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You're listening to the ground transportation podcast with Ken Lucci of driving transactions and James Blaine of PAX training. Learn how you can build a thriving transportation business with real profits, repeat clients, and enterprise value. And now for your hosts, Ken and James.

James Blaine 0:30

I am super excited that we have once again, brought back my business partner, Bruce, uh, always a pleasure to have you, Bruce. We're really excited to have you come back.

Bruce Heinrich 0:38

Well, thank you very much. I'm like Excited to be back. What's more, more, more.

James Blaine 0:45

So one of the cool things that we're going to do this time, we kind of left off at a really good place the last time we talked to you, but one of the things there was we really wanted to talk about. What does it actually look like from the point of booking a trip to actually going on the trip to any kind of follow up that needs to happen afterwards, you know, what does that experience, whether it be for a passenger that's booking their own travel and going on that, or a booking manager, you know, that's booking for someone else, we really wanted to be able to dive into what does it look like from start to finish in terms of actually creating a trip. That luxury experience that you're known for. Um, so I think that's kind of what our goal is today and, and trying to figure out how do we help operators not only understand what that looks like, but be able to replicate that in their own business. So I think we, we'd kind of like to start with, you know, what does that look like? What is the very start of this? What's kind of step one, so to speak of, of getting this right.

Bruce Heinrich 1:43

Yeah. Hey, great questions because those are all the, you know, it's the secret sauce, so to speak. Right. And, uh, you know, I'm going to go back to what we talked about last episode, which step one is. You got to hire the right people, right? I mean that that's simply it. If you have the wrong person, uh, Jim Collins in his book Good to Great talks about getting the right people on the bus and then having them in the right

Ken Lucci 2:12

right seats. Yep.

Bruce Heinrich 2:13

Yeah, and so you really need to have somebody that is You know, I'm relational, so it's really easy for me to hire because I hire like minded people is people that have a heart for service, that love taking care of people, that are, that bring positive energy, right? And you know, if you want to get down to the basics, people are either bringing energy or they're Right. They're either makers or takers. And so I'm looking for makers. I'm looking for people that I want to be around, that I enjoy working with, that are going to be fun to be in the office that, you know, I'd even, you know, wouldn't be bad to hang out with after the office stuff and, uh, you know, just good people. Really. Good character people. And so you've got to start with that and in the office as well, because they are there, your direct communication, right? Especially, you know, with phone calls. So for high end, we still do a lot of phone calls. You, you know, really, you want to make it easy for a customer to book, you know, the commercial back a few years ago with the easy button, You want to give them the easy button so whether it's a phone call whether it's booking online You just want to make it easy and convenient so for our CSRs we call them client solutions representatives, you know, I've created a program called eight steps to closing the sale and And really the first thing is a warm greeting

James Blaine 3:50

Fundamentals.

Ken Lucci 3:51

Yep.

Bruce Heinrich 3:51

Fundamentals and you answer the Phone the same way.

Ken Lucci 3:56

a smile.

Bruce Heinrich 3:57

couple with a smile, but the same verbiage, no matter who answers the phone. And here's one of my pet peeves is when you call, you know, we send a lot of work out, we get a lot of work in We talked to a lot of other, a lot of other operators. They answer transportation or ABC limo, or whatever it is. Yeah. Dispatch! And it's like, first of all. I tell my team this, always know who you're talking to, get a name, and give your name first, right? If you're answering, answering the phone, so ours is, thank you for calling Leader Worldwide, this is Bruce, in what city may I assist you today? Simple as that, but everybody needs to be doing the exact same thing, and when they do that, you have a brand. Right? Your chauffeur should be doing pretty much the same thing. And people can bring their personalities into it. You want them to bring their personalities into it. But really, they need to be all on the same pathway. And the same verbiage. Be very consistent. Call American Express. You're going to get the exact same thing no matter if they're, somebody's in the Philippines or in Texas. You're going to get the exact same verbiage. So start with that, lay out that verbiage. And then again, it's how you make people feel, right? That's what this all comes down to. And what I've, what I've determined is there's three things that you need to do good business. One is they need to know you. Number two, they need to like you. And number three, they need to trust you. Okay, so that's how we start the phone call. They know us, they're calling us, right? Okay, so we got that covered. How do you get them to like you? How do you make a friend? You be a friend, right? You do the warm greeting, you know, how may I help you? And then you use their name. Again, I'm gonna reference Ritz Carlton like way too many times, but you know, that's my foundation. their name three times in every conversation. At the beginning. Right? Sprinkled throughout the conversation at least once. And then at the very end you do the fond farewell using their name. And so, you know, that's it. I'm going to go off my notes right here.

Ken Lucci 6:24

Hmm.

Bruce Heinrich 6:24

But, uh, you grow one client at a time. And one thing that I have learned is just kind of doing an average. Whenever we book one trip for somebody, on average, that's going to be a thousand dollar a year client. Just

James Blaine 6:41

you know, the

Bruce Heinrich 6:42

a thousand. That might be a one personal account. That might be one person that never books again. It might be that one phone call that turns into a hundred thousand dollar client. But I know that every time that phone rings, and we turn that into a trip, it's going to be at least a thousand dollars.

