Hello To All Fellow WSR Techs

[GLASSTIME]

Hello I'm new to the forum, however I have been observing for the past 2 months. I own a auto spa
& reconditioning company out of the charlotte, n.c. Area since 2000. We have decided to add WSR to our serv ice menu lineups.
After talking with Korey @ delta kits they are who we want to do business with. Korey has been very helpful and there website is very user friendly too.
I also have had the pleasure in speaking with SGT. Over the phone and will be purchasing his forms on cd.
I have a ton of questions. Will definately be posting them ASAP!

Thank You!

[Brent Deines]

Welcome to the windshield repair forum Chad. We welcome your questions and look forward to hearing more from you soon.

[SGT]

Welcome and congrats on offering WSR service with your existing services. Your choice in equipment is right on. Feel free to give me a call if you have any questions.

[GLASSTIME]

Thank you both. I am very excited about the addition and can't wait to get it going. I will be offering it as a FREE service. If you guys can shed some lite on that end of the WSR business, its pros and cons. We are looking at edirectglass.com to dop our pos. Care. What are your thoughts to them and there services. I used to see them posted on the delta kits website
But all I see there now is A.C.T.

[Layne]

I think that eDirect is an excellent choice. I am happy with their service and their courteous attitude.

[Brent Deines]

We used to have a contract with eDirectGlass where we did the front end work to sign up customers and help them get their Safelite, Lynx, and Metryx credentials, but eDirectGlass did not uphold their end of the contract. Gary Hart told me that they could not pay us the thousands of dollars they owe us due to the dire financial straits their company is in, so I am concerned that they may fold up one of these days. That combined with the fact that they recently raised their rates makes it impossible to recommend eDirectGlass any longer.

That said, in a recent poll on the windshield repair forum many technicians are still using eDirectGlass. viewtopic.php?f=22&t=4130&start=10&st=0 ... w=viewpoll

As you can see from the poll, ACT, SGC and GlassComp are also very popular. SGC is free for any claims that you can run through their network. ACT has several options priced as low as $2.95 per claim, and even have a very popular option for early payment. ACT is popular because there are a number of different options to fit the needs of most windshield repair technicians. I'm not sure what GlassComp's rates are currently, but they are pretty reasonable and used by a lot of windshield repair technicians. The reason eDirectGlass was popular was because in addition to what was once a very competitive price, they offer some great claims tracking tools and other useful features. Those features are still valuable to many technicians, so as long as they don't go out of business right after you send in your annual maintenance fee eDirectGlass is still a viable option, but you do need to be aware of the risks involved when working with a company that is having financial difficulties.

[Layne]

Hmmmm--I didn't know that Brent. And I too took note of the increase in fees..at the same time that I paid my annual maintenance dues.

I am currently experiencing an "invoice rejection" problem with safelite. Hopefully this can be resolved without a penalty..I have sent them inquiries regarding a system error that can not be attributed to me...they seem to be slow in reviewing my messages.

[Brent Deines]

Layne,

If you are having good luck with eDirectGlass there may be no need to switch. I'm not bashing them, but I certainly cannot recommend them under the present circumstances. If they went out of business tomorrow you would only be out the remainder of your annual maintenance fee, but it might be prudent to have a backup plan just in case.

Was the Safelite claim filed through eDirectGlass? We've talked to a number of people at SGC and they would prefer that claims are processed through their own website, but we have not heard of any major problems when claims are submitted through eDirectGlass or other EDI providers as long as you have a shop ID. Speaking of shop IDs, it's my understanding that you don't need one if you bill directly through the SGC website.

[GLASSTIME]

Wow I am defiNately glad I post that reply. I wouldn't had ever known. I have spoke to them on the phone and have been told business is great so on so forth. Thanks for the info. I like all the perks like the website, online claim filing, accounts recievable , inventory tracker, and the mobile edition for my blackberry. They even have a mobile merchant machine/program as well. So all those things really attracted me. I have looked at ACT but have to be honest I'm lost and don't understand the way that they explain it with the "repair" program vs. "Gold" then all the extra add ons they offer. Brent maybe you or korey can help me decide which program best would fit me and my company.
Thanks again guys for your help.

[Layne]

Brent. Nope, my original submission was through safelite "on line". Basically the problem was that the VIN on the dispatch did not match the one on the vehicle. I think that it is critical that a vehicle VIN be correct. Apparently the vehicle VIN sent to safelite by the insurance agency contained a "typo". We made a telephone call using the toll free number on the insurance card in an attempt to correct this and we were assured that it had been done. When I submitted the original invoice to safelite the invoice was rejectad because of the "mis-match". Messages exchanged recently still has not resolved the issue.

As an afterthought, this is the first dispatch that I have had from safelite in almost a year...and only because the customer specified my shop (repeat customer). I somehow conclude that I am not a shop in good standing with them since the big change.