Repair and the economy

[Layne]

The economy and uncertainity is continuing to have an adverse effect on our profession. People are holding tight to their money....dealers are struggling with both new and used car sales...insurance companies are struggling to.

I was involved in a collision on 7 November which literally totalled my "repair" vehicle (thankfully I walked away) and I am having difficuly with the responsible party's insurance company. I do have a rental vehicle now and their insurance company should be liable for that as well. Things such as this impacts our ability to respond.

How is the downward economy and the publics reaction affecting others of you? Maybe we should get into this "bail out" scenario too!

[Kgobin]

What a blessing it is to hear that you walked away from an accident that totaled your vehicle. I will keep you in my prayers and I will pray that you get a speedy resolution with the responsible party’s insurance company. I talk to windshield repair technicians that are located in just about every region of the world. Some technicians say these are challenging times for them but the majority of them have not seen a decline in business. Some are too busy so they are looking to hire new windshield repair technicians.

[t4k]

I do 99% fleet work and car dealers and my business is off 25% from this time last year. We just have to hang in there and wait for better times.

[Frank EU]

Hi tk4. We must be doing something wrong here. No decline in work (or revenues) whatsoever. We are still expanding our customer base....both in MI and the EU. Being a repair only vendor, it is not all that difficult to sell the service. Let's face it, one day we may all loose the odd customer, so what, not a big deal. My advice is; keep on going, be flexible and possitive, have faith in your abilities, keep your eyes and ears open, use your contacts and go out to do your thing. This should not have to be a bad period for repair guys! I guess the 25% off is mainly due to the (suffering) dealerships??

[t4k]

Hi tk4. We must be doing something wrong here. No decline in work (or revenues) whatsoever. We are still expanding our customer base....both in MI and the EU. Being a repair only vendor, it is not all that difficult to sell the service. Let's face it, one day we may all loose the odd customer, so what, not a big deal. My advice is; keep on going, be flexible and possitive, have faith in your abilities, keep your eyes and ears open, use your contacts and go out to do your thing. This should not have to be a bad period for repair guys! I guess the 25% off is mainly due to the (suffering) dealerships??

You are right, the 25% down is with the dealerships.

[Frank EU]

tk4, there is your answer! Dealerships indeed suffer at the moment, stay with the ones you have, keep contact with the ones you've lost if possible.
I guess some just delay repairs while others simply went out of business. We know dealerships that recently closed down some twenty locations in several counties. No good news at all to anybody involved, but it happens. Remain to be possitive -even when that's hard. Last but not least; Find yourself a couple of new accounts to restore your volume. Keep up.

[t4k]

Frank - I am not complaining about by sales being down by 25%, I was just replying to Lane who started this thread and was concerned about the economy. I haven't lost any accounts and none of my dealerships have closed, they are just slow due to the slowing economy. I am actually enjoying this slow down, I have been slammed all year and this break is welcomed. It also gives me time to work in my other business for a while.

I do appreciate your words of encouragement and maybe they can be beneficial to some of the others.

[bill lambeth]

Some of my dealers have said that they are only going to spend what they have to.This does not make sense because we all know that a replacement cost a lot more than a repair.It is their parogative.I am a fleet business all the way here in bham,al.Car lot business sucks.The going rate here is 10 to 20 dollars and I can do a lot better than that hustling!

[GlassStarz]

I think the most common thing I hear at dealerships is they are now fixing the minor stuff at time of sale if customer requests otherwise no
I have had sevearl dealerships close on me and another go bk and stick me for almost 2k car buisness is pretty funky right now.
I have gone back to basics and work several days a week at a huge volume gas station and truck stop doing retail 3 0r 4 insurance jobs and the same in cash jobs a day I still call on the dealerships 3 days a week till things get back in the auto sales world

[Nomad]

I think with gas prices going down there will be just as much driving as there used to be, so just as many rock chips. With the rest of the economy being what it is, we may see fewer people down here in Yuma for the winter. But if money is tight then people may choose to repair rather than replace to save as much as possible. So it could go either way but right now we are ahead of last year slightly, and business looks like it is picking up a bit. Will know more after Thanksgiving and especially Christmas.