In this episode, “Bear With Us As We Chat All Things Impound,” we welcome Rhonda Golemon, Owner of Bear’s Towing, Susan Shelly, Operations Manager at Bear’s Towing, and Jen Olinde, TowLien by TRAXERO’s Program Manager-Customer Support. Get ready for a powerhouse, female driven, bringing-so-much-energy podcast as we discuss the ins and outs of TowLien and how much better life is for towers with impound yards who get to avoid trips to the post office and the DMV! Click play for more.

Shelli Hawkins:

Welcome everybody to episode six of the Traxero On-The-Go podcast. I am your co-host, Shelli Hawkins, and I am joined by my amazing co-host Laura Dolan. Laura, are you there?

Laura Dolan:

Hello, Shelli. This is why I love spending time with you because you just make me feel so good about myself all the time. You are amazing too.

Shelli Hawkins:

Well, it’s pretty easy because what you do for us at Traxero is simply amazing, and I cannot do anything without you.

Laura Dolan:

I can’t do what you do. We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you.

Shelli Hawkins:

Oh, come on now. We just got back from, I want to say the hot state of Texas where we had the Texas Tow Show in Fort Worth, Texas for the second year in a row. Laura, I will tell you, it was a grand success. It was outstanding. It was two days straight of over a hundred degrees, and the towers that showed up for this trade show were awesome, were absolutely awesome. We saw so many friends. The new trucks that were out there were amazing. I want to put a shout-out to RPM Equipment with their two vehicles that were sitting out there, the custom-builds in the front. I believe it was a Chevy and a Ram. They were just gorgeous.

Laura Dolan:

It looked like a fun time just seeing the pictures of everyone in the booth and the different tow trucks. I was, truth be told, just pulling the curtain back, posting to social media from here in Ohio, what a time to be alive. I was able to check into Fort Worth from like a thousand miles away and post our pictures to all of our channels. I was there vicariously with you all. It looked like an amazing time. I’m really glad it was a success. I’m hearing nothing but good things from our customers and from our staff who were there. Yeah, I’m really glad that it was a really fun time and very successful.

Shelli Hawkins:

It was fantastic. The next one coming up is going to be the Indiana Tow Show at the end of August, like August 18th, I believe it is. It is all things fantastic.

Laura Dolan:

That’ll be here before we know it.

Shelli Hawkins:

I know. It’s about an hour away from Indianapolis, put on by the president of the Indiana Towing Association, Ms. Sue Moreland, her sidekick Crystal Rose, and it’s going to be another fantastic show. Last year I attended the Indiana Show, and y’all, I am telling you right now, I was highly impressed and I cannot wait until this year. There’s just a ton of vendors that are already coming. Michelle Sukow is going to be speaking at the ladies luncheon. That’s going to be amazing.

Laura Dolan:

Nice.

Shelli Hawkins:

A lot to look forward to. We are super excited about what we’re going to talk about today, and it is going to be all things about our friends in Louisiana, Bear’s Towing. We have got Rhonda, the owner, that’s going to be on with us a little bit later, and also her right-hand lady, Ms. Susan Shelley. I cannot wait to bring them on. We also have Jennifer Olinde, we call her Jen Olinde. She is our program manager here for our product TowLien that focuses on the lien process when you’re impounding vehicles.

I cannot wait, but I am going to throw out this quick disclaimer to our audience. Some of y’all may know I grew up in Dickinson County, Virginia in Crabtree Holler on the Stanley Branch side. This is an area where we eat cornbread, shucky beans with a slab of fatback, cathead biscuits and fried taters and soup beans. I’m going to tell you right now that this Southern accent is coming out because I grew up speaking this way and y’all just need to be ready for it. With all that being said, Rhonda, Susan, Jen, ladies, are you all here with us today?

Susan Shelly:

Yes, we are.

Laura Dolan:

I am so excited for this. I’ve been looking forward to this for weeks. This is going to be such a powerhouse, female driven, so much energy podcast and I am here for it. Thank you all for joining us today.

Shelli Hawkins:

We are going to have a blast. I can’t wait. Just to tee things up. We’ve got Jen Olinde over here. We get to work with Jen every single day. She is an amazing lady. She’s been in the industry for a very, very, very long time. Go ahead, Jen, introduce yourself and tell us what you do at Traxero and what you did before you came to us at Traxero.

Jen Olinde:

Sure. Thank you Shelli. I’m so glad to be here with you wonderful ladies. I have been involved in the industry in one way or the other for approximately 27 years. I currently am, as you had mentioned, the TowLien program manager on the customer support side. I work closely with our development team and the production team. Prior to my involvement with TowLien, I was a former registered lobbyist for the Louisiana Towing Association for approximately 18 years. Yeah, that’s played into the knowledge and experience that I have as far as helping promote and further the endeavors of the tolling processing database.

Shelli Hawkins:

That has got to be where your passion started, developed. You grew it. You had no idea that you could be so involved helping an industry when you were the lobbyist for Louisiana. That’s just awesome.

