Kyle Boyce has worked at Boyce Body Werks since he was a young boy in the industry. His father opened the shop in 1985 and now, Boyce has grown to transition into a leader of the shop.
He’s not only the general manager of Batavia, Ill., location, but also helps oversee the other location in Naperville, Ill., as well.
Boyce has worked in more than one section of the shop including paint, prepping, and the parts department; in his career, he’s worked in nine different shop positions. Today, both of his parents are taking a step back from the business and Boyce runs more than just the one location, ultimately taking on a role that oversees the finances and the shop customers.
The shop is primarily non-DRP related, he says, which helps with the consolidation occurring in the rest of the industry. Even just five years ago, the industry was different and the shop was smaller, he says. Now, there is more overhead and positions open like a designated person for scanning.
In light of the industry shifts, Boyce says his team has been working and more focused than ever before on informing the customer about the repairs. Boyce outlines what the shop does to deliver excellent customer service in every aspect of the repair.
As told to Melissa Steinken
Customer Greetings
At our shop, every customer is greeted by a customer service representative. From there, the customer’s car is taken to an estimating bay in the shop which can fit four to five cars. We have garage doors that separate the noisy area of the body shop from the area that customer waits in which makes the experience a lot more quiet and pleasant for him or her.
The north half of the building is where the body technicians, and bays and frame racks are located. The south side of the building is where our paint department is including the two paint booths, downdraft booth and more.
Customer Pay
Since we don’t focus on DRPs, we do focus on the customer-pay work as one way to get more work in the shop. We typically do more customer pay work on newer vehicles. Our technicians repair mostly Hondas, Lexuses, Toyotas and Volkswagens and take in more customer pay work when repairing smaller jobs like bumper repairs.
The smallest bumper repair like replacing the bumper cover could only cost as low as $800. I think customers are a lot more surprised that their cars are becoming cheaper to repair.
Customer Insurance
We have only one DRP at our Batavia location. We have no DRPs at the Naperville location.
In order to supplement work, the shop partners with dealerships. Not only does the shop work with dealerships to build the referral network but this also helps us with the overall quality of the repair that we’re delivering to the customer. Overall, everyone here is spending more time on the administration side in order to research OEM repair procedures and perform scans on the vehicle.
And, a lot of OEMs are doing a great job of making us aware of areas we need to focus on in the repair which helps as a smaller MSO.
Customer Community
Recently, in December 2018, we signed up to participate in the Recycled Rides program. After attending some of our business council meetings, we heard that it was a good idea to participate in the program. Right now, we typically volunteer with charities around our area and do charity work for local charities like the United Way of Illinois.
I’m also on the board for the Batavia Main Street and we’re looking to get involved even more.
Customer Market
Our Batavia shop, where I’m primarily at, is located in a suburb of Chicago, home to 30,000 people and roughly 15 minutes away from the second location in Naperville. We’re in a diverse market area.
We’ve definitely been lucky that within the past five years or so, customers have come to the shop after seeing it advertised on Facebook or simply by being referred by friends or family. Right now, we don’t have a marketing budget because we are still working through a backlog of work. I think because we’ve been focusing on customer service and participating in the community, we’ve created a positive name for ourselves.
SHOP STATS: Boyce Body Werks Location: Naperville, Ill., and Batavia, Ill. Average Monthly Car Count: 220 Staff Size: At Batavia location: 4 body technicians, 4 paint technicians, 8 in the front office Shop Size: 17,000 square feet; Annual Revenue;$6.6million (total)
