Creating the Ultimate Automotive Experience with Darren Ross|EP150

Really focus on your words and the tone in which they're set Oh. To elevate experience.

Welcome everyone to the driving vision podcast brought to you by the Zigler Auto Group. I'm your host, Sam Dark. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast. Like it if you do, and leave a comment. Hey, everybody.

Welcome to the driving vision future of Zach Today podcast. With us today is Darren Ross.

I'm Darren Ross. I own a hotel management company called Service Freak Hospitality, and we lease and operate the Magic Castle Hotel in Hollywood.

So Darren, you just spent an hour and a half with team Ziegler, so you get a couple accolades. Number 1, you actually went longer than most speakers go. They usually are encapsulated. They're stuck in that 60 minute time frame, and you pull us out of our comfort zone in a way that's pretty unique. You're one of the first people that actually brought people into activity.

You asked them to do things. You asked them to get up and be uncomfortable. You asked them to, like like, grab their shoulder.

Yeah. That's always a touchy one. And clock attendant, right?

And do things, right? To to to create movement as from a speaker strategy standpoint. Why?

Well, I've seen a lot of speakers. Yeah. And, some great, some not so great. Yeah. And I think that everybody in your audience has probably had that experience also.

Yeah. And I don't want people to just sit there and listen to one person talk for an hour. Yeah. It's not that much fun.

Get engaged, yeah.

Get engaged. Yeah. And I want them to have that little a little bit of pressure that they have to be in tune with the speaker and what's going on. They're gonna have to think Yeah. And work in teams and I think it's just more valuable for the audience as a whole.

Part of your message too has to do with movement, it has to do with activity. So the Magic Castle Hotel in Hollywood, California, a place that has developed a great reputation. I'm gonna say something you may get offended by, but I think it makes a point. So

buckle up.

It's not like as a hotel, it's not a 4 seasons. Oh. It's not a What? It's it's not. It's like I look at it and it's like, you know what?

It's not a dump, but it's not and please forgive me.

You're

fine. It's not it's it's not a a top of the line hotel, super expensive hotel.

No. And

yet despite physical facilities, you create an experience for your customers that is elite. That is incredible. And isn't that part of the message here with Team Ziegler regardless

of the

franchise, the brand, the physical facilities, the customers, the place you are, like, you can make a difference in a customer's life.

Absolutely. And that's and that's where we're we're trying to do. We try to create these these moments for people Yeah. And those moments are in these memories. Yeah.

And we our goal is to have our guests leave feeling compelled to tell the world about this unique experience they just had. And that is like you mentioned, that that is part of our story. That we're not this fancy facility, we're not Four Seasons, we're not a 5 star hotel. Yeah. And that's okay.

Literally on our website, there's a 5 minute video of me explaining the hotel. And one of the things I say is if you're looking for shiny and new, this might not be the hotel for you. Oh, interesting. And that's okay. We want you to enjoy your holiday.

Yeah. Yeah.

We don't want guests. We don't want people to be disappointed. Yeah. We wanna under undersell it and over deliver it. And so when they come up, they're delighted.

That's that's the goal.

Now you're in an area that's highly competitive in the hotel space. Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah. So people check out of your hotel and end up, you gave an an example, end up going to a Disney Resort Hotel, which is famous for service.

Sure. And you out punted them. Right? And you tell the story of delivering a product to a customer. Right?

Yeah.

Well, this this particular guest was leaving as they had little kids, and she says, and we hear fortunately, we hear this a lot. You have ruined the next hotels for my kids. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

You ruined them. Yeah. And so jokingly, yeah, she said she likes Marmite, and I went on to Amazon and bought some. I had delivered to her hotel the next day, which they loved. And that created a memory.

So thinking about the automotive world, what are some specific components of what you shared today that auto dealers, our stores, could instantly implement to create an our mission statement is to create an ultimate automotive experience for our customers. And by the way, in doing that, we create that experience for each other. Right?

Yeah. Absolutely.