Jen Olinde:

Yes, and that’s a twofold really because it comes, I’m on both sides. I’ve been on the legislative side and the ins and outs of the lawmaking procedures, and then on now the opposite end of that spectrum as far as the programmatical changes and compliance issues and situations that need to be addressed that are pertinent to our customers and their needs to go through the entire lien processing process.

Shelli Hawkins:

And it can be a bear. It can be a bear. Can I say that you guys?

Jen Olinde:

Absolutely.

Shelli Hawkins:

You see what I there? Did you see what I did there? It can be a bear.

Susan Shelly:

That was good.

Shelli Hawkins:

I know. On that note, I’m going to introduce Rhonda and Susan from Bear’s Towing in Louisiana. Ladies, what city are y’all coming to from this morning or today when you’re talking to us?

Rhonda Golemon:

Well, I’m from Monroe.

Shelli Hawkins:

Okay.

Rhonda Golemon:

Susan’s from Delhi. She runs our Delhi location.

Shelli Hawkins:

Fantastic. I think that’s Rhonda talking. Rhonda, go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you get in the towing industry and how long have you been doing it?

Rhonda Golemon:

Well, we started Bear’s in 1983. We actually met in January of ’83, and he was a partner in a towing business and he wasn’t very happy. With a little encouragement, by August we had our first truck. August 15th, we pulled our first call. First truck was a 1970 Chevrolet with a 440 Holmes single line.

Shelli Hawkins:

Wow. I want to know what you mean by a little bit of encouragement.

Rhonda Golemon:

Well, he wasn’t happy. I knew he could do it on his own so just a little encouragement and we did it.

Shelli Hawkins:

Yeah. I love it. That’s awesome. You guys have been in business since 19, you said?

Rhonda Golemon:

’83.

Shelli Hawkins:

’83. Your first was a 1971 with a Holmes 440. That is fantastic.

Rhonda Golemon:

Right.

Shelli Hawkins:

Susan Shelly, are you there with us, Sunshine?

Susan Shelly:

Yes, I’m here.

Shelli Hawkins:

I love it. You got roped into all this mess when?

Susan Shelly:

I started working for Rhonda in January of 2010.

Shelli Hawkins:

What exactly do you do for Bear’s? Yeah.

Susan Shelly:

I am an operations manager. I run her Delhi office and her Tallulah office.

Shelli Hawkins:

What does an operations manager do?

Susan Shelly:

A little bit of everything, you name it.

Shelli Hawkins:

Yeah. Do you ever get in the tow truck?

Susan Shelly:

Oh, I ride in it. My husband he works with us. He helps me run the Delhi and Tallulah office and he’s also a driver.

Shelli Hawkins:

That is fantastic. Ladies, I am so excited for everybody to be on. We are going to be talking about impound yards. Most towers out there, if you’ve got a towing company of any type and size, that’s probably the first thing that you add on after you add a couple of tow trucks, you need a piece of property to be impounding vehicles. That is what these guys that are on our call today know and that’s their specialty. Susan and Rhonda, when you think about the impound yard that y’all have there, how many do you have? How many cars are you impounding on a weekly or monthly basis? What does that look like for you?

Rhonda Golemon:

Well, Monroe is our largest location and we probably do 18 to 25 per week. It’s not that many in the other locations. They’re smaller, but we have quite a few come through Monroe.

Shelli Hawkins:

When you think about that impounding process, I want one of y’all, Rhonda or Susan, to go step by step what that looks like and just break it down. I say break it down Barney style, just make it as super simplistic. The call goes out, the car comes into the impound yard. What are the next steps for you to bring that into inventory and then on the back end, how do you get rid of it?

Rhonda Golemon:

Well, when the car comes in, we process it. We take pictures, verify VIN numbers on the windshield, door. We upload it into our software package and we even upload the pictures that we take. We take pictures of all four sides, the interior, the whole works, and then we report it to the state through TowLien and they immediately give back a owner, on almost all of them. Some of them are out of state and they go to review and then we have to wait just a little while to get that information back. The day you put it in, that moment when you find out who it belongs to, you can click a button and send the letter immediately. We can do our appraisals through there now. We’re used to all this was done by hand and you even had to get an outside source to do your appraisal for you.

Shelli Hawkins:

That is awesome. What do you mean by appraisal?

Rhonda Golemon:

Well, in Louisiana, our process is getting an appraisal on the vehicle, going by NADA and getting the value of the vehicle is part of getting a permit to sell a title.

Shelli Hawkins:

Okay, that makes sense.

Susan Shelly:

That it is a lot of extra work. So now having TowLien do it makes it a lot easier on us.

Rhonda Golemon:

Yeah, saves a lot of time.

Shelli Hawkins:

Yes, ma’am. I love it. Rhonda or Susan, I know we had thought about some hilarious stories. Do you have any hilarious stories, exciting stories, anything that has come out of having a car impounded and having somebody pick it up? I can only imagine that as I am talking, you can think of a few that stand out in your mind.

