Is every vehicle repaired using the same process to the same standard?
Is your paperwork, billing and collections handled in a consistent manner?
The answer to these questions can have a big impact on your shop's bottom line. And the key to being able to answer "Yes" to all of the questions is – standard operating procedures or SOPs.
"It's all about reducing the variables. By reducing the variables, instantly you're going to increase your efficiencies," says Leonard Lassak of the six-shop Thoroughbred Collision Centers chain in the Seattle area.
Lassak and others who have focused on creating and implementing SOPs for their businesses say that once you understand the benefits that SOPs offer growing collision repair businesses, the process of selecting what to standardize – and how – is likely to move up on your list of priorities as a business owner.
SOPs can help a business of any size in a number of ways.
Think about any task you perform regularly, whether something at home or work. You've probably found that if you do that task in a consistent way, you make fewer mistakes, forget fewer details and, in general, complete the task more quickly. You've essentially created an SOP for that task.
The same holds true for any process at the shop. Employees who handle tasks in the same way, job after job, become more efficient at the task. Having the process standardized into a written SOP will make it easier for someone else handling that task, either when that employee is away or if that employee leaves your business and you've hired a replacement. With SOPs, the efficiency of your business becomes less dependent on specific people and more on standardized process.
SOPs also establish and communicate your expectations, the benchmarks and standards you expect employees to hit. They help ensure that every customer has a similar, positive experience with your business. They help the companies you interact with – insurance companies and vendors – know what they can expect; that's something they will appreciate just as you prefer to work with companies with which you know what to expect.
With the multitude of processes that happen daily within a shop, it can be a challenge to determine which processes would most benefit from an established SOP. A good starting point can be looking for processes that appear to be taking too long or that are resulting in too many problems — the re-dos, the re-orders, the re-works. Frequent finger pointing also indicates some processes that could benefit from SOPs.
While SOPs can focus on production matters, such as standards for daily release meetings or for how vehicles flow through the shop, some shop owners say they get the most "bang for their buck" from SOPs focused on front-office processes.
Lassak, for example, points out that a direct repair program referral doesn't necessarily equate to a sold job.
"To me, that's the perfect first SOP: How are your customers being greeted? What are your people saying on the phone? Do you have consistency in how your staff is talking to your customers?" Lassak says.