So what are some actionable things you could recommend our stores or teams do today to create that experience?

Today. Yeah. Today, you could really focus on your words and the tone in which they're said. Oh. To elevate the experience.

On that.

Give me an example.

Instantly. Well, we talked today Oh. Yeah. About at our hotel, we'd our welcome speech, we have the one mandatory line and then the employees could could finish the with the welcome speech wherever they wanna finish it. Which by the way,

your one mandatory line is, I wrote this down. I love it. I love to see us implement this. I'd like to take a moment to tell you what a pleasure it is to have you with us.

I think it was very close, and

you're gonna

pass on that.

And by the way, in the Subaru world, to to our Subaru stores, president of Subaru COO, they just implemented something where you put your hand over your heart and you say, I'd love to. And both of those have a very unique way of connecting with a customer in a way that we don't. Right? That's right. Is that what that does?

Absolutely. And what and what it does and this is a it is a couple of things. One, it's a show of respect for for your customers. Yeah. And people are not accustomed in today's world.

I hate to sound like an old guy. Yeah. But in today's world where everything is sped up and and we're moving towards self-service with technology, which is great. Yeah. But with that, because it comes as opportunity to really stand out by slowing down and showing the respect to your to your customer.

And when we say, I just wanna take a moment to tell you what a pleasure it is to have you with us. Mhmm. It might be awkward to say at first, but it's not awkward to receive it. It's really beautiful to receive it and moving to people. Yeah.

And I was I was saying in my talk today that a lot of people have tears in their eyes. They get emotional because they're not used to people slowing down for them. And slowing down for your customer doesn't have to mean you take more time with them. It's just the words and the tone. Intentional.

Intentional. Connected. Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful.

Connected emotionally. Exactly. So alright. So I took a crack at the hotel. I'm gonna tell you the second thing that I think is a challenge with this.

Here's the biggest challenge with doing this. It's beautiful. It it delivers a great experience to a customer. It connects employee to customer in a way that's neat. Here's the problem.

It relies on an employee that does it over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. To deliver that over and over and over and over and be able to do it in an intentional way and a connecting way. So how do you solve for that?

Yeah. Well, it's hard, which is why everyone doesn't do it. Yeah. It's manual. It's one cost 1 customer at a time.

Yeah. Right? We have meetings. We talk about things. There's an incentive program built in for them to create these stories for our guests.

I talked about how we don't, give incentive to sell. Instead, we do incentive to create moments.

Four Seasons does that. That's the Ritz Carlton. Ritz Carlton does that.

Yeah. Absolutely.

The the author of Unreasonable Hospitality

who I've heard speak has

a way of doing that. Yeah. It's so simple. Why why is it that some people things can be simple, but not easy. Right.

Why is it all about the execution sometimes?

Right. Yeah. Well, Well, that's our Popsicle hotline Yeah. Example. Yeah.

It's so simple. Yeah. It's so simple and inexpensive, yet so effective. Yeah. It's so effective.

So we look

we look for those things. And and Share the share the hotline because as you and me, I don't I have a question on that.

Yeah. Yeah. That was why. So when I started at at the hotel, there was this beige phone. I mentioned it's a converted apartment building.

Yeah. There was a beige phone, which would have been like a house phone. Yeah. It had buttons on it, and nobody ever used it at the hotel. And we were also at the time, I wanted to start doing popsicles, and we would just do it when there was somebody out by the pool.

If we noticed them, we'd bring out a tray of popsicles, and that was fun. And literally one day, I'm driving to work, and for some reason it just hit me. Yeah. And the beauty of being able to order things online and having them in 2 days. Yeah.

I ordered this red phone. Yeah. It's a true hotline. Yeah. No buttons, no dials, and we designed this colorful sign that says popsicle hotline.

And all you do is lift up the red phone, and we answer popsicle hotline. Yeah. Then the kid will ask for a popsicle. And then a minute later, we're wearing white gloves, silver tray, and free popsicles

by the pool.