Rhonda Golemon:

Last week we had a lady call, I think it was Friday, and I just happened to be in the dispatch office and I heard her, she said, “Well, my truck come in last night.” My dispatcher said, “Yes ma’am.” She gave her her total. She says, “What I need to do?” She said, well, you got to get your insurance straight and go to the DMV and pay your fine and bring me a release form.” She said, “Oh, well I’m going to have to go do this and do this. Could I come borrow my truck so I could do that?”

Shelli Hawkins:

She was like, nice try. I feel like she was probably genuine when she asked that.

Rhonda Golemon:

She was. I had to had to walk out so I could crack out loud.

Shelli Hawkins:

Let me borrow my truck.

Susan Shelly:

If only it was that easy?

Shelli Hawkins:

Oh my gosh.

Rhonda Golemon:

Let me borrow it. We have all kinds, some people when they get stolen they think, “Why do I have to pay the bill? Somebody stole it.” It’s just something all the time.

Shelli Hawkins:

I can’t imagine. I call it the swirling tornado of chaos that y’all live in.

Rhonda Golemon:

That’s right.

Susan Shelly:

That is true.

Shelli Hawkins:

Y’all know that we are a software company and you use our software every single day. I think that Rhonda, weren’t you telling me that you guys used to be on Tracker? That’s part of our family.

Rhonda Golemon:

We were, but I was telling Jen that when we started in 1983, we had to mail in our [inaudible 00:12:28] and wait for the answer to come back in the mail. Then a couple of years later, we all got fax machines and we were able to fax it in. It is so much different now than it was in the beginning. It’s just a dream.

Shelli Hawkins:

I just can’t imagine. I hear, and we’ve talked about this before, when tow operators are running around with a roll of quarters in their truck to call on the payphone to see if there’s any more calls.

Rhonda Golemon:

Exactly. Yes.

Susan Shelly:

Right.

Rhonda Golemon:

Yeah.

Shelli Hawkins:

Now it’s a digital dispatch where it just comes into the computer or the dispatcher types it in or the call actually comes in digitally from the source and you just dispatch it out there and you say, “Go take care of it.”

Susan Shelly:

That’s right.

Rhonda Golemon:

Lenny said that in back in the day, I would make him fat because he was going in getting, he would buy a package of white donuts so he could get quarters and change to call me and I was like, “Blame it on me.”

Shelli Hawkins:

I’ve never heard that before. I love it.

Rhonda Golemon:

Got to get some change to use the payphone.

Susan Shelly:

No, she used to work at, what hotel did you work at?

Rhonda Golemon:

Holiday Inn.

Susan Shelly:

Holiday Inn. She’d be answering their phones and then she’d have another line answering their wrecker calls.

Rhonda Golemon:

Nobody knew that.

Jen Olinde:

I’ve got one question, Rhonda. Was it the Holiday Inn Express?

Rhonda Golemon:

Yes ma’am, it was. That was a late in the afternoon thing when there was nobody else around but me. Back then there were no cellphones. What do you do? I don’t know. You improvise.

Shelli Hawkins:

That’s called double duty for sure.

Rhonda Golemon:

That’s right.

Susan Shelly:

Yes.

Rhonda Golemon:

Have I done that over the years. Double triple duty. Yes.

Shelli Hawkins:

Rhonda, how many babies have you raised up in this towing industry? Have y’all had any children?

Rhonda Golemon:

Yes, we have two girls, 10 years apart.

Shelli Hawkins:

Okay. Are they going to be in it or are they like, “No way. We are not going to be a part of this.”

Rhonda Golemon:

Well, the oldest one is in it. She was actually at the tow show with her husband this weekend with their two boys and our youngest is teaching school.

Shelli Hawkins:

Oh, that’s fantastic. I love it.

Rhonda Golemon:

Yeah.

Shelli Hawkins:

That’s wonderful. We’re going to take a little side step here. I think that Laura’s got some questions for Ms. Jennifer Olinde, take it away.

Laura Dolan:

Yes. Thank you, Shelli. Yeah, so switching gears here. I know I say that a lot, but hey, pun intended. I want to know all about TowLien, what it does for towers, the whole process as a whole. Jen, if you would be so kind to talk us through the impound process or the life cycle of the car, from soups to nuts, how long TowLien has been around. I also want to know what’s the before and after, what does it look like? What Rhonda and Susan were describing just now, what the technology was back then and what it is now. I just want to see the before and after and the value that TowLien offers to customers.

Jen Olinde:

Sure, absolutely. To a point that Rhonda had made, and to Shelli, how she mentioned she come from Tracker at one point, but Rhonda at Bear’s and Susan, they are able to utilize one of our other TMS products of Dispatch Anywhere. They get the best of both worlds for that integration piece that TowLien offers to multiple of our other family units under the umbrella of Traxero. They are with Dispatch Anywhere.

Laura Dolan:

Amazing.

Jen Olinde:

Yes, they have that piece where they call their jobs that are dispatched into Dispatch Anywhere, can be imported automatically for them into TowLien, which eliminates multiple steps in itself and reduces that double entry of the vehicle, basic details, year, make, model, VIN that information, all their charges for their service charges, for their accounts that they tow for. All of that comes over and imports into TowLien so that then TowLien can pick up where that left off and perform the searches to obtain that owner lien information and then mail out their letters to the owner and lien holder information.

