Get transparent

WELLESLEY, Mass. — It's one thing to tell a customer what you've done for them, but it's another thing entirely to show them.

That's exactly what GetTransparency, a Wellesley-based video application and analytics firm has set out to do to help the automotive service industry.

The firm was co-founded in late 2014 by Joe Shaker, owner of Shaker Auto Group Inc., in Waterbury, Conn., and Douglas Chrystall, a founder of multiple start-up technology firms. Its intention was to give auto service departments — both in car dealerships and independent repair shops — the ability to bring customers into the service bay digitally, using a proprietary video app.

Using the app — available for Android, with an iOS version expected soon — technicians can record and narrate a vehicle video overview, discussing what's wrong (as well as what isn't) with the car before sending the customer a Web link to the streamed video. The purpose of this is to create a transparent experience for the customer, helping to establish confidence and trust in the service department's recommendations.

The company, which began marketing the app to clients in April of last year, based its technology on a similar offering by the United Kingdom-based firm CitNOW, which has promoted using video in the service bay for the past three to four years, according to GetTransparency COO Warner Jones.

“Instead of waiting for them to come to the U.S. or trying to partner with them or something like that, we decided we'd build our own mousetrap, if you will, specifically for the U.S. market with customization that applies to the U.S. market and U.S. pricing,” he said.

While the idea and the technology were straightforward enough, a lot of work goes into building the ideal auto service video app, Mr. Jones told Tire Business.

“In practice there are a lot of moving parts,” he said. “It's a simple concept, and people get it—it's the Web, and it plays like a YouTube video—but there are a lot of details around it. The devil's in the details.

“We've spent the last 12 months perfecting the service, perfecting the rollout, understanding how we need to do training, understanding how we motivate the technicians to take the videos, the service advisers and really structuring the business so that now we can scale,” Mr. Jones continued. “We're sort of in that mode now that we've got our app out there.”

Barry Steinberg, owner of Watertown, Mass.-based Direct Tire & Auto Service, beta tested GetTransparency's video tool last year at one of his four tire and automotive service outlets and has since implemented it at all of the dealership's locations. He told Tire Business when the company opens its fifth location, in Medway, Mass., it will use the video app there, too.

“Fifteen years ago we had mechanics working for us because cars were mechanical,” Mr. Steinberg said. “Now we have technicians working for us because cars are technical.

“It's a lot easier to show somebody a technical issue with their vehicle vs. something explained mechanically,” he added. “The video allows us to cut through the technology stuff that a lot of people don't understand.”

According to Mr. Steinberg, Direct Tire works on 150 to 200 cars per day and its technicians send out between 30 and 40 videos to customers, who “just absolutely love it.”

“It makes the understanding of the auto repair easier,” he said. “It makes the explanation of what (the car) needs, why it needs it and what they came in for easier.

“That rattle? This is what's rattling—this rear sway bar link is what's rattling—and you can see the movement.”

More importantly, he said, it makes customers more likely to agree to maintenance and repairs his business recommends.

“We're getting away from what the repair is to how impressed (consumers) are with the fact that we want them to see what we're doing,” Mr. Steinberg said. “It's not a shirt-and-tie selling it to them—it's a technician showing them.

“The transparency, which people appreciate, is something I can't put a price tag on.”

If building trust with customers is as simple as sending them a video that goes over issues with their car, why not just text it to them?

“We get that question, and my initial response to that is, if it's a difference between using video and not using video, we'd want you to use the video however you want to do it,” Mr. Jones said. “Want to use your own phone? Use it, because it's compelling and you will see an immediate return.”

However, he noted, there are a dozen or more reasons why a platform like GetTransparency makes sense over the do-it-yourself route.

One of the biggest selling points of GetTransparency's offering is its tracking and reporting capability, as users gain access to a dashboard feature that allows them to keep track of when videos are uploaded, among other things.

“I know who recorded the videos,” Mr. Jones said. “I know which videos were sent, I know which videos were viewed and for how long, and you don't get that when I text you an attached video file.”

For Mr. Steinberg, the ability to see that a customer has actually watched the video has been one of the most crucial, time-saving features, as waiting for customers to get over the sticker shock of an estimate can slow down progress in the service bay.

“We reach you at work, we start explaining to you that all of these components — that you have no idea what we're talking about — are wrong with your car, and then we tell you it's $1,287.50,” he said. “The first thing the average person says, male or female, knowledgeable or not knowledgeable about vehicles is, ‘Can I call you back?'”

Usually, he said, customers report the bad news to a friend or significant other. Meanwhile, for the repair shop, that car is still “up in the air,” sitting on a lift or in a service bay taking up valuable space and a technician's time.

