Lefler rose from humble beginnings. In 1952, Leroy Lefler, grandfather of owner and CEO Jimmy Lefler, opened Leroy’s Paint & Fender Repair in his dirt-floor garage. Lefler built a reputation throughout the tri-state area for wreck repair and racecar building. He passed this reputation, along with the skills that earned it, to his six sons. One of those, Jimmy Lefler’s father, James, incorporated the business in 1976 as Lefler Body Shop.
James continued building the business, repairing cars by day and attending to paperwork at night. Son Jimmy grew up sweeping floors, washing cars and helping repair them. In 1986, he assumed the role of assistant manager while his father maintained a hands-on position until he semiretired in 1996. In 2006, James retired, and Jimmy purchased the remaining company stock.
Personality matters
Lefler earned the top spot in the contest largely because of its innovative approach to personnel management – it instituted a process to recognize its employees’ personality traits and match them to specific positions. The theory is the closer the match, the better the chance an employee will be satisfied in a position and excel in that role.
Lefler uses personality profiling, a form of occupational testing that identifies specific personality traits. Testing is done through an online program managed by a third-party vendor. To complete the process, the business began blueprinting each shop position to quantify the characteristics of its most successful staff members.
The first product of this process is Lefler’s Claims Processing Unit (CPU), which divvies up initial estimating duties between information administrators and customer service specialists.“We noticed the personalities that do best at selling work and getting the keys aren’t always the best at administrative work,” Lefler says. “Our customer service rep with the most positive customer feedback often has a desk stacked high with files to close, review and follow up on. We’ve learned that, although an employee may be commended for his excellent people skills, he may not excel at completing paperwork. Yet there are estimators who are much more administrative oriented than they are people oriented. For example, our estimator that has a perfect paperwork and insurance contract KPI ranking isn’t a people-oriented salesperson with the highest closing ratio.”
Estimators who fit into the latter group constitute the newly formed CPU, a four-member team with more than 80 years of combined industry experience. The CPU is centrally located at one site. CPU members log into each store remotely to receive all contract claims to perform all administrative work for each estimating staff, including rekeying all insurance estimates and final processing of supplements, bills, etc., for each repair order. The CPU then prints work orders, final bills and other paperwork, which it sends to the desk of the appropriate estimator or customer service rep (CSR).
With the CPU taking over these duties, the estimator/CSR concentrates on selling, upselling and following up with customers, increasing business. The setup also allows estimators/CSRs to spend more time building relationships with customers and meeting/exceeding their expectations. This translates into more satisfied customers.
The first phase of CPU implementation has produced notable results in the form of increased business (which covers the cost of the CPU) and more satisfied customers and employees. There are some kinks to work out, so Lefler will be monitoring the cost/benefit ratio of the setup closely by tracking closing ratios, average supplements collected, average repair order dollars, number of repair orders per CSR and cycle time.
CPU members and the rest of the staff will be monitoring their progress and making changes when necessary. To facilitate this, Lefler has begun installing LED signs in production areas that will continually display current cycle times and delivered sales for each location.
The initial success of the CPU is so significant Lefler is committed to using personality profiling in all other areas of his business.
“You’re always looking to fit in another piece of the puzzle,” he says. “I get a tremendous amount of satisfaction out of matching personality traits with a role where an employee can succeed and will be happy. The love of their job really comes through in their performance.”
Locking into lean
Along with helping increase revenue and transform the company’s employee culture, CPU supports the company’s transition to a lean process operation. In January, the management team began studying what a lean process would look like at its newest shop on Maxwell Avenue. Management attended classes on 5S lean principles and introduced lean training for employees. From there, the company began discussing and evaluating processes with employees in each work area and assembled standard operating procedures. When it formalized its lean plan in March, Lefler held a kick-off party introducing Maxwell the pig, a plastic figure that serves as the business’s lean mascot.
When a vehicle rolls into a Lefler location, it’s washed, photographed, completely torn down and blueprinted. If needed, the estimator, technician, painter and mechanic create a repair plan. If there are special requests/concerns or sublet repairs, an employee writes them on the driver door glass so each task may be crossed off as it’s completed.
