Three ways to prepare your repair business for any season
Insurance claims and repairs happen all year round at a reasonably consistent pace. While there will always be periods that see a spike in these numbers when impacted by different factors, including the prediction that we’re expecting more storms than usual over the summer period on the east coast, repairers can be left scrambling to get through a backlog of work if unprepared. This can result in pushing out deadlines, putting stress on employees and bodyshop managers to complete repairs or quotes faster, and increasing the chance of inaccuracies or human error.
March is considered Australia’s most dangerous month on the roads with the most fatalities recorded during the year.[1] However, holiday periods including long weekends and the summer season traditionally see more people away from home and travelling longer distances. More motor vehicle accidents occur during these times as a result of increased traffic and congestion. Natural events affecting repairs, such as hailstorms and severe thunderstorms during summer, also need to be taken into consideration.
If you’ve considered finding an effective way to plan for unpredictable busy periods, there are three primary considerations that will benefit your planning:
1. Analyse and understand trends
To get an idea of what might be coming down the road, looking at previous work and trends can help guide you. Recording your own data and identifying changes and trends in repairs and workloads throughout the year will let you understand more about your business and what has happened in your coverage zone. Using your bodyshop management (BMS) tools to collect and analyse your records can help identify particular trends and the potential impacts on your business. This can help you to understand how many staff and what expertise might be needed and when, and how to best allocate work to repairers when it comes through the door.
2. Communicate your data
Communication is critically important to the success of many businesses. In busy periods, it can be easy to lose sight of this and focus on the work at hand. By taking steps to understand previous trends and seasonal changes, and digitalising and centralising your records for quick reference, you can ensure you have the right information available on all jobs, and can prepare for periods of busy work like the summer holidays or storm season. This lets you proactively discuss potential barriers to quick repair turnarounds with your employees and the insurers you work with, and ensure you have processes and tools in place to mitigate possible challenges.
3. Streamline your workflow
For repairers, it’s essential to effectively and regularly provide updates to insurers and customers. Using workflow management technologies help paint a clearer picture of where each job is up to at any given time. This will let you easily assign work and provide updates to clients based on accurate information. Investing in workflow management technologies, like EstImage, will help you to better understand the status of each job, and to more efficiently communicate updates with staff and insurers in busy periods. This also has the added advantage of streamlining processes and providing your business with progress visibility on repairs and quote adjustments from the insurers you work with.
Streamlining the flow of your business, and your communication, will help improve your business relationships and empower your staff to complete projects more efficiently, removing barriers to success.
Tools like EstImage enable you to seamlessly share information with insurers. Our upcoming cloud-based version for repairers, EstImage Online, will also include features such as in-built invoice submissions, per-line adjustments, and quoting imports that integrate with your chosen quoting system to help improve and streamline your processes. For more information on how EstImage can help your repair business reach its full potential, and to request a demo, contact EstImage today.