Meet Paige: The Auto Repair Industry’s First 24/7 AI Recruiter [THA 481]

0:00This is the Automotive Repair Podcast Network. Hey everybody, Carm Capriato, Remarkable Results Radio, and another Town Hall Academy here at Vision 2026. We're having a blast. Tracy taught a class, I taught a class. It was so much going on. 34th year here at the incredible Vision Expo, getting ready to open up the expo hall too. Thank you so much to Napa Tracks for having us here.

0:26Did you know that NapaTrax, they have onsite training? And that's the thing I've been talking to a lot of shop owners about, saying, how are you learning to use the features inside of your SMS? And a lot of them— NapaTrax has a ton of customers— says, well, we've got this everyday class and all that really neat stuff going on. So they really care.

0:44They have local people. So thank you so much to NapaTrax and to all of our great sponsors. Hey, let's face it, your shop management system is the most critical tool in your shop, and NapaTrax will move your shop into the SMS fast lane with on-site training, 6 days a week support, and local representation. Find Napa Tracks on the web at napatracks.com. Hey, how well does your team know their stuff?

1:13Test their automotive skills with the Today's Class basic, advanced, or service advisor quizzes. It's a quick, effective way to spot gaps and grow stronger teams. Take the quizzes now. At today'sclass.com/tcquiz. Shop owners, stop juggling multiple marketing tools. Kukui's integrated platform, they deliver 4 times better website conversions, automated follow-up, and real-time ROI tracking. Get industry-leading customer support with Kukui. That's K-U-K-U-I.com. You're probably tired of chasing new customers who never return.

1:50We understand. Pit Crew Loyalty ends the one-and-done cycle, turning first visits into lasting, reliable revenue. On the web at pitcrewloyalty.com. I have a show for you that's going to be kind of fun. We're going to do something we've never done before. We're going to actually make a telephone call and hopefully you can hear it through the speakerphone. I have Lisa Coyle here, CEO, Promotive, co-founder, Promotive, co-founder, CEO.

2:16Always happy to hang out with you, Carm. Yeah, gopromotive.com. And Stacy Black is here, account manager. Hi, Stacy. Hi. You've been on before. Thanks for coming back. Super excited to be here. You got a booth? We do. Nice. And we have a friend at the booth. Oh, who? Her name is Paige. We're going to talk about Paige. Where'd you come up with Paige?

2:37So my wife came up with Paige, just like she came up with 360 Payments as our company name that we first started. Yeah. But what is really cool about Paige that, you know, she will say she thought of, but she did not, is that it has the letters AI. In her name, P-A-I-G-E. Oh, oh, it's P-A-I-G-E. Oh my God, that's so clever.

3:02Yeah, because Paige is an AI voice. Yeah, yeah. But we've made— we've humanized her, and she will be at the booth. She will be? Yeah. Is she about 5 foot nice? Yeah, you know, the cardboard cutout was more expensive to make her 5'7", so she's you know, Samantha Freeman's height, you know, that 5'2" range. A little thing. Yeah. You know, next year we might set up a kissing booth with her because she's pretty cute.

3:28I can say that about her because she's not real. So if I go up to Paige next year, I won't get a paper cut or anything, will I? No, no, no. But kissing booth, I think, would be fun. Total joke. Well, we really went off track right away. I know. Usually it takes us a little bit. So anyway, we're gonna talk about this AI voice for promotive call page here in a minute, but what's going on inside the industry?

3:54Are we still struggling in a quick overview, guys, with ghosting and trying to get some really good candidates coming on as you speak to them all the time? It is in the class this morning, in the mastermind this morning, and I mentioned ghosting and honest to God, the entire room said, oh, everybody had this unbelievable sigh. Like, oh my God, it's happening more and more.

4:14And they can't get up and over it. But yet some people says, I'm hiring okay. And we did ask to raise our hand if they're using any kind of service. It was about 40, 35 to 40% of the room said that they've done or used some kind of support company to help them recruit. What's going on? What's the latest? I think ghosting is an everyday occurrence.

4:35It really doesn't matter the level or the position. It seems to be a problem out there with ghosting. We're trying to get better in our process to make sure that they're comfortable, they're ready to go for the interview. I wonder if it's because they start panicking that, oh, okay, wait a minute, maybe I can't meet the requirements, or maybe I'm not qualified for this position.

