Check out this interview with our very own Thomas with Paul Meijer from DealerVendorMatch.Com as he explains how QB Business has helped hundreds of dealerships across the US increase their profitability with their expert warranty reimbursement services. Find out how much you can recoup with our calculator. Just plug in your numbers and get your total!
www.qbbusinesssolutions.com/calculator
Video Transcript:
Welcome to the vendor showcase I have with us today. Thomas Hall from QB Business Solutions. Welcome. Thank you. So why don’t you tell us a little bit about who is Thomas Hall and who is QB Business Solutions? So we get an idea and then we’ll jump right into it.
All right. I’m Thomas Hall. I’m actually one of the owners of QB Business Solutions. We’ve been around about 25 years, but really focused on doing the warranty, reimbursement and claims processing for over seven years, but 25 years in the automotive industry. And really we were just going out, and making sure that dealers understand that they can be making a lot more in their warranty, labor and parts
Twenty-Five years is a long time in this business
Is it is actually the one of the others owners, Lumina Litts is actually from the car business herself. She’s been doing it since she was 16 years old. So she really brings a lot of the automotive experience to our team. As far as myself, I built cars, you know, I’ve actually owned tons of cars. I’m just a car fanatic, but I really come from a retail background being vice-president of different stores for retailers. So between the two of us, we have a good mix of business and automotive.
Sounds like a good combination.
It is fun but sometimes challenging.
Oh yeah, this is an interesting business, for sure.
“Most Dealerships don’t realize they’re entitled to money that’s being left on the table. QB business solutions can help give your dealership a raise right now and keep it. How would a 100,000 to $400,000 increase affect your bottom line annually. These are real dollars and results that dealerships are achieving with QB business solutions. With no upfront fees, no processing fees We get paid when you get paid, how is that possible with us? Many dealerships are unaware of their opportunity to receive full retail compensation for their parts and labor warranty. Reimbursement. Many dealers do not have the time legal knowledge and staff to receive the full benefits. State laws are vague, complex and vary from state to state. It’s laborious to prepare all the documentation required by [every manufacturer to do this, but we have the answer QB business solutions is your solution to receive your maximum allowed retail compensation. ”
“So how do we do it? Our account managers have a one-on-one consultative and personal approach that ensures accurate submissions and long-term sustainable profits for our clients. Our account work with your DMS provider, proprietary reporting allows us to maximize your return. We ensure the best outcome while following state and factory guidelines. We uphold dealer and manufacturer relationships. Plus we monitor your submission and provide you with factory notification timelines. Once manufacturer approved, you will see an immediate increase to your parts and labor gross profit year. Over year, we pride ourselves on 100% successful warranty submissions with no upfront fees, no processing fees we get paid. When you get paid, get the most out of your retail warranty, reimbursement, let QB do it for you. QB business solutions is where business knowledge and analytics meet. ”
So let’s get into it. What dealers care about is what pain are they experiencing and how do you solve that?
Okay. So one of the biggest things with dealers today is just, they just don’t know, you know how to go about the process. And a lot of dealers actually don’t know, actually it’s even out there for them. So, you know, we’ll call it the ten, twelve, thirteen, 15,000 dealers that, you know, we’ll talk to yearly. I would say a good 50 to 60% don’t even know about warranty reimbursement. And that’s pretty scary. The manufacturer has allowing 40% parts and then basically you’re allowed whatever you can get at your door rate. Well, realistically state laws actually have changed in the past 10 years stating that you’re allowed to use your customer pay or retail tickets to come up with what your true ELR is. And your true markup is. So if you think about this today, if your door rate’s $150 and your warranty rate is a hundred dollars, why would it not be one 50? So what we do is really bridge that gap,for labor and parts, just to make the manufacturer, you know,and the brand, actually the manufacturer, the stores be able to be on the same page for customer pay and warranty.
So Paul I’ll have a presentation. I can go over to really help the stores, understand a little bit more information about QB business and what we can do to help you. So, as we sit here, really QB business really focuses around a few things. Of course, the sales and profit of the building. Obviously, everybody’s focused on driving more sales and more profit. One thing we really pride ourself as on around sustainability, we want to make sure the stores are always doing what they’re supposed to be doing. So whether we’re looking at your ROS or talking to a client, we make sure that whatever you’re doing is the right thing to do, and that you’re doing it forever. We’re not, we’re not focused on one thing and then changing it later on. We just want to make sure it’s correct. And then we really do this to the labor and parts.
