Auto Hound

Jan. 1, 2020
One company that has devised some particularly creative ways of retaining customer mind-share is Auto Hound Collision Center of Seattle.

Filling the building with customers

Repeat business and referrals from previous customers are critical for auto body repair shops. But because most customers have accidents only a few times in their lives, making sure they don’t forget about you can be challenging.

One company that has devised some particularly creative ways of retaining customer mind-share is Auto Hound Collision Center of Seattle. In addition to body repairs, the company provides mechanical repairs on tires, locks and brakes, and offers alignments and oil changes. “It keeps the customers coming back,” says Auto Hound CEO Wiesje Baskerville.

Baskerville and her husband Dee, president of Auto Hound, made the decision to start handling mechanical repairs in 2002 after they moved from their previous location, also in downtown Seattle. The only space they could find was in a building that had been empty for two years while it was renovated—and at 26,000 sq. ft., the new space was more than five times the size of Auto Hound’s previous location. But the Baskervilles saw tremendous opportunity in the location, which was on a busy corner. In addition to using the extra space to expand into the mechanical repair business, the couple purchased a detailing company and arranged a deal with the building owner to act as the property manager. By doing this, they could help ensure that the building’s additional square footage would be filled by other automotive businesses, which now include a limousine company and a company that installs sunroofs and convertible tops.

“We try to meet the needs of consumers by putting all of this under one roof for their convenience,” says Baskerville. The businesses involved benefit by exchanging referrals and from being able to subcontract for each other’s services without having to transport vehicles across town. Also, each time customers visit any business in the building, they are reminded of the Auto Hound name.

The Baskervilles also keep their name in front of people through a variety of seminars. A seminar that teaches customers how to do their own auto detailing has been particularly well received. Although such a seminar might seem to jeopardize the company’s own detailing revenues, Baskerville sees it as a complement to Auto Hound’s detailing service. “Some people can only afford to have their car detailed a couple of times a year,” she says. “By doing it on their own in between, they feel empowered.”

Auto Hound recently conducted several focus groups with an eye toward defining seminars they could run to help support their mechanical repair business. In focus groups with professional women, the Baskervilles got ideas for some car care seminars that they plan to implement in 2005. “The focus groups taught us a lot about what their expectations were—and some of their needs were so simple, but have been overlooked,” says Baskerville. For example, women in the focus groups said they wanted someone to help them be accountable to their vehicles. Based on that input, Auto Hound will implement a program that will provide customers with e-mail reminders when they are due for an oil change or other routine maintenance.

Dee and Wiesje Baskerville met while they were both attending college. He was studying industrial design and she was studying interior design. It was the early 1990s—and at that time, paintless dent repair was just starting to catch on. It seemed like a natural fit for Dee, who had always had a passion for cars, to earn some money by purchasing paintless dent repair equipment. The equipment could easily be transported from one location to another and used to handle small jobs for local dealers and private retail customers. “Dealers took a liking to it and wanted him to do larger jobs,” says Wiesje.

But doing larger jobs sometimes required that a vehicle be left overnight—and although Dee was able to use friends’ repair shops after hours, it eventually got to the point where he needed his own place. As a result, the Baskervilles opened Auto Hound Collision in 1991. The name came from the fact their last name resembles that of the animal from the Sherlock Holmes story—and from Dee’s tenaciousness in pursuing clients. “I guess you could say he used to go hounding for work,” jokes Wiesje. In time, the shop was so successful Dee never did pursue a career in industrial design.

The move to the larger location gave Auto Hound its biggest revenue jump. “It was the hardest and best move we ever made,” says Wiesje. “We grew almost too fast.” At one point, she says, rapid growth made it difficult to accurately gauge the company’s profit picture.

Today, however, the company keeps close track of its earnings and expenses. It recently brought in a consulting firm to help streamline office procedures with the goal of saving costs and reducing processing time. It is researching the possibility of using laptops to enable estimators to write an estimate at the time they are looking at a vehicle—and also has made the bold move of charging some people for estimates. “We qualify customers by asking them, ‘Are you going to have Auto Hound repair your vehicle?’” says Wiesje. If they say they are just going to pocket a check from their insurance company, the estimator tells them, “We have to charge you $25 for our time”—a fee that many people happily pay, Wiesje says.

Auto Hound’s creativity and its focus on retaining customers hasn’t gone unnoticed in the industry. In October 2004 the company was recognized as one of four best collision businesses of the year by the Assured Performance Network, an advocate and business development organization for the independent collision repair business. Auto Hound’s award was in the service provider and marketing category, where it was honored for excellent customer retention and diversified service programs.

SNAPSHOP
Name: Auto Hound Collision Center
Location: Seattle
Size: 26,000 sq. ft.
Employees: 20
Volume: 200-225 repairs per month
Revenues: $2.2 million-$2.5 million annually

About the Author

Joan Engebretson

Engebretson is a former editor-in-chief of America's Network. She has covered the communications industry since 1993. In 2002, she won a national gold award from the American Society of Business Publication Editors for her columns. Previously, Engebretson was the editor of Telecom Investor, a supplement toAmerica's Network.

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