4:59And I find it interesting that they're fearful. And so they'll say there's a family emergency, they're in a car accident. I can go on and on. I need a bingo card so I can cross off what I hear. But then they'll circle back around a week later. We've had some success where, okay, are you ready to go now to talk with these shops?

5:22So no one wants to pick up the phone and says, hey, listen, we just had a family emergency. I can't do this right now. They just ghost you. They ghost. Is it our society today? Are we overwhelmed? Don't we put priorities on our shops. Yeah, I think it's human decency to not ghost, and it does go both ways, for the record, that shops unfortunately accidentally ghost the candidate as well and don't show up to a phone call interview that they're supposed to do, or they, you know, run out on a test drive that's an hour away, like whatever, they're on the road somewhere and the candidate shows up.

6:01And I think we all have to have respect for each other's time. But I do think the ghosting happens, in my opinion, because of the shortage and the demand and that technicians or, you know, insert whatever professional role that there's a shortage in, they are applying to 15 to 20 jobs at once. It is not a, "Oh, I really like this one and this is the one I want."

6:26And if they did choose that job, they would've made a cover or something very personalized in the messaging when they apply. So they're applying to 15 to 20 at once, and the first 3 or 4 or 5 at the most that get to them are who they are running with. And then imagine if you have 10 other shops calling you and you're working a full-time job and you have a family and you have 3 or 4 or 5 other interviews already lined up or part of them completed, and you're further in the process, you're just like, why do I need to go bother?

6:56Having this interview. Let me go out for a real stretch here. Part of a discussion this morning in our mastermind was soft skills. I think about soft skills. We asked that question in the mastermind and everybody had another one of those, oh my God, yes. When we grew up, when I grew up, and I'm a boomer, there's no hiding the fact that as I was taught by the Silent Generation, they didn't teach us anything.

7:20We observed, we watched. There was nothing pulling us away from realizing that how our parents acted is how we have to act. And there wasn't social media for me to go to and realize that, oh, you could just about do anything you want. There's no thank you, there's no loyalty. The exit. And I keep thinking that maybe part of the soft skills that haven't been applied don't have a give-a-crap attitude about calling you back for whatever reason.

7:48I love the fact, do, that there's a lot going on, so they come back to it, but then you're stuck as a business person trying to fill a job and they disappoint so many people down the line. Yeah. You agree that part of our problems today is we don't have that empathy or soft skills thing on both sides? Oh, absolutely. I mean, we're looking at getting a Homeline at our house for our kids because we're very anti- iPhones or smartphones in general.

8:19And I think about the soft skills I had as a young child, I guess, where I had to call and say, "Hey, Mr. Capriato, this is Lisa. Is Stacy home?" Right? Just even having that simple introduction makes a big difference. And I knew who was calling you. Right. Yeah, exactly. And I think actually, now that I think about it, I had to say who I was, what, like, my parents taught me to say, "Hey, Mr.

8:45Capriato, this is Lisa." Right? Like, that was a very specific— yeah, introduction. We kept score. Yeah, yeah. I'm not saying that in a bad way, but you end up learning who your children's friends are that way. Yeah. But I think, you know, in our world today, I don't think ghosting is as common in other industries as it is in the industries with the demand.

9:10I interview people all the time for, you know, in the payments world or for Promotive, and I don't get ghosted. I think it's that there's, these people are applying to many jobs at once, especially if they're unemployed and they need to get hired as fast as possible. And they don't have time to wait a week for, you know, their first in-person meeting with a shop.

9:37And they may have already had 2 or 3 interviews. Now they're in the offer stage. Of other ones so that when they get that offer, because they need to work, they need to pay bills and put food on the table for their families, that they already have a job. So they just ignore. And I think we can start teaching them to say, even if you land something different, I'd want to stay in touch with you.

9:58So please let me know if you're not going to show up. Stacy, do you do that with a candidate? Do you just say, listen, let me tell you, we'd love for you to live by some kind of rules in communications and showing up Do you think you can meet them? Do you ever say that? We try. The other thing I would like to say is there's no accountability.