James Blaine 7:01

Now, there's a lot of operators that don't know that number, or they haven't done that, right? And we've already hit on two absolutely incredible things that I want to, I want to take a second and acknowledge and point out. And the first is the point you made of your brand. Notice how it wasn't the color. Notice how it wasn't, you know, the fact that we're all three of us are in branded shirts, right? It wasn't the shirt you're wearing. It's the brand is how they're treated, how they know you're going to answer who you are, who they can expect.

Ken Lucci 7:28

the feeling that you get by having that, but it's not scripted to me as much as it is choreographed. There's a big difference. There's a huge difference between script. And what sounds like a symphony to you. Yeah.

James Blaine 7:43

Right. And I think the other huge thing that you've hit on, and I know you well enough, right? For those listeners that don't, I know you well enough to know that you're not guessing at a thousand dollars, right? I can't tell you how many operators I talk to on a regular basis that will say something like that. And I go, Oh, well, So how did you determine that? And they said, well, I think, or I feel, or, you know, actually knowing that number, and I don't know if you have a second to talk about how you got to that number, but knowing that number and being able to say, Hey, this is the data. We backed that up with is a completely different ballgame because I think, and, and can you see this every day? I think the amount of operators out there that if we asked them that question right now, and then said, all right, now let's go figure out a way to look it up. They would be completely shocked

Ken Lucci 8:31

I don't yeah, I don't think they'd put an up, take a number out of their head, and if they did, it would just be vaporware. It wouldn't be anything based on any science.

Bruce Heinrich 8:40

Right.

Ken Lucci 8:41

yeah.

James Blaine 8:42

And I know you've done a lot on this because I know you've also looked at the value of how much a chauffeur touches a year, right? I've, I've been obviously being partners. I get to see a lot more of that, but I've also seen you do that. So I know that's something important to you.

Bruce Heinrich 8:55

Yeah. So, Here's just getting back to the chauffeurs because again, and you know, of course with the CSR but with the chauffeurs It all I mean, that's that's the final delivery. They're the ones who are going to determine whether that Passenger or that client comes back. So I did a little research and I found that my top chauffeur Generated 274, 000 in one year That's how much he drove and generated for my company Now, if you had a client that was bringing you 274,

Ken Lucci 9:33

God, yeah.

Bruce Heinrich 9:34

how would you treat that client? You'd be taking them out for dinner, right? And, and so, I just want everybody to be aware that, man, take care of that guy. I mean, he's serving a lot of clients as well, so, if I had to lose that guy, Or that client, man, it'd kind of be a toss up, you know, neither one are going to be easy to replace. Man, if you really look at how much your people are generating for you, I think you'd have a lot more respect for them. Treat them well, and take care of them as, you know, as well as an external client. And really, back to your question, it's just a little formula, do a little math, how many calls are you getting? How many quotes are you getting? What did they turn into? And then I look at it as like an annual spend. And so some calls may not book and again, one call, one trip. And again, this is the key again, of having a brand, of having a culture of quality, of giving them an experience that makes them go, wow, that was really different. I thought I knew car service. I thought that when I used Joe's limo down the street that that was car, but this is a whole different thing. Wow. This is like they, and that goes back to Ken where you're talking about the details. And before we started here, you were talking about, the guy getting out of the car, letting his passenger out into

Ken Lucci 11:06

Yeah, let me tee it up. Sunday, I dropped somebody off at BWI and I know right in front of me was a car, uh, Yukon, uh, and I know the company and I watched the dry, the, the, the chauffeur get out of the car and, and disembark a client into traffic. I was shocked.

Bruce Heinrich 11:27

So, typically, you would not want to do that for a number of reasons, one being death is possibility.

James Blaine 11:34

May result in injury or death.

Bruce Heinrich 11:36

But yeah, but just about, just, just about the details, right? So one thing that we teach that I'm, I'm shocked that not everybody does this. I thought it was just kind of common knowledge, but you back into the driveway when you pick somebody up. Always.

Ken Lucci 11:54

Always. Why?

Bruce Heinrich 11:57

If you're creating an experience of peace of mind, of relaxation, hey, get in the car, you're going to chill out, you know, on your way to the airport, whatever. And the first thing you do is put the car in reverse. What's the passenger going to do?

Ken Lucci 12:11

right,

James Blaine 12:12

You don't back

Bruce Heinrich 12:13

You take them out of their, their whole like relaxation, their mindset.

Ken Lucci 12:17

right. Yeah.

Bruce Heinrich 12:19

And some people get confused on this and that when they bring a client back to their house, they will back into the driveway, which is no,

James Blaine 12:30

Again, no backing with the passenger.

Bruce Heinrich 12:32

ideally you never back up with a passenger

Ken Lucci 12:35

Right. You, you want to light the driveway, right?

