If you pass by SpeeDee Oil Change in Spartanburg, you might think it’s just another faceless corporate auto franchise. But if you step inside, it won’t take long to realize that couldn’t be further from the truth.
SpeeDee Oil Change has been owned and operated by the Morrison family since 2019. Denise Morrison and her husband, Brian, had the opportunity to take a leap of faith when the previous owner wanted to sell, and offered to owner finance to help the Morrisons get their foot in the door.
“That’s what really got us going,” said Morrison. “Everything kind of fell into place from there.”
This first location lit a spark in the Morrisons, who say that everything they did at the time went back into the business. Now, they own 19 franchise locations, spanning from Greenville all the way to High Point, North Carolina.
“We are a franchise of Full Speed Automotive, and they have both SpeeDee and Grease Monkey brands, so that’s what we have. We were one of the first ones to have both of the brands. Most people choose either the SpeeDee brand or the Grease Monkey brand, and we did both,” says Morrison.
Brian and Denise aren’t the only members of the family taking the auto world by storm. Their daughter, Jessica Bustos, has been with the business since its earliest days, doing payroll and administrative paperwork. Another of their daughters, Susan Shaw, has been with the business for nearly three years as a district manager. Morrison shares that another two of their children have come on board in the past year, working in both in-store and management positions.
“It’s pretty awesome to get to work with my kids all of the time,” says Morrison. “I think my husband sometimes might get a little jealous. I get to talk to the kids all the time. He’s more out in the field, whereas I’m in the actual office, communicating with all of the different stores, so I get to talk to my kids all the time. And then Jessica has a little one who’s not in school yet, so he gets to come to work also.”
“It’s really unique,” says Bustos. “Not everyone can say they get to work side-by-side with their family. You have a special bond, where if you worked for a regular business, you’re working for someone you probably would never meet, but in this case, we’re working for our future. It’s really nice.”
And while not every member of the SpeeDee Oil Change team is related by blood, the Morrisons say that the family environment is palpable.
“A lot of our other people, they look at us as though we’re family, because they see us interacting and we are family,” says Shaw. “So it’s like we’ve built this big extended family. We have lots of brothers and sisters and uncles and aunts.”
It’s the family’s hope that this same experience extends to their customers as well. “We have a lot of repeat customers,” says Shaw, “and what I’ve learned is that people see Grease Monkey or SpeeDee and think it’s like a Chick-Fil-A or a McDonald’s, that we’re a corporate business. It actually helps a lot to tell a customer, hey, we’re a family owned business. There is a husband and a wife and a family of children behind this business that cares about you and values you as a customer. And when people find that out, they’re like, you know what? I get to support local when I come to SpeeDee.”
“They can feel a difference when they walk in,” Bustos agrees. “It’s like a personal investment, because we’re investing back into our family.”
It’s no secret that finding the right place to have auto work done can be a challenge, especially if you don’t personally know much about cars. But at SpeeDee, the Morrison family prioritizes customer care to the utmost degree.
“We’re known for making personal recommendations and building that trust within our people so that they do trust us as individuals,” says Shaw, “because it’s like having a mom and a dad and a cousin and an aunt and an uncle, that when you come to the shop, we know you by name. We recognize you, say, hey, I haven’t seen you in a while.”
“Our motto is to always do the right thing,” says Morrison. “And that’s handing in all of our lobbies, because it matters to us. And if it doesn’t happen, we want to know about it. We go through a lot of steps to make sure we can get feedback from our customers, not only to know the good, but because we need to know the bad. That’s the only way you can improve.”
At the end of the day, the Morrisons simply love the work they do and the community they get to be a part of.
“I love serving people,” says Shaw, “and I think this is an awesome opportunity that we have a business where people come to us with their problems and we’re able to be their problem solver, to provide them with solutions. And no matter where they’re at in life, we’re just able to connect with them.”