10:19So if they ghost, it's not a big deal because they can go down the road and get a position. We haven't held them accountable to their actions. So they call you back in 3 months and you know they ghosted you. You've got to have some kind of checkbox in your— We do on our end. And so this person comes back, you call up their name and says, okay, 2 times ghosting.

10:43Busting our— so our client never really got the money's worth. We got so close. We're really upset. It really is a reflection. I'm not saying it's directly on you, but it's the person that you've dragged through the line. Yeah. Do you have a come to Jesus meeting with them? Yeah, I have reservations about— they're circling back around to us 3 months later.

11:03We get them placed in a shop. In the back of my mind, I'm wondering, are they going to leave 3, 4 months from now? Because with Promotive, our whole thought process is keeping them in the industry, keeping them in the shop, building good culture, and raising the industry up to where the future generations say, "This is something I want to go into."

11:25So we want them to stay. And that's a conversation that the recruiters have, that I have with shops of we want to find that perfect— there's no perfect, but that culture fit to where 2, 3 years down the road, they're going, "Wow, I've really elevated my profession. I've made a difference in my career." That's what we want. So I'm leery, I'm very leery of somebody that's circling back around because why?

11:53And it could be definitely that shop wasn't a good culture fit for them. And I get that. I want to say that I know you're in recruitment. I get that part. But one of the things that I want to know about or understand is about retention. And I know you're not in the retention business, but you really are because you're trying to find a candidate for an individual who's going to have a long-term employee and they're going to love you for it.

12:15Do you ever share any retention ideas with clients? Training, ongoing training, giving feedback for them, celebrating their birthday, celebrating their work anniversary, something along that line to just celebrate that they're in their shop making a difference. And I have really good examples of shops doing that and honoring them being part of that team. And you can feel that energy when you go into that shop and guess what happens to their business when they have happy employees.

12:44The business skyrockets and they're able to do even more for their employees. And I've had candidates say, "Oh, that's too nice of a shop. I can't work there," because their mindset is they don't feel like they deserve to get into that particular environment, which is crazy to me. A good reputation brings in really good people, period. It does. People don't understand that.

13:05The word culture, Lisa, is I'm struggling with culture. Even though I believe how important it is, we've done countless episodes that have a culture theme. And when it almost seems like when you're talking to a semi-struggling shop owner and I say, so how's your culture? Dead air, silence. They really don't want to hear about it because they, I don't think, know how to get it.

13:31And so in the mastermind this morning here at Vision, 24 cop shop operators. Culture came up so much, and I said, you sick and tired of hearing about culture? No, that's our business. And so it's amazing that— and they're working on it every day, and the people are involved in it. And I mean, you talk about— there's a topic that we covered is how do you have fun.

13:56The place lit up to talk about how they create work and there's a bowling thing, and it's not the owner doing all this stuff. It's the team that gets involved in how much fun it is to come to work there. I bet you it's easy to recruit for companies like that. Oh, absolutely. I mean, I could write books on culture from all of my years with 360 and now Promotive, and I'm on boards of companies, and culture is critical, and it's not as hard as I think shops think it could be, and it's little simple things that make a huge difference.

14:33So one thing, for example, I'm very envious of anybody that gets to work in an office environment, in the shop environment, because human connection— I would be nowhere where I am today without being in the office with the human connection I have. I know Stacy and I have had lots of conversations about that, but if I was a shop owner, the simplest thing to do is to allow their team to bring their children's art and hang it up with clothespins across a string on one of the walls.

15:02Because let's be real, art with— as a parent, if anybody has young children, mine, one that will be 7 next week, and then the other is 10, we don't know what to do with this art, right? And it's a lot. And there's companies that exist now because of that, where you can take pictures of the art and then it'll turn it into scrapbooks.

15:19But you hang the art up and do you know how proud the kids are that their art is hanging? Oh my God. At dad's work. Yeah. Or mom's work. Exactly. And then you can even extend it to customers' kids' art being in there and you could have so much fun with those little things. This is a brilliant idea. Brilliant. Oh, thanks, Kyle.

15:40This is the best idea I've heard in— I'm done. Since January. I have an 8-year-old grandson and a 6-year-old granddaughter. Yeah. And he draws amazing for 8. I look at his stuff and I says, yeah, Papa, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then he says, and he colors in the lines. And you just gave me a wonderful idea. I need to hang some of his artwork in my office, in the studio.