Bruce Heinrich 12:39

Well, yeah, and I mean, regardless of even if it's daylight, a lot of accidents happen. And the first thing the passenger does in reverse, everybody looks

Ken Lucci 12:49

Yeah. Their anxiety level

Bruce Heinrich 12:51

of there. Exactly. And so even like if I'll take somebody into a, uh, a quick trip or something, right, I'll pull straight into the parking lot. They go in, while they're inside, I will do a three point turn and I will be there standing outside the door waiting for them to come out, put them in, and we drive

Ken Lucci 13:10

By the way, nothing more impressive than that.

James Blaine 13:13

Well, and not only that.

Ken Lucci 13:15

impressive to see the, wait a minute, that car just turned around. Yeah. And now I'm at attention for you.

James Blaine 13:23

And, and we've talked on this podcast before about how. Chauffeured services lend status and credibility, right? How much credibility, how much status do I gain of this guy is so important. He went in to get a pack of gum and he's got a guy out front that's back to the car around so that he doesn't have to, and not only that, Think about it. He doesn't have to wait now for the car to back up. This guy's time is so important. He's so important that they can't waste time backing up with him in the car. They've turned the car around and that person is waiting to get the door for them. Right. I mean, that, that right there really shows the attention to detail of anticipating need

Ken Lucci 14:04

Right.

Bruce Heinrich 14:05

Yeah, and how do you think that makes the person feel walking out and

Ken Lucci 14:09

Incredible. Yeah.

Bruce Heinrich 14:11

damn, you know, yeah, I

Ken Lucci 14:12

that's truly the

Bruce Heinrich 14:13

around, I got my car.

Ken Lucci 14:15

That's the, that's the wow. That's the, that's putting the wow in the experience.

James Blaine 14:20

But, but it's the little things.

Ken Lucci 14:22

It is.

Bruce Heinrich 14:23

yeah, it really is the little things. Those are the details and go into PAX, but here I'm just going to like, give you a little, a little thing on how to create this incredible quality experience. Right? Don't violate their senses. The passenger. Don't violate their senses.

Ken Lucci 14:42

What do you mean by

Bruce Heinrich 14:43

If you can go through an entire ride without violating any one of their five senses, they're going to get out and go, man, that was a great ride.

James Blaine 14:51

yep,

Bruce Heinrich 14:53

Chauffeur didn't talk too much, didn't have radio loud or on there. Everything was clean, right? Didn't violate my sense of hearing, my sense of sight, my sense of smell. There wasn't too much. Deodorizer going on, there wasn't smell of, uh,

Ken Lucci 15:10

Cologne.

James Blaine 15:11

yep.

Bruce Heinrich 15:11

wasn't the smell of fast food when I got in the car. Man, and, and just the, air fresheners, that's my pet peeve. I will literally, like, put the window down and hold my head

Ken Lucci 15:23

no, you,

Bruce Heinrich 15:24

into a car with a

Ken Lucci 15:25

we've hit upon something because some people think that cologne, heavy cologne makes me smoke clean. No, it's putrid.

Bruce Heinrich 15:33

putrid. Can't stand it. It's violating their sense. Here's, here's the other little thing. This is a message to all the chauffeurs out there. Typically, people are going to tip regardless of the service you provide. They're going to reach in their pocket because that's who they are, right? What most chauffeurs have happen to them is they work themselves

Ken Lucci 15:54

out of a tip.

James Blaine 15:55

yeah.

Bruce Heinrich 15:56

That guy is like, man, he's just, you know, he's going to pull 50, a 100, whatever, because that's the guy. But then the chauffeur will do something stupid or violate one of their senses, or two, or three, or four, or five. And the guy's like, I'm not going to give him my, you know, I'm not going to give him a 20,

Ken Lucci 16:14

give 'em a five or two. I'm gonna give 'em two or five. Yeah,

Bruce Heinrich 16:18

yeah,

Ken Lucci 16:19

yeah.

James Blaine 16:20

so we've, we've sidetracked a bit, but, but we're talking No, no, but we're, we're in the, we're in the right place. Right? And one of the things that we've done is we, we've come back to kind of what people think of is the, the, it's what we do, right? People come to us for this. This is why you go with a service. And so, you know, for us. It really is a sign of where our industry needs to focus, right? If in the conversation of what that looks like, we keep bringing that focus back to that passenger experience, it's because that's where it needs to be. And so we've kind of fast forwarded a bit, but I'd like to kind of bring back, you know, we've jumped into that. What is the, what does the rest of that look like in terms of getting there? Because I think we're already, you know, naturally talking about. How you knock it out of the park. And really that's the CSR's job, right? Hopefully. And, and you're, I'm sure you'll, you'll mention this. Hopefully that CSR is able to kind of tee them up for that. Right,

Bruce Heinrich 17:15

and that's exactly it. And there's, there's some specific, and again, it's back to the details, the little things. So he answered the phone call. Hey, I'm interested in, you know, limo service. How much is a limo? That's usually the first question. Hey, I need a ride to the airport. How much is it? They don't know to ask anything else, right? So their only supposition is price, okay? It's all the same, right? It's a black car going to the airport. That's what I need. How much is it? It's our job to let them know that it's not all the same. And the first thing you do that is by building rapport on the phone. So one is how you answer it. We talked about that. Number two is affirm their call. And so as soon as they say that, you know, Hey, I need a ride to the airport. Hey, great. We will take great care of you. You know, what's your name?

