Should WSR be regulated?

[mrchip]

regulated or certified??..absolutely not...wr is a mail order business with hundreds buying kits and failing each yr...and the reason is the very companies that want certification are the very ones that sell these kits without requiring onsite training...just read or watch video..so they flooded the country with people with little or no training and now they want anywhere from 150.00 to 300.00 to go for training and get a certificate...who's going to inspect our work?/ ..the repair police...answering some questions and getting a certificate does not mean they will do good work....car dealers won't be impressed with it..or the general public..and as far as ins companies.i could care less..the networks and ins co are so mismanaged when it pertains to repair and there is no unified voice for wr techs...

[Brent Deines]

regulated or certified??..absolutely not...wr is a mail order business with hundreds buying kits and failing each yr...and the reason is the very companies that want certification are the very ones that sell these kits without requiring onsite training...just read or watch video..so they flooded the country with people with little or no training and now they want anywhere from 150.00 to 300.00 to go for training and get a certificate...who's going to inspect our work?/ ..the repair police...answering some questions and getting a certificate does not mean they will do good work....car dealers won't be impressed with it..or the general public..and as far as ins companies.i could care less..the networks and ins co are so mismanaged when it pertains to repair and there is no unified voice for wr techs...

Actually Delta Kits offers free training to anyone that is interested. We do not require training, but we strongly encourage it. If all the other manufacturers would require training we would be happy do do so as well as I agree that is a problem. However, I have seen many technicians do great repairs after watching a video, and many who have received training who still do deplorable repairs. I believe mandatory training would be beneficial to the industry, but unfortunately there will always be those that do poor work.

As for on site training, that is best case scenario for sure, but then the price of training gets very expensive, and of course there is the issue of who is doing the training. Lots of technicians get trained on site by other people who don't know what they are doing. If mandatory training had been in place when I started out I would not have been able to afford to get into the business, so although I would like to see it, I can certainly understand the sentiments of those that don't like the idea.

It's a much more complicated issue than most realize, but as I have stated in the past, even with all the regulation that doctors have to deal with, there are still plenty of bad ones, and although most of us feel they all charge too much, some are much more affordable than others.

[S&W Glass Repair]

A very interesting topic. At one time back in the early to mid 1990's, I say that for I'm not sure of the exact time frame I was paid by Glas-Weld $125 per day for training people, it was a two day program. I was actually trained in the South Bronx in 1989 before I went into business. I was responsible for my hotel and food and getting myself there but the two day training was free. Bob Beverage was the president I believe of Glas-Weld at the time and I'm not sure why Glas-Weld stopped this training. I have trained guys from Maine to South Carolina and did it for several years. I loved as I was much larger then I am currently (account wise) and I would take these guys with me when I was working. I have always said that glass repair is easy to learn but hard to master, does anyone disagree? Someone said you can teach a monkey to do repairs, true but could he do them good?, to me that's always the question. I have a part timer who has been working for me for 2 1/2 years he still has gone places and left repairs for me to do as he didn't feel comfortable doing them. Of course the bulls eye's are easy for anyone, it's the large combination breaks with abnormal pit sizes, breaks with 2" extensions, star breaks with 10 lines, these are the tough ones even for experienced techs, we just are able to complete them easier. My intention is to become certified and join the various organizations I spoke about in my earlier post, this is because I want a piece of the public market which currently my share is less then 1% of my business so I'm creating a plan of action and implementing over the next 6 months.
Cheers,
Scott

[splitpit]

Curious about the last sentence. Are you not dealing with the public already? What is the "public market" and how did you determine that you only have 1% of it?

[S&W Glass Repair]

When I said general public I meant anything but what my business is currently made up of:

1) truck fleets
2) car dealers

I rarely do a job for the "general public", I want more of the pie and am gearing a campaign to get me there.

[splitpit]

Wow, if you are not doing work for individuals...insurance referals and cash customers, you are missing half of the pie at least!

[daytrader]

Reg in windsheld repair. I guess we could modle it after the SSI or even the old trucking modes.

Hum, how about WELCOME TO AMERICA. If you can not compete you go out of biz. Its worked for a long time. Folks, you have doctors fixing glass. You have billy bob with a 6th grade education fixing glass. WHO IS BETTER?

Humm, the guy with the most experiance FIXING GLASS. Its service folks. The guy with the best service wins. NOT THE BEST REPAIR. Not the best advertisments, Not the best vehical. The person with the BEST SERVICE wins.

Now is repair quality measured into service? Sure it is. As a medium. Other wise its just a glass repair. Folks MOST times its not a art. Some times it is. JUST most times it is not.

There are 800 dollar whildsheild out there. To repair them perfect is an art. Folks that can do it great. MOST can not. JUST THEY LOW BALL THEM SELVES IN MANY CASES. Are you an artist or a service provider?

I am telling you service is all you have. Service is all YOU OFFER!