April 24, 2015—During the association's open board meeting in Atlanta earlier this month, the Society of Collision Repair Specialists (SCRS) announced communication efforts on behalf of the industry to address automatic renewal terms with information service providers (IPs) AudaExplore, CCC, and Mitchell.
SCRS said it has fielded concerns from a number of its members in varying areas of the country who were involved in complications surrounding the automatic renewals of their contracts.
As a result of the inquiry, AudaExplore provided a return letter advising that "beginning June 1st, 2015, all new contracts for repairers will continue to have an evergreen clause," but "subsequent renewal terms will only be for one year, regardless of the initial term length." The company also committed to apply this policy retroactively to existing client contracts on a case-by-case basis.
CCC's written response highlighted the benefits of the auto-renew feature, and pointed out existing language within their standard master license agreement where "there is a provision that provides [its] customers an opportunity to communicate their intent to not renew the agreement."
Mitchell responded via email concluding that while "there is no contracting process that will delight every customer, we believe our current approach to auto-renew at like term serves the needs of our broad and diverse customer base well with the smallest amount of service disruption possible."
SCRS said it continues to desire a solution from all three entities that would provide more automated notifications to prompt end-users prior to contract periods renewing, when the automatic renewal is in place.
