Wake up, Buy Here, Pay Here people. It's a beautiful day. Go grab yourself another cup of Joe and say hello to Jim and Michelle Rhodes on the Buy Here, Pay Here morning show. Take it away, you two. hey good morning friends uh welcome had a little uh mix up on the uh start time for the podcast accidentally set the uh time for i think noon eastern but uh we're we're live at a regular slot got that adjusted and uh happy to be here it's a beautiful spring day in oklahoma of course some of you have already heard the news that we had some deadly tornadoes in northwest oklahoma about a couple hours from where we are so That's sad. It's part of what goes with the season in this country. And I know there's more storms expected tonight. So everybody in this region, all the way from Texas to Missouri, sound like we better be on the lookout for severe weather. And just a couple of other thoughts to pass along. You know, our conversation for today is around data and software heavily um you know i'm going to share some information from actual conversations inside of our our peer group meetings and um of course they're they're anonymized by uh you know we created some voice over on the text so that those who spoke up can you know remain anonymous but i'm looking forward to sharing some of that i think it kind of ties into a lot of the work that we're doing and that others in the industry are doing uh which just kind of reminds me one quick update i can provide is how to really um Excellent meeting with the folks at Emotive earlier in the week. I'm happy to be working with them. And we're working on getting the White Hat Way portfolio summary report put together. They're helping to turn out the necessary data points for VH. So just a quick mention for them and appreciate their cooperation at this point. I hope to have them on the podcast once we get the results. the White Hat Way Portfolio Summary Report put together. So looking forward to those conversations ongoing and then have some meetings right behind the podcast today on our own progressions with technology and AI. So looking forward to continuing that and have some other announcements forthcoming around some of that. But it's been really satisfying work. the AI side of what I've been doing. And I talked on a prior podcast about the, uh, the work that we're doing on the, um, the data translation layer. And that is, um, some of what my, my work continues as we move into, uh, producing the data from February, uh, for our V eight members. But, you know, with that, I would just kind of share with you what we're, um, What we're going to talk about today, I've got some actual conversations teed up, as I said, and I just was inspired to bring this particular topic because our conversations in our meetings in the month of February were... predominantly around at least the richest part of the conversations were around data and then software. And by software, I can extend that to portals, platforms, different sort of solutions for dealers on the technology side. And, you know, that's one of the things I said to one of our members, you know, as we talk about it, it's like I sit there and watch them talk about this thing. And I'm just kind of was grinning through a lot of the conversation and even told them at the end. I explained why I was grinning because I'm sitting there watching and thinking this is the value of peer group. This is one of the things that happens. in a peer group environment of course in our case it's v-eight dealer groups uh there are dealer twenty groups that have been around a long time i see that tommy's got a new uh version of a peer group sprouting up so it looks like there may be alternatives for dealers in that regard as well i think one of the things that um i see at least in our v-eight groups and i'm a former twenty group member myself as a dealer years ago i was a member of a group and i think one of the things that you gain when you have an environment that is trusted as being confidential then people are able to speak freely and you're going to hear that in these um these conversations i'm going to play And that's why I was just sitting there grinning, just thinking this is where dealers really can help one another by speaking freely about some of the things that we're witnessing. We're seeing dealers go through software migrations and that is either a good experience or a bad one. And there are other kind of solutions that are out there that dealers are subscribing to. And so the ability to kind of share with other dealers fully, like to express fully what the experience has been and have a Q&A around the experience is really rich. And so I share that to say that, you know, when I think about this across what it looks like for the providers out there, I mean, I know that a lot of our providers would love to be inside these conversations. Like it's just the idea that, you know, they get The dealers get quite specific. They list pros and cons, likes and dislikes, and so it's really great feedback. Of course, in our case, it has to remain confidential, and we will always preserve that. So today, again, I've anonymized this. Let me go ahead and tee those up and let you hear. I've got two different threads here. There were others. I just had a chance to bring two of these that are representative of the kind of conversation that that can happen in these formats. But let me let you hear, I think the first dealer is describing a platform that they've added. So let's listen. You know, insurance is a beast. And for us to keep up, we don't have a reinsurance company. so we constantly are logging in all the insurance portals and updating then change you know change the due date and on and on i said man i've got to make a simple process so it's pretty cool i mean what it is is it once you get all your customers in there it automatically pings insurance companies and pulls the data over So that basically and we're still working out some bugs and we've only done this in like the last thirty days here. So but we just about all of our accounts in there, but it's automatically going to show up when they're canceled. It's going to tell you if there are problems with it, like if the names are wrong, if the deductibles are wrong, if you're not on there as a lien holder, if it's canceled. And so instead of having to dig through and keep up with everything in our DMS, We just go to that now and it's all right there. It's priced per account. But if it's going to save me some charge offs, that's where it ends. So. Whoops. So, you know, just to