Shifting Customer Preferences, Technology, Staffing Issues Inspire Changes in Collision Repair Shops

By John Yoswick Autobody News

A Greek philosopher once said the only constant in life is change, and that certainly applies to the life of a collision repair business owner. Six shop owners shared what changes they’ve recently made within their business.

Tom Ricci, owner of Body & Paint Center in Hudson, MA, pointed to two such changes at his 21-employee business.

“I have had multiple problems with our last four or five bookkeepers. They just never seem to work out,” he said. “So I outsourced bookkeeping. It’s been almost a year now and it’s worked out, between cleaning up the last two or three years that other people made a mess of, and really making it simple moving forward. I don’t need an in-house bookkeeper anymore. It’s been a breath of fresh hair having this outsourced help.”

Ricci said he also began doing more ADAS work in-house as of last December.

“I got quite comfortable with the training and utilizing it the way we should have been utilizing it earlier,” he said. “We’re doing it now for any cars that need it, in-house. I was surprised by how much space it really does take, but we do have the space for it. We have 15,000 square feet, and not all of it was being 100% used all of the time. We started out with two managers learning how to do it. Now the production manager is training a lower-level tech that has been with us for about three years. We had moved him a couple different places in the shop, but this really struck a chord with him. He got real excited about learning how to do it.”

Changing Customer Communication

Rosann Kramer of Runway Auto in South Burlington, VT, spent 16 years working for one of the automotive paint companies before buying the shop in 2014. She said a three-month backlog of work and continued challenges with getting parts has led to some changes in customer communications.

“We are spending way more time talking to customers, explaining how long they are waiting to get their car fixed, the parts issues that everybody has, explaining rental car coverage,” Kramer said. “Previously we always told customers, ‘If possible, go through your own insurance because they’re advocating for you.’ Now it’s the opposite. If they’re a claimant, we tell them, ‘File with the other [party’s] insurer because you could be in a rental car for three to six months.’

“Another change: I used to call customers and leave them a voicemail. But a lot of people never answer their phone, don’t have voicemail set up or it’s full,” Kramer continued. “So now we do email. I let them know when they drop off their vehicle that unless something and more. I probably use the word ‘empathy’ about 10 times a day right now. Just listen to them, understand, tell them you’re on their side and that we’re doing everything we can.”

Technology-Focused Changes

Frank Rinaudo of Frank’s Accurate Body Shop in Slidell, LA, said his shop repairs 20 to 25 EVs a month, about a third of the company’s overall monthly car count.

doesn’t feel like we have enough to accomplish all the tasks we need to do daily.” Silva said she’s trying to bring in new technology to help.

“We’re using RepairLogic now to source [repair] procedures a little more efficiently,” she said. “All our technicians have a Gmail account, and we can send the link [from RepairLogic] to them and they can click on that and all the procedures are right there on their laptop. And we can attach that link into CCC. We’re no longer printing out 100 pages and rescanning those into CCC.”

Another change: “We’re also doing a lot of paint invoicing now because those paint material rates just do not cover what we’re spending,” Silva said.

Recruiting Changes

Mark Probst, owner of two Probst Auto Body shops in rural towns in Illinois, said he’s changed how he hires new technicians.

“We haven’t hired an experienced technician in, gosh, seven or eight years,” Probst said. “We decided we were going to grow them ourselves, in-house. We’ve been fairly successful at it. Right now between the two locations I think I have four full-time techs in their 20s. I’ve got two kids still in school working here part-time.” changes, I will email them once a week with an update. That does seem to be working. But it’s just a lot more time spent on the education process.”

On the opposite side of the country, Melanie Allan of Craftsman Collision in Long Beach, CA, also pointed to changes in customer communication.

“I told a customer yesterday that we left them a detailed voicemail, and got back, ‘Oh, I don’t listen to those,’” Allan said. “So we are texting everybody everything. It seems to work.”

Allan learned the business working at her father’s collision repair shop in Vancouver, Canada, first as a bookkeeper, then moving into operations, marketing and management. She now oversees a shop that employs 22 people.