16:02Yeah. I mean, it's so simple. Those are the little things that make a massive difference because as an owner, it is a lot to bear that culture weight on your shoulders because you're one of a team of 10, 25, 50, whatever it is. But give everybody a $50 allowance each month and they have to take one person from the team out to lunch.

16:25Yeah. And you just get them to go hang out. Like, little things like that make a massive difference. Let's face it, your shop management system is the single most important tool in your shop, period. NapaTrax was built from the ground up to make your business more profitable, and efficient. We provide an extensive set of tools to increase and track profitability in real time.

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17:14NapaTracs is always customized and tailored for you, whether you're a one-man shop or a large multi-bay or multi-location company. After all, it's your shop, so it's your choice. Visit us on the web at napatracs.com. Hey, Carm here suggesting you discover a smarter way to train your entire automotive team. Experience powerful bite-sized training sessions accessible from any device in just 5 minutes daily.

17:43It's perfect for technicians, advisors, and managers alike. Today's Class prepares your shop for sustained success by reinforcing crucial knowledge. Plus, add a competitive edge with our leaderboard to make learning fun and rewarding for everyone. For effective training that delivers, turn to todaysclass.com. Shop owners, we know you are overwhelmed with a flood of missed calls, empty bays, and disconnected marketing tools. Kukui has spent over a decade building one integrated platform for auto repair shops.

18:15One login, one dashboard, and mobile-first websites that convert 4 times industry average. Smart, innovative CRM with automated follow-up, 24/7 online booking, and real-time ROI tracking. With 900+ years of combined team experience, we fuel the growth of 2,200+ shops and have influenced $3 billion in revenue. Stop working harder, start working smarter. Get industry-leading customer support and book a demo with Kukui. That's K-U-K-U-I.com.

18:46You know, most shop owners feel trapped spending on ads while half their first-time customers never come back. It's frustrating. It's exhausting. And it's not your fault. The industry average is 54% one-and-dones. We understand how discouraging that can be. Well, Pit Crew Loyalty changes the story. Our clients cut that rate by up to 38%, raising lifetime value by more than 50%. Loyalty members visit nearly 3 times more often, creating predictable revenue without extra ad spend.

19:18Pit Crew Loyalty, where customers stay and shops thrive. On the web at pitcrewloyalty.com. We want to talk about AI right now. Yeah, well, it kind of goes into the ghosting theme, and we are humans, we have lives, and there's only 24 hours in a day., and we have priorities and we have to get cars out the door and we have to improve our service advisors' phone skills.

19:45And we're working on the techs fighting in the back. You know, one guy, you know, took some other guy's tool and misplaced it, whatever the case is, we're dealing with stuff as leaders and owners, and we can't get to recruiting. And when you don't get to the recruiting, we have ghosting. And it is this, you know, circular reference in Excel here that just, you can't move forward with one part not moving.

20:10So, we created the first ever automotive exclusive virtual recruiter, and it's been a lot of work going into it. She continues to get better and better, and this solves for getting to the candidate as fast as possible, because as soon as they apply, every shop owner here has dealt with, they call an applicant and they're like, "Which shop are you again?" They don't remember what shop they applied to, who's calling them.

20:42If the shop even calls them, right? A lot of times it's just messaging through Indeed, like, "Hey, thanks for applying," and you're hoping that the candidate looks at their Indeed that day. But the second they apply, they get an instant text message to their phone that invites them to do the virtual interview, which is the first step. And the beauty of that is shops can eliminate people if they want who don't follow instruction.

21:09If you apply to my job and you really want it, Carm, and I say the first step is to do this and you don't do it, that's a red flag, right? So, the other beauty is she doesn't discriminate. These techs, Stacy can attest this, have the worst resumes as an overall industry compared to others. They're not professional resume builders. They're not having somebody review their resume or putting it into ChatGPT and saying, make me something fancy.

21:36So we judge books by their cover and we don't dig in into whether their job, why they're job hopping, whatever the case is. But you're also helping them improve their resume, right? We do have a resume builder and we'll help them and we try to— when we get them on the phone as humans, we want to know what they're not putting on their resume.

