Shop combines high-tech with customer-focused approach
Florida body shop owner Rene Alvarez didn’t just change jobs when he opened his own business—he changed careers. After 16 years working for the Miami Herald in everything from production to circulation, Alvarez was ready to leave the deadline-driven world of publishing and take a risk on his own automotive repair business. The move wasn’t completely unexpected—after all, his father had owned a body shop in Cuba.
Alvarez came to the United States in 1966, but he always kept a piece of his childhood with him. That reminder of his past was an old black-and-white photo of himself holding a gallon paint can in his father’s shop. At age 4 or 5, he recalls, he painted his own tricycle. So it was no surprise that he would eventually choose the same career path as his father. “It was something that I had to do somehow,” he explains.
In 1984 Alvarez opened his first business—a tiny, 375-sq.-ft. shop that operated out of another business. He hadn’t even left the Herald yet, so for a year, Alvarez juggled those two jobs, plus another. “I also worked at an advertising company until I woke up one day and asked my wife, ‘Do you know what day it is today?’ and my wife said, ‘I think you need to give up something.’ So I gave up advertising,” he explains.
Two years later, the multi-talented Alvarez opened a 5,000-sq.-ft. collision repair shop in Miami called Imperio Auto Body & Collision. (The shop is named after his childhood dog Imperio, which means “empire” in Spanish.) He also invested in a new technology that many in the business were skeptical of at the time: computers. “I like to be ahead of the game, so when nobody wanted computers, I wanted computers,” Alvarez recalls.
His ambition paid off. In 1990, he was able to open a third shop at double the former shop’s size. Alvarez equipped the 10,000-sq.-ft. auto body repair business with all the technology necessary for taking on repair work for insurance companies. He invested in frame machines, welders and one of the first electronic unibody-measuring systems. It used wires to measure a vehicle’s unibody so it could be restored precisely to its original dimensions.
In 1994, Alvarez and his wife, Debora, purchased the Miami property that is the current site of Imperio Auto Body & Collision. The site occupies nearly an acre of land, and at the heart of the thriving, $2.3 million-a-year business is a 15,000-sq.-ft. building large enough to service 29 cars at a time. The expansive lot also has space for storing 65 vehicles, with 19 additional parking spaces available in front for customers.
The business is a family affair. Alvarez serves as the shop’s general manager, with his wife as the controller. His son works in the production department.
Imperio specializes in Mazda, Acura, Volkswagen, Kia and Nissan vehicles but is equipped to handle “whatever comes in through the door,” says Alvarez. Still, he feels, specializing in certain makes allows the shop to handle vehicles quickly and efficiently. “When you work with the same car constantly, over and over, that’s how you get to see taillights more often,” Alvarez says, referring to the taillights of a restored vehicle leaving the shop. “You want to see plenty of taillights.”
Today, the state-of-the-art collision repair shop—which is ASE-certified and an I-CAR Gold Class shop—boasts laser technology, a nine-network computer system, three frame machines and seven MIG welders. The shop’s two heated paint booths, which share a downdraft-heated mixing room, make painting jobs easy and hassle-free. Imperio also features the latest technology in air compressors, which Alvarez says are better and longer-lasting than the usual piston-driven system.
Clearly Imperio Auto Body has gained from its emphasis on technology, but Alvarez is quick to point out that “you can have all the technology you want but not know how to restore a car to its original condition.” He says the shop’s 35 percent repeat customer rate shows the shop succeeds on both fronts.
Besides technology, Alvarez says, “presentation and servicing the customer” are his top priorities. In designing the current shop, Alvarez tried to create a clean, comfortable atmosphere for his customers. He wanted to destroy the perception that “the body shop is somewhere you walk in and there’s fenders and grease all over,” he says. “I always get comments that [customers] thought this was somewhere that vehicles were checked in and sent elsewhere for the repair work.”
Some customers, he adds, tell him Imperio Auto Body “looks more like a doctor’s office than a body shop.” In that case, just call him the car doctor.
SNAPSHOP
Name: Imperio Auto Body & Collision
Owners: Rene and Debora Alvarez
Location: Miami
Volume: Between 135 and 175 vehicles per month
Revenue: $2.3 million annually
Employees: 19
Size: 15,000 sq. ft. (building only), 42,000 sq. ft. (total property)