Interested in new account?

[Dave M]

I've repaired w/s for a local rental agency for 16 years. One of the managers is now in charge of nine locations in the North Shore area of MA. This includes Salem, Peabody, Lynn and Medford. He called me to ask if I knew of a w/r tech that would do his work. If interested, PM me for more details and contact info.

[the big welshman]

THANK YOU

[atag]

I have thought of approching business such as rental agencies, but didnt really know how to go about it. What is your approach to this? What if anything do you to to insentive them? How much do you charge for something like this? Thanks so much in advance, James

[D2D]

Car rental companies may be challenging to get to a decision maker. Find out where their local corporate office is. It may not be in your city so just ask them where their corporate vehicle repair manager is located and can you send or will they forward your information.
When you meet with the decision maker, ask if they have a service that does their rock chip repairs. If yes, ask if they are happy with the service they're getting. Most of the time they will put you off but be persistent. Ask them to keep your info in case anything changes and always, ALWAYS, ask them for their card so you'll know their name when you call or go back to see them every couple of months.
If No, they don't have a service, tell them you offer a preventive maintenance rock chip repair service and will be happy to stop in on a regular basis and do free inspections. Tell them this is the real value in what you sell. You help them by constantly inspecting their windshields to find the ones that need repair before they turn into long cracks.
Many of my accounts I got after calling back for over a year.
After all this, and they still haven't thrown you out, say, what we need to do now is for me to do a demonstration for you. I'll go outside and find one of your units that has a chip, I want you to look at it both before and after and you'll be able to see for yourself what a good repair looks like and the quality of my work. Then proceed and use good judgement from there on.
NOTE: I have never failed to secure the account when I've gotten to the point of doing a demonstration!
GOOD LUCK!

[Dave M]

I'd suggest carrying Commercial Liability Ins. (Hopefully you already do) before you make contact with the rental agencies. This may vary region to region, but I needed to send certificates of insurance to my accounts. One also required a MSDS sheet on the resins I use. Not to disagree with D2D, but you should be able to get a decision from the on-site manager. As far as what to charge, these accounts are my bread and butter....volume! I charge my minimum amount which is less than a dealership account. Sorry, I won"t discuss prices on the forum.
If you have been reading these posts for a couple months, I'm the one who mentioned losing Avis to Safelite, so keep that in mind.

[just chippen away]

On car rentals, it all about getting the car back on the road to make them money again... Tell them you can guarantee them 1 hr from the time of the call if this is what it takes. Also tell them you will drive by as often as you can going from one job to the next and if there is a lot of cars you will stop in and inspect the cars and fix them on the spot after approved by the branch manager. If you have the employee's inspecting the cars as they come in, they can call you and DEPEND on you to pull in when they call you...
Offer to show them what you can do for them for free, they will compare your work with what they have now... If you are any good, you will win them over...

Good luck...

[D2D]

To clarify, with some car rental companies, it may well be that the on site manager has decision making authority but some will have a corporate vehicle repair manager through which all service vendors are approved and managed. Then your relationship with the location manager will go accordingly.
Also, the post was more a generalization of approaching all types of commercial/fleet managers. One strategy I use is, most operations that have their service bays and do their own repairs will also have a "back yard". I'm not at all adverse to going "round back" and walking into the service area and asking the first guy that notices me, hey! is the fleet/service manager around? 9 times out of 10 he'll point at some other guy and I jump right in and start talking. I start with, I'm Bill Smith with Leading Edge Windshield Repair and I just wanted to drop off some information about my windshield repair service. Do you have anyone doing preventive maintenance rock chip repairs?

If the answer is yes or no, see previous post.

This gets you around the "gatekeeper" receptionist up front that would have told you to leave your information with her.

As far as approaching a receptionist, I walk up and say, hello, I'm Bill Smith, I'm with Leading Edge Windshield Repair, could I please leave some information for your fleet maintenance manager? They always accept it and say they'll pass it on. Then I ask, is it possible to make an appointment with him to tell him about my service? This meets with various responses from "let me check and see if he has time or wants to talk with you now" to, "no, I'll pass your information along". Regardless, I ask, could I please have one of his cards?

Why?

So you'll know his name when you come back 60-90 days later and say, I was here a couple months ago and left you some information about my windshield repair service and dropped by today to see if you have any stone damaged windshields that need my attention.

Again, good luck!

[bill lambeth]

I work everyday for the largest car rental company in the USA.I respond within 2 hours of the time they call and this helped me take the business away from Safelite(plus their work sucked).I have built relationships with all the branch managers and they know that I am dedicated to giving them the best service possible.Also,most rental companies will charge the customer for the chip in the w/s,so they are not out anything unless the person checking the car in misses the chip.I advise anybody to focus on rental companies as you can see I am doing good.