21:53Before we go any further on the AI, per person. You got to stick around because we're going to call the AI. What's her name? Paige. Paige. We're going to call Paige. Come up with a jingle for me, like Paige from Promotive. Oh, you know, let me work on that. Yeah. You said something so interesting that piqued my mind. They don't even know where my shop is.

22:11So maybe part of the job is, hey, we're the blue and gold place. We've got this really neat canopy. We're right next door to this McDonald's. You know where the mall is? We're right across from there. There's a red light on our corner.. And if we did some of that and we peaked that, they, oh, I think I know where that, yeah, I know where that is.

22:29Yeah. I've been by there a hundred times. I'm sure you have. You've just made a bigger connection instead of saying, yeah, I'm at 332 Lake Avenue. Indeed. I know that's the one everybody uses the most. So if I could give one piece of quick advice to shops is go on Indeed as an applicant. So make sure you're not logged in and it's, you know, tracking that you're logged in as an employer right now.

22:53And you'll see if you type in automotive technician in, you know, Walnut Creek, California, it defaults to relevance by 25 miles. Well, 25 miles in certain areas could be an hour and a half commute depending on the time of the day, right? Yeah, yeah. So, the techs are applying to jobs sometimes that they know, they don't necessarily know in that because of the defaults that they're never going to go work at because of the distance alone.

23:21And when you sort by most relevant, who's going to the top? It's the ones paying the most in ads. And as independent business owners, we will never be able to compete with what some of these dealerships pay, what Carvana is paying, AutoNation is paying. I know from talking to some Indeed reps, these Carvana, as one example, AutoNation, they're spending $500,000 plus a month on ads.

23:52Whoa. You're just not going to be able to compete with a free ad, or even if you sponsor one for $50. So they're the ones getting the SEO, if you will, on Indeed. So we're getting applications from people that probably aren't ever going to go work there because it's too far away from the start. So little things like that. Very great. A lot of good, wise stuff here.

24:16Can we call Paige? Yeah, let's call her. All right, I've never done this. This is a first for me, and I have the number, and I'm going to put this on speakerphone so we all can hear it. And you want me to play the role of I'm looking for a job? Yeah, be a technician, right? Like you just applied to Bob's Automotive.

24:35Here we go. Hopefully you can all hear this call. It's a first for us here. I love this. Hi, thanks for calling. This is Paige. I'm a virtual recruiter powered by Promotive. Promotive partners with automotive shops in your area to find and hire quality automotive talent. I'm here to learn more about you, your background, and your interest in automotive positions. Oh, how nice.

24:55And I'll also answer any— Could you clarify what you mean by oh, how nice? I want to make sure I understand you correctly. Oh, wow, Paige, this is amazing. No problem at all. I'm here to help however I can. Would you like to dive right into the questions about your background and interests? I guess you're 100% right. Look at— I'm looking for a technician job and I've been in the industry about 5 years.

25:15What do you got? Got it. Thanks for sharing. Based on your 5 years of experience, it sounds like you might be a great fit for one of our technician roles. Right now, Promotive is hiring for automotive technicians, diesel technicians, and collision and body technicians. Which of these roles are you most interested in, or would you like me to help narrow it down?

25:35No, technician. Perfect. Let's focus on the automotive technician role. I'll ask you a few quick questions to better understand your experience and preferences. First, can you tell me your first and last name? Carmen Capriato. Yeah, it's Italian. Thanks, Carmen. That's a great name, Carmen. Thanks for sharing. Are you calling from your cell phone today? I don't know, Paige, you're pretty starin' sweet.

25:56You want to go out? No. Haha, I appreciate the kind words, Carmen. Let's stick to finding you that perfect technician role. I love it. She's keeping me on track. I love it. Yes, a question. Um, yes, a technician role. I'm sorry, I'm having fun with this. I apologize. No need to apologize, Carmen. I'm glad you're having fun. That's what makes this process enjoyable.

26:18So just to confirm, are you calling from your cell phone today? Yes, I am. Perfect. I'll save that as your contact number. Next, can you provide your email address? No, actually, yes, it's Carmen. It's— no, it's really Carmen@remarkableresults.biz. This is really cool. Thanks for— I was talking to your boss on the side here. No worries at all, Carmen. Let's keep going. Can you tell me your current city, state, and zip code?