Ken Lucci 18:13

Hmm.

Bruce Heinrich 18:13

Build it. Oh, uh, wow. Nobody asked my name. Okay. Well, it's, you know, it's Jim. Okay. Hey, Jim, thanks for calling us, man. I guarantee, you know, all our chauffeurs are professionally PAC certified and trained, and we have a great fleet of new vehicles. Our team will take great care of you. Okay. Tell me, tell me what you're, uh, when you're going to be going. like that, but affirm their call. Step two. You called the right place. Oh, okay. I haven't heard that before. Okay. Well, let me build some trust here. All

James Blaine 18:47

Well, and you're hitting sales 101, right? If you go back to any one that teaches fundamental sales, one of the very first things that you will learn from someone that's very good at what they do is that you have to ask questions. You know, there's, there are so many people out there. There are so many companies out there that once that comes in of I'm going to the airport, you know, how much will it be? They're not even going to bother asking where that person is. Run about a hundred bucks. Run about 150 bucks. Run about whatever that number they're going to throw out there is. But, you know, at that point, there's no personalization. There's no rapport, there's no nothing built. And so I think you're pointing to what, you know, is sales one on one, but for so many people is so easily overlooked.

Ken Lucci 19:29

Well, is this for you or for someone else? Right. I mean, That's critical. It's critical

Bruce Heinrich 19:35

Is this, is this for business? Is it for personal travel?

Ken Lucci 19:39

We are so anxious that look, we are so transactional as a, as a society now, right? the, the the rapport building is at the heart of creating the service experience, the personalized service experience. How can you do that? If you don't know anything about me, how could you build a personalized experience? If you don't know anything about me,

Bruce Heinrich 20:02

you know what? That's so awesome. Because the best thing is, not many people do this, what we're talking about. And the second thing is, it doesn't cost anything.

Ken Lucci 20:13

it costs you Nothing. more to do that. It cut, right. And,

Bruce Heinrich 20:16

It's free. It costs you if you don't do

Ken Lucci 20:19

no, let's play the devil's advocate. Even if I'm calling around for price, well, geez, you know, this guy really was trying, this guy was really concerned or really trying to meet my needs. I'm traveling on business. It's my daughter. Who's traveling. It's my wife. Who's traveling. You've made the right choice. We're going to take great care of your wife versus the guy that says to the airport, 109. I mean,

Bruce Heinrich 20:46

Where are you going from? Okay, a hundred and, yeah, a hundred and nine dollars. So here's the deal. Unless, unless we do a presentation, right? The only thing they have to go on by is price. so if I'm 129 and Joe Schmoe is 109, who are they going to go with? Probably not

James Blaine 21:05

bucks each way,

Bruce Heinrich 21:07

Unless I give them the presentation of, hey, we actually care about you. We're interested in taking care of you. You know, oh, you're going to, oh, your daughter's going off to college? Oh, great, what college? And then you build rapport.

Ken Lucci 21:20

Right.

Bruce Heinrich 21:20

Oh my God, that must be a little stressful for you, right? Yeah,

Ken Lucci 21:24

us take this. Let us take. Yeah.

Bruce Heinrich 21:26

will you be an empty nester now or yeah it's just like build that conversation and pretty soon they're like oh this is somebody not I don't know but I like them they

Ken Lucci 21:37

The other piece of

James Blaine 21:38

you're also establishing value.

Ken Lucci 21:40

a hundred percent, total value, but, and if you find out that they're booking for their boss, now you have even more. I am going to, we are going to take great care of your boss. I'm going to make a note that this guy travels often. What else should I note in his profile? The person is going to be like, this, this, they're going to make sure that this is a good reflection on me.

James Blaine 22:03

Well, and if you think about that example, right, the only thing worse than someone's screwing something up for you is screwing it up for your boss,

Ken Lucci 22:11

Oh, God. Yes.

James Blaine 22:12

because there is, there is absolutely no, you drop the ball with me, right? You're upset, but if you've got someone that is a boss that you're answering to that you're doing this for, it's not they let your boss down. It's you let your boss

Ken Lucci 22:25

And

James Blaine 22:26

there's a lot of trust

Ken Lucci 22:27

And let's face it when we're chauffeur transportation is like staying at staying at an upper scale hotel. These are not novices. These are people that travel all the time, right? So, um, leading, leading with price is a huge mistake.

Bruce Heinrich 22:43

huge. Yeah. And they, they know what to expect. They've experienced great service before.

Ken Lucci 22:51

Absolutely.

Bruce Heinrich 22:52

in Kansas City is for when we have travelers come here and they think they're coming to a cow town and they get better service here than when they left their car service in New York or LA or wherever. And it, and it blows their mind. And they're like, Oh my God, I need to look at Kansas City with a different set of eyeballs here. You know? Wow,

James Blaine 23:11

And that's before they eat the barbecue.

Ken Lucci 23:13

right.

Bruce Heinrich 23:15

That's right. Um, so yeah, you always have to present do two presentations before price, right? I mean, if you just go with price, that's all they have to go by. And they don't know to ask, Oh, do you have insurance? You know? Oh, what's your success record?