And what that does, it just creates a delightful experience.

It's a

delightful experience. We have parents who wanna capture the moment. They're like They're taking movies. Oh, look. Our 8 year old kid

is using a phone connecting

to a

wall with a cord.

It is so funny to say that. Idea how to use it. That's exactly right. That literally happens Yeah. All the time.

Yeah. We have to the kids don't know. They don't know which end to speak in. It's really

It seems to me as you describe this, again, going back to the employee, the incentives have gotta be right. Because going back to the popsicle hotline, I could see a case where you get a kid, as kids are, gonna keep calling that thing every 2 minutes. Totally. And there's gonna be somebody on the other end of the line with the tray and the white gloves that's gonna be like, here we go again.

Here we go. Look at this kid. Yep. Look at this kid. And they have

to go out with a smile, deliver Absolutely. The tray of potash. It's showtime.

How do you solve for that? It's showtime. We we do it. There are exceptions Yeah.

By the way. The customer's not right. To be abused. Yeah.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. And we we draw the line there. Yeah.

And and, you know,

we have free snacks at our hotel.

Yeah. We have free soda and ice cream.

Free soda and ice cream. We have snacks. People will come to their desk at whatever, 11 o'clock at night. They want a KitKat bar. They want stickers and whatever.

We give it to them. But once in a while, there's a family or or people who abuse it. Yeah. And we'll tell them. Yeah.

Because it's our hotel. We don't we don't have we don't we don't need to be abused. Yeah. But that happens, you know, again on one hand. We don't have that.

Isn't it interesting, though? It's probably the exception rather than the rule. Oh, absolutely. And too many businesses, you mentioned, you you know, every now and again, you relook at this the free snack thing, and you're like, hey. You know, economically, this makes sense.

The outliers try to you know? But we always we always make a bigger deal of the outlier than it ends up being. And in business, sometimes it's truth that we create a policy for the outlier Yes. And it destroys it for everyone else.

Right? Correct. That's that's exactly right. That's exactly right. That's why we haven't changed the, the free snacks in I mean, I think we're doing it for almost 20 years.

Yeah. We've been doing that. Yeah. But, yeah, some months, oh my god. What do we spend on, you know, KitKat bars?

Yeah. You know?

So you've been doing this for 20 years. You've discovered the secret of service and extraordinary moments to create an extraordinary experience. And then you've traveled all over the world. You just came from Australia where you presumably shared this message, TEDx and then other places. Are there examples of companies that have lit up and changed their strategy and approach as a result of this advice and seen kind of a reawakening?

And because I imagine as an employee, the other thing this does for me, it's exciting. Like, to It is exciting. Have that popsicle tray, to give the free treats and not have to log every 99¢, you know, whatever. Like So exciting. At a human level, we want to create that great experience for other people.

We wanna connect with other people. We want to serve other people. Right? Absolutely. Now are there examples of other companies that Yeah.

I mean, the the sorry. The most exciting for me is when there's an industry that's not known for its service. And then all of a sudden, they're known for service within their industry. Yeah. And that to me is super rewarding.

The one comes to mind is a a company called Fantastic IT who, I've worked with. And they've always been a great company. They've always been customer service focused, but we took them to the IT.

They're a bunch of technicians.

They don't care

about it.

Yeah. They don't care about it. Customer service. Right? But they're actually cool and they speak they speak the language to the customers.

They don't Okay.

They don't talk above them. Yeah. They they can convert they can convert it.

Right. Yeah.

It's also what I found is the companies who hire me to come, are the companies like here Yeah. Who are already doing a great job, who already understand how important service is. I'm not convincing people that they should do things differently and all of a sudden have a different approach to or a different mindset on customer service. They have the mindset. Yeah.

But maybe it's not something that some of the So you alluded

to something today. Customer service in automotive sucks. By and large, why is that? Why is there a perception out there?

When does that suck up?

Super hard and yet over and over again, the industry, not our team, our team, hopefully, we deliver above and beyond consistently. There's an industry stigma that that we're terrible.

