Reprinted from
aftermarketnews.com - July 17, 2000

Each week, aftermarketnews.com offers you a Celebrity Interview with a high-profile individual in the automotive aftermarket. We give our "celebrities" free reign to express their views on anything from the state of their corporation to recent legislative news to future trends in their niche market. Here, you see what news matters to the newsmakers themselves.

Our 36th installment of Celebrity Interview features Steve Liao, MechanicNet founder and president. MechanicNet, a privately held corporation, started out in Northern California to provide basic turnkey Internet technology to repair shops. Its vision is to become "the preeminent automotive aftermarket resource for business-to-business transaction and information exchange," as well as providing business-to-consumer relationship management. For consumers, MechanicNet strives to remove anxiety over the repair and vehicle maintenance by empowering them with the resources necessary to understand the repair process. Additionally, the site links consumers to repair facilities through a network of qualified service providers. For the aftermarket, MechanicNet is working -- through alliances with companies like ALLDATA -- to create an industry standard for Internet interaction and transaction.

Join us as Steve discusses MechanicNet's suite of services, marketing to repair shops versus to consumers and what we can expect from MechanicNet in the coming months. Sitting in on the interview is Walt Samuelson, ALLDATA's chief operating officer, customer satisfaction. Walt was on hand to discuss his company's strategic alliance with MechanicNet.

How did MechanicNet come to the decision on providing services for automotive repair shops?

SL: We really started this concept from more of a consumer's end in that we believe that consumers are anxious about their repair work because of a lack of communication. They don't think of about a repair or maintenance event until they have to. And, because of the traditional stereotypes and a general lack of knowledge, the vehicle owner is anxious and mistrusting before any interaction takes place.

We wanted to solve that problem while offering benefit to the service technician. We can solve the consumer issue with timely and empowering information. For the technician and their supply chain partners, we wanted to translate these communications capabilities to operational efficiencies. So, what we developed was this comprehensive tool that begins with communication with customers then delivers critical information downstream. This allows capacity planning and process automation at the shops (don't have to answer the phone to give directions or hours, plans work better by getting appointments), and optimized operations at their vendors.

What do you believe sets MechanicNet apart from its competitors?

SL: Let me give you a specific. When a consumer comes on the site wanting some information to better understand what a maintenance event looks like -- what kind of activities take place at a 30,000 mile maintenance interval. By giving them that information up front, they don't get sticker shock when they see their invoice. They don't have a lot of anxiety about the mechanic doing work that wasn't specified by the manufacturer.

We corral that information ahead of time and send it to the consumer. We also send out information to parts vendors in the region so they know that there is an activity about to take place that will be scheduled this many days from now. This allows them to better schedule for material. So, when that mechanic picks up the phone and calls a jobber, the fill rate will be a little bit higher and the service level will be higher. That's how we tie in the supply chain based on this communication tool.

Some of our competitors are taking a yellow pages kind of approach to shops and allowing customers a central place to find information about shops. Although we offer this capability, we don't stop there. We want to make sure that we are delivering a set of tools that will benefit the shops' bottom line as well as their top line. That's why we are aligning ourselves with ALLDATA -- because we are focused on business benefits for shop owners, not simply another place to advertise. We are also not trying to crush them with a consumer revolt. We believe that a communication gap has created this mistrust, and we can close it with better communication tools.

How are you going about marketing MechanicNet to consumers?

SL: We have started some marketing efforts to consumers based on specific pitches -- the people who are more information or research oriented and the people who traditionally have more anxiety dealing with mechanics. We reach them through mass marketing media like radio and print. We also have done more strategic strikes at professional trade shows and through professional organizations. We are fortunate as consumers are finding us and sending us generous praises.

Is there any one particular section of MechanicNet that consumers have shown more initial interest in?