Ken Lucci 23:32

What's our safety

Bruce Heinrich 23:33

all they have. Yeah. And so we can go down. I can say, Hey, last year we were successful on 99. 6. percent of our trips.

James Blaine 23:44

So, so how do you translate that

Bruce Heinrich 23:46

is 99. 7. So I'm a little disappointed in that, but, but nearly half of them were farm out affiliates, but we own it, right? And that's the other thing is to, man, we can go on. We need another,

Ken Lucci 24:03

another hour and a

Bruce Heinrich 24:04

podcast to just talk about how to, how to own and take and turn an incident into. You know, a lifelong client.

James Blaine 24:13

do you own that? Right? So, so obviously, you know, on a call, it's me as trying to book a trip with you, it's going to be hard for me to understand and put together, you know, Hey, you have a 99. 7 success rate, right? How does, you know, how does that translate or how does that presentation sound when you're actually presenting that to the person on the other side of the phone? Like, how do you, how do you convey that? You can trust us that reliability. How do you, how do you get that through to the person on the other side of the phone? Yeah.

Bruce Heinrich 24:40

Well, one, you could throw the detail out there, but you know, it all starts with really of the confidence of the person who's taking the reservation, if she knows that you, you, and I say, she could be, he, um, If she knows that you're screwing up trips left and right or your chauffeurs are terrible or the boss is like yelling at people, you know, she's probably not going to have the confidence or the, you know, the real desire to say, Hey, you know what? You really need to ride with us because I know We are the best. And so if you can instill that in your employees, they're going to be able to convey that. And that's something we just have a list of different things, you know, like, Hey, we're the official provider for the Royals We take care of, you know, Travis, Kelsey, if we can drop some names, you know, it's like Kelce Mahomes they ride with us. So, I mean, you can give a statistic. If you give a statistic with a very detailed number, that's going to mean like you really know it instead of going, yeah, we're about 99 percent of the time. We got it right. 99 percent of the time where I'm sure we'll be there. You know, Hey, listen, we did over 10, 000 trips, you know, and we only messed up a couple times and none of them were, you know, incident. And I wouldn't even go into that thing, but you know, Hey, we're going to get it right. You picked the right company. Does that answer your question?

James Blaine 26:09

Yeah, no, and I, and I think the big thing that people struggle with is that

Bruce Heinrich 26:14

the Ritz

James Blaine 26:15

I think people really struggle with understanding How do you build the value? There's so many people out there that they're able to convey to their CSRs are able to convey to their team, Hey, you've got to do these things. But for so many of them, it almost becomes routine. So I've got to ask them these questions. Well, You are asking these questions to help personalize the experience, right? You're presenting to get them the value. I know one of the things that you've talked about on a past episode and that we've also, um, looked at is, you know, getting them to believe in it sometimes means having them actually go through and ride with the service, right? How many people working in your office, right? And I don't mean this to you, Bruce, but I mean to our listeners, right? If you have people in your office that have never ridden with a chauffeur and you want them to sell that experience, you want them to be able to build that value and they've never had that experience, they can't talk about firsthand what it's like and whether that's, Hey, you know, part of when you come to work for us is, you know, you and a spouse get to go to dinner or we'll take you here and do that. I mean, having them truly understand that is such a key component in being able to build that value.

Bruce Heinrich 28:14

we went and ate at their fine dining restaurant, ordered off the menu, drink at a Blue Goblet's. So one thing that we do is when we have a new hire, uh, we try and pick them up their first day of work, we'll send a car for them so they can experience

Ken Lucci 28:28

I don't know too many companies that even do that.

James Blaine 28:31

No, and,

Bruce Heinrich 28:31

in, and, and if we can't do it on that first day, we will take them and we show them the airport so they will know exactly where the chauffeurs have to go through, check in, what it looks like, they get out of the car, they go in the airport, they see where the chauffeurs stand, all that, so when they're talking to somebody, they can describe it, if they need to,

James Blaine 28:54

and, I think that's so fundamental to have because here's the thing. Anybody that doesn't truly believe in what they're selling or what they're helping you with is never going to be able to truly get you there.

Ken Lucci 29:06

Okay. Good point. This, I mean, especially like when you're talking about something extremely like the, the EA who's booking for her boss in another city. Or the wedding, the wedding, I mean, so many people approach it as, okay, where are we taking you from a to B? What, where are we going? You're forgetting about the fact that the reason why they're splurging for this service is one of the most important days of their entire life. And it's not, and it happens on corporate all the time. You know, you're picking up our, our, uh, chairman of the board. Um, That, that kind of thing. So I want to ask you a question. If you had to boil down to, from a chauffeur perspective, what are the positive three or four things that they should accomplish on every trip? And what are the negatives that you, that the common negatives that you see or the common problems that you see? Let's start with the positive first.