26:45Uh, Buffalo, New York, 14075. Go Bills! Thanks, Carmen. So Buffalo, New York, zip code 14075. Got it. What's the maximum commute you'd be comfortable with in minutes and miles? Oh, 15 miles, maybe, uh, you know, 15 minutes would be good. Got it. 15 minutes or about 15 miles. Thanks for clarifying. Would you have any interest in relocating or are you looking to stay local?

27:12I could have a sarcastic answer here, but I won't. I'll stay local. Haha. I appreciate the restraint, Carmen. Staying local. Got it. How many total years of experience do you have in the automotive industry? 15. Well, actually, really 15. I wasn't aware where we were going before. Ah, got it. 15 years of experience. Thanks for clarifying. Have you worked in an independent shop, a dealership, or both?

27:35Independent shop. Great. Would you be open to working at a dealership, or do you prefer sticking with independent shop? I want to stay with an independent. Understood. Sticking with independent shops. Thanks for sharing that, Carmen. Are you currently employed or are you between jobs right now? I'm currently employed. Got it. Who is your current employer and what's your job title there? I prefer not to say.

27:57No problem at all, Carmen. What's your current job title, if you're comfortable sharing that? Yes, I am a diagnostic specialist. Thanks for sharing, Carmen. A diagnostic specialist. Sounds like you've got some solid expertise. What are your current work hours like, days and times? I'm doing a 4-day work week. I'm working 8 to 6. Got it. A 4-day work week, 8 to 6.

28:19Thanks for that. With your role as a diagnostic specialist, would you say you're at a master, ABC, or GFP level? I'm an A. Perfect. An A-level technician. Thanks for confirming, Carmen. How long have you been in your current role? In my current role, about 5 years. Got it. 5 years in your current role. What's your current compensation and pay structure? I prefer not to say.

28:40For example, is it hour? No problem, Carmen. What benefits does your current employer provide, like PTO, medical, or anything else? PTO, medical, retirement, 3 weeks vacation, lunch on Friday— Thursdays. That sounds like a solid package. PTO, medical, retirement, 3 weeks of vacation, and even lunch on Thursdays. Thanks for sharing. What's prompting you to explore a new opportunity? I'm bored. I'm not getting the education that I want.

29:10Got it. You're looking for more growth and educational opportunities. That makes sense, Carmen. If you had to pick one thing, what are you looking for most in your next role? Would it be that opportunity for continued learning? It would be. I want a better career path. I want some better equipment. Yeah, that would be it. And there's a whole lot of other ones, but I just want a great work environment.

29:29I want to be bright. I want to be air-conditioned in the summer. I want good heat in the winter. I guess I want a great place to work. Can you help me? Absolutely, Carmen. It sounds like you're looking for a place that values growth, provides top-notch equipment, and offers a comfortable, supportive work environment. That's exactly what we aim to match candidates with.

29:50Let's keep going to make sure we find the right fit for you. What's your target pay, and what's the minimum you'd accept? I'm open to all offers. Got it. Open to all offers. That gives us some flexibility to find the best match for you. What benefits are must-haves for you in your next role? For example, medical, PTO, retirement, or anything else? Yeah, all the ones that I mentioned, but if I can get dental, that would be great.

30:14Got it. So medical, PTO, retirement, and adding dental would be a big plus. Thanks for sharing that, Carmen. What's your ideal schedule in your next role? For example, Would you prefer sticking with a 4-day workweek or something different? Look, if it was the right place, the environment was perfect, I'd go to 5, but no more. Understood. 4 days is ideal, but you'd consider 5 if the environment is perfect.

30:37Thanks for that, Carmen. Let's talk about the next steps. I'll pass along all this information to our hiring team, and they'll work on finding the best opportunities for you. Would you like me to follow up with you via email or phone once we have some matches? Absolutely. Great. I'll make sure to follow up with you as soon as we have some opportunities that align with what you're looking for.

30:57Carmen, it's been a pleasure chatting with you, and I'm excited to help you find that perfect role. Thank you, please. Have a fantastic day. Thank you. You're very welcome, Carmen. I'll be in touch soon with opportunities that match your goals. I'm going to start calling you Carmen too. Oh, Carmen. And she said it perfectly. Yeah, you gave her a run. I was like getting a little nervous.

