Where Customers Become Friends
Wednesday, September 29, 2021
By Dwayne Myers, CEO and president, Dynamic Automotive
This summer, we were finally able to celebrate our 25th Anniversary, about a year and a half late, with our customers, friends, family, partners and team members. What a celebration it was, being able to be in person after so long and getting to see everyone having a good time and reconnecting. You do not realize how much you miss people and being able to interact with them until you are unable to. After 25 years and over a year of pandemic issues, we were able to put together a party that connected our community, and in some ways, our industry.
We have had plenty of help getting to where we are today and we tried to celebrate with them. Our customers have been amazing and our relationships with them fostered our catch phrase, “Where Customers Become Friends.” We have made many friends for life by taking care of their needs and connecting with them on a personal level. It is special to watch our customers have families, and their kids have kids of their own. It is something to watch each generation become their own. We also have some great vendor relationships with our parts and other suppliers, and they were there to celebrate with us. It is so important to have a good relationship with the people that supply you with your parts and other needed services so that you get the customer’s repair done in a timely manner and are able to stand behind the work with a solid warranty. Having our team with us was the most special part. We have many long-term team members, and they are truly what makes it all work.
As we have grown to five locations, Lee, Jose and I cannot be the only ones to communicate with all the customers, diagnose the vehicle, call for parts, fix the problem and return the repaired vehicle to the customer. It takes a team of professionals to do that. It takes a team like we have at Dynamic Automotive to do that. I believe the best way to grow the culture we have is to focus on growing and developing every team member. When the team member feels like they are valued and are invested in the process, they will take it upon themselves to take care of the customers at the highest level. We do this in many ways to include apprenticeship, sales, technical and leadership training. Investing in someone to help them become the best they can possibly be, is a great way to improve them, the company and our culture which makes them want to stay on our team.
We have well-planned apprenticeship programs that have brought in new talent that has borne the fruit of some amazing young technicians. We all know the issues with the technician shortages, and this has helped us to resolve those issues at Dynamic. We are able to bring in more seasoned technicians because of our career paths and the fact that there is somewhere for them to move up in the company. When you are a growing company, it expands your needs and new positions are created for team members to move up to. We measure success by the development and growth of our people. Part of that development is knowing and understanding the automotive aftermarket industry. We are able to do that by sending our team to AAPEX. Our team can experience how amazing our industry is and meet everyone in the industry that supports the Service Professional. We are just a small part in the process. There are the manufacturers, warehouse distributors, jobbers, logistics, information and many more pieces. When you have a better understanding of how this industry works, you are better able to get what you need when you need it.
All our team members have goals and planned out career paths so we can start preparing them for where they want to go in their career. We do this with classroom training, on-the-job training, mentoring and coaching. Education is key to growing their skill set and we travel all over the country to fill those needs. We rotate team members to different events throughout the year and this year we have eight going to our industry’s homecoming in Vegas at AAPEX, our HOMECOMING.
I know my team is ready to make that trip to Vegas to reunite with our friends, see what is new in the industry, investigate and experience some new products, upgrade our equipment to the best options for us while demoing different models and brands, dig into some top-notch training in Joe’s Garage and Repair Shop HQ, and come away invigorated for their industry.
This trip will help train and outfit us to finish off 2021 and look forward to 2022. It has been an incredible year with many challenges producing record numbers. Our team was up to the challenge because of their training, experience, development and dedication. It is obvious that the automotive aftermarket industry has a bright future. We are looking forward to seeing everyone and reconnecting at AAPEX.