“We have to put it back together, take it outside and wait for a call back after you went into cardiac arrest from the estimate,” he continued. “Then you may call us back and say, ‘Can you explain to me exactly what's wrong with the car again?' because (the customer doesn't) know what the function of a catalytic converter is or you don't know what a rear sway bar link is. You have no idea.”

Mr. Steinberg said the video functionality has helped his dealership to cut down on time explaining and re-explaining issues to customers and has further streamlined the sales process.

Instead of diagnosing the problem, creating an estimate and then contacting the customer afterward, Direct Tire now diagnoses a problem, sends the customer a video and, in the interim, puts together a repair estimate. A service writer tracks to see when the customer watches the video and waits another 10 to 15 minutes to call back in order to give them time to decide.

“Most people say, ‘Can you have it done today?' They're not saying, ‘Talk to me about the brakes, talk to me about the links, talk to me about the steering rack, talk to me about this, because they now understand it,” he said. “They have all the information. We already explained it to them. We've given them a price on it. They came here with a problem, and we're here to solve it.”

For customers who opt to delay a repair, dealers can use the GetTransparency dashboard to schedule service reminders that resend the original overview video, Mr. Jones said.

Another benefit over texted videos is reduced file size, he noted.

“We sent a link to the customer, and they stream the video from the Web, from the Cloud, just like a YouTube video,” he said. “So we're not sending around 20-, 50-, 70- and 100-megabyte files—we're sending a link, and it just streams to your phone so the quality is controlled.”

GetTransparency offers storage and retention for its videos, meaning that dealers can have indefinite access to past recordings, depending on how their agreement is structured.

Mr. Jones said the firm's system allows for an approval process, giving managers or service advisors the ability to look over each video a technician records before it's sent out to the customer.

GetTransparency also takes a hands-on training approach, teaching clients how to record an effective video and offering critiques on videos sent out to customers.

“We're not just selling a piece of technology or a service,” Mr. Jones said. “We want our customers to be with us for years, and we want them to be successful with it and see that ROI (return on investment) every month.”

Finally, he said, the app helps dealers stay legal in their communication with customers.

“When you send out text messages, there're some FCC compliance issues,” Mr. Jones said. “Like, if somebody responds with a stop message, you can no longer send them a text. Sending that from a salesperson's phone or a technician's phone gets a little dicey, and you're exposed to some pretty high fines if you don't respect those stop messages.

“We can control all that,” he continued. “We monitor that, and if they say stop, nothing goes out to that customer again until they say start. So we really reduce your liability.”

GetTransparency recommends that dealerships use a company-owned mobile device shared by technicians for making and sending recordings.

In its first year in operation, GetTransparency has rolled out its video tool at 45 U.S. locations, about half of which are independent vehicle repair shops and the other half car dealerships.

While GetTransparency has aimed for modest growth month-to-month in that time period, Mr. Jones said the company is poised for quick expansion moving forward.

“This is a business that's built to scale and to grow,” he said. “I fully expect that we will be at about probably 100 (car) dealers by the end of the year. My goal for the independent repair shops is several hundred. We're on that track now with a number of different independent shops that may have 10, 15, 70 or 100 locations, and we're doing one- or two-store installs for them now.”

So far, GetTransparency has been signing dealers on a “try it” basis, Mr. Jones noted, adding, “If you have 50 locations, you don't install it in 50 locations to start. You install it in two or three, and then when you're convinced of the numbers and the return you say, ‘OK, let's roll it out to our entire tire group.'”

The monthly subscription cost for an auto service shop is $295, according to Mr. Jones, and the price drops if a company signs up multiple stores. The cost covers unlimited videos, unlimited devices and unlimited users.

The firm's clientele is concentrated primarily in the northeastern U.S., but with many businesses in the automotive space belonging to 20 Groups, it has been able to expand to other areas.

“We have grown regionally, but we've also grown through our network,” Mr. Jones said. “…So we have a dealership in Pennsylvania that's using our service and we have one in Nashville, Tenn., that's using our service.

“We fully expect a dealer group in Austin, Texas, to come on because they're part of a 20 Group, so we've sort of leapfrogged a little bit and been less about geography and more about opportunity.”

The company's offering caters primarily to automotive service at this time, but Mr. Jones said there are other applications as well, such as overviews of new and used vehicles for potential buyers.

 In addition, there is room for growth outside of the automotive industry, Mr. Jones said.

“We find that video in this application makes a lot of sense when you want to share information with someone who cannot be present or who is not present,” he said. “In any situation where the individual, the person spending the money, can't be present, video — and narrated video, specifically — is pretty compelling.”

To reach this reporter: [email protected]; 330-865-6148; Twitter: @Will_Schertz