Bubba's Tire Center

About Bubba's Tire Center

In 1990, Bubba's Tire was founded in Georgia by Bubba East and has remained a family-owned and operated business for over 30 years. Servicing 2 locations in the Dublin area, the company sells top-quality tire brands and is committed to providing customers with expert auto service.

General Manager Rob East and his twin brother, Sales Manager Ben East, began working with their dad at Bubba's Tire in 2016. As general manager, Rob oversees overall operations at both shop locations. In addition to working alongside Bubba at the family business, Rob and Ben also host a popular sports podcast with their friend Joe called the Rob, Ben & Joe show.

"Ben and I both played collegiate football at Mercer University and our partner Joe played college baseball. So we've got a lot of sports going on in our realm and we just really love doing it," said Rob East. "We were able to advertise our business on the radio through the show. It's kind of crazy that it worked out that way, but it's been pretty cool.”

The Rob, Ben & Joe Show is a state-wide high school scoreboard show that premiers every Friday during the football season. From 10 p.m. to midnight, the three hosts talk local sports highlights and take calls from coaches. In the high school football offseason, the podcast covers a variety of sports-related topics but mainly focuses on the big three: football, basketball and baseball.

Since starting in early 2020, the Rob, Ben & Joe Show has become the top-rated sports talk show from Atlanta to Savannah. Additionally, the podcast has featured interviews with several prominent guests from the world of Division I sports – such as Georgia State's head football coach and broadcast teams from LSU, Vanderbilt, Texas A&M and Florida State.

Challenge

When Rob and Ben joined the business in 2016, they realized that the company needed a software upgrade. Bubba’s Tire was using the GBMS system to manage its operations, but the older software presented a few challenges. For example, the GBMS software lacked point-to-click capabilities, which made it difficult to train younger personnel who were unfamiliar with the code-based system.

“When my twin brother and I started working with my dad, it was very apparent that the business was behind the times technology-wise,” said Rob. 

On a busy day, Bubba’s Tire may handle 40 to 50 tickets, and manually filing and tracking these invoices was time-consuming. Furthermore, manual calculations were labor-intensive and unreliable because their previous system didn’t allow the business to set pricing parameters. 

Solution

Bubba’s Tire began looking for a modern solution to fit their evolving business needs. In their search, the company looked for software that would suit both their commercial and auto retail side. They considered 4 different options but ultimately chose KCS’s VAST Multi-Store Windows-based solution for its easy-to-use interface and strong Goodyear syncing capabilities.
 
With VAST, Bubba’s Tire was able to increase overall efficiency throughout the business. VAST’s user-friendly format made it easy to train new hires and freed up current personnel, allowing them to focus more on providing quality customer service. 

Since implementing VAST, not only have our margins improved but we also have greater fail-safes in place now for our service advisors and everybody we train. This gives us greater confidence in providing the best customer service to our clients.
Rob East - General Manager of Bubba's Tire Center

When servicing a vehicle, personnel can use the customer’s name or license number to quickly determine the car’s unique needs—including the correct parts, filter type or fluid capacities. This feature of the VAST system has saved Bubba’s Tire a significant amount of time with oil change packages in particular, as technicians no longer have to manually look up filters or oil quantities. 

In addition, Bubba's Tire personnel can easily access customer history details, allowing them to deliver high-quality customer service, improve ROI and take advantage of upselling opportunities. One VAST feature that has been especially helpful is the decline mechanism.
 
For example, a customer may come in for a tire rotation, but the technician discovers they also need a break service. With the VAST decline method, customers can decline the service, but the system will save the quote and invoice information. This way, the next time the customer comes in, the technician can ask if they’d like to get the break service done—or, in many cases, the customer will bring it up themselves and ask the technician to complete the break service during this visit. 

Moving from our old GBMS system to VAST has allowed our business to streamline our processes and has given us better insight into our productivity levels. We’re able to optimize our offerings based on customers’ driving habits and performance, which means greater customer satisfaction and ultimately more repeat customers.

CarSide, the digital vehicle inspection app add-on for VAST, has also been beneficial for Bubba’s Tire. CarSide has helped the business improve its auto repair efficiency and boost customer loyalty by providing customers with a digital report of recommended repairs, showing them exactly what the technician sees so that customers can feel confident and informed when approving repairs.

Benefits

After upgrading to VAST, Bubba's Tire saw immediate benefits to their business, including increased margins and return on ROI. The VAST system automates manual processes, which saves time and eliminates errors. 
 

VAST’s advanced features have saved us not only time but cost savings through efficiency gains. As a result, our margins have improved and we are able to turn out more work!

With accurate and efficient quoting and order processing capabilities, VAST enables Bubba's Tire to deliver high-quality customer and auto repair service.

Benefits Bubba's Tire Center has achieved from VAST Multi-Store include:

• Automated processes boost productivity and eliminate manual error
• Enhanced customer experience with accurate and personalized service, resulting in more repeat customers
• Gain on ROI and improved margins due to greater overall efficiency 
• Better workflow due to taking stress off technicians and service providers
• Increased up-sell opportunities due to customer history and declined service data