Yeah. I mean, from your perspective, we're all about cars before it takes it takes a long time. There's always the stress of the negotiation Yeah. Of the car. Yeah.

I think that really stresses people out a lot.

Yeah.

Some people aren't built for that. Yeah. You know? So for me personally, that would be it's always the the negotiating Yeah. And then the process and then finance.

And then, like Yeah. It's a long process. It's not fun. It's fun to get the car at the end, but it's not fun buying the car. There's that stigma.

Yeah.

So you tried really hard today to not give us all the answers, but have us act so that we had some muscle memory. Mike, I thought that was super genius to have us say this welcome speech because that's step 1 to getting a, hopefully, team Ziegler, we implement and apply this. Give us the answer though now. Thinking about your process and our

I would Well, I think it should start doing laundry. The hell out of

that thing.

I think it start doing laundry for your customers. It just makes sense. You give free food.

You talk about a service reflex. From your perspective as a car buyer, what could we do in the automotive industry? Well, okay. If you

look at those examples Yeah. Like the free snacks. Yeah. When you go to a hotel, what's your biggest fear in the room? The mini bar.

Oh, no dirty sheets for me. But yes. Alright. Mini bar. We'll

get No. I don't mind this. Okay. No. But wait.

For the mini bar prices. Yes.

Outrageous things. The cash

shoes about what? Yeah. It's like shopping at the airport.

$30 for

a small

bag of nuts. Yeah. Exactly.

So that is a pain point Yeah. For people. And we try to address that head on and do the opposite. Yeah. It's free.

Yeah. It's so great. So I would say for your industry is take those pain points and and address them head on, and to the extent you can Yeah. Do the opposite.

Yeah. Do the opposite. Interesting.

And that's Yeah. That would that is what will compel people Yeah. To keep talking about it and keep coming back.

Yeah. Yeah. So there's a there's a perception long waits in line, Mike. So what I think about. Right?

Attack that. Attack that. Exactly. Exactly.

Or a perception may be transparency. Attack that. Make it more transparent.

Attack it.

So I'm trying to think totally. Because to me, every hotel you walk into, you have to pay for the nuts. Exactly. What is the free nuts in automotive? Right?

Or what's the free popsicle? Right.

Or what's the free, you know, cookie or whatever? Right. That service reflex. Mike, I think you have that. Like, you've done such a great job in our auto group of creating that service reflex, diamond drops.

There's no other auto group in the country that you can write a gratitude note, pass it to a fellow employee or even a customer or a fellow speaker. You received one today from Mike, and it creates that connection. It lights you up. Absolutely.

And and it and it

creates that extraordinary, moment. Mike, you had a question.

Yeah. Darren talked about just taking a deep breath, taking a moment, and slowing down. And for us at Team Ziggler, we need to do that with our employees as well and our team members. Absolutely. And take a minute and notice what they're doing and recognize them and rebuild re reinforce our culture.

Right? Yeah. Yeah. The question I had comes from the training development side. It's how do you onboard?

How do you get the right people Oh,

that's cool. Yeah. Yeah. And really reinforce everything you stand for.

In the hotel itself. Yeah.

It's it's funny. It's, people are sometimes surprised that we don't have a formal training program at our front desk. We don't. Yeah. And it does surprise people, and maybe we should.

I don't know. But it works how we do it works for us. Yeah. And we put a huge emphasis on the interview process. Yeah.

And so the front desk team all get the second interviews. And by the time they get to me, I already know that on paper they're good. Other managers like them. They want me to hire them probably, you know. But it's in that second interview where I do a lot of the talking, because I'm letting them know exactly what we stand for, who we are as a company,

and You're selling the vision.

Selling the culture. I'm selling the vision. And I don't mean this in a in a negative way, but I wanna, like, really get them on the same page. I don't wanna use the word scare, but concern them a little bit. Yeah.