31:15I'm like, oh, were you good? I'm like, what's going to happen here? No, it's good. For the first half of this thing, stop and think, I'm an individual who calls this line, and I'm finding this technology to be so interesting that I get a little giddy and sarcastic in this beginning. But as she kept driving toward wanting to know more, I got more serious.

31:37And I'm not saying that it's going to happen. Yeah. But I started to realize that, whoa, let me calm myself down and let me work with this individual, this AI Bot. What's this meant to do? I guess that's my question. Yeah, so the beauty of this is the best applicants need to be contacted immediately. They apply and they instantly get a text message and they complete this virtual screen.

32:04And we're getting about 40 to 50% of our applicants today are completing it within 11 hours from them applying. And of those 40 to 50 applicants in 11 hours, majority are instant from them applying. So, you apply and then you, immediately get a text message saying to call Paige. This is the first step. And they do it. And I was hesitant at first when we were building this, I built the most basic version of this and I did it right.

32:33And it, which me, I, for those that don't know, I am not a tech person. Like I just come up with ideas and I'm not the one that goes and does them. We just threw it out there to some random, I don't want to say like some GSTs, right? Like the brand new, we don't want to mess up the master tech applicants.

32:49And they started doing it and they're completing these. They take on average about 15 minutes. We are getting these to the shop so much faster. And when you are invested in something, you don't want to go backwards. So they already have, for lack of better terms, skin in the game. Think about a book you're reading and you're like, you know, 50 pages in and it's a 300-page book.

33:11And you're like, oh, I don't know if I want to keep doing, reading this book. Like there's other ones, like I don't really love it. If you're like me, you still finish it because I'm like, I already put 50 pages under, let's keep going. They already feel invested in your shop because they're one step into the process. When she asked me how much I was making and I refused to say.

33:31Yep. And as I thought that through after she came back with a reply, I understand, I get it. If I gave a number, I would have— I'm curious and I didn't, how much— I should maybe should have. What she would have said at that time. Now, obviously it didn't matter if she could or couldn't find me a job, but no emotion in the voice, just, okay, that's nice type of thing, right?

33:53Yeah. We know what you're making. That's a good thing. I laid up the benefits. These benefits aren't off the charts. It's just kind of normal benefits that we keep hearing that the dealerships at least are offering today. Yeah. It gives you guys the guidance that you need right out of the chute What are the applicants saying? Have you tried this? Is it in beta?

34:12Where are we with this? Oh, we've been using it as promotive for 5 months now. Okay. So, it helps us make a more educated guess on who we should be reaching out to as a priority. And we tell them that we'll fast-track their application to the top, which we do. So, anybody that completes a virtual screen goes ahead of just an applicant in general.

34:35All right. So, we're using it on our own for the last 4 or 5 months, and we have about 20 to 30 shops, at least right now, our buddy Duane Myers being one of them at Dynamic, that they're using it as just a standalone product. So, they're only using our service to help them get these applicants screened and they're not using it for us to take the app, everything further.

34:56Are they going to Indeed and putting up this number? So, we do that still for them. Okay. So, we post their ads for them and the applicants come in and then we send them just these summaries with the resumes instead. So, I was trying to pull up here yours. So, it's a— Oh, I see. So you can go in and look at my summary and connect with someone in 14075 if you have a client there.

35:19Well, in their case, we would be sending them every one of theirs. They get ones that are just for their application. So if we see that Carm applied to the Dynamic ad, then we would send— Oh, Dynamic has its own number. Not yet, but we, because we're hosting the ads. We can automatically sync your contact info to their job and send your application and the text.

35:45To them? Yep. And the summary. Wow. First ever. It's brilliant stuff. It's pretty neat. It gives everybody a leg up. And she does it 24/7, Carm. Yeah, yeah. So, the Sunday scaries, somebody has a Sunday scaries, they're applying and they instantly get a text, guess what? Our shops are coming in with screened candidates. And their resume and all the other information on Monday mornings, obviously we're going to send them as fast as possible.

36:11This just seems to me, Stacy, something to engage our younger people. They know what AI voices and talking is all about because if they're going to make an online appointment at a shop, they pretty much know they're going to go through some kind of AI. I hate to call them a bot, but the voice is great. I mean, I understood it. Stopped, it paused, it thought, and it got back to me.