She said she also is working to address other changes she’s seeing in customers.

“As much as you try to educate them, tell them that parts are often a question mark, some customers are unreasonable, even when we try to set their expectations,” she said. “We tell them there are variables. They just hit the roof. We’re seeing that more

“Our processes on intaking those vehicles has changed, and is still changing,” he said. “We got some photos and information from other shops about electric cars that arrived and looked fine one day but by the next day they were a burnt mess because of thermal runaway. Even cars that didn’t look damaged that badly. So it’s really important that we protect ourselves. We bought a thermal imaging camera so we can detect heat in the battery and monitor that in a quarantine to validate if we’re seeing an increase.”

Probst has also been able to regularly hire students from a community college about 40 miles from his shops.

Second-generation shop owner Tiffany Silva of Accurate Auto Body in Richmond, CA, said they have increased staffing the past three years to keep up with demand, but even with 25 employees, “it still

“I’ve been real happy, and at this point, there would be a lot of considerations before I would hire an experienced tech anymore,” he said. “We’ve had really good luck growing our own.”

He said he believes in getting the idea of working in the collision repair industry into students’ minds early on.

“We have kindergarteners come to our shop for field trips every year,” he said. “Last year, I talked to a class of fourth-graders. Last week, one of my managers went to talk to junior high students. I don’t think we can plant those seeds early enough. I have three teenagers at home, and so I know that many kids don’t know what they want to do. I don’t think there’s any time too early to plant those seeds.” been sold in California. The country as a whole saw 5.6% of vehicle sales as electric in 2022, which is still a huge jump from the 1% to 2% of recent years.

Incentives helped California hit the EV sales milestone more quickly than it may have without them. Electrek said $2 billion in incentives have helped the state through the years. However, few people may realize the U.S. subsidizes fossil fuels to the tune of about $650 billion annually.

In 2020, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state aims to ban new gas car sales by 2035. The EPA also brought forth new plans recently that may lead to two-thirds of all car sales in the U.S. being electric by 2032. While California and a few other states have impressed with EV adoption, there have been greater successes abroad. Norway is often considered the EV capital of the world, with few gas car sales remaining.

Meanwhile, China, home to the largest automotive market in the world, is seeing a spike in EV sales that tops most other countries. In fact, some gas cars are becoming exceedingly difficult to sell in areas of the country.

Rove To Build Full-Service EV Charging Centers in Southern California

Rove, a developer of full-service electric vehicle charging centers, confirms plans to build six locations in Southern California starting in 2023.

Rove will set a new standard in EV charging with a premium, customer-centric experience.

that includes onsite amenities. Centers will feature a market with all-natural and organic meals and grocery options, car wash, pristine restrooms, free Wi-Fi, lounge and patio.

“Fast. Safe. Reliable. These are all things EV charging should be charging centers are designed to enable the use of renewable energy. By integrating onsite solar panels and battery storage, sites will supplement the use of electricity from the grid during peak times and support more sustainable energy use.

“Nathan and his team have re-imagined the electric vehicle charging experience,” said Mark Longstreth, partner at Newlight Partners, a private investment firm that made an initial investment in Rove in 2021. “We are proud to support Rove’s continued momentum to expand charging access and accelerate the transition of our vehicle fleet to clean and renewable energy.”

Focused on fast, smart and reliable charging, each Rove will host 40 ultra-fast, direct-current fast chargers (DCFC), capable of reaching speeds up to 350 kW— making a full charge possible in as little as 15 minutes.

Unlike other stations, Rove will offer a full-service experience but isn’t. We plan to change that,” said Rove CEO and long-time EV owner Nathan McDonnell. “Our goal is to raise the bar by providing fast charging, clean amenities and onsite support. At Rove, we’re putting the customer first.”

Committed to environmental sustainability, Rove’s full-service

Rove plans to open 20 locations by 2026, starting with centers in Corona, Santa Ana and Costa Mesa, CA. For more information about Rove and its upcoming centers, visit RoveCharging.com.

Source: Rove