One piece of advice I've shared with other shop owners is that if you want to get some perspective on how you're doing, visit some other shops outside your market. This summer I had an opportunity to take that a step further: seeing how the U.S. collision repair market is doing by visiting with the industry in some other countries.
I was among representatives from shops, insurers and vendors from about two dozen countries who attended the 2009 International Bodyshop Industry Symposium (IBIS) held in Berlin, Germany. Speakers at the event shared how the industry in various parts of the world is dealing with such issues as the global economic downturn, the rise in total loss vehicles, the technician shortage and environmental issues.
One of the most thought-provoking of the presentations for me came from a speaker I've heard speak in the United States: Dick Cross, CEO of CARSTAR. As IBIS organizers pointed out in his introduction, Cross brings some unique perspectives to the industry, having spent most of his career working in other fields before joining CARSTAR five years ago.
The key message he conveyed at IBIS is that trying to differentiate your shop solely on the basis of quality is probably a losing proposition. In large part because consumers – all of us – have become so busy, we tend to see more and more goods and services as roughly equal. Customers believe their vehicles will be repaired to their satisfaction at any of a number of shops.
My own experience both as a consumer and shop owner backs this up. Unless a customer specifically asks about our paint, for example, trying to convince that person that the one we use is better than another shop's isn't a good selling tool.
Cross said to win a customer, the customer must understand, trust and admire your business. Perhaps most heartening to me, he said that increasingly customers must have heard positive comments or recommendations about your business from friends, family or those they personally know and trust.
"More buyers will come to ignore and even be offended by attempts to influence their decisions that don't come from somebody already close to them," Cross said. While insurer direct repair referrals may continue to be successful in driving business to shops, what will be more influential in the future is that the shop is known in its community and is preferred in the minds of its customers.
We've begun to see, particularly among our customers in their 40s or younger, that shop brochures and radio jingles – and even insurance company referrals – are beginning to hold less sway than, for example, what they read from people in their neighborhood on "Yelp" or hear from their "Facebook friends."
To attract this growing segment of the population, we must ensure that they experience (and hear from others who have experienced) that our shop is genuinely and amazingly nicer than they've ever expected in a collision repair experience. They want to see that our decisions and values are the same ones they respect and share.
Developing that admiration begins with your company's culture, the sense that everyone within your organization "gets" and shares your values and commitment to the customer. We build trust when we demonstrate a willingness to sometimes sacrifice short-term profits to do what's right. We want customers to have to have a positive experience every time they "touch" our company, and we're focusing on that customer experience rather than trying to convince them our repair quality is better than at some other shops (even though we think it probably is).
It felt a little strange to travel 5,000 miles to hear Cross and some other speakers I've learned from in the United States. That only helped drive home the point that customer service is important no matter where you work.
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