Custom car designer Chip Foose participated in the collision repair seminar, “Building Your Cash Pay Business” Nov. 1 at SEMA. The seminar shared successful strategies about how a collision repair business can boost its bottom line by increasing customer pay business.
Foose, the star of TLC’s Overhaulin’, shared his custom car building and custom painting experiences with attendees.
The seminar was presented by Tom Hoerner, VisionPLUS program manager for BASF, and Ken Scherping, chief operating officer at LaMettry’s Collision. Bruce Adams, managing editor of Automotive Body Repair News (ABRN), moderated the seminar.
Hoerner and Scherping shared their strategies and proven tips on how to build cash pay business. They discussed the customer pay market, customer pay opportunities, marketing for customer pay, and tracking and measuring results.
“Ten years ago customer pay was less than 5 percent of total sales at most collision repair centers,” says Hoerner. “Today, it’s fairly common to see 20 percent to 25 percent of total sales from customer pay.”
Motorists taking high deductibles on their auto insurance policies, the increasing average age of vehicles, and a concern that filing a claim will increase insurance rates are some of the reasons for the growth of customer pay business. The seminar also discussed the repair option of offering partial repairs to restore vehicles to legal, safe and operational condition, an alternative to the more common repair that returns a vehicle to its 100 percent complete pre-loss condition.
LaMettry’s Collision is a multi-shop collision repair business with six stores in the Minneapolis, Minn., metropolitan area. LaMettry’s is known for its ability to identify new business opportunities and conduct plans of action to take advantage of those opportunities. The company has built its cash pay business to about 20 percent of total sales in the last few years.
The seminar presented information that was previously covered in an Oct. 26 webinar of the same title. To see the entire archived webinar, go to www.abrn.com/cashpaybusiness.
About the Author
Bruce Adams
Bruce Adams is managing editor of Aftermarket Business World magazine and content manager for the distribution channel at UBM Advanstar. He has been an editor with UBM Advanstar Automotive Group since 2007 and formerly was managing editor of ABRN, the collision repair magazine. Bruce is a veteran journalist and communications professional who worked 10 years in corporate communications and publications at The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company. He also worked as a senior editor at Babcox Publications and as a reporter and columnist for a daily newspaper in Northeast Ohio. He also is a former senior editor of Hotel & Motel Management Magazine.