Bruce Heinrich 30:05

Okay. Hey, first I'm going to, I mean, that's really easy. It's all in packs. So any packs member will be able to whip this off the pyramid of success right away. But Hey, one of the, one of the, uh, benefits that we give to all of our employees as well, is they get a round trip. Car service once a year. So, whenever they're traveling, all they have to do is tip the chauffeur. We provide for it, that way they get to experience it, they know it, they look forward to it. It's one of the best perks that we do. And really, it doesn't cost that much, right? So, highly recommend that. Uh, as far as the, you know, what are the five things that are really six, it's the pyramid of success. So, the bottom level, right, is, is first impressions. Which is comprised of personal presentation, what the vehicle looks like, and that you're on time. And on time in our industry is 15 minutes ahead of the scheduled pickup time. And then the second level is the drive. Okay, so that's trip preparation. Okay, routing, you know exactly where you're going. And then driving safely. So you make the person in the back feel relaxed and comfortable. And they're not like, you know, Oh my God, he's, you know, he's going too fast. He's tailgating. He's, you know, all those things are in the drive. And then the last, the top of the pyramid is the experience. And that's where we talk about don't violate their senses, right? I mean, that's, that's how you create that experience. And if you can, we just break it down real simply like that. It's six things that a chauffeur can do to prepare. And if they don't violate their senses, man, it is a big win. The biggest, and then you asked, what did they violate the most? Probably. talking too much. I mean, really, that is the big, that's the big challenge that I have, especially because we hire relational people, right? And so they want to get involved and become their friend. And so I have to train right up front. Hey, we are not there to be their friend. We're not there to entertain them, right? We are there to serve them. And so when we're driving celebrities, we do not ask for autographs. We don't ask for pictures. We don't do any of that stuff. And it's just, you know, you give them peace of mind. And so, uh, one of the things we talk about is the highest level of service without intrusion. Okay. And then we talk about how could you intrude, you know, on your passenger? Well, one is interjecting in their conversation.

James Blaine 33:00

It's come up on another episode. it's happened to

Bruce Heinrich 33:03

Biggest pep peeves. I was in Dallas doing a group and I had a a uh, I had 15 minutes on the way to the airport with my client where we could like download and you know And talk and build relationship and all this and chauffeur's like, you know Tell me more about that and i'm like what

Ken Lucci 33:23

Yeah. Yeah.

Bruce Heinrich 33:24

I don't want to be rude To the chauffeur and the chauffeur You know, I think he thinks he's a great chauffeur and he was, he was at the, he didn't even realize that he was violating our, Our sense, our time there. And so I think the biggest challenge from a chauffeur is actually be discerning enough to know when you're violating their senses.

Ken Lucci 33:48

Do you remember the movie Remains of the Day? When the political discussion came up, and Anthony Hopkins, who played the ballot, or the head

Bruce Heinrich 33:59

C. S. Lewis.

Ken Lucci 34:00

okay, And he, and he said, and somebody asked him a political question. And his answer was, I'm sorry, I wouldn't be able to assist you with that. Or, um, you know, that's not something that really typically I involve myself in. But, but it's a matching and mirroring piece, right? I'm not there to be your friend. I mean, when I was a chauffeur, we, when we drove celebrities, Yankees, the A list celebrities, the other piece of the puzzle is, is you. You don't show that you're enamored and you don't, you don't show that you're, you know, can I have your autograph or you, Mr. Jeter, that was a great game today. So,

Bruce Heinrich 34:45

we're fan boys is, uh, the managers tell us no fan boys.

James Blaine 34:50

and I think, I think all three of us here have had a similar experience. You know, I've mentioned on a, on a different episode that I had that happened to me in Florida, right? I had someone that lived in another state. I had the trip to the airport to have that conversation with them. And it's happened at least to me on multiple occasions. Uh, I think. One of the things that happens is they think they have to entertain. And one of the realizations they don't have is, you know, it, it isn't, Hey, I'm doing this because I thought it'd be nicer in a taxi. In a lot of situations, it's strategic. I know that I have, I can get time to myself to have a private conversation of great importance, just me and him. Right. And that could be the whole reason. That they are willing to go that higher level of service because they want that discretion. They want that privacy. They want that time to be able to conduct business. And that chauffeur is going to think, like you said, a lot of them are going to think they're providing great service by entertaining, but really they've stolen that opportunity.

Bruce Heinrich 35:54

Yeah. Without a doubt, as, as I tell my, my people as well is. When everybody's traveling, right? And moving, that's a high stress situation. They're leaving their family, they're going to do a meeting, they're going to be gone for a few days, or even when they're coming back from doing all that and they're getting ready to go home and get back to their family or to, you know, whoever. We are often their only little bastion of peace that they have, right? And it, maybe it's a half an hour, maybe it's 45 minutes an hour, whatever it is. That is sacred time to that passenger. And so, you know, the, the biggest lesson I would say for a chauffeur is just be very discerning. You don't interject into a conversation. You don't initiate a conversation. They'll let you know if they, you know, if they want to talk. I can give so many examples of when I'm learning this and I'm still learning, you know, being discerning. I had a, uh, Man, there's, I laughed earlier. Sorry. It made me think I was driving this very important person and he had asked me about a guy that I had worked for before in a different job and he goes, man, that guy's a real jerk, huh? And I almost was like, well, yeah, yeah, he really is a jerk, man. Did it. But luckily before I was able to respond, he goes, he goes, ah, just joking. That's one of my best buds.