That in essence is what TowLien does. It optimizes and streamlines the entire lien and/or title/permit to sell in the instance of Louisiana process for any of the stored repaired vehicles that may be abandoned at the facility that they need to gain title to. It is specifically for the types of facilities that do have an impound yard, there’s that accent, an impound yard. That would not be for your repossession-only companies or your transport-only companies or roadside assistance-only companies. That would be for a towing/storage/repair facility that impounds and stores vehicles at a yard that they then get abandoned with that they need to go through that process.

Or if it’s not abandoned, certain states have requirements that they’re required to report their private property impounds within so many hours to their law enforcement. TowLien can assist with that. Then when there are vehicles that are stored, certain states have requirements that they must notify the appropriate state agencies to be able to legally charge storage beyond so many hours or so many days. TowLien helps to accommodate that, to maintain that all companies remain within the compliance guidelines within their state. It walks them through essentially the entire process from step A to Z, from when the vehicle is impounded all the way through when they need to apply for the title, and it provides all the necessary forms that are maybe required by their state. Then also prevents waiting in lines at the post office as we all look so much forward to doing.

Laura Dolan:

The post office and the DMV, right?

Jen Olinde:

Yes.

Laura Dolan:

Right. Rhonda, Susan?

Susan Shelly:

Well, I just started doing my own letters. I mean, let TowLien do our letters about a month ago. Let me tell you, it’s made my life so much easier. I don’t miss that post office at all.

Rhonda Golemon:

Yeah, that’s at her location. We’ve been doing TowLien letters for two or three years now.

Laura Dolan:

That’s incredible.

Susan Shelly:

I don’t want to live without it.

Laura Dolan:

Right. Yeah, there’s no going back after that, right? Now you’re spoiled.

Susan Shelly:

No. Yes.

Rhonda Golemon:

Saves so much time and worry about somebody making a mistake. You don’t have to worry about that. It’s just boom, it’s done.

Laura Dolan:

Sure.

Susan Shelly:

It’s very easy to use. Yes.

Rhonda Golemon:

Yes. It’s very easy, very friendly.

Laura Dolan:

That’s fantastic. I’m sure it’s a huge time saver as well.

Shelli Hawkins:

Here’s my question when it comes to change, because change is difficult. Change can be hard because when you bring change into your personal life or even in the business, you may be able to embrace the change. We call people like that early adopters. When the iPhone first came out, there were some people that boom jumped on the bandwagon and other people sit back and say, “I’m not sure about this. Let me see how this works out.” Well, there’s always change going on in the towing industry, whether it’s, like Jen mentioned earlier, the lien process is always changing in the states, and we’ve got to keep up with that. Between Rhonda and Susan, who’s my early adopter, who’s ready for the change. I think Rhonda, you mentioned something earlier about going to the Florida Tow Show in 2010 while y’all were on Tracker. What did that look like?

Rhonda Golemon:

We ran into the Beacon booth and we both fell in love, but Susan ran with it and encouraged me to get it. Actually I think we signed up for a raffle and won a cruise.

Susan Shelly:

Yes.

Rhonda Golemon:

We were sold.

Susan Shelly:

We sure did.

Rhonda Golemon:

We got it. We loved the fact that it was, what do you call it, Susan, Cloud-based?

Susan Shelly:

Yes.

Rhonda Golemon:

Not a network that we were on previously. That was a great plus. It went from there. She set it up. We call her our dispatch [mentor]. If anybody has a question, they call Susan, she finds out the answer.

Susan Shelly:

That’s where I go to… If I can’t get it, I’ll call somebody at Traxero.

Shelli Hawkins:

I was going to say you know our Brian Grove, you know our Nick Hallett, I mean those guys…

Susan Shelly:

Everybody.

Shelli Hawkins:

Kyle Robinson, Jennifer Olinde, Dan Horterici, all of them.

Susan Shelly:

Now I noticed that TowLien has the little chat box. That’s my favorite thing. I’m sure I’m going to be using that a lot more. I just discovered it the other day. That’s amazing.

Rhonda Golemon:

Oh, I love a chat bot.

Shelli Hawkins:

Jennifer, tell us about the chat bot on TowLien.

Jen Olinde:

I love that you love that, Susan. Yes.

Rhonda Golemon:

Well, we got to chat.

Jen Olinde:

[inaudible 00:21:46].

Susan Shelly:

You know I got a question, I’m going to be contacting you one way or the other. That chat bot is the best thing ever for me.

Jen Olinde:

Yes, that’s available once you are logged in to your TowLien account, and not many people realize it’s there. If you look at the top right-hand side of your screen, there is an orange Cloud bubble box that has little dots in it. You click on there and it’s our live chat. What I tell our customers all the time is that is us, our team, your TowLien support team that you will chat with, not someone in a foreign country that is not familiar with you and/or your account. We can get you immediate access and answers right then and there. It’s very, very convenient and allows our team to multitask. If we’re on a call with a customer, we can still chat with you on chat, even if we’re on a call with someone.

