Are your front office paperwork and procedures as organized and streamlined as they could be? For most of us shop owners, the true answer is probably “No.” While I think our shop’s forms and office procedures are pretty good, I always see ways we could improve them.
That’s why when ABRN first asked me about writing some articles on shop operations, I was a little hesitant. After all, there are people who’ve been in the industry longer than I have, although I grew up in my parents’ shop and bought the business from my father in 1989. And there are other shops with far more employees (we have eight) and much higher volume (our annual sales are about $1 million).
Nonetheless, because I didn’t start out in this business fixing cars, I’ve put more of an emphasis than some shop owners on creating front office forms and procedures that really work. I can’t show a technician how to fix a car faster, nor am I necessarily a master of marketing. But I may be able to offer some tips and techniques that can streamline your shop’s paperwork and reduce the problems that can occur if your office is not as organized as it should be.
Throughout the coming months, I’ll walk you through the paperwork and processes we use, from greeting the customer, to ordering and handling parts, making sure technicians and office personnel have the information they need at hand, and making sure we complete and document the job in a way that makes the customer, the insurer and our accountant happy.
Will every process and form we use work for your shop? Probably not, particularly if your shop is much larger or smaller than ours. But if there’s a particular part of the front office procedures that are a frequent stumbling block in your shop, something we’re doing may help.
I’m convinced the only way to succeed in this business is to learn from other shop owners, whether at an association meeting, a class at NACE, or through a business group or shop network. You take the ideas you hear and try to use them or improve them. Hopefully something you read in these columns will give you at least one or two ideas you can use—and maybe improve on—in your business.
The idea, for instance, of using a form to gather some basic information about a customer when he or she comes into your shop is certainly not a new one. We’ve been using an information form since I first saw one at an ARMS workshop back in the 1980s.
A number of different customer information sheets are available through the form companies that focus on the collision repair industry. These forms can help you collect all the customer data you need, including all the ways you can reach that customer (home, work and cell numbers, e-mail, etc.), vehicle data, accident and insurer information (date of loss, which insurer is paying, claim number, etc.), and useful marketing information (how customers heard about your shop).
We chose to develop our own customer information form (see bottom left) for a number of reasons. First, rather than interviewing each customer and filling out the form for them, we ask them to fill it out. Because of this, we wanted a form that didn’t look overly long or intimidating and that was clear and quick to complete. We also wanted a form that can be used in other ways. For example:
- Our form is set up horizontally (landscape). Once completed, it becomes the sheet placed in the front of our clear plastic job file jacket. Without pulling anything out of that reusable jacket, we can see all the customer, vehicle and insurer information for that job.
- The bottom half of our customer information sheet includes our repair authorization form, as well as a place for the customer to sign a power of attorney and to authorize the insurer to pay us directly. This gives us all the customer and vehicle information and customer authorizations all on one sheet.
- The back of our form is set up for the estimator to use for his notes while looking at the car prior to writing the estimate. We’ve continued to change the form to make it quicker to use while also prompting the estimator to get all the information needed.
It includes, for example, a list of about 30 vehicle options, which the estimator can quickly circle if they apply to the vehicle. There’s a place for the paint code, license number, vehicle production date and VIN, mileage, interior trim code and color, and stripe code and color. If digital photos are shot, there’s a place to record photo card numbers.
Most shops collect all the data, signatures and other details we gather on this form, but they may have it scattered in various places. We’ve found that collecting it all on one, two-sided form reduces the amount of paperwork for the customer and for us, and gives us a one-page reference with nearly all the information we need. And so will you.