SL: They probably have a lot more interest in our "symptoms" section. The reason is not so much that they want any kind of diagnosis -- they know that a mechanic needs to check out the car before he can diagnose anything. But, consumers are able to use the symptoms tool to better articulate their problems. Technicians like it because they no longer have to spend the time educating their customer about terminology and vehicle components.

A lot of people have a hard time articulating what the problem is. For example, they know that they are hearing sounds, but they don't necessarily take note of when they are hearing it or how often they hear it. We help them think through those things and capture that information before going into a shop. In fact, we forward the symptoms evaluations to the shops before the consumer arrives.

Now, a mechanic doesn't receive a customer with the traditional format of "Who are you?" and "What do you want?" Instead, they can say: "I understand that you are driving a green Explorer and you are hearing some clicking noises when you turn a corner."

Basically, this breaks down some of those traditional conversational barriers.

What benefits do you foresee MechanicNet gaining from its relationship with ALLDATA?

SL: With our fleet of tools includes email, Internet connectivity and a custom interactive website for member shops to put their "personalities" and identity online. We give them their own URL with their name along with six template-based Internet pages to give them interactive scheduling tools, mapping tools, the expertise that they can publish about themselves and the forums for discussion among their peers.

In regard to our relationship with ALLDATA, basically we truly honored to be working with the leader in this industry to jointly offer the next generation suite of essential business tools that will optimize a shop's operation through Internet technology. For instance, we are bundling our offering into the marketplace right now, and that has proven to be very compelling for the shops. No longer do they have to wade through an ocean of overwhelming options and technologies that may or may not work together. They don't have to invest their own valuable time to make these decisions because it's all being provided for them in one simple turnkey solution.

And how does ALLDATA benefit from the partnership?

WS: We have been successful in getting independent repair shops to look at electronic information and have more current information available to diagnose and fix vehicles. We think that it's a natural progression for them to begin dealing with their customers through the Internet. The problem is that, in their shops, most of these people want to fix cars and not manage a website, create promotions or create schedules.

What MechanicNet brought to us is a very easy way for a shop to become Internet enabled and Internet proficient. It's very unobtrusive relative to their work effort and their time requirements, yet they can be establishing themselves as a forward-leading shop using the combination of information from our project and the visibility of a website for their shop.

Shops continue to have reputation problems in general. It's an experience that some people don't particularly like -- even worse then going to the dentist in some cases. What we are impressed with on the MechanicNet approach is that the focus is on improving the education, knowledge level of the vehicle owner and creating a communication environment.

What MechanicNet wasn't doing was creating evaluations, bidding and things like that. These are things that could have the tendency to go the wrong way relative to improving communication, professionalism or satisfaction. I don't know about you, but I'm not particularly keen on taking my car to the lowest bidder. I'm wondering how he can do it for a given price, and I'm wondering why he doesn't have business so he can take my car at that price and at that time.

The whole orientation seems to be more focused on the right kind of help to both the vehicle owner and the shop.

How has the bundled testing and rollout gone so far?

WS: One of the things that I have really been able to appreciate about Steve and MechanicNet is that, from day one, they aren't assuming that they can go from zero to 20,000 shops. That's just not practical for a start up. They have been testing the product in the Bay Area and in Sacramento for a while. The next expansion would be to the Los Angeles region and then on to Dallas/Fort Worth next.

What's nice is that they have been willing to align their rollout with our regions. It makes for a much more controlled and viable method on both of our parts. This makes sure that we aren't missing out on prospects and that we are getting everybody out there trained on how to handle every client out there.

What can we expect from MechanicNet over the next six months?

SL: What you can expect is a national rollout. Right now, we are rolling out in specific regions that so we can ensure top quality service and marketing support. And then, within the next six months, you can expect to see us take this out on a broader scale.

On the development side, we have initiatives to constantly improve our tools and constantly looking to delight our shop customers. We want to provide as many tools as they can absorb -- tools that they can make them more efficient and profitable, give them better relationships with their customers and better relationships with their vendors.