An old philosophical idea states that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. In modern literature covering the journey a business takes, plans typically are based on 5-, 7-, 10 – or 12-point step programs or whatever the “hot” business transformation process of the day is. The great issue with such multiple-step processes is that they can be difficult for any business to adopt, especially small businesses that are trying to accomplish much with limited time and resources. Collision repairers often experience additional challenges since any substantive change seem to be too expensive or time consuming. Plus, for shops trying to stay on DRP programs, taking any step away from the process that landed them on a repair program might appear a little too risky.
During a repair career that extended three decades in Texas and Arizona and included stints as a manager and owner (Peres Brothers Collision in Houston), Albert Peres took part in many efforts to transform his businesses. Most fell far short of their intentions. “I was in places that tried lean and somehow we got fatter. I tried a team-focused environment that ended up putting workers who were once friends at war with each other,” he says. “Change is hard for individuals. For a group at a shop, you end up feeling like you need some kind of magic to make it work.” Peres discovered just that magic in the later years of his career – small changes.
He explains that monumental progress at a shop isn’t always (or even often) the result of massive changes. Small, incremental changes are more likely to produce a big impact since they have a better chance of remaining in place. Further, he says the best steps come in pairs: “They represent twice the progress and send a big message.” Two small changes you make today could help your shop make big strides down the road. Consider these offered by success repairers and consultants.
Automate everything
The best places to target for change are those with the most potential for changes – those areas that can be the biggest drag on a shop’s operational efficiency. Industry consultant and advocate that shops today must perform more administration tasks than ever. “Shops have more tasks with paperwork and customer service,” he says. “Writing an estimate even takes longer than ever before. I recently helped write one that included over 92 pages of work instructions.”
Anderson says the best approach shops can take to handling this growing list of tasks is to “embrace technology.” That begins with getting more use of shop management systems that are designed specifically to automate operations. When he goes onsite to help shops, Anderson asks employees to write down every task they perform with Microsoft Word and Excel or with post-it notes. From there, he’ll help the shop identify where these tasks can be incorporated into the management system.
Peres says he adopted a similar approach after speaking to the vendor for his management system. “I just happened to mention an issue we were having with scheduling our techs during the summer and the rep said the system could do that,” he explains. “Honestly, I knew it could, but this spurred me to look at it, and we started using it. It was a small change, but one of the best we made.”
Peres notes that oftentimes shops don’t make better use of their management tools because they don’t want to invest the time or think that much of the functionality includes “nice extras” that don’t offer real benefits. They really do, he says.
Peres recommends shops speak to their vendors about training and try to incorporate at least two product features they’ve been ignoring. Along with employee scheduling, he suggests making better use of options that configure the tool’s dashboard and output such as charts. Peres worked with his staff to come up with configurations that helped them navigate the tool better and produce reports that were easier to read. He reports that as additional benefit of this change was that it encouraged employees to explore the management system further. Once they personalized it, he said, they felt more invested. Adopting additional pairs of changes became easier.
Jerome Hardesty, owner of Gulf Auto Pros in Pensacola, Fla., says his business focused on a pair of features from his system’s Customer Relation Management (CRM) option. Specifically, he began leaning heavily on online appointments and self-service check ins. “My estimators, as it turns out, were spending a lot of time chasing down leads on the phone. We found out that if we spend that time on emails, customers preferred it,” he says. “They also preferred checking their vehicles in because, one, it gave them a sense of control and, two, it helped us appear more customer service savvy since we were delivering business the way they wanted it.”
Peres says customer engagement features such as email updates and automated thank you messages too save considerable time. “They’re a great one-two punch. Personalize service is important, but it doesn’t have to mean calling or speaking face to face. Customers are busy too, and being notified in a friendly inobtrusive manner is respectful and appreciated,” he says.
Speed up
Every shop could benefit by speeding up its services. For two main reasons, many shops balk at this approach. Anderson says one is the misconception that speeding up means being less careful and skipping important steps. Peres says the other is equating speed with going lean, something he says a number of repairers simply don’t want to invest in. “They hear ‘lean’ and immediately think they have to turn their shops upside down to squeeze in a few more cars,” he explains.
Anderson notes there are a number of areas where shops can add speed. A simple one is becoming more familiar with the operation of each OEM’s repair site so techs and estimators can more easily navigate them. He says a number of videos are available from I-CAR and his company’s website (www.collisionadvice.com) that offer assistance for doing just that. He suggests using a lunch as a training session to review the Website of an OEM.
Since the subject of this article is making pairs of changes, consider two sessions a month, each on a specific OEM. Within a year, a shop using this practice could cover the majority of vehicle manufacturers and certainly all of the manufacturers it sees regularly.
Building on this idea, Anderson recommends regular training to help techs and others build their experience so they’re more familiar with repairs and can therefore work more quickly. Peres says his shop took a slightly different approach. He went back to his shop management system and identified areas where his techs struggled to stick to the allotted work hours, areas where some tech outpaced their colleagues and the most common repairs his shop performed. He would then discuss with his team the reason for any struggles and why some techs were able to work more quickly and then hold short clinics to improve performance. “We’d do two a month. Sometimes the answer to speeding up a repair was as simple as getting a tech to organize his tools or making sure a problematic part always included all the fasteners,” Peres says.
Anderson further recommends working with paint manufacturers, consultants or another repairer who can bring a second set of eyes into a shop to spot areas where processes could be sped up. Shops also can communicate more with their staffs to spot these areas – for example, by asking for two improvements a month. If you’re wondering why speed can make such a difference, Anderson reminds shops that the more quickly they work, the sooner they break even for the month. “Speed touches everything you do,” he says.
Finding a lynchpin
Obviously, making any change only matters as much as that change is truly adopted. Changes that don’t stay in place don’t offer any benefits. Shops whose staffs don’t see the benefit of a change tend to move back to their old ways. Anderson offers an effective remedy for resistance to change. Hi notes that employees often push back because they focus more of what’s lost than gained. He uses the example of a conference he took his staff to in which the trainer paired off attendees and asked them to stare directly at one another without speaking for several minutes. Next the pairs would stand back to back and then be asked to five changes to their appearance that their counterparts would have to identify once they faced each other again.
“Most people were taking off their glasses or watches or removing something,” he says. “One woman added changes. She put a pencil behind her ear and held a piece of paper.” The lesson here is that change is about gaining benefits, not losing something.
When Anderson owned his own repair business, he decided to move to work teams. Before doing so, he interviewed each tech, asking each what he’d would like to change about his job. Some wanted to work different areas so they could attend their children’s activities. Some said they needed to adjust their work times to ensure they had a steady amount of work. When Anderson introduced his new team approach, he addressed how the change would benefit each worker and help each work better and meet personal needs.
Looking further into 2020 and 2021, Anderson and others in the industry see another compelling reason to make changes. They believe that once the COVID-19 pandemic is over, quarantine-weary Americans will take to the roads for vacations, etc., creating a jump in business opportunities for repairers. Making the most of this increase will be necessary to recoup losses from this year and set the stage for growth. Prepare today by taking two small steps that can carry your shop a great distance.