Susan Shelly:

Yeah, it was less than a minute and she was right back with my answer. I love that.

Jen Olinde:

Awesome.

Laura Dolan:

It definitely beats having to deal with Flash at the DMV. Am I right?

Rhonda Golemon:

Amen.

Laura Dolan:

Did anybody hear-

Rhonda Golemon:

Have mercy.

Laura Dolan:

Anybody on this call ever seen “Zootopia” and that scene where they’re talking to the sloth, I mean, is that true to life or what?

Rhonda Golemon:

That’s very true. Let me find a reason for you to come back later.

Susan Shelly:

Yeah, I’m definitely the girl, the one at the counter definitely.

Shelli Hawkins:

64793. 6 4. It was slower than that.

Laura Dolan:

Hey, Flash. You want to hear a joke?

Rhonda Golemon:

No, no.

Laura Dolan:

What do you call a three-humped camel? I don’t know what do you call…

Jen Olinde:

It’s okay, we get it!

Shelli Hawkins:

Oh, gosh. That is a very accurate representation, unfortunately. Yeah, I’ll tell y’all when I moved to Maryland, the process of the DMV was actually pretty slick. I went online and did 80% of everything. When I got there, it was done in two minutes. They were in and out. I’m like, “They have got this down to a science.” I’ve never lived in a state so efficient. I’m not saying that for everybody to move to Maryland, but it’s just hard to come across a good DMV and they’ve got it going on here. I went to Baltimore for that situation. Anyways, there’s my endorsement for Maryland.

Rhonda Golemon:

Yeah, we said the other day, we think the Chick-fil-A employees should move to the DMV.

Shelli Hawkins:

Yes. Then at the end of every day, they always say, “My pleasure, thank you so much.”

Susan Shelly:

Yeah, you’ll never hear that at the DMV.

Shelli Hawkins:

No, you’ll never hear that. Very rarely.

Susan Shelly:

No.

Shelli Hawkins:

Not at all. You guys talk a little bit about the challenges on a day-to-day basis in the towing industry, not just in the lien processing, but what has been a really big problem for y’all that you were able to solve or figure out? I mean, I know it’s a big broad question, but gosh, we just have a lot of things that we figure out sooner than later. What are some things Rhonda and Susan you guys can think about that you’ve made better over the years?

Rhonda Golemon:

Oh, goodness. So many things. Anything that comes up we storm together and figure it out and come up with a better way. Probably in recent years has been retaining employees.

Susan Shelly:

Yes.

Rhonda Golemon:

I mean, I don’t know who has the answer for that these days.

Susan Shelly:

That’s true.

Rhonda Golemon:

I mean, we’ve done everything from install Band-Aids to marriage counseling.

Susan Shelly:

Isn’t that true? That is true right there. Most of us here work with our other half. Imagine that.

Rhonda Golemon:

Yeah.

Susan Shelly:

It is like marriage counseling.

Shelli Hawkins:

I can only imagine.

Jen Olinde:

Well, challenges I would say would be coming from Rhonda’s experience, coming from the whole manual process of waiting sometimes weeks to months to get the information. As you’d mentioned, Shelli, from going online, the digital world nowadays, how things have evolved. Ultimately in a nutshell, I think that would be one of the most challenging things that a customer experience would be is to evolve from that generationally from the days, weeks, and months that it could take to get information on the owner and lien holder information of a vehicle. Then all of our lovely struggles with the post office and the delays that takes and the mailing, not just waiting on the DMV to get the information, but mailing of the letters in itself with the USPS delays.

Rhonda Golemon:

Oh, we keeping up with all those, it used to be green cards and then it was a certificate of mailing and then we went to that book.

Susan Shelly:

Yes. The licking and the paper cuts.

Rhonda Golemon:

Yes.

Shelli Hawkins:

Yep.

Jen Olinde:

Folding the letters, stuffing the envelopes.

Rhonda Golemon:

I do not miss that at all.

Laura Dolan:

You create your own little assembly line after a while.

Susan Shelly:

It is great that you can go in there, everything’s in there, and you can print it out in just a second. It’s so much better than how we used to do it.

Rhonda Golemon:

You had to keep up with all that, all that information, all that slips and receipts, and now you just print it out and put your packet together to mail it in.

Susan Shelly:

They can do that too.

Rhonda Golemon:

We just still do that ourselves.

Jen Olinde:

Yeah, and it’s all with the simple click of one button and it helps the company to go green.

Rhonda Golemon:

Yes.

Jen Olinde:

And not have all of those expenses of the paper and toner and the hard fixed costs that are associated with that. Then if you’re ever inspected for an audit, you have anything and everything you need at your fingertips to produce and just reprint whatever is requested of you, all of your letters and your post office receipts, your originals, they’re all there online for you. That is that convenience there.

Susan Shelly:

It was hard for me to let go of the paper.

Rhonda Golemon:

Yes.

Susan Shelly:

Something about me knowing I had it on paper, but now it’s so much easier because I know it’s in TowLien and my letters are finished. That’s the peace. My letters are on time. Everything’s good.

