June 1, 2015—CARSTAR Auto Body Repair Experts announced Friday that it will now offer its own unique take on an MBA program—called “Masters in Bodyshop Administration”—exclusively to body shop owners in its network.

The program will focus on teaching leading business practices and financial management through its proprietary EDGE Performance (EPG) training program.

The EPG program is in its second year and has helped many stores achieve the industry’s highest KPIs. For 2015, the CARSTAR operations team has expanded its EDGE Performance Group platform, with the goal of continuing to improve the CARSTAR CCC initiative, which is closing ratio, cycle time, and CSI/NPS scoring.

“As the collision repair industry consolidates and becomes more sophisticated, our store owners are tasked with becoming better business operators to meet the industry’s performance demands,” said David Byers, CEO of CARSTAR Auto Body Repair Experts.  “We’ve combined the business management principles taught in most business schools with an industry focused curriculum that addresses the unique financial, consumer satisfaction and performance metrics of the collision repair industry.  As the industry’s largest MSO network, we want to have the best operators, and can provide them the most advanced training and resources to run their businesses.”

Many CARSTAR locations have repeatedly received a Net Promoter Score (NPS) of over 90 percent, exceeding the industry average of 79 perfect. CARSTAR is working to uphold those numbers while also focusing on length of rental as measured by insurance companies. With an understanding that insurance companies are looking to drive down car rental costs while improving customer satisfaction, another goal of the EDGE Performance Group is to help stores reduce their length of rental (LOR).

New additions to the EDGE Performance Group include more substantial content in each tier of the program, a new tier 5 focused on technical competence around aluminum, the addition of operational performance groups (OPGs), that will be held regionally to support GM training, and new market performance groups (MPGs).

The most recent event was held at CARSTAR’s R&D Center in CARSTAR Metcalf in Stilwell, Kan. The CARSTAR operations team and its partners from 3M, BASF, Matrix 1, AE Tools and Worth joined together to lead training sessions including:

• Disassembly for repair
• Vehicle mapping
• Stock parts management
• Parts cart management
• Vehicle pre-measurement
• Vehicle pre-repair diagnostics

CARSTAR hosts EDGE Performance Groups three times per year in strategic areas throughout the country.