushiness, you got to do this, you got to do this. And there’s numbers you have to meet every day. And it’s nothing like that working with this company, it’s very, very relaxed. Treat the customer like family, and the numbers will show.

Mike:

I’ve seen shops before, and I mean, it’s kind of alarming. They have quotas, so they’re pushing stuff, but I mean, customer might partially need, but not really need. And I hate that.

Lee:

There’s not a single quota that we have on our day that we have to… Obviously, we want to do better than what we did last year. That’s obviously, at the end of the day, that’s our goal. Sell a few more tires here, do a few more sales there. But at the end of the day, it’s all about treating the customer because you treat a customer well, they’re going to come back. They’re going to come back for… You’re doing an oil change, and “Oh, we noticed, Mr. customer, Mrs. customer, your breaks are getting low, tire rod ends loose, your tires are starting to get wore out. We got snow coming, maybe.” And they come back.

Mike:

Do you find that… Well, I guess going back into tires real quick. What do you think about tires? Because I get in this discussion with some people that are in auto repair and stuff and where they want their percentage of tire sales to be. Where is your all’s percentage in the ratio of service versus tires?

Lee:

Service versus tires, your sweet spot’s about 15 to 20%. That’s realistically your sweet spot for our group and for what we do on the day-to-day operation, sometimes less, sometimes more. But the biggest thing is you want to get inside the wheels. You want to have that customer come back for the free rotations, for balancing. That’s a big thing.

Mike:

I recently had a guest on, and we talked about that and the big thing of why you need to carry tires even though you want service work, tires is what gets you there. And then the flip side of that is if you don’t have tires, you could lose a customer because they could go get the tires from somebody else, like you just said, and then they get the free rotation. If they got a problem, why do they want to haul the car back somewhere else if somebody else can-

Lee:

Fix it.

Mike:

Yeah. Yup. So, tires… I assume that you guys buy from Cody and those guys as well.

Lee:

Absolutely.

Mike:

That’s awesome.

Lee:

Yeah, we sell a lot of Toyo’s.

Mike:

Oh, good. There you go. Keep Sonny happy too, huh?

Lee:

Yeah, absolutely. Keep Sonny happy.

Mike:

What’s it like selling… Because you’re up there in Minnesota, man, so you’re selling winter tires. Let’s talk about that briefly.

Lee:

Except this winter.

Mike:

Oh, yeah.

Lee:

We were golfing at the end of January.

Mike:

Wow.

Lee:

First time ever. A lot of golf courses open up January 31st because we haven’t had… I think we’ve had a grand total of two inches of snow this entire winter.

Mike:

But you all had some pretty serious winters here. Not too far back.

Lee:

Last year was the snowiest winter on record.

Mike:

Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. So that’s… Yeah, it’s still good, but I mean-

Lee:

It was 55 degrees out last week.

Mike:

Well, I know people get alarmed by that. I don’t get alarmed by that because I think it’s just going to happen. It’s cyclical sometimes. We have super cold winters here in Kentucky sometimes, and then sometimes they’re mild like this year. But we did have… For us, we did have two weeks of what I would call single digit, and that’s cold for us. I know it’s not for you guys, but that’s cold for us. So, if we get that two weeks, we’re ready to move on, and it’s time for get us back to the 40s, 50s, maybe go out and play golf like you guys. But seriously, on the flip side of the tire business, northern tire dealers have a lot more to deal with because there’s a rotation in the winter. I mean, you’re taking off the summer tires and putting on the winter tires, and that just means more business for you guys.

Lee:

A lot of people still haven’t jumped quite on that bandwagon of the winter tires in the winter, summer tires in the summer, just because of the initial expense. A lot of people don’t understand that by buying a set of summer, buying a set of winter, realistically, they last just as long because you’re not putting the miles on in the winter and summer, and vice versa. But now the tire companies have caught on, and they’ve done what’s called an all-weather tire now, which the best of both worlds. It’s an all-season that you can run year-round, but it’s a winter-design tire. So they designed it around the winter months for traction, but you can run it year-round. So that has been a real popular item over the last five, six, seven, eight years.

Mike:

But just for clarity, that’s primarily for the northern market too though, right?

Lee:

Right. Midwestern, yup. Any places that get your cold and snow. You’re not going to see those tires down in Arizona, or Florida, or California, Texas, anywhere like that.

Mike:

Well, I’m going to digress a little bit here, but if you listen to our podcast, we like to do a funny segment. And I may have mentioned this earlier to you, but do you have any funny encounters that you’ve had with customers, or-

Lee:

There’s so many stories where we come in, I’ve got a few different ones. And getting back to the whole customers don’t necessarily what don’t understand maybe what their car is, and you got to try to talk to them and empathize with them. That’s the biggest thing. And a couple of times where, I had a guy come in and ask for… He needed a serendipity belt on his car. And I said, “A what belt?” And I knew what he meant, but I needed him to say it again. So I knew what he said. And he goes, “A serendipity belt.” And I said, “That’s a new one.” I said, “I think you referred to a serpentine belt. But yeah, we can do that for you.”