Jen Olinde:

It prompts you with your timeline to let you know this is due, this is due.

Rhonda Golemon:

Right. I love that.

Susan Shelly:

Yes, I love it. The dashboard. I love that dashboard.

Rhonda Golemon:

You shouldn’t miss anything if you just, yeah, watch that dashboard.

Shelli Hawkins:

That is awesome. I love that y’all have it down to a process. We are all on a journey and we’re all discovering things differently, whether it’s in business or whether it’s in our own life. Right. It can be life lessons that we learn. It can be processes that we bring to the business that are good and bad. There are a large amount of towers out there that are dispatching using pen and paper I should say. There are folks that are just incredibly, everything is digitally advanced and some people, it’s all about your comfort level.

Susan, I love that you just said what you did about there is a comfort level, having things printed out in paper and to make that change, and I don’t want to say to finally make the change over to digital, to finally do whatever. No. To make a change, to bring efficiencies to the business, you’ve got to give it a test. You can’t just jump in headfirst and say, “Boom, we’re going to go whole hog on this.” You’ve got to give it a test and see how it works. Susan, when you sent that letter for the first time and saw everything that came back, talk about how excited you were about that.

Susan Shelly:

Oh, it was amazing. I can tell you, because I didn’t even have to, just a push of a button and I was finished. It was nice. Used to it was 10 steps to even get one letter out. Now it’s just push of a button. I want to say these girls at TowLien, ladies, I’m sorry, these ladies, they are very, very helpful and knowledgeable. There’s never been a time that I didn’t call Jen and she didn’t have an answer. They are a big help.

Jen Olinde:

Thank you, Susan.

Susan Shelly:

You’re very welcome.

Rhonda Golemon:

Absolutely, I agree.

Shelli Hawkins:

That is awesome. Jennifer Olinde is the [expert] with our friend Dan, also here at TowLien and Traxero. Between these two folks, they know pretty much every single lien process in every single state. Is that safe to say, Jen?

Jen Olinde:

I would say that is safe to say, and I can tell you that if Dan or myself do not know the answer to a question that is posed to us, I’ve been known as the research queen. If there’s anything that I cannot answer for you, I can assure you that I will get you the answer ASAP.

Shelli Hawkins:

You’re like-

Rhonda Golemon:

She will.

Susan Shelly:

She will. That’s true. Yes.

Shelli Hawkins:

I love it.

Laura Dolan:

I can attest to that too, actually.

Jen Olinde:

Thank you.

Shelli Hawkins:

I’m going to ask you- Go ahead.

Jen Olinde:

I was going to say, it can’t go without saying I can’t not give some props to my support team, Kailyn and Amber, they are amazing. Amber has been in the industry as long as I have, 26 years, and she come on board with me at Beacon and Traxero from the Louisiana Towing Association. She is well-versed and knowledgeable specifically for the Louisiana laws and its process. Kailyn is our vetting specialist for all and any new signups for TowLien, she goes through to make sure that those companies are eligible and can obtain the information via TowLien that we are held to require that they meet the federal DPPA requirements for that eligibility. There’s a process, but I couldn’t do it without the ladies that work here.

Shelli Hawkins:

I love that. It’s all about the support. It’s all about sharing the knowledge. I think that our whole team is just like you said, if we don’t know it, we are one degree away from finding somebody who does know it real fast.

Jen Olinde:

That’s right.

Shelli Hawkins:

I’m going to ask you a really big question, Jen Olinde, and it’s probably going to take you about 300 years to answer it, but I’m going to ask you to keep your answer to about 30 seconds. No, I’m joking.

Laura Dolan:

No pressure.

Shelli Hawkins:

Right. When you think about all the states in the United States that’s out there, what is one of the most challenging states with the lien process? The longest process or do we have one out there or we have nailed it down?

Jen Olinde:

You’re right about 300 years.

Laura Dolan:

There’s only 50 States Jen.

Jen Olinde:

Right. Each and every state is unique in their own special different ways.

Shelli Hawkins:

I will tell you this, and again, correct me if I’m wrong, I’m just trying to recall some information that I had earlier with the conversation with a couple of towing companies in North Carolina, what you described Susan, about having to mail out a form, get something back mailed to you. It was like this dog and pony show back and forth with mail pieces. I think that North Carolina literally has recently switched to being a little bit more digital, like having an online portal for the folks there in that state. Am I off base on that one, Jen at all?

Jen Olinde:

No, you’re correct. That is our recent most new state that we have just launched in TowLien is North Carolina. Correct.

Rhonda Golemon:

Wow.

Jen Olinde:

Yes. We’re super excited about that. Then to further explain on your analogy there, Tennessee, for example, Tennessee was a state that a few years ago was still the manual process. We had a comparison to where the towers in Tennessee would have to request the information directly from their state DMV and wait months before they could get that information. Then TowLien was able to come on board and we were able to offer that to our Tennessee client base and have that instant search access readily available for them, and then to go to that next step to mail their certified letters for them. That’s night and day difference. There are a lot of states out there that are still that way, where you still have to wait weeks or months to get that information. TowLien is able to streamline and fast track that process for them and not have to wait that much time.