So just to go into a little bit of information of what we do right here, like I said, we talked about our warranty, reimbursement for labor and parts. We take a one-on-one consultive approach. We don’t dive into your DMS system and just get your best numbers. We actually start with your stores, look at Charros weekly, make sure you have practices in place that are doing well for yourself. If we see some concerns or anything that would help your, your information, we give you that information. You are assigned an account manager, which they’ll give you information every week on your store that you just may not be aware of, or you just don’t have time to take care of. Before we start a store, we do some dealer market analysis for you. It, all of this is all free in the beginning. We give you all this information for free.
We check to see how you’re doing in your market. Is there a room to put a more, a labor grid in, is there a room to put a parts matrix in? Is there an opportunity that your door rate is too low compared to your area? So a lot goes into that dealer market analysis is the warranty claims processing. What we do around the warranty claims processing is a lot of, a lot of stores today are struggling with getting the warranty claims paid on time, whether it be a staffing issue or a vacation. So it’s something we’ve taken over and really try to become your one-stop warranty solution with warranty, reimbursement and warranty claims processing.
So hold on a second, Thomas, so you would go, you would actually do the processing for them. So in essence, saving them the need for somebody in the store to do it,
Actually, your warranty clerk that, you know, you may be struggling with or a tough person to hire right now. Yeah, they would no longer have to be there and we would do it remotely for you, which we don’t take days off your process. There’s no vacation time, nothing like that. So we do it remotely and we process them within 24 hours every day.
Wow. That’s pretty neat. Yeah.
It’s really becoming easy for a lot of the clients we have today way just to, you know, use the resources that they have in the store. And we can guarantee you better results from our side.
I mean, you do this day in and day out. So I would imagine that if I have one less employee to have to worry about that, that’s worth its weight in gold.
Absolutely. Plus you got to think about what it’s worth for the store and maybe benefits, vacation time, all those things that you don’t have to pay and you’re actually achieving better results.
So it is, it’s actually, they’re very beneficial and our warranty reimbursement as well. We don’t go to the stores. This is all done remotely. So it’s easy for the store. You don’t have to be tripping over anybody all the time. So it’s just, it’s an easier conversation and it just better for the store. We do pride ourselves about really being and white and really focus on warranty compliance, making sure that our repair orders are right opcode usage, you know, all that makes us store fixed ops run correctly. We’re also just checking that all the time. And then we do the service and parts assessments like we talked about with just the labor grid parts matrix, and just overall, just making sure it does a score, have the right action plan in place.
This slide, just giving a little bit more information of what we do really focus on the reimbursement, the claims processing, as I said, we are over 25 years of experience there, but really what we do differently in the warranty and reimbursement is like I said, we don’t dive into your DMS system. We’re really taking you from day one. You’re given an account manager and they’re working the process with you to make sure your arrows are really clean and making sure they’re correct. Not only for today, but for the future. So when the brand never looks at any information, it’s actually always correct. So we’re really excited to bring that biggest parts of the score and believe it or not, that’s free for us. We don’t charge to do that. Actually, we just do that compliance part as part of our services. And then it says the warranty claims processing. That’s just our two core initiatives of the company that we really think that that one-stop solution is perfect for you.
One throat to choke, so to speak.
That’s exactly right. And here’s where it gets really exciting. So a lot of stores always say, well, does it apply to me? Well, of course, it does. We put the map here just to show. So 48 of the 50 states you’re allowed labor and parts reimbursement. So that means if you’re a store that’s at 40% parts, you shouldn’t be, if you’re at a store that has a door rate, less than, excuse me, more than $10 off of your door rate, that’s a problem. That’s where we’re really come in and focus on looking at your tickets or your ROI, excuse me. And, and really focusing on, you know, your store and getting into the sales and profit, you can achieve the highest. And we’ve already done over 1500 stores in the last four years. We do all brands. So there really is no reason that a store wouldn’t want to look and get at least a free projection on what they could be making. And what’s amazing. Paul is we’re not changing anything. It’s the same ROI that you’re using today. When the brand changes their mind and says, Hey, listen, we’re going to give you this new rate. It actually just goes into effect seamlessly and there’s nothing to do.