Only then is an estimate prepared and e-mailed to the CPU whose job is to eliminate any time-costing mistakes. CPU reviews the estimate, verifying photos and making any correction to vehicle information or adding notes to ensure the estimate conforms to the DRP requirements (if different from the Lefler company standard). The CPU uploads the estimate for insurer approval. Once the estimate is approved, the CPU prints the work orders and e-mails the appropriate service rep the shop has been authorized to start along with the ETA on parts and any other necessary information.
Once the repair work begins, it uses the island of excellence, a version of a perfect stall, which conforms to 5S methodology in which employees won’t need to take more than five steps in any one direction to access tools or any other necessary equipment. Instead of packing bays with large tool boxes, workers use mobile tool trays stocked with the necessary tools that can be located easily.
The lean operation model reduced cycle time from 10.2 to 7.3 days. It also decreased the number of redo vehicles from eight in 90 days while fully engaging all team members in its lean process.
Community support
Even with the significant internal changes Lefler made this year, it still found time to maintain and even increase its community outreach campaigns. This year, Lefler was awarded a grant and designation as Tennessee’s only nonhospital permanent child passenger fitting station. Employees who became certified as child passenger technicians install car seats for the community and provide new free car seats for those who can’t afford one. The car seat and safety staff also joined forces with a nonprofit organization, Early Childhood Learning Center, to teach safety and injury prevention classes to expecting parents monthly.The company maintains efforts to protect and reach out to teen drivers by partnering with a local hospital to offer quarterly teen driving seminars that touch on topics including what to do when involved in a crash and identification of vehicle safety features. As part of the seminars, Lefler deploys airbags to demonstrate the force at which they explode. The program features rotating speakers from local insurance agencies who speak about teen insurance coverage, the least expensive vehicles to insure and related topics. A police officer presents graphic videos about crashes, reviews new laws pertaining to texting and cell phone use while driving and driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol. To help drive participation, the company provides attendees with accident kits to keep in their cars, along with oil change certificates and drawings for iPods, gas cards and other prizes.
Additionally, the company encourages parents to bring in any vehicle they’re contemplating purchasing for a free prepurchase inspection. The Boy Scouts of America were so impressed with the program, it requested Lefler to offer the class regionally.
The company also remains engaged with antidrug programs. It has partnered with the local sheriff’s office and created a DARE car using a 2008 Ford Mustang confiscated from a drug dealer. The Mustang won the Indiana State DARE vehicle award and the Tri-State Mustang Club people’s choice award. The company also converted a 2008 Hummer into a fully functioning police DARE unit.
“We recognize that knowledge is power,” Lefler says. “We understand the loss of control people feel when they have an issue with their vehicle, so we developed a class we called ladies night with food, giveaways and education about vehicle maintenance.”
The class explains the ins and outs of maintenance and safety to empower attendees and prepare them to make important decisions when they have vehicle problems, are involved in a crash or have their vehicles serviced. The class has been successful and interesting enough that Lefler has had to close registrations earlier than expected and increase the frequency of the class.
Employees and patients of local trauma centers may soon be benefitting from their relationship with the business. Lefler served as guest speaker about customer service and team building for emergency room staffs and the hospital management teams. Attendees who had been to his shop were impressed with the customer service and requested information about establishing consistency of customer focus at different locations. Lefler wants to expand the program to other organizations.
This year, the company began reaching out to help the international community in a nation in Southeast Asia where high unemployment in Myanmar, reaching a rate of 70 percent, has left families unable to provide for themselves. (The nation is experiencing political turmoil that could endanger efforts to help its people so Lefler asked that it not be named.) Many children are homeless and vulnerable to crimes. The company has joined forces with Uncharted International to maintain to help build orphanage.
Calling on their business background, Lefler is chairing the business development and microfinance initiatives to assist villagers and orphanage graduates to raise themselves out of poverty. With Uncharted International’s help, seven orphanages have been built and 500 children have been taken care of. One of the orphanages has started offering college classes.
“Microfinancing, giving out small loans, is the best way to help,” he says. “These people don’t want a handout. They only want help. This is a country where the annual wage is $160, so a loan of $50 to start a business is an enormous help.”
The company’s charitable and community commitments would be a full-time job on their own for many businesses, but Lefler plans to expand community outreach. For example, demand for the ladies night classes has increased to the point where more classes have been added. He’s started similar classes for senior citizens to help them make more informed repair decisions.