The ultimate goal is obviously notifying the owner and lien holders of the whereabouts of their vehicle. That’s what TowLien can do. If it’s not a state that we have an instant search access available, we do have means and ways to let you know exactly what to do in that scenario for those other states until we can bring those on board, which we are working diligently weekly to add more states.

Laura Dolan:

You also might say they accelerate the process.

Jen Olinde:

Absolutely.

Laura Dolan:

I can’t get enough of these puns y’all.

Shelli Hawkins:

Accelerate the process. I see what you did there.

Jen Olinde:

Optimize.

Laura Dolan:

Optimize, fast track.

Jen Olinde:

Optimize and streamline.

Laura Dolan:

Accelerate, execute.

Susan Shelly:

Well, I feel sorry for those states because they’re missing out. They really are.

Shelli Hawkins:

Y’all should just take some trips down there and show them what’s up.

Susan Shelly:

That’s right.

Shelli Hawkins:

Exactly. For sure.

Jen Olinde:

Not only that, one other thing just on the USPS mail side of things, outside of the DMV, TowLien also offers digital certified mailing. Some states allow it, and some customers in those allowable states aren’t aware that that is a feature that is offered. We do support the digital, what we call digital green card, which is the electronic return receipt mailing of the letters, which in Louisiana, that is a requirement for one of their notices that we support. Then other states also have that either allowance or requirement. We can also offer that support, that service as needed, which eliminates the old, if you remember the old traditional physical green card, for you to wait so patiently to be returned to you, to be returned to the sender.

Rhonda Golemon:

If it don’t get lost. Yeah.

Jen Olinde:

Right. If it doesn’t get lost, used to in the old day, you had to do a tracer tracking down that green card for that certified mail. Well, that’s what the benefit of the digital electronic return receipt certified is is that you can get an email signature letter file from the post office showing that tracking and delivery and signature information for that certified letter. TowLien does support that also, which has been a huge time saver.

Susan Shelly:

It is very easy to do too, I can say that. I was impressed with that.

Shelli Hawkins:

That’s awesome. I love it. I want to know, is there anybody on this call today that has ever gotten their car impounded?

Jen Olinde:

Yes.

Laura Dolan:

No, that’d be a negative.

Shelli Hawkins:

Who said yes?

Rhonda Golemon:

Jennifer.

Shelli Hawkins:

Jennifer Olinde what happened?

Susan Shelly:

I knew that voice.

Shelli Hawkins:

Ma’am, there’s a story here, ma’am, go ahead, ma’am.

Laura Dolan:

Spill the tea.

Rhonda Golemon:

We’re waiting.

Jen Olinde:

I’ve had a few actually impounded.

Laura Dolan:

Oh my gosh.

Jen Olinde:

Let me just say they have been from my own residence because I’ve called and needed something towed, if it was an accident or whatever the case may have been, it was here. We had it brought to our home, and I can say that we are the former owners of a 1970, what was it, ’77 wrecker, bright orange in color with the original Holmes boom on the back. Yes. That is one specific that we had removed, towed from our property. We sold it to a very dear good friend of ours that is restoring it because we owned it before the great flood of 2016 that happened here in Louisiana, and it did go under in the flood, but before the flood, my husband did get to utilize the wrecker in towing his daughter’s car. She got in a wreck. It has one tow under his belt. Yeah. We miss it but that would be one instance.

Shelli Hawkins:

You’ve had it towed, but you’ve not had it impounded like illegally parked, whatever. You’ve had it towed before.

Jen Olinde:

Yeah. I’ve towed from a wreck or an accident. Not impounded as an illegal park. No.

Shelli Hawkins:

Okay.

Rhonda Golemon:

We’ve all had our car towed, I’m sure.

Shelli Hawkins:

Oh, for sure.

Susan Shelly:

Jen, we thought you were going to give us something scandalous.

Rhonda Golemon:

Tell us a story.

Shelli Hawkins:

Some juicy, some scandals.

Susan Shelly:

Yeah. That’s what I was waiting for.

Rhonda Golemon:

Yeah, we wanted to know why.

Jen Olinde:

Come on now, you know us ladies, keep that on the DL.

Rhonda Golemon:

That’s right.

Laura Dolan:

What we do.

Rhonda Golemon:

That is right.

Shelli Hawkins:

Rhonda, you said that y’all made the decision to switch to Dispatch Anywhere Beacon in 2010. Between you and Susan I can only imagine the changes and the upgrades to the Dispatch Anywhere platform in 13 years.

Rhonda Golemon:

It was a welcome change because it was so, it made things so much better when you’re running 45 to 60 calls a day trying to do that, which we had Tracker. We weren’t doing it by hand, but the network would go down and it’s just always something. That was the other thing. You never have any downtime with it, hardly ever. I can’t think of a time that we’ve had any downtime.

Shelli Hawkins:

Yes. I want to take a moment to let everybody know that we are also what’s called SOC 2 compliant, and there is no software for the towing industry out there that has the SOC 2 compliance stamp of approval and securities on top of it, and we’re pretty proud of that.