And now here’s the great part about having a company like you doing their stuff for them when there’s a sell. And a lot of people don’t know this, the numbers go back to square one, you have to re apply or refile for it. The store will take over and they’ll be scratching their head like, Hey, how come we’re not getting the, you know, what happened to our revenue? Yeah. A lot of them don’t know. And that’s, that’s like I said, where you guys come in.
Yep. And we do that quite often. We hear stores that just transferred by cell and there they go back to square run their original labor rate or their contracted labor they’d agree with, but they always go back to 40% parts. And, you know, for some stores that are doing $2 million, $3 million in parts, you’re talking about over a million-dollar, probable loss in parts alone.
That’s incredible. Yup.
So w information to put in there was just some common information and I’ll just, just go through high level real quick. One of the facts is that auto dealers, like I said, that they just take their yearly increase. So a brand will say, Hey, here’s a dollar, here’s a dollar 50 or for a year, we all call that hush money, but we’ll call it like, you know, Hey, listen, we don’t want you to file. So you don’t have to do that. You can actually go into and get information from our website. You can reach out to us and we’ll give you a free projection on how much money you could be naked. A lot of dealers still accept the 40% as I said, that is so far gone out of those 48 states. Those dealers should be making the national average at least. And that’s around 76% parts markup.
So if you’re not a dealer making 76 or higher, then you know, that’s something you want to look at for sure. And then we’ve always put this little slogan on there. It says, MSRP is not retail. We hear a lot of people talk about, Hey, I’m getting MSRP. I’m getting everything. The brand will give me. Well again, that’s not true. The law states retail compensation. So that’s a big difference there. And one of the biggest challenges for stores to do it on their own is the laws are very complex. They have to be very specific. I can’t tell you how many dealers call us and say, Hey, I tried to submit a few months ago and I got declined. Or they said I didn’t do it correctly. And there is, it is a very complicated task that they might give you a dollar or a little bit, or like I said, worst as a rejection, however, you could be making 10, 15, 20, $30 an hour more and a lot on parts markup. So you have to just really make sure if the dealer’s doing all that they’re very thorough. They can look at it. We’re always here for questions. We are going to start doing some podcast training, you know, just for dealers that want to do it on their own and give us something that I can help them get. Some advice on what they’re doing today.
76%. That’s stronger than garlic, because for so many years, people have been happy with the 35 to 40%. They thought that was strong.
Yeah. And you know, it depend on your mark in your area, obviously changes, you know, California’s different than Florida is different in Texas, Texas is different than New York. And depending on your marketing, your, your DNA, your area itself, a lot of those stores, 80, 90, a hundred percent just depends on, you know, in the Metro area.
Sounds like you’re in a lot of markets.
We are, we like I said, we touch every state and every brand. So we definitely have a lot of knowledge through everywhere. We’ve been and know, again, over the 1500 stores just in the last four years has really helped us bridge that gap of learning a lot of information and sharing a lot of information with our clients. So the real quick slide here, just really what makes us different. Like I said, we don’t dive into your DMS system. We have a trained staff, you actually have an account manager that’s assigned to the store. They are directly talking to the store weekly about the good, the bad they get information we send to the store and the owners just so they understand where their business is at our profit increase. I will tell you, this is something that is different than us, than anybody else out there.
Our forecast, when we give you a forecast we’re over 99% accurate. So if I tell you that we can get you a dollar amount, we’re at that dollar amount. And Paul actually 50% of the time we overachieved that, but we want to make sure that we always stay true to the business. And what we tell you is what we get for you. The minimal involvement, that’s really simple from the stores. We asked every week to have a, send us some samples of arrows so we can see how they look and give you some analysis around warranty compliance and more of a consultant approach there. We look at the arrows, I said a repair order evaluation, and we always make sure that the dealer and the brand relationship remains the same. You know, a lot of people think that they’re going to come after them, or there’s going to be some problems because they’re filing and truth is that’s not true at all.
There really is no retaliation at all the brands that will go out, pay it. This has been going on for years and there just is no retaliation. I can’t stress that enough with the brands as they use that as a fear factor, you might as well get what, what you’re doing and that’s what it is. And the laws made it that way. And that, you know, the NADH and all these local ADA’s have come through and said, you know, passed it to where it said, Hey, listen, you’re allowed to have retail compensation for labor and parts. So go get it.
