Your Friends at Downing Street

All businesses like to talk about core values. Talk, as they say, is cheap. Actions speak volumes. Running any business consistently on values is a difficult challenge, especially in tightly competitive fields such as auto repair. 

This is where Denver's Downing Street Garage plays a special role. The shop strives to be a model of how values and ethics create business success.

When owner Douglass Kirchdorfer started the business in 1984, he did so with the most modest of means and noble of aspirations. He opened a two-car garage behind a rented house on the premise that people would gladly pay to have someone repair their vehicle honestly. In 1999 he purchased the Downing Street location. Not long after, the local community, indeed the state, took notice of the values his shop subscribed to. 

In 2003, Downing Street won the Denver/ Boulder Better Business Bureau Torch Award for Market Place Ethics. In 2004, the shop won the Colorado Business in Ethics Alliance Award. That same year, Downing Street picked up the International Better Business Bureau Torch Award for Marketplace Ethics. Kirchdorfer credits these honors with pushing sales up more than 30 percent in the past three years. 

These ethics are at the base of service aimed at informing customers before and after a repair. Downing Street uses manuals and visual aids to educate customers on repairs and maintenance. They also use highly detailed invoices that allow customers to understand what the repair process involved. Additionally, the shop provides value to a repair with offers of seasonal discounts and specials, along with discounts on parts and services worked out with its vendors.

After the sale, the shop maintains contact with follow-up calls, thank you cards and service reminders. Downing Street makes special efforts to reach out to customers on a more human level as well. The shop sends gift baskets and cards to customers and their relatives when they purchase a new home, are admitted to a hospital or experience any other happy or not-so-happy events.

To help ensure this humanitarian attitude exudes through the business, Downing Street stresses ethics and values for its employees. The shop "hires on attitude" and "trains for aptitude," says Kirchdorfer. 

Contributions made by Downing Street employees to their community provide a window into the type of attitude the shop hires. Several years ago, employees offered to help build a house for Denver Habitat for Humanity but were turned down because Habitat already had too many volunteers. 

They took their good will to another charity, the Brent Ely foundation, a non-profit that provides low-cost housing for families with sick children. Downing Street maintains vehicles for the charity and also offers discounts to clients and volunteers of the organization. Shop employees donate to Safehouse Denver, a battered women's shelter, and the American Red Cross. They also spearhead efforts to collect used cell phones and donations for AMEND, a program aimed at ending domestic violence.

Kirchdorfer has set up an open book management policy to help employees take similar lead roles at the business. With open book management, a business opens its books to employees, giving them a complete financial picture of a business. "They see how their contributions affect the business," says Kirchdorfer. Employees then offer ideas to help build profits, some of which go to a pooled fund that treats workers to recreational outings.

Kirchdorfer says the policy serves a more important function: "It lets employees see how values pay off. They see the benefits of treating customers right."

- By Tim Sramcik