Jen Olinde:

Absolutely.

Shelli Hawkins:

We take your security and your data seriously.

Jen Olinde:

And confidentially.

Rhonda Golemon:

Yeah. No, we set it up and you, as time goes on, you have new customers you want to add or lines to the services that you want to add, and it’s just, you can change it any time.

Shelli Hawkins:

That’s fantastic.

Rhonda Golemon:

Just make it what you need it to be.

Shelli Hawkins:

Awesome. What have we missed, ladies? Are there any other stories to be told? I appreciate y’all coming on. I’m sure Laura does too.

Susan Shelly:

I was just going to say, we have our state trooper that comes around here that’s over towing and recovery. I will say that he likes TowLien a lot. He talks about it.

Rhonda Golemon:

Oh, he loves it. Yeah, he loves it.

Shelli Hawkins:

That’s awesome.

Rhonda Golemon:

Yes. In comparison to the other methods.

Susan Shelly:

He does. He really does.

Rhonda Golemon:

It’s his preference.

Susan Shelly:

He praises TowLien.

Jen Olinde:

I love that. I appreciate that.

Laura Dolan:

That’s awesome.

Shelli Hawkins:

That was a great endorsement. Fantastic.

Jen Olinde:

Yes. What better recommendation could you have than from the regulatory authority that comes and inspects your facilities?

Rhonda Golemon:

That’s right.

Susan Shelly:

That’s right.

Shelli Hawkins:

For sure.

Susan Shelly:

He was impressed because he’s like, “Oh, you use TowLien too?” I was like, “Yes, sir.”

Rhonda Golemon:

He knows there’s no way to mess it up with TowLien.

Jen Olinde:

That’s right.

Shelli Hawkins:

That’s right. Laura, if people want to find us, where do they need to go to find us?

Laura Dolan:

Thank you, Shelli. They could find us on our website, www.traxero.com. We are also on all the socials, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and we are now on Threads. For anybody who is an Instagram user, Threads is now the newest, latest, and greatest social media platform out there basically. It’s supposed to be the new Twitter. Susan and Rhonda, I don’t know if you’re on it. Jen, I don’t know if you’re on it, but if so, please follow Traxero. We’ve actually been very active on it in the last week and a half that it’s been downloaded.

We are on YouTube. We just launched a brand new series called Feature Friday. If you look under our playlist Feature Friday, we are about five videos in. We post that once a week and it just gives you an idea of how some of our products work, some of the highlights, tips and tricks for all of our different products. I’m sure pretty soon we will have one for TowLien, Jen. Hint hint. Just kidding.

Jen Olinde:

Yes, ma’am.

Shelli Hawkins:

I love it. I love it.

Laura Dolan:

Yeah. We’re everywhere. We’re on all the socials, our website. Yes. Please follow us.

Shelli Hawkins:

Well, ladies, if anyone wants to find Bear’s Towing, what is your website? Where do they go for that?

Susan Shelly:

You can go to bearstowing.com.

Shelli Hawkins:

That’s easy enough. Yeah.

Rhonda Golemon:

Yes.

Shelli Hawkins:

You guys are out there on social media posting up everything on your recs and everything? Sometimes. Maybe.

Rhonda Golemon:

Sometimes. If we’re not too-

Susan Shelly:

Sometimes. It’s a busy world out there.

Shelli Hawkins:

Yes, ma’am. Oh, we should post this on our Facebook. That’s right. Very cool.

Jen Olinde:

How many locations and where are you located?

Rhonda Golemon:

Monroe, Delhi, and Tallulah.

Jen Olinde:

Awesome.

Shelli Hawkins:

Well, I just want to say thank you all for bearing with us today. See what I did there?

Laura Dolan:

Pun.

Shelli Hawkins:

All the puns.

Rhonda Golemon:

Thank you for having us.

Shelli Hawkins:

The ladies from Bear’s Towing in the beautiful state of Louisiana and Jen Olinde also, our Jen Olinde here coming to us from the state of Louisiana. Thank you guys for hanging out with us today. It has been my pleasure. Like they say at Chick-Fil-A and Lars, I’m sure.

Rhonda Golemon:

That’s right. Thank you for having us, us.

Susan Shelly:

Yes, we enjoyed.

Shelli Hawkins:

Yeah, you bet.

Jen Olinde:

Yes.

Shelli Hawkins:

Well, you guys be safe out there and we’ll talk soon again.

Susan Shelly:

Thank you.

Rhonda Golemon:

Absolutely. Thank you.

Jen Olinde:

Thank you ladies.

Laura Dolan:

Thank you all so much.

Rhonda Golemon:

All right.

Susan Shelly:

Bye-bye.

Laura Dolan:

Until next time.

Laura Dolan:

Thank you for listening to this episode of the TRAXERO On-The-Go podcast. For more episodes, go to traxero.com/podcast and to find out more about how we can hook your towing business up with our towing management software and impound yard solutions, please visit traxero.com or go to the contact page linked at the bottom of this podcast blog.

Music by Dolly Parton. New lyrics by Laura Dolan.