James Blaine 37:27

Oh, geez.

Bruce Heinrich 37:28

And I'm like, Oh God, man, that guy saved me. Right. And so you never want to go negative on anything. Always keep it positive.

Ken Lucci 37:38

religion, no sports, no politics.

James Blaine 37:41

Amen.

Bruce Heinrich 37:42

or just, Hey man, preach those.

James Blaine 37:50

that, right. But a lot of times, you know, like, like you were saying just now, Bruce. Sometimes you need saving from yourself, right? And to be an effective chauffeur, you, it's, it can be very easy. To cross that line. You know, I had myself and someone younger who was traveling with me and we were both younger guys. We get in the vehicle and the guy instantly starts telling jokes that are pretty much inappropriate. Were they funny? I guess you could say they were funny, right? But he thought they were way funnier than we did. And he thought because we were younger guys that he was doing his job. He was entertaining

Ken Lucci 38:28

was okay.

James Blaine 38:29

And that was okay. And

Ken Lucci 38:30

crossed the line,

James Blaine 38:32

Yeah, he crossed a line and this is a high end service. Right. And what, what am I going to do at the end of the trip? I'm not going to say, Hey man, you crossed the line. I, I'm probably just not going to book with them. And we've talked about this in the past is most cases. They're not going to tell you, right. And here's the thing that the guy that you were talking to Bruce, where he said, Oh yeah, he, blah, blah, blah. If you would have gone negative, you know, what options do you leave him now? No matter what that conversation's awkward, he thought maybe he was being funny and you followed him into the negative. You as the chauffeur, as the person there that's serving the other one, you've got to go, you know, well, uh, move to the next topic, right? You, you've got to,

Ken Lucci 39:15

hit the name on the head. Refinement and being discerning. It's totally

Bruce Heinrich 39:20

First of all, you probably are not getting a tip from that guy, right? Secondly, you could have, I could have cost the company a huge account, right? He'd have been like, cause he was the, he was the head guy. He was the CEO. He could have easily gone, if he's talking about my best bud like that, man, I'm pulling all my business. Yeah. And so, uh, and as an operator, as an owner, we don't know when that happens, right? Or how often it's happened is just be like, Oh, a client went away. Huh? I wonder why, you know? And so, man, that it's so vitally important to train your chauffeurs and less is more. Right. And Ken, just one other thing that chauffeurs, especially new chauffeurs, uh, And I prefer to hire people that don't have experience. I want to train them from step one. But they are often uncomfortable with silence. Right? And so they feel like they have to fill the void of silence in the car. Hey, so you know, how are you doing today? And it's like, man, one of the first things to be a great chauffeur is to get comfortable with the silence. Right?

Ken Lucci 41:40

Yep.

James Blaine 41:41

So I think you've given us an absolutely incredible transition as we kind of come to the end of the episode here, but I think one of the, one of the things that, that kind of leads into is, You know what happens after that trip? There are so many companies, there are so many operators that they look at it as, Hey, I'm just going to drop you off here. Right. And we're done. The pastor drops, they're done. You know, one of the big things, and this is something that came up for me recently is there's nothing worse than being a customer of someone and you stop using them or you stop going to them and they don't even notice they don't give you a call, they don't do anything right. So, so that idea that I'm going to drop someone off, right. If they don't, if you've got a, if you've got a client and they're booking with you. Once a week, and then suddenly they don't book and you don't do anything, right? Not only are you potentially losing the client, you're telling them, I didn't care enough to notice. Right? So, uh, kind of closing thoughts here as we kind of wind down this episode, what, what does that look like in terms of what is the experience after they drop? Right? What, what happens at that point and what needs to happen at a top level company?

Bruce Heinrich 42:58

Yeah. Well, from the chauffeur's point of view, a fond farewell, you know, again, Ritz Carlton, fond farewell, use their name. Thank you, Mr. Smith. We appreciate your business. Have a great flight. Something really simple, right? And then from the office point of view, and, um, I'm going to hit on this just a little bit, but quick receipts. Okay, and especially because everybody's farming work to one another and so everybody typically has affiliates, right? We can't charge our trip our clients trip until we get that receipt from the affiliate And so I hear from our accounting department. I mean we are actually Getting rid of affiliates. They may be doing a fine job like service wise, but if we're not getting receipts fast enough We're moving on. We're looking for another provider. And so I think as well as somebody who's putting together their, you know, their receipts for business expenses and things like that, do a quick receipt. Um,

Ken Lucci 44:00

They have to chase receipts.

Bruce Heinrich 44:02

Yeah. Yeah. And that's one of the reasons why, you know, they trust us with one call to take care of all their stuff is because we know we can get receipts from, from all over the place, right? That's why a client does business with us. And we know that we're going to own

James Blaine 44:18

Yeah.

Bruce Heinrich 44:18

whatever happens with that affiliate and we're going to make it right.