Mike:

I think there’s a movie called-

Lee:

Yeah, Serendipity. Yup, absolutely. And I chuckled myself. That was another one. And then the ingenuity of customers sometimes. I saw a wiper motor connection. The guy fixed it himself and had the four trailer plumb wires that you’d use to connect a trailer. He had four of those, two of those connected, and it worked. So you can’t laugh because it worked, but you’ll pop open the hood and you look down and you see that, and you’re like, “Okay, all right.” Well, you can’t laugh because it works, so I never did.

Mike:

No, I’m always fascinated by people that have the ability to-

Lee:

Ingenuity. Yes.

Mike:

Yes, yes. Yeah. My dad could do that. I mean, he wasn’t the most mechanically inclined person, but at the same time, he was, because he could figure out how to make something work, right? But it might not be the right way. Yeah, no, totally. He used to do that with a lawnmower. I’ll tell a funny story on him real quick, but this is before he died, and he took this lawnmower he wanted to sell. He wanted to get rid of it. And this guy was just like, dude, you’re like… He goes, “You got duct tape all over this thing.” And it was a rotten lawnmower, and my dad had kept repairing it. And the guy goes, “You’re an artist.” He said, “I’ve never seen anything like this before.” And he goes, “Do you want a job?” That’s what he said to my dad. They got this negotiating, and you got to know my dad.

But my dad had told my son, who helped him down there with it. My son’s like, “Dan, why are you so worried about just getting 10 bucks out of the thing?” He goes, “Call it pride, call it whatever. I just want to see if I can get something out of this old lawnmower.” Anyway, so he gets down there to this guy that buys and sells lawnmowers, riding ones too. And this guy says, “Well, what do you want for this thing?” And my dad goes, “90 bucks.” And the guy goes, “I’ll give you 30 and that goes sold.” Then the guy goes, “Dang,” he said, “Hell, I wish I would’ve said 20.” And my dad goes, “Still would’ve said sold.” And the guy goes, “Man, you know how to bring salt on the room.” He gets 30 bucks out of something he was going to take 10 for. And this guy even had a sense humor about it. It was hilarious.

Lee:

I mean, like I said, if it works, it’s worth something.

Mike:

Oh, yeah, yeah. But like you said, that ingenuity… And you get to see more of it than most people. I mean, you get to be, “Let’s see what this guy, what did they do here?”

Lee:

We had a truck come in with a trailer light or the tail light hooked up working. It worked, but it was a bracket with the light bolted onto it, and it was just bolted on. It was a trailer light. It worked. [inaudible 00:22:36] work. Say, going like, “Oh, man. All right, good to see you guys.”

Mike:

It is. That’s funny. Well, tell me real quick, you spoke of that movie Serendipity, which is a funny movie because we’ve got John Cusack in it. But what’s one of your favorite movies of all time?

Lee:

All-time favorite movie is going to be Rad. R-A-D 1986, ’87 BMX Racing. Lori Loughlin from Full House, she was in it. I don’t know, she was 16, 17, 18 years old. It’s an older movie, but all-time favorite back in the day, with VHS’s were still around 100 years ago. And I got two of those VHS tapes growing up.

Mike:

That’s hilarious. You were literally, I think, one of the first people that completely stumped me. I’ve never watched that movie or heard of it.

Lee:

See, I told you, not a lot of people have heard of it. And then there’s Bandits, I think was another one. Nicole Kidman was in that one. It’s another BMX racing. But Rad was small-town kid growing up, trying to compete with the big boys, and it was a great movie. Good movie, great soundtrack.

Mike:

Oh, really? All right. I have to check it out for later.

Lee:

Punk rock sound. If you’re an ’80… I’m not a big ’80s fan, but great soundtrack.

Mike:

All right, I’ll check it out. What about… So, before I let you go here, any words of wisdom for anybody listening? Any words of wisdom being in this industry?

Lee:

Treat the customers like family and realistically empathize with them. That will do wonders, and that will take you miles in this industry. Don’t worry about being a sales guy. Don’t worry about the next sale. Don’t worry about shoving this down the customer’s throat. Prioritize it, empathize with them, get them back in your shop. That is the biggest thing.

Mike:

Man. I love it, and that’s simple, and it’s kind of like just be in the moment. Be in the moment right now. Yeah. That’s good stuff. Well, Lee, I can’t thank you enough for being on the podcast.

Lee:

[inaudible 00:24:41] the invite. It’s been a lot of fun. Thank you very much, sir.

Mike:

Well, to all our listeners out there, thank you for being part of the podcast again. And if you’d like to recommend a guest to me, 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.

Contents hide

1 In this episode…

1.1 Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

1.2 Resources mentioned in this episode: