Today’s smash repair bodyshop is faced with many compounding issues. The need to complete more Jobs in less time, update the customer along the way, maintain cost targets and deliver exceptional repair quality. It’s a lot for any smash repair bodyshop to manage, especially when time is of the essence. Which leads body shop owners to question: can quality and quantity co-exist?
“There’s Not Enough Time!”
Managers complain that they don’t have enough time or resources to improve productivity of their body shop. So how can they begin to essentially “buy back time” to deliver an increase in productivity? And where does quality of work in the modern body shop sit given the increasing pressure on quantity?
The reality is quality of work is far more important than quantity. Quality should be sitting at the top of your business values. If you are prepared to compromise quality for quantity, it’s probably high time you took a step back from your business to realign your values and integrity as a smash repair body shop owner. And, if quality does sit high up in your business values, you need to make sure your actions reflect that. Your actions determine the outcome to the customer, and fundamentally the moral compass of your team and business.
Quality Over Quantity, Every Time
You might think the more jobs you get in and out the door the better your productivity. The truth is somewhat different. If a job is rushed, it’s more likely it will return back through the shop for a second, third or fourth time, or even worse than that, a return to the shop after the customer has picked it up. If a job is done right, with quality top of mind, it’s much less likely there will be any issues at all. A high standard of work at each stage of the repair is key. How do you maintain a high quality of work while balancing an increase in quantity? There are a few steps you can take.
Adopt Quality Standard Checklists
Quality assurance is about providing confidence that quality requirements can be fulfilled by your team. Each stage of the process should have a Quality Standard Checklist that should be completed. If you create systems to catch problems early and focus on the task at hand, the rest will follow smoothly, and you’ll be carrying out high quality deliverables every time. Below is a list of stages that should have their own quality checklist.
· Before the vehicle arrives: Your quality control starts before the vehicle arrives, it is important to make sure you have accurate details of the damage and what is required to repair it.
· Communication: It’s important to set expectations with customers from the beginning – let them know how long you think it will take, possible things that can cause delays (like waiting on parts) and how you’ll be communicating with them during their repair process. Regular quick updates will improve the customer experience.
· Tear down process: Build a blueprint of the tear-down process, using the information you obtained during the pre-arrival and check-in process. This dictates how well the repair job will travel through the workflow.
· Parts procurement: Verify that all the parts needed are on hand and the parts needed for reassembly will be available in time. This is crucial in order to get the job done on time.
· Workshop processes: By having a detailed checklist of all the workshop processes you can ensure each job is completed correctly and to the highest standard every time.
· Third party (off-site) contractors: It is important you have a quality control list prior to sending the car away, and when it comes back to ensure the quality of work done off-site is up to standard.
· Handover to customer: Conduct a final quality control before handing it over to the customer. Use a simple checklist to verify everything was done as promised and the car is cleaned properly and ready to go.
· Feedback: Both good and back feedback are valuable to the success of your smash repair bodyshop. So make it easy for customers to be honest about their experience with your bodyshop so you know what you’re doing well and where you can improve.
Setting up quality control checklists can be time-consuming and without understanding the value they bring to improving productivity and a consistent, reliable quality every time, its easy to skip or not do thoroughly. Manual quality control processes are time consuming but there is a solution with Planning Plus Software.
Planning Plus has an eForms module, which streamlines your body shop’s paper trail. eForms make it easy to keep on top of your quality control processes and all the cars coming in and out of your shop.
If you need help making your body shop more productive, Planning Plus offers a free demo of our software which is designed to improve workflow and increase profitability in smash repair bodyshops. Get in touch to find out more.