James Blaine 44:22

And you already nailed it, right? When you teed everything up and you put us kind of along this path that we've gone down on this episode, you know, you really said, make it easy for them, right? You know, if, if I've got a, you know, if I'm the client and I've got to run down the receipt and I've got to deal with that, you know, how likely am I to continue using you, especially if you're just a link in that chain, right? If I've got all of these other things I have to worry about. Why do I need one more headache? But if you are the easiest to deal with, if you're on top of it, you make my life easy. You're the, you're going to be the one that's least likely. The service is amazing. They make it easy. There's no reason for me to ever want to not keep doing business with you.

Bruce Heinrich 45:02

yeah, so Uber has it right in a number of ways. They don't have it right in a few ways as well, but one of the ways is they make it really easy, right? You have the app on the phone, you press a button. You know, you have to wait, which is not cool, which our clients don't wait. We wait on them, right? That's a big differentiator on, in our era, in our area. And then also you get a receipt, you get it right away, man. As soon as they hit drop, you're getting a text with your receipt on there. And so we, as an industry, I think can help, you know, just finalize that transaction as quickly as possible. And then the other thing we do is surveys. So every one of our, every one of our passengers will get a text survey. It drops on them exactly one minute after the, uh, chauffeur hits done. Right. I don't want them like getting out of the car and, you know, dealing with luggage, walking in, they get a text. Well, who's that? Oh man. It's like, I want to at least give them some time to like get where they need to go. So, but, uh, You know, that's a really good way to keep a pulse on your client for letting them know that you care and then to personally respond. So on our Google reviews, if as soon as we get one, no matter what it is, I respond to it right away in writing, thanking them for the review and anything that is four stars or less, which thank God rarely happens. I call the passenger right away.

James Blaine 46:31

And you've set that threshold at four, not three, not two, not one four. Right? I think that's something very important to point out here, right? You're setting your bar at that five star level.

Bruce Heinrich 46:42

And I will tell them that on the call. I said, Hey, Hey, Mr. Smith, I noticed you gave us a four star. Hey, our expectation is that we're going to give you five star service every time. Please tell me what

Ken Lucci 46:52

Yep. Yep.

Bruce Heinrich 46:53

Please tell me what happened. In regardless, if it's a one, two, three, or four, whenever they give a star, that's less than a five, that tells me that they trust me to make it right. My wife and I went to a very fine dining restaurant last night that we had never been to before. And we went out of there and said I'm never coming back here again. And I never, I didn't even say anything to the wait staff who was, I mean, it was just real casual and it was real fine. Anyway, I didn't trust them to make it right or that they cared. And so I'm just like, hey man, we're not coming back here again. And so whenever you get a complaint, thank them. handle it, make it right, and you'll have a client for life. That's, that's a whole nother podcast episode. So we're going to, that's going to be number three.

Ken Lucci 47:47

I was thinking the dividends of yes, and I'm sorry, right? Versus no. And silence. There's nothing more insulting than taking somebody's money, giving just totally subpar and then not responding. I'm going to fix this for you. I'm going to make this right. I care enough.

Bruce Heinrich 48:08

Yeah, I

Ken Lucci 48:10

end them. Good way to end teeing up the third one.

James Blaine 48:14

Uh, absolutely.

Bruce Heinrich 48:15

man. I love this.

James Blaine 48:16

so as we kind of, as we kind of wrap up, so obviously Bruce, I'm, I'm lucky enough to call you my partner. So we, you know, we get to go do this on a regular basis and this is just kind of where we live. And it's kind of what keeps us in sync is these beliefs that we have. Um, but thank you so much for, for coming on the podcast with us and sharing it. Um, I think we are in agreement. There will definitely be a third episode. So please, uh, keep an eye out for Bruce to be coming back. Um, maybe even more we will see. Uh, but I really think that kind of some of the biggest takeaways that I got from our conversation are these, right? First and foremost, as Bruce said, your brand is not your logo. It's not anything like that. Your brand is how you're treating your clients, how you're providing that

Ken Lucci 49:01

And your employees.

James Blaine 49:03

yeah, and your employees. And ultimately a big part of that is how you're making your clients feel. And I think for me, the other big takeaway is that you really have to be focused on the little things. You know, one of the things that, that really sat with me and I'm, I'm somewhat of a visual person, right? You know, just something as simple as, Hey, I need to run into a gas station and turning that car around. Right. Yes. It's going to be a little bit of effort for the chauffeur. Yes. They've got to navigate that, but guess what? You had to back out of the spot anyway. And that just that, if you're able to get your team to understand that we always have that attention to detail, right back to your first day at the Ritz Carlton, it doesn't matter who sees the piece of trash on the floor. Everybody stops and picks it up. If everyone's got that attention to detail, I think that's how you ultimately live in this space. That is luxury. And so I want to thank you again for coming on the podcast. And I want to thank all our listeners. We look forward to hearing and seeing you guys on the next one.

Bruce Heinrich 50:00

right. Thank

Ken Lucci 50:02

Thanks.

50:04

Thank you for listening to the ground transportation podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please remember to subscribe to the show on apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. For more information about PAX training and to contact James, go to PAX training.com. And for more information about driving transactions and to contact Ken, Go to driving transactions.com. We'll see you next time on the ground transportation podcast.