Quantity or Quality ?!?!

[screenman]

Nobody ever regrets buying quality.

[Coitster]

All I can tell you is that if you do bad work you won't get repeat business like you should. I personaly am tired of all the guys who get in this business thinking they could care less about quality and only about quantity. They give us a bad name. As ussual non of the people like that last very long. They might get some initial sales and do well for a while but they burn out the market. They have unhappy customers. Believe me I see this all the time.

You would not believe how many bad repairs I see, then I come along and do a repair that the customer can't even find when I am done and they are like WOW. I get lots of extra business from that kind of work. People don't like crap. They feel like they are being taken advantage of and leads to bitter customers. If you are doing this please stop because it gives our whole industry a bad name.

As I preach stop and take your time. If you are doing retail you should be taking at least 20 minutes for a job, maybe more depending on the repair. Stop looking for the quick buck, and please starting doing quality work. If you arn't then do us a favor and get out of the biz.
David
Coitster

[SGT]

isn't the nature of our job to successfully stabilise the windshield damage or should we spend half the day making the repair look like the Mona Lisa, or do we compromise and meet half way in the 'cosmetic appearance' if need be? Would be interesting to know others thoughts.

My outlook on quality vs quanity has always been that our first priority is structural and second is cosmetic. This may not always be the order of preferrence to the customer though. Our typical repair takes 20-30 minutes including paperwork. That being said, if you have a repair that is 100% structurally repaired you can not get any better than that. Now it becomes cosmetics at this point and there are varibles, some in our control and some beyond our control. A couple we can control are the techniques used to do the repair and the resin used. Some we cannot control our size, type, age. There are others as well.

You have to remember, we are not making glass and the customer needs to know what to expect. There will always, always be a blemish. Some more than others, even on a so called perfect repair.

Never comprimise quality in order to handle quanity. Schedule your time effectivley and if you are that swampped everyday, it might be time to consider growing options.

Just my 2 cents.

[GlasWeldTech]

Ditto what he said!!!

[vinyl-4ever]

I Agree 100%.

[Shepard]

If I was going to Paris for 90 days to see how much $ I could make...and then would never return... perhaps I would ease up on quality... but I agree with tcchevy. Every driver within 25 miles of me is a potential $600 over the next 10 years (1-repair /yr @ $60 for 10 years). I gladly take an extra 10 minutes or 30 minutes to permanently secure their loyalty!

[GlassStarz]

I find the quanity or quality question often shows up when dating hmm hot one or borderline twins? hooters girl or three dennys girls? yup tough choice

Back to the work question obviosly you try to do the best repair you can for 99.9% of the customers but sometimes you will come across a fleet where the guy isnt using WR at all because its too expensive (some of those flat glass pieces for trucks or busses are as little as $25 and pop in and out in 5 minutes) sometimes for those guys you can get the business by giving a flat rate for a quick repair on everything in the fleet at the same time I have 2 fleets that twice a year I do thier fleet that way give 4 injectors to my son leave him there all day he does as many as 30 busses or trucks with multiple chips on several of them for $300-$400 customer knows they are not gonna be perfect just stop the spread until he does his once a year change out of all the windshields. Thats what he wants and who am I to argue with a customer they could care less if they are driving around with chips just would rather not replace them this week they have other stuff to do and dont care enough about it to pay for the perfect job.( obviosly any in the drivers view area get better treatment not because thats what the customer wants just what they get )

[SGT]

If I was going to Paris for 90 days to see how much $ I could make...and then would never return... perhaps I would ease up on quality

Shep,

Curious, what are you telling us about yourself? Are you suggesting that you are willing to comprimise your work ethics depending on the situation or location. You can not change the spots on a leapord no matter where it roams.

[Shepard]

GlassStarz, that sounds like a good thing... you are being honest with the client... he knows that he is not purchasing a steak dinner, he is just asking for you to toss him some stewing bones. Should his wife's Cadillac need a repair, he knows that he will then want a good repair done...

Now you can sleep well at night, a Junior Member has validated your philosophy as acceptable.

[Vancouver]

Good posts - thanks everyone. I have never jeoparised quality for quantity myself but another factor that prompted me to start this thread are comments I have received from fellow technicians both sides of Atlantic. The worry as has been expressed to me in general private chat is that within 5 years the Insurance Companies might possibly stop paying for windshield repairs (probably courtesy of the rogue repairers out there). One guy told me that for the first time in his very long windshield repair career he was thinking of going to start going for quantity rather than quality as a 'pension plan' so to speak, because 80% of his work is insurance work. He said this is now his own 'Insurance Policy' to safeguard his financial future and top up his bank account. He also said that for a decade he has saved the Insurance Companies thousands and thousands of $ - now they might be screwing his livlihood with their apparent long term thinking. Pretty unfortunate 'if' this is the way the industry is going !!!!