Nearly four months after releasing its first public
edition of the Guide to Complete Repair Planning, the
Society of Collision Repair Specialists (SCRS)
combined the data in its guide with the estimate
"scrubbing" functionality developed for
estimatescrubber.com, a product produced by
VehicleOwnersGuide.com.
The free, digital guide offers an extensive amount of
operational reminders listed in the 800+ items. "We view
this collaborative project as the objective tool that can
identify commonly missed estimating items needed for a
complete repair blueprint, while providing common
descriptions and procedures developed by collision
repairers," shared Steven Siessman, Founder & President
of VehicleOwnersGuide.com
.
"The newly launched version of the SCRS Guide, which can
be found at www.estimatescrubber.com
, is a robust tool that
mitigates many of the deficiencies in how estimating
systems handle non-included items. Because omitted items
are not a part of the estimating system databases, their
descriptions are left up to the shop to define, making it
harder to standardize the nomenclature. Using
standardized descriptions makes it easier for individual
shops to justify non-included items in their repair
plans, by pointing to a standard description and
procedure for including items." In addition to providing
added functionality to the thousands of collision repair
shops who have been accessing the repair guide since its
initial launch, the enhanced version continues to
maintain the same open access that SCRS and
EstimateScrubber.com were both premised on with this
version of the product remaining free of charge for any
user. "The more we looked at the similarities between the
objectives of our two organizations, the more it made
sense to try and bring these two products together,"
added SCRS Chairman Aaron Clark.
"Since releasing
the original version of the Guide in April, we have
fielded numerous and ongoing stories from collision
repairers all over the country sharing the ways they've
put the information to use. This Guide was always
envisioned as a "living document" that would grow in both
information and application, and this seems like a great
logical next step to make it even more user-friendly. We
have actually already begun steps to take the combined
program to another level adding more customizable
features and profiles for shops, and we anticipate
announcing that new variation hopefully in the next few
months."
"We are very excited to be working with the SCRS to
provide a set of tools to collision repairers developed
by collision repairers independent of the estimating
system or other information provider," added Siessman.
"Many of the other review tools in the market rely on
getting a big insurance account to drive their systems to
collision repairers, often leading to multiple
estimating, communications, and auditing systems in
shops, along with the increased costs associated with
redundant systems. The web site can be used with any
estimating system using only a printed estimate and web
browser, and is free for collision repairers to use."
Perhaps most importantly, this audit service was
developed by SCRS and EstimateScrubber.com to allow
repair facilities to audit for completeness of the
estimate to the repair facilities standards, rather than
to audit for program or external KPI compliance.
It is also important for collision repair facilities to
feel confident in their use of these tools, knowing that
the information will not be used in the future to their
disadvantage. EstimateScrubber.com adheres to the SCRS
philosophy of confidentiality of repairer information and
is adamant that no information is shared with any thirrd
parties or stored in a database for further use. Our
mantra is estimate information uploaded belongs to the
repair facility, and isn't anybody else's business.
For more information on the SCRS Guide to Repair
Planning, visit the new release at www.estimatescubber.com, or our website at www.scrs.com.
