Kia Downtown Los Angeles��

from August 2021 West Edition

Maita Chevrolet��

The global semiconductor microchip shortage has been impacting vehicle manufacturing for the past year, but as the shortage persists, some experts anticipate its effects could be felt by the collision and automotive repair industries in the second half of 2021, potentially causing delays in cycle time as replacement parts become less available.

Although collision repairers cannot control disruptions in supply, Jade Terreberry, director of dealer sales analytics at Cox Automotive, offered “7 Strategies for Navigating the Chip Shortage” during a recent educational webinar, presented by Autotrader and Automotive News’ PowerTraining.

Moderator Terry Kosdrosky, audience engagement and social media editor for Automotive News, welcomed attendees and introduced Terreberry, who promised to identify “opportunities in areas where you can focus in the coming months to drive strategy, precision and accuracy to meet your goals. We’re going to cover seven very specific strategies, but the message is bigger than that.”

Identifying the cause of the microchip shortage as “continued aftershocks of the pandemic,” Terreberry said, “A year ago, we couldn’t say how big this supply and demand imbalance situation would become, but we also know this industry is tough, and it’s gritty, and it’s smart, and we always use technology to change, adjust and really catapult us into the future.

“If you think about the disruptions [in the past] that created global supply chain issues, we always make it through,” Terreberry said. “Not only do we make it through--in this industry, disruption is truly the catalyst that helps us change and find better ways to be more efficient and smarter to meet our consumers’ needs in better ways to ensure that we have a multi-pronged revenue stream approach to our businesses[…] We’re going to talk about driving our business into the future.”

Before exploring the strategies, Terreberry emphasized the importance of auto body shop owners understanding the market, where their business is today and where they want to be in the future. Shops only want three things: to make more money, to sell more orders and to create loyal, lifetime customers, and every action taken by the business should be designed to drive those direct outcomes. It’s easy to “get caught up in a lot of the minutiae of feeling like we are doing things to move the needle within our business, but if we can’t measure how it drives those direct outcomes, we cannot be focused on it today,” Terreberry said. “We have to stay focused on our goals.”

Acknowledging the disruption varies by industry segment, Terreberry insisted each impacted segment requires a specific strategy.

“We have to be efficient with the dollars we spend, we have to be extraordinarily careful and we have to understand what’s working and what’s not,” she said. “Ultimately, the market is different by the day, and consumer demand is also different. We know that these supply chain constraints are out of our control, but we have to focus on some of the things that are in our control for us to be able to close the gap and just focus on our market share. Supply chain constraints are out of our control, but how we handle them isn’t.”

Terreberry offered several strategies for dealing with the microchip shortage that body shops may find useful.

“Not all personalization is created equal. You cannot be everywhere all the time. This is quality over quantity messaging,” she said. “We believe our clients understand data, want to use data and want to be as efficient as they possibly can. So, we really started focusing on growing this audience.

“Our biggest competitive differentiator is the amount of data we have and our ability to […] be able to translate that into a consumer experience, and into consumer advertising that captures those folks at the right place in the funnel, drives them back to our experiences, gives them the ability to navigate through those and then gives you the ability to work quality leads and spend your time doing quality things is more important than ever.”

Shops that want to make more sales, increase profitability and establish a loyal customer base should “measure everything to be efficient with your time and your money,” Terreberry said. This means

“keeping your funnels full, but using technology to your advantage and being laser-focused. For those of you that have used reporting, whether that’s in your CRM or whether that is in Envision, or within a third-party data aggregator’s tools to understand what’s working or what not, I want to challenge you to take that one step further, because of the current market conditions.

“And that one step further means using the data that exists there to look in the rearview mirror, to tell a performance story or to measure an ROI equation,” she said. “Today, you have to look at so many differ-

ent things. If you’re not using that data to decision make, promote, optimize and determine where to spend your time, you’re not using the data the right way. But your competition is using it correctly, and that’s how they’re finding that edge on you, day by day.” Collision repair facilities, service shops and dealerships should also “be nimble and be aware. Consumers don’t stop wanting or needing their cars when there’s a chip shortage,” Terreberry said. “Use the full picture of everything at your fingertips to make decisions. Be laJade Terreberry ser-focused with your time, and plan your work.” Terreberry offered additional advice to dealerships related to streamlining inventory acquisition to disposal strategy, reimagining certified pre-owned segments and extending slow-moving inventory beyond the immediate market. She also discussed the importance of focusing on fixed ops, noting, “Fixed operations [is] the most stable segment of revenue that you