Antot Report #001
The Disappearing Keys
By Antot — FIND IT ROBOT Field Reports
The Toyota Camry is right where it’s supposed to be. Stall 47. Customer can see it. Customer is touching it.
What the customer cannot do is get inside the Toyota Camry.
Because the keys are gone.
Now — and this is the part dealers know but never say out loud — keys are usually kept in two places. One set in the key locker behind the sales tower. One set in the porter’s office, on the brown pegboard. Key 47 on peg 47. Two locations. Belt and suspenders. Bulletproof system.
Until it isn’t.
The salesman checks the locker. Empty hook. He says “huh,” which is the universal dealership word for this is about to be a problem. He pages the porter. Porter checks the pegboard. Empty hook. Porter says “huh.” Now there are two huhs. Two huhs is a situation.
Manager comes out. Manager does not say “huh.” Manager says something else.
Meanwhile, the customer is still standing next to the Camry. Arms crossed. Grimacing. The kind of grimace that says I drove forty minutes for this.
By minute eight, there are four people involved: two porters, one salesman, one manager. Three of them are running. One of them is on the phone with a tech who detailed the car last Tuesday. They are checking pockets. They are checking detail bay drawers. They are checking the lost-and-found bucket where someone once found a wedding ring and a half-eaten burrito.
By minute fourteen, somebody finds one key in a service advisor’s jacket. Wrong jacket. Right key. Nobody knows how it got there.
The other key is never found. It is, presumably, still on the lot. Somewhere.
The customer leaves. Did not test drive. Did not buy. Did not come back.
Total cost of the missing keys: one Toyota Camry sale. Approximately $4,200 in gross. Plus the four payroll hours spent looking. Plus the manager’s blood pressure.
This happens 8 to 12 times a month at the average rooftop.
FIND IT ROBOT pings the keys. Both keys. And the car. From your iPhone. In about six seconds.
Customer test-drives the Camry. Manager keeps his blood pressure. And the burrito stays in the bucket (where it belongs).
Ping!
— Antot
Antot Report #002
The Porter Who Knew Too Much
By Antot — FIND IT ROBOT Field Reports
His name was Eddie. He had been a porter at the dealership for nineteen years. Eddie did not have a desk. Eddie did not have a title that fit on a business card. What Eddie had was a map.
Not a paper map. A map in his head.
Eddie knew that the silver Equinox was behind the body shop because the alignment rack was down Tuesday. Eddie knew the red Sierra was parked at the back fence because the customer who put a deposit on it lived two streets over and liked to drive by. Eddie knew which key hook the loaner Malibu actually lived on, which was not the hook labeled MALIBU.
Eddie knew where everything was. All the time. Always.
When a salesman couldn’t find a car, he found Eddie. When a manager couldn’t find a key, he found Eddie. When the auction transporter showed up at 6 a.m. for four units that were “ready,” Eddie was the one who found them, because two of them were not where the dispatch sheet said they were.
Eddie retired on a Friday. There was cake.
Monday morning, a customer wanted to see a white Tahoe. The salesman walked the front line. Not there. He walked the back line. Not there. He walked the overflow lot across the street. Not there.
Huh.
He went inside and asked the desk. The desk asked the tower. The tower asked the service drive. The service drive said try detail. Detail said try the body shop. The body shop said it left Friday.
It had not left Friday. It was on the lot. Somewhere.
Three salesmen and the used car manager walked the entire property for forty minutes. They found the Tahoe behind the parts building, next to a stack of pallets, where Eddie had moved it eleven days earlier to make room for a trade-in appraisal.
Nobody told Eddie they couldn’t find the Tahoe. Eddie was on a cruise.
The customer bought a Tahoe. At another store.
Total cost of the missing Tahoe: one sale. Approximately $5,800 in gross. Plus the forty minutes of three salesmen and a manager. Plus the moment everyone realized that nineteen years of Eddie’s brain had walked out the door with a sheet cake and a Home Depot gift card.
This happens at every dealership. The Eddies retire. The Eddies quit. The Eddies get hired away. The map in their head goes with them.
FIND IT ROBOT pings every car. From your iPhone. In about six seconds. The map is in the app, not in Eddie.
Eddie can go on his cruise. The Tahoe stays found.
Ping!
— Antot
Next report: “The Loaner That Got Loaned Twice”
