If there is one thing in the Moniz household that has been with me for 22 years – aside from my wife – is my wife’s method of maintaining and organizing (or, should I say, disorganizing) her recipes for preparing family feasts.
Her “system” is made up of boxes, folders, binders, torn-out magazine pages, scraps of handwritten notes, etc., all jammed into one of the kitchen cabinets. Every time I’ve suggested a total reorganization of this so-called “system,” I’m confronted with, “But I’ve always done it that way.”
Every time I hear that argument, it reminds me of a lot of you guys – tire dealers.
Over the years, as I’ve stopped in to see you, I’ll inevitably find that many of you will have the most impressive waiting areas for customers, or the cleanest bay areas, or an unbelievable array of consumer education information set out for customers.
But, without a doubt, one common denominator that all tire dealers seem to share is the lack of a common source for important tire and vehicle service data.
The methods you use to locate uncommon information, or reference and retrieve data, are vast and run the gamut from highly organized to something more like my wife’s recipe bin.
But, think about what you would do with a customer who comes in with a 1988 Cutlass. Where do you look to find the OE tire size? How about the proper tire inflation pressure? Lug-nut torque? How long does it take to plow through your version of the “Mrs. Moniz Filing System?”
Where do you keep all of your service bulletins? Know what the maintenance schedule is for that car – or any car that comes your way? How about make and model TPMS reset/relearn procedures? Who do you give a customer an accurate service estimate? Need quicker access to decode indicator lights? Has my wife been working overtime teaching you her method of madness? Don’t do it…Don’t go there…!
You can put all of those manuals and binders up in the attic. Thanks to a collaborative relationship with Autodata Publications, Tire Review can put all of that data – and a lot more – right on your sales counter PC and in your service bays. All of the information is organized and accessible in a manner that is right at your fingertips.
Our new Tire, Wheel & Service DVD (see page 13) is packed with thousands of bits of invaluable information you need access to every day. The DVD is designed to make your life easier by making data lookup simple and precise. No more searching for missing guides or paging through shop manuals or trying to find that one TSB that’s been lost. One disc does it all – and a lot more.
The DVD product is part of our Tire Review 2.0 initiative. Think of it as the next generation for this venerable magazine.
We have been covering the tire industry for 107 years, and we have seen a ton of technology roll over the decades. None has had such a profound impact on us – and surely the entire tire industry worldwide – as the personal computer.
Thanks to PCs, data that was once scattered around on handwritten notes or on torn-out pages of magazines clipped in binders, is now available in seconds, whether it’s on CD, DVD or via the Internet. Click here, click there, and you can do anything. PCs have improved every aspect of this business, from tire design and testing right to retail selling.
Our Tire Review 2.0 initiative is our way of taking things to the next level, to deliver new products and services to readers that are valuable and consistent with our mission to help you improve your businesses – and to do so in new ways that are even more accessible.
Don’t worry. Tire Review 2.0 doesn’t mean Tire Review 1.0 (the magazine) is going away. Far from it! We’ll still be at your door each month, and you’ll continue to have free and total access to our heavily viewed global Web site, complete with timely tire news from around the world.
As we move forward, you will see more things from Tire Review and our 2.0 initiative. We are very excited about what our future holds. We may be the world’s oldest tire industry publication, but we are far from crusty!
You can go to www.tirereview.com and download a complete brochure on our new Tire, Wheel & Service Data DVD, or you can call 1-866-670-1237 for more information.
Now that we have tackled tire, vehicle and service information, I’m moving on to my wife’s recipe cabinet. I wonder if I can get all of that stuff on one DVD?
