Retail Anywhere: Carol Edwards - Amping Up the Value of Time

Introduction Quote, Carol Edwards: I think about being a customer and going to pick your car up and having to wait in line, and people are just not really that patient. We want to meet our customers where they are. And we don't want people unnecessarily waiting on us.

Greg Uland: Hi, I'm Greg Uland with Reynolds and Reynolds. Here with me today is Carol Edwards, controller at Andrews Transportation Group in Brentwood, Tennessee. Today, we're going to discuss how her business office has adopted a Retail Anywhere approach with Reynolds and what that really means to her. So, Carol, thanks so much for taking time to sit down and talk.

CE: Good morning. It's good to see you, Greg.

GU: Good to see you, too. So, Carol, let's get right into it and talk a little bit about kind of a before and after. So before you moved to more digital and efficient processes in your office, what challenges were you really facing? What were you trying to fix?

CE: Well, I feel like it's hard to even remember what it was like before we had a totally integrated retail approach. So I had to think for just a minute what it was like. But we were not efficient. We were waiting. We had customers waiting. We had people in the accounting office waiting. We had people in finance waiting. We had people waiting all over the place. So that I think that now that we've gotten into this retail approach that's integrated now, we're just a lot more efficient.

GU: Yeah, that's good to hear. And when you think back on, like you said, it's been a while, so it might be tough. But when you think back on all that waiting, what kind of impact was that having on the business and on the folks at the store?

CE: I think about being a customer and going to pick your car up and having to wait in line. And people are just not really that patient. We want to meet our customers where they are. And we don't want people unnecessarily waiting on us. We've fixed that. I mean, we've streamlined the processes and people can get in and out. I think people's time is very valuable and they expect to be waited on anywhere you go in any retail environment, they want to be waited on quickly.

GU: When you did end up making that decision to make some changes, what were the things you tackled? There's so many things that you could look at to change. But for you, and looking at places to start, what did you end up tackling when you wanted to make a change?

CE: I think maybe one of the first things we did was ReyPAY^® and the credit card processing. It was a point of sale software so that everything was integrated. So we used to have one credit card machine and people stood in line and we would swipe a card, and then we would put in whatever dollar amount because we had to do it by hand. And as you can imagine, we made lots of mistakes. So we could transpose numbers or this or that. But now that it's an integrated system, we can take the person's credit card that actually matches, it's within the repair order, so there's no mistake. It also gave us the opportunity to allow people to pay online. So our customers can now be notified via text or email that their car is ready and that their invoice is ready to be paid online. Amazing. So instead of having one person wait on everybody, now we can have people across the 10 acres waiting on one customer at a time when they get here.

GU: Yeah, that's great. That really is a good place to start just because it's so visible to your customers, right? I mean, it's one of those that can, I assume for you, really increased customer satisfaction right away. Were there any other pieces that you attacked and went to change even operationally from a business office perspective?

CE: Well, when we got the docuPAD^® system and we started doing all of our deals electronically, it radically changed the way we do accounting, because now we are notified with an email that a deal has closed. If they do that deal electronically, we can actually do all of the paperwork in the accounting office and receive the money without even seeing one piece of paper. So we know and even the girls in the office laugh, they have email tied to their phones, so they can see what kind of a weekend we've had. Because they could get 20 emails saying we've closed this many deals. And so they know what their day is going to look like on Monday.

GU: And whether they're going to come in earlier or call you and say, "You know, Carol, I don't feel well."

CE: That's right. No, but that's remarkable that you don't have to have any paper. That you can go into a deal and print the paperwork out that you need to process the title work, and the money is already basically in the bank.

GU: So when you think about changing things and again, trying to go back to whenever that was for you, any change can be a little overwhelming and a little intimidating. Was there a tipping point for you when you decided it was time to make a change? What were some of the biggest drivers behind wanting to change your processes?

CE: Well, one thing is that our owner, Nelson Andrews, always wants us to be looking forward. So we need to look forward and we need to try to anticipate what our customers are going to need and want. Just looking at the other retail places that you go. And he'd always say, just pay attention to where you're going and where you're shopping and go into an Apple store and so on and so forth. We want to be more like that. We want to meet the customer where they are. We want to be available when they want us to be available. We want to be able to make an appointment for our customers so that they can come in and we can respect their time.

GU: Yeah, and I think that's what every customer wants, right? And you're able to deliver that. Are there any other things, Carol, from your perspective, outside of customer interactions, just in the business office in general, that a Retail Anywhere approach has helped you be more efficient and work inside of the Retail Management System and being able to execute processes differently or more efficient? And work in a digital environment where everything is accessible at any time from, you mentioned your 10 acres right, so from either of your locations, anything to expand on there?

CE: It's so hard for me to remember what it was like before we were doing business this way. I mean, I feel like we can do way more business and we are doing way more business with the same staff that I had years ago. So that's how efficient it is. It's helping us to be able to do a lot more business with you could say fewer people.

GU: Good, and Carol, if you don't mind, can we maybe go back to customers paying online and not having to wait in lines and credit card processing, things like that. And you and I have talked about that in the past too, and just the advantages of an integrated payment solution that's really connected to your entire system. But thinking about it from a Retail Anywhere approach and allowing customers to pay for service or put a deposit down even from anywhere, or even allowing wholesale customers to pay their statement online. Those are kind of big deals. So how has ReyPAY specifically helped you with the payment processing and also maybe with reconciliation?

CE: Well, reconciliation. You just said the word. And see, I'm so used to it now that I forget that we used to have a tough time reconciling every day. And it might take 30 minutes at the end of the day to reconcile all of your cash sales and everything that came in. But now it literally is one report and there's really no way we can mess up. So I can even take a person that doesn’t have any experience and teach them in just a few minutes how to close a day. So that is amazing. I mean, that's an example of how I've forgotten what it was like before we had ReyPAY.

GU: For sure. I was hoping we could touch on eContracting a little bit. So you run a business office, eContracting is really the embodiment of being able to Retail Anywhere. Everything's digital. There's no paper to FedEx back and forth. And we've talked about previously your ability to get contracts funded digitally within minutes or hours. What impact has that had on your business as a whole?

CE: Well, just think about the cash flow. We're not waiting on contracts in transit anymore. That doesn't happen anymore. We literally can get money in the bank before I get a deal into accounting.

GU: Carol, any other specific results maybe that you've seen in your stores by taking more digital processes and putting them in place, certainly specifically in the business office?

CE: I think it helps us recruit people. Maybe the car business wasn't the most technologically advanced, but now I feel like that we can hire people and they come in and they're very fascinated by the fact that we do things electronically.

GU: That's a good kind of outside the box observation. It's good to hear, for sure. So, Carol, to get your final thoughts, I do want to hear from you why you think dealerships should choose Reynolds when looking to streamline and really digitize their business office operations?

CE: Well, I don't think anybody could go wrong going with Reynolds and Reynolds. And I brag about it all the time, it's having an integrated system changes things. It makes our life way simpler. We can be way more efficient and more productive in a shorter period of time.

GU That's great to hear and Carol, we definitely appreciate your partnership and it's always great to talk with you. I appreciate you taking time today.

CE: Thank you, Greg.

GU: For more information, visit reyrey.com/retailanywhere. Thanks for watching, everyone. Have a great day.