And I tell him that it's really after I tell him about the awards and and the books and and all this, they they start paying closer attention. And something I'll always say is it's hard to get a job here.

Yeah.

Yeah. We're only as good as I know it's cliche, but we're only as good as the people we hire. Right. But it's hard it's hard to get a job here. Yeah.

And, and then we hire them. And the goal is for them to start on day 1, understanding the bar. Yeah. Understanding, not coming in cocky and and and ready to go. Yeah.

But, like, being a little in the healthiest way, nervous. Yeah. A little nervous because it's your 1st day of work and you wanna perform. Yeah. And I always say, we'll know quickly if it's a good fit or not.

Yeah. You

also have that sense of pride. Right? Like, hey. Absolutely. I joined this team.

Yeah.

And I wanna perform at a high level. Yes. My team members and my customers.

Yeah. Absolutely. And I share with them too that you'll be a big fish in a small pond. Yeah. You know?

Yeah. It it was it's because we we do have a reputation, and and, people like people wanna be part of that team. Absolutely.

Yeah. For sure.

Oh, great answer there. Darren Ross, service freak. Right? Magic Castle Hotel. If people wanna find out more about you, how do they find out more about you and kinda what you guys do?

You could email me. Email me. Darren@magiccastlehotel.com.

Easy. That's super easy. Easy. One of the questions you asked as we were in the room together, and this will be kind of our last question. I love to share it all 3 of us.

It was a fun exercise. If memory serves, you said, hey. Give an example of some of the best service you've ever received. Some of the worst. The worst for me, I went up I've shared this on the podcast before.

I went up to a Starbucks, asked for a coffee, and they said, our coffee machine, whatever that is, is broken. How does Starbucks coffee machine, whatever it is Right. Not work? And they said you can buy our muffins, but you can't have have anything else. And it was just kind of, we're not gonna do anything for you.

I was shocked by that. Right?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Starbucks, they create a high bar. Chick Fil A, there was an experience set there. I think for an organization that traditionally sets a high bar and then they don't meet it, that's a big negative.

Oh, yeah. Fair? Yeah.

One of the best experiences, Saint Regis Hotel Downtown Chicago. Great hotel, incredible restaurant, delivering what you need before you even think it. Right? And that's that's an interesting ability for an organization to be able to craft that. I would say I'm fascinated by what you've done because you're not a Ritz.

You're not a St. Regis. You're a competitive hotel in a hugely competitive marketplace.

Right.

And you've out punted. But but what what, what are some examples of top service that that you've experienced?

Probably it's a good question. I should just have these. Right? I should just have them. No.

I should just have them.

It's what impresses you as someone that teaches and preaches this. Yeah. Because you probably go places and you're like

I do. That is not that is not awesome. I do. Well, it's funny. It's much easier for me to to to tell you a list of companies that are leave me wanting more.

Yeah. Which is is a nice nice way to put it. But Well

well, let's talk well, before we go so COVID ruined this industry, did it not? It ruined it. Why is it so easy to find all the miserable companies? And why does it seem like service is a tougher thing to come by? It is.

Because it is.

Everyone good people cut staff. People people pivoted and adjusted to to a smaller staff. Yeah. And the customer is a loser. Yeah.

You know, it's it's it's really, really a shame. I'll give you an example of, where I was so just disappointed. Yeah. Okay. I'll tell you a good one too, but I was staying in a hotel, really high end hotel in Las Vegas.

I won't mention the name. Okay. It's like

super high end. Oh, you've gotta tell us this.

You know? We're gonna get this out of them. Here we go. And I was going expecting a lot. Yeah.

And what I got, which is so common, completely average. Yeah. It was a long a long line to check out.

Yeah.

Housekeeping wasn't wasn't really good. They didn't show up when they sit when they said no. When they when they said, they said they'd be there, they they weren't. Yeah. Their little request, they weren't done.

Yeah. And it just left me with nothing. Yeah. Like, I was I was paying a lot. Yeah.