36:34And it wasn't a very fluent conversation, but it still was pretty nice. Yeah. The younger people are, you think, are going to gravitate to this? I think so. But the bigger point is they get home from work on Friday. It's Friday night, 11. They've gone to dinner. They've sat down. They're not happy at their job. So they're looking on, you know, online for jobs and thinking, okay, we start building that relationship with them.

37:00As soon as they call in, so they applied 11 o'clock, 11:05, they're directed to call this number. We've already started that process and keeping that going. And that's really exciting. So as an AM, the next morning, I'll see something that says likely completed and I'll look at it. And let's say there's a shop in a very hard area to place and somebody has scored super high at what they're wanting.

37:24I'm sending them over saying, this is a, completed screen, we're going to circle back around with our recruiters. I don't want to waste time. I love the idea. When she said 11 o'clock at night, that really opened my eyes to this whole 24-hour thing. And you never know when it is that you finally had a chance to sit down, take the phone out, scroll mindlessly, go on Indeed, look for something, and then click this thing.

37:50And does the phone actually ring? I mean, at midnight, if necessary, or It doesn't physically ring to us. No, no, no, no. Okay, I have to initiate the call. Yeah. Okay. All right, I got it. So nobody's gonna invade my privacy. It's like, just get a call, 24 hours. Oh, okay. I'm home, everyone's gone to bed, I'm still wide awake from the activities of the day, and I make the call and I sit down with Paige and pour my heart out to her.

38:17Oh, we have had very funny Paige stories. You know, people playing video games and they're getting mad at the controller that they're doing this interview from. And what does she say? Am I bothering you? No, I haven't— you know, I should go back and look. But with these summaries, at the top, we say, you know, customer or candidate expressed frustrations with an Xbox controller, might not be serious about this.

38:41Like, so it really, you know, we say, yours will be interesting as soon as, you know, we're done. I'll send you the summary and you can put it— I'd like to see. And you could put it on., you know, for this call, anybody, we maybe make it a link or something that they can see this, the summary of it. Let them see it.

38:58Wow. But the big aha moment where I was like, this is really going to work was over Thanksgiving. I was in Kauai and, you know, a lot of shops are open on Friday after Thanksgiving, probably not as many of the listeners here, but in general, there's a lot of shops and dealerships open on the Friday after Thanksgiving. They're not shut down. We had 52 completed interviews Thanksgiving weekend, Friday, Saturday, from Paige.

39:2652. That's more than any shop I've ever talked to. But still, stop and think about it. Now, the individual during the day— it's what they call that Black Friday. Yep. Wife's out shopping and they're saying, what am I going to do now? I'm so frustrated and I got to break out. And they get and they look and then they call. 52. And this thing is just launched.

39:46And that was before we had the immediate texting launched with it. So So it was just through email notifications. Hey, this was great. Thank you for bringing this to me. Thanks for putting up with my crap here in the beginning of the call. I think it's fun. I don't know why that was just me. It was like a new toy. I didn't know what to do with it.

40:03Yeah. You know, it's fun. I mean, a lot of the shops that we show this, they have some fun with it. They say they have, you know, 7 DUIs and their license is suspended, but they want to get paid, you know, $100 an hour type of stuff. And then Paige will say that they have unrealistic compensation expectations and everything. So— I can't even imagine all the software loops or conditions that you've had to write into this to make it not exceed expectations from an individual.

40:33What I learned from it to expose its flaws, that the title that you used is not one that we have to match that you would have. With that title, you'd be a master technician or an A-level technician. So had you specifically said master technician or a technician, it would have gone down a more detailed route of questions. When you leave, you should take a copy of The Rise of the Specialist and look at those new terms that people are starting to use.

40:59Wow, this was great. Stacy Black, account manager. Lisa Coyle, CEO, Promotive co-founder. I had a blast. Thank you for letting me play. Of course. Appreciate it. We always love hanging out with you. Appreciate this. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks for being on board to listen and learn from the premier automotive repair business podcast, Remarkable Results Radio. Get your episodic education on the ARPN listing app at automotiverepairpodcastnetwork.com.

41:27Also enjoy the podcast on our Carm Capriato YouTube channel. Carm is all for advancing the professional automotive service industry. Until next time.