This is something fun on our website. This is just for everybody, you know, that can go onto it and you can go to our website and you can type in a few of your own numbers. So, you know, this gives you probably about an 85% accurate on the calculator of what your store can do. So if a store is wondering without contacting us, Hey, do I have any money that I can actually make on it? So they’d go in and fill in these four fields. All it is is you see four on the left and four on the right, and it’ll tell you exactly what you can make. This is a score we just completed recently. So a store, which is a relatively medium-sized store at $800,000 in labor sales, they made 200, $6,000 just in labor. And they’re going to make that forever from now on there’s no going backwards. And the same thing in parts, they made 138,000. So, you know, you’re talking nearly $350,000 for a building that didn’t make that before and didn’t change anything and just use the law to fix this going forward.
You know, what I like about this tool is that consumers today, like to be in control of the process, right? They want to be able to access information without necessarily giving up a lot of information. And if they like what they see, if they like what they hear at that point, that’s when they go further to learn more. So a tool like this, where anybody can go on, fill in a few fields and then see what the probability is or what the amount of money is that they’re leaving on the table. I mean, I can understand why somebody wouldn’t want to learn more. It’s it’s I hate to say free money, but it is free money.
Well, I think that, you know, I think the service managers or the parts, man, these fixed ops, you know, they want to make more money. Everybody wants to make more money, but when you’re coming to the general manager or the owner, you know, of dealer principle, you have to come with some data, right? You gotta be able to say, I know that based off of this, I can get some information and believe it or not, we put this calculator on here because it was our most requested thing from our brand. I mean, excuse me from our dealers said, man, I wish I knew this before. So we did just exactly what you said. And you know, we track our hits just like your most to our website and our calculator. It is our number one page. And then when people look at it and they have Lyft, they do call us and it works out great,
Wonderful tool. It’s almost like you know, people that are shopping for a house, they have that mortgage calculator of what’s it going to cost? Well, this tells you, what are you going to make? What’s in it for you.
I will tell you that stores that think you don’t have a lot of money. They really do all the time. Our average is a hundred to $500,000 for labor and for parts. We see it all the time that they should be making that money already. So every month that they miss it, you know, every month they don’t do anything about it. You’re now just losing that money, honestly.
So now they know what the cost is of not doing anything.
Yeah, absolutely. So the last slides real simple, I just tried to put together the most amount of questions that we get all the time, whether it be myself or through our website or contact information. And you see the first one, how is this possible to go through and do this? And we already stated a few times, it’s really using the state law and the brand, their PNP is able to do this. It’s been around for almost 10 years. Different states have different dates. It went live, but for the most part 10 years. So the first step is, are you aware of it? And that’s why that’s possible. The second thing is we talked about that relationship with the manufacturer brands, excuse me, the dealers still think today that the brand is going to smack their hand. Hey, I still need Goodwill. I still need help for the dealer.
I still have to have a good relationship with my rep that all stays the same. They actually, for the most part, aren’t even involved. All these brands have different departments and headquarters that actually take care of it. And they just get fumbled down to the brand with the answer. So the relationship still stays as good as it was when we started. There really is no impact and there are no retaliation. The process, as you can see there, it takes basically 30 to 60 days, depending on the state and the volume of the of the dealership from when we start to, when you actually start achieving your money. So a lot of people ask, well, how long does it take if your store has some concerns operationally, you know, it might take 90 days or 120 days because we want to make sure we’re helping you achieve the best results and be sustainable from that point on. And then the last question is all, is what we get the most is does my state allow that well, that map that we looked at earlier shows 48 of the 50 states allow labor and parts, but all 50 will let you do labor. So every state of every brand is allowed to file.
No, it almost seems too good to be true. A tool that tells you what you’re missing and let’s face it. The time that it takes to implement really is nothing in our business because in the blink of an eye, it’s a year later,
Very true.
Wow. That Thomas that’s some great information right there and right at your fingertips, you simply go on the website, you look at the tool, you see what opportunities there are and, and what you’re missing. Now, it’s just a question of reaching out and within a short period of time, they’re getting the money that they’re do great stuff. Thank you so much for sharing
So much. I appreciate sharing it. I said any kind of information on the website, you can contact us. Like I said, we’re starting to do some more training as far as we’re going to do. You know, just a little bit of online and just, you know, help stores understand whether they use us or not, you know, give them a resource of how to do things. I will say that most stores do try to do it. Unfortunately, it does end up not in their favor or not what they could be making, but we want to provide tools just for anybody that they can.
Great stuff. Thanks again.
