Nov. 10, 2010—The Alliance of Automotive Service Providers (AASP) board of directors awarded its Industry Improvement Grants to the Society of Collision Repair Specialists (SCRS) and AASP-Minnesota on Nov. 3.
The SCRS project, in partnership with AASP, is a research project looking at the issues of data ownership and privacy rights, according to an AASP press release_notes. The project specifically looks at how these privacy rights relate to the repair industry’s relationship with estimate information providers. SCRS and AASP hope to bring awareness to the legal and ethical issues in the industry.
AASP-Minnesota’s Get to Know Your Neighborhood Auto Repair Pro campaign raises awareness of the benefits of doing business with independently owned repair shops. The projects uses radio, websites and social media to raise awareness about the benefits of relationships with local collision repair professionals.
“Both of these grants represent what we had envisioned when we instituted the Industry Improvement Grant program,” said Rick Starbard, AASP president. “These initiatives have the potential to positively impact the collision and automotive repair industries in two key areas: addressing data privacy and ownership issues, which is an emerging concern to anyone whose data is being uploaded to third parties, and also offering AASP affiliates and their members access to a truly professional marketing program. I look forward to witnessing the results of both of these industry investments.”
The grants were awarded based on projects that demonstrate innovative and collaborative work in the industry. More grants will be awarded beginning in 2011. For more information, go to autoserviceproviders.com.