A thriving “shop local” movement is humming within the West Nashville neighborhood that’s home to the Whaley Paint & Body Shop, and residents nearby and throughout the Music City are very much in tune with patronizing the independent enterprise.
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At a glance: Whaley Paint & Body Shop Inc. |
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Nashville, Tenn. Location |
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Linda Whaley Owner |
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1 Number of shops |
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58 Years in business |
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4 Number of DRPs |
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20,000 Square footage |
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19 Number of employees |
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13 Number of bays |
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2.8 days Average cycle time |
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$1,829 Average repair order |
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$80,000 Average weekly income |
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40-50 Number of customer vehicles per week |
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$3.6 million Annual gross revenue |
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AkzoNobel Paint supplier |
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Kansas Jack Frame machines used |
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CCC One Estimating system used |
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www.whaleybodyshop.com Website |
“I have an up-and-coming, informed Yuppie crowd here,” reports owner Linda Whaley, reflecting on her efforts to challenge a proliferation of MSO locations and leverage a lucrative demographic. Potential customers do their research, read the positive online reviews, and “they’ll go to a homegrown business before they’ll go to a chain.”
Citing a widely held belief that women “are a little attuned to detail,” she elaborates that “when they find out we’re woman-owned they’re even more eager” to bring their wrecked vehicles into the 20,000-square-foot Alabama Avenue shop.
Although the Middle Tennessee region’s insurance carriers tend to be mindful about avoiding any semblance of steering, “If the customer asks they’ll say, ‘This is not a chain and this is a local company.’ And the customer will say, ‘That’s a no-brainer.’”
With weekly car counts of 40 to 50 vehicles and annual gross revenues of $3.6 million, Whaley’s has implemented an ongoing lean production program to boost shop floor efficiencies and deliver word-of-mouth-worthy customer satisfaction rates.
“It makes you a better shop when you have standard operating procedures and you have a set way of doing things,” Whaley points out.
“We are a very lean operation that approaches service as a cooperative process. We understand it starts with the first initial call to the pickup of the vehicle, and that all pieces of this process are connected and need to be supported,” she explains. “Following our standard operation procedures 100 percent of the time is our goal – from teardown to blueprinting to ordering and mirroring parts – which keeps our jobs on track and gets us to our main goal of meeting our delivery promise date.”
Established 58 years ago, the shop’s footprint and structure is “landlocked” with no room for expansion, a situation that mandates precise engineering of the production practices to keep pace with the competition.
“It’s all about volumes, so you have to learn to be more efficient to get more vehicles through,” says Whaley, stressing the benefits of being a lean operation. Consultant David Luehr of Elite Body Shop Solutions was enlisted via mutual friends in the industry to assist in developing the various techniques.
“It was an old family business,” Luehr recounts, “and before we dove into ‘process’ a whole lot we wanted to make sure we did some leadership development with her and her management team. She inspired me, so it was a fun project to work on.”
“I embraced it,” says Whaley of her lean journey. “I am passionate about the collision repair business. I have a strong work ethic and I feel like we have a highly skilled and qualified team of collision repair staff and support staff.”
The workforce is stable. “I retain my employees; I pay them better and I have a good crew.” When an opening does become available, careful attention is directed towards interviewing the candidate to ensure that he or she is a good fit with the company culture. “I like to hire people who haven’t been jumping around from one job to the next.” Another aspect involves determining if the recruit lives within close proximity to the neighborhood or is relaxed about bumper-to-bumper driving. Whaley says Nashville’s traffic is so congested that commuters can easily become frustrated with their work lives if they start the day in a fuming mood.
Whaley places significant importance on maintaining a happy and pleasant atmosphere, believing that it has direct impact on getting the job done correctly, pleasing the clientele, attracting repeat business and encouraging referrals to friends and relatives.
“We are a family owned and operated shop that emphasizes a family culture producing a quality product, fair price and exceptional service. We’ll meet with you and learn about the history of your car. Our technicians will then prepare a detailed estimate of what they will do to restore your car to pre-accident condition,” she says.
“We feel our reputation speaks for itself. Satisfied customers are our best marketing tool. I don’t do a lot of advertising at all. We are still ‘old school,’” says Whaley. “Each customer gets a hand-written thank you note from me, the owner, along with a few little surprises reminding them of their Whaley experience.”
“As a small business owner myself trying to attain a ‘WOW’ experience with my clients, I was duly impressed,” observes pleased patron M. Stinson of Nashville. “I expect excellent body work. What I didn’t expect was the unbelievable service that went with it.”
Nashville resident N. Parsons is another enthusiastic online reviewer: “Your people genuinely care about doing the job right the first time. You work quickly and carefully. Looking at my car now, you couldn’t tell that anything was ever wrong with it.”
The entire staff “always goes the extra mile to make sure your vehicle looks factory new,” according to Whaley. “Many body shops today skip some of the final detailing services like wet-sanding and buffing, but not us. Our experience shows in your results.”
Much attention is directed towards “delivering an experience and product that meets or exceeds the expectations of the customer – we treat their vehicle with the love and care that we treat our own vehicles with,” she says. “We have an open-door philosophy, and that means we stand behind what we write, repair and promise as we follow all guidelines, policies, procedures and protocol.”
Doing the dance
The business was established in 1958 by a partnership that included John Thomas “JT” Whaley, who went on to become Linda Whaley’s father-in-law. Having married into the operation in 1980, in 1982 JT retired and passed the business along to the second generation. “I worked with and assisted my husband during his first independent operational years,” and after leaving the collision industry for several years Linda returned and purchased the business in 2011 to become the primary owner and operator.
“JT’s business reputation was to give you a quality product for a fair price. He was known not only for providing a quality product, but he would go that extra mile for a customer in need. JT was my first mentor, and as I have taken ownership of this business I feel I have been able to continue his tradition,” says Whaley.
“I was familiar with the industry and nuances,” she continues, but upon coming back from her hiatus she was a bit taken aback by the complexities of “doing the dance that you do” with insurance carriers.
Although “our insurance providers are key to the whole process; we are in the process together,” wrinkles in the relationships still surface.
If the insurance company doesn’t budge, often citing the wording in the driver’s policy, “we try to fill in the customer” on the available avenues such as self-paying or pursuing an acceptable remedy up through the insurer’s chain of command. “It’s not an easy process, but if the customer raises enough Cain… Well, they want a happy customer too.”
Maintaining win-win transactions with suppliers is an equally important goal. “Since we approach our repair process as a collaborative relationship with multiple moving pieces, our parts and materials vendors are essential and a very important key to our success of the repair process,” she explains. “These providers are part of our family and we treat them as such. You have to give respect to get respect: Open communication, following standard operational procedures, and we say thank you. They are key in helping us meet our promise to our customer.”
Whaley goes on to extol the value of bringing consultant David Luehr on board, a necessity that became apparent as she reviewed the shop’s internal operations and the looming presence of chain-based competitors.
“It wasn’t uncommon to have a car sit here for a couple of weeks without a wrench being turned,” Whaley recalls. “I needed to be more lean with less interruptions and to be more efficient.” Luehr’s arrival and his collaborative guidance in the lean towards lean has resulted in an average cycle time of just 2.8 days.
That’s not to say that the implementation process didn’t meet with initial reluctance among some of the technicians. “They were skeptical at first, but it didn’t take them long to realize that it starts with the blueprinting and being prepared,” she notes. “It’s like a surgeon doing heart surgery; you want the doctor to be prepared before starting the operation.”
