All of my life, I have loved to build models – scale model planes, cars, specialty vehicles and military models. The more intricate the detail, the more I like them. Working with a high level of detail is kind of soothing, maybe even therapeutic for me.
I would guess that many of you have similar interests, because I believe the collision industry is made up largely of people that love to do things with their hands – sort of make something out of nothing.
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Obviously, when building a model, it takes a plan, and construction follows a process. If things are not built in the right order, following the carefully laid out plan, the results will not meet expectations. I learned this lesson early, after attempting to circumvent the instructions, or veer from the plan, and build the project on my terms. A few disasters later, I learned to stick to the process.
This concept is accepted and embraced while doing these types of things, but hasn’t been so well received in the collision industry until the last five to 10 years. During that time, all of us have heard and read about process improvement. My previous articles on process improvement and standardization on the shop floor have only touched briefly on the front end of the shop, our offices. In reality, office or front-end process standardization is just as, or maybe more important, than it is in the back. Taking a potential job, an estimate, turning it into a job, getting the parts, and getting it to a tech to repair is the foundation of the job. It many times is easier to actually perform the repairs than it is to get a vehicle and paperwork to that point.
Having worked with many large organizations, I know firsthand the value of standardized office processes. In fact, I helped design and outline many of the ones in use by larger groups today. What I found while working on these projects, is that the size of the shop doesn’t matter. Even a two-car, one-man shop can benefit from process and standardization as much as a large facility. All of us follow processes every day of our lives that we have outlined through trial and error over the years to perform simple tasks more efficiently. Think about your “morning routine.” If you are like the majority of the population, you have unwittingly created a process you follow every day when you get up and get ready for work. You do the same thing every morning, having perfected the process over the years. Once in a while you experience a hiccup, but for the most part, the process works, and you get out and get to work in the required amount of time. If you didn’t follow a routine, you would probably not be on time very often, and wouldn’t be employed long.
Let’s look at a few things you should be doing in your offices to improve the overall repair experience.
The word process implies a standardized method for performing a task over and over. In a collision shop setting, that’s kind of what we do, greet the customer, get the keys and fix the car – the same thing over and over. It is fairly simple to outline a certain way of doing each step in the process geared toward the desired outcome.
There are a couple things I want to make clear: The paperwork should always be ahead of the repair, and the estimate is the driving force of the repair. Keep these two statements in mind as we progress. Also always keep in mind the processes that you create need to be committed to paper, implemented and followed on every job. You can, and should update your documented processes, and improve upon them as you learn. I call these living documents because they are always changing and improving.
Everything starts with a first impression. When outlining the process for greeting the customer, always remember to leave room for personal touches. You should however, absolutely assemble a process regarding what steps to take when a customer walks in your door. These first few seconds can assure capture or loss of a job alone.
I will tell you what I teach, but use your own imagination and thoughts when establishing the protocol. I teach my people, to stand up when a customer walks in and make eye contact. This is a simple process that shows the customer they are important. Greet them warmly, and introduce yourself. Following the greeting, begin to ask a series of questions to determine what the customer needs during their visit. From here, the process is expanded upon, and taken in detail, through the entire greeting to estimate process.
This can be lengthy, so don’t worry when assembling the detailed description if the process you design is long. At this point don’t worry if you have too much detail. You can always streamline it later on. Include everything you believe is important. Outline whose responsibility it is to handle this job. Is it your customer service rep, you, or everyone’s job? Get feedback from your employees, and work on the process together. Once it is designed, implement it and follow it religiously.
Every aspect of what happens as a job works its way through the office needs to be examined. Who writes the estimate? Who deals with the insurance people? Who updates customers with regard to status? At what interval are the updates done? Who orders parts? Who answers the phones and how? Some of this may sound simplistic, but it’s very important. I have written office standard operating procedures (SOPs) that rival a book in length, and ones that are just a few simple pages. The idea is always the same – create processes that assure everything gets done, on every job, in the proper order.
Have you ever called a restaurant and whoever answered the phone, just made you not want to go there? I have. That’s why smart restaurant managers have all their people answer the telephone in a very specific way. Collision shops need to do that as well. Outline a clear process to answer the phone, and make sure it is used every time a call comes in.
Keeping customers updated on the progress of their repair is very important. In fact, several direct repair programs are using customer contact as a measure of CSI that could potentially control work volume. This idea is not new, it’s just good business. Putting together a process where you are proactively calling customers with regard to status does several things. It allows you to make the calls when you have time, rather than attempting to answer the phone when you may be busy, and not be able to give the customer the required amount of attention. It also shows the customer you are concerned, and want to keep them in the loop regarding repair progress.
This process can be as simple as calling your customers on designated days, or can be expanded upon asking the customer, when they drop off their vehicle, how and when they would like to be contacted. In today’s electronic world, many might want to be texted, emailed, or even updated through the web. Whatever method you choose, make the process of updating customers an important part of your standardization process.
I mentioned earlier that the paperwork should always precede the repair. Simplistically, this means that as part of your process, the paper flow of the job is controlled, and certain things happen through the paper flow. Your process should include customer authorization of the repairs, the disposition of the payments, a checking of the vehicle covering old damage, current mileage and fuel levels, and a window tag identifying the vehicle be utilized. Who is responsible for distributing the job, capturing the old damage, and securing the customer authorization should all be addressed in your SOPs.
Addressing parts ordering is one of the most important aspects of standardization to focus on. Once a repair is approved, the required parts should be ordered following an outlined process. If you are utilizing a management system, this is pretty easy to do, since the system creates a record of what parts were ordered by whom and when. If you are not using a system, parts tracking can be a little trickier, but can be accomplished by creating a simple spreadsheet that notes what was ordered from what vendor and by whom. Again, creating a process and following it is the key. Doing so will make it easier to follow up on parts that have been ordered and not received.
I always preach that no parts should be ordered, in a system or manually, unless an estimate has been created containing those parts. Everything should start with the estimate, and nothing should be ordered or repaired without it first being reflected in that estimate. If you always keep this process Implemented, the paperwork will always precede the repair.
Think about it like a blueprint. If a builder simply started to build a house without following a specific plan, wrong sized wood would be ordered, dimensions would be wrong and material and time would be wasted. The same holds true in the collision industry. In addition, a vendor list should be created and followed by your staff. Make sure everyone knows who they are allowed to order from, and document the ordering process.
Putting together a comprehensive listing of everything you and your staff do daily with every repair can be a very daunting and time-consuming task. We have just touched on a handful of items in this article, and haven’t even really begun to list all the operations that they perform every day. Just thinking about assembling such a list can be enough to keep you from building one.
Don’t get discouraged and understand from the start that creating the process will be time consuming. Get together with your employees and pick their brains. Talk with other shop operators and your jobbers. Ask what works for them and what doesn’t. Several paint companies offer seminars and training on setting up office SOPs. Find out if yours does. Be prepared to spend some time on developing the process that works for you and your specific circumstances.
By all means, you can contact me for suggestions and advice via email at [email protected]. Remember, the idea of implementing processes is to assure a predictable, consistent and quality outcome. Just like building a scale model, assembling your work in an orderly process will help assure that you are building a winner.
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