And it was it was really, really a shame. It was such a shame, but those things are so common where you go into a place with a great reputation based on their facilities or their systems. Right. But when it comes down to the employee in front of your face Yeah. They drop the ball.

Yeah. And what it really comes down to is that employee on a given day, on a given shift, on a given moment, is that interaction, and that's it. Yeah. That's all I've got. Company.

That's my view of the company. Yeah. And the same could be said, you know, gosh,

what a for your dealerships. What a challenge you've been to solve for as a business owner.

It is. And that's why I say it's a manual process. It's really hard. It has to be every customer every time. It just has to be.

Mike, you gotta give us an example.

You know,

it's all about how they make you feel. Right? Yeah. Yeah. How do you feel?

Yeah. And energy. But, yeah, one one great one would be, obviously, the high end hotels and resorts and stuff, but a local mom and pop golf shop, and it's called Maple Hill Golf.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. You shared that before.

Yeah. Just with the way they make you feel, they tailor the experience towards you.

They actually slow things down and take the time Yeah. To get to know

you and use you by name

Yeah. And just really guide you. And they're not sales y. They don't they don't threaten you.

They don't need to be. They don't

need to be. Yeah.

Yeah. I love that. I I wanted I don't wanna I'll mention my positive one. I mean, we get all negative. Yeah.

Is, my favorite, that's not high end, it doesn't have to be, is, Trader Joe's. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I love Trader Joe's.

I can't figure out Trader Joe's. I go in there and I'm lost. I don't understand it. Oh, really? What is the deal?

Oh, it's great. They have limited limited products. They have incredible buyers all over the world. They find the most unique items. Yeah.

And what I love about it is I love that. I love that it's not a huge grocery store. Yeah.

It's curated.

Yeah. Curated. Yeah. But what I love about it is how the employees interact with each other. Mhmm.

And always happy and casual Yeah. And just they just seem happy to be there.

Yeah.

And I love I love the vibe Yeah. Of Trader Joe's. And then you check out, they often ask you, oh, this looks good or have you tried this?

Yeah.

They're engaged. They're engaged. They're not just they're not just watching the clock Yeah. Checking checking you out. Yeah.

You're actually a part of the process, and I appreciate. I don't I don't think they overdo it, but you know that they're engaged. They're present. Yeah. And I really like that.

I love going there. I never dread going to Trader Joe's.

There's a business out west. I'm from Utah called REI. It's like an outdoor sports place, employee owned.

Yeah. I live across the street from 1.

Very similar.

Mhmm. And

I've always wondered if maybe it's the employee ownership they're bought in. You know, I don't know how much they make or how what it works right into it. There's some incentive there. So I have a prediction as we wrap up here today. Mike, thank you for for making today possible.

It's interesting. There's a deficit of these sorts of experiences, and I have a prediction for our audience. I think these experiences will be the the definition of, it'll it'll become the stand that we'll see a resurgent of good experience, in the coming years because people knew what a bad experience was through COVID Yeah. And they so did not like it. I think most people are willing to pay a little bit extra for better.

And right?

I fully agree. People people wanna feel good. Yeah. People wanna feel happy. They wanna feel appreciated.

Yeah. They wanna feel heard. Yeah. And we try to capitalize that on at the hotel. Yeah.

Yeah.

And AI and technology, and as as great as it is, those tools will help us better deliver to each other. But at the end of the day, it'll be a kid at a pool picking up a popsicle phone asking. And it'll be an employee who's lit up at the idea of bringing out white gloves and a tray That's right. To deliver those popsicles. And it'll be a company that cares enough to deliver that experience.

So thank you

for being here with us, Gene. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much. To take away some of these things. It's awesome to craft and create our own, ultimate automotive experiences. We seek to deliver our best to our customers. Mike, thank you for being here

as well. Yeah.

Thank you, Mike. Alright. So much. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

A special thanks to all who contributed to this week's episode, including Darren Ross and Mike Van Rhijn. Just until next week, how are you driving vision today?