kind of recap what you heard there is you've got a dealer who's got a new system. it came up in the context of kind of technology pivots and kind of additions to internal procedures and a lot of that ties to what they're doing with personnel and and etc but i think this one was a really good example of Somebody who's talking about a switch in their technology, and now dealers are gonna know that one of the members stepped out and subscribed to that solution, and they're gonna be able to track that conversation. How's it going? How's the rollout going? How's the implementation going? What kind of support are you getting? This becomes part of the thing. And of course, in our V-AID dealer groups, there's a lot of talk about the data. We work a lot on data, and we certainly prop up a report that gives dealers something comparative. I just find that when a conversation really gets going and it varies, I mean, some dealers might want to dig into reinsurance and how they price reinsurance product. It's just the list goes on and on. But certainly The buzz topics of late have been around software, and I think you're going to see more and more conversation around AI, just because, as I keep saying to the people that we work with, we might be resistant to AI and have some fear and concern about where that's leading us. I just say that we're not going to put that genie back in the bottle at this point. AI is part of tomorrow for us, and some of us will learn to leverage that. And so that's part of what we're doing in our VA community is sharing with some of those members and what we're learning on the AI side, which is substantial. What's certainly biggest part of where my research is, you know, formally and informally. And so I think it's part of what we can expect to see. Let me continue this other conversation, which this other one was around a DMS switch and the names have been removed. So where the dealer mentioned the names we just put in, um you know them or the software company whatever you'll be able to tell but um but let me let you hear that one yeah i like them a lot yeah it's a good product and i mean it's got some quirks right but it's so cool to be able to make a phone call and it'd be put into their work sessions and it's resolved in two weeks like we had an issue like with the payment processor we're losing five accounts a week people kept shutting it off on their own And so I said, hey, I don't want my customers to be able to shut this off. And they said, well, you know, we don't know if that's legal. And I said, my previous processor did it, and they had it fixed in two weeks, and now the customer has to call to shut it off. So just to be like, going from having no support and not being able to call anybody to fix anything ever. to having somebody else stand by that can fix stuff in weeks is just huge. So obviously I'm waiting for the screen to shift. There we go. So, you know, as you hear that, you can hear that the dealer's coming off a system where they were receiving little to no support and kind of describing what that experience has been. And now they're with a software provider that is cooperative and, you know, providing them lots of help and even customizing and adjusting their system to fit the dealer's request. So, you know, these are just examples of where dealers are able to speak freely about what kind of experience they're having with, with certain providers. And I just see the richness of it, I think. And so obviously today is not about, you know, asking anybody to be in a VA dealer group. We'd obviously love to have folks, but I would just say the value of being in a forum where You know, again, the confidentiality is there. Dealers know they can speak freely within that circle. And that's not really true on social media. On Facebook, we've had a number of dealers tell us that, and part of the reason you're starting to see in social media, a lot of members chiming in with, anonymous as an anonymous member? Well, there's a couple of problems with that. One of the reasons they choose to do anonymous is because if they list their profile that they're asking for information about a provider, then they tend to get inundated by the providers, the sales team from so-and-so. If you're looking to change software, you're looking to change payment processors, then the people get inundated so it's it's different than social media it's um there there is an opportunity to be able to to speak freely in those forums and so i would just say for dealers like just this one example this this most uh this one that you heard us talk about the insurance platform what dealers will be able to observe inside that circle about how that rollout works, like what kind of impact. And not only will they be able to hear from the dealer what their experience has been from a customer relations and customer support standpoint, but they'll be able to see any impact of the software, like did the software actually make a difference and move the needle on charge-offs, et cetera. So there are a lot of things to measure, and we don't measure them all in a V-A composite, of course, But there will be measurable things that we can see as a result of some of these changes. And it's just part of what can happen. So for today, it was mostly about sharing what it looks like to be in a confidential environment. We would say for many of you, that's just one of the points of value. If you're going to join a peer group, we'd obviously love to have you look at a virtual peer group like we do with V-Eight. But twenty groups should be able to afford the same sort of privacy and confidentiality. And so we would just urge dealers to get in there and get a chance to learn for themselves. And obviously that only works if we're willing to also share. our own experiences and, and be able to do that. So that was, that was my main message for today. Just wanted to deliver that thought and deliver some actual comments from dealers and make sure that, you know, vendors can be reminded that, you know, dealers speak and they speak directly and they share, you know, what it is that their experience has been good or bad. So it creates an opportunity for all of us. And I think we know that it's just, this is a chance to hear exactly kind of verbatim what they're, what they're actually saying and what it, what it works like. That's really it. I'll let you, let you get back to your Friday. Hopefully the tax refunds are still flowing. Everybody's busy out there doing business and we wish you well and hope you have a enjoyable weekend.
