This was my 1st year to attend the event, but this was the 4th year for the Midwest Collision Industry Forum in Columbia, Missouri to join together. I’m starting to meet others in the collision industry in this area, as I moved to Kansas from Texas about two years ago. I’m learning that the Kansas and Missouri folks are friendly and easy to get along with. It was also nice to meet some of my Collision Hub friends, which were from several different states.
It was interesting to see three different associations get together and share ideas. A couple things that I felt came out of the meeting were unity and documentation.
Unity
The words unity and working together kept surfacing to the top of the discussions. I believe that our ASA MOKAN Executive Director, Sheri Hamilton, summed it up. She said, “we need to have unity with one message to be heard for the collision industry.” In other words, we need to put everything on the table and determine what the message is that the collision industry wants. Once determined, we can all focus on the same message and move forward together.
Documentation
What I mean by documentation is to document your complaints and submit them to the correct resource. For instance, there were complaints of how the aftermarket parts are shipped,different insurance issues, etc. Speakers from both Progressive and Taiwan Auto Body Parts Association conveyed the same message. We need the proper action to be taken to correct the problems. You must document everything and provide us the documentation. If they don’t have concrete evidence, they can not correct the problem. Hearsay, complaining, and fussing will not hold any weight when proposing solutions.
Before you can take the action, you must know what action to take. Therefore, I’ve provided a few links to help you.
CAPA Parts Complaints
I visited this website and it appeared to be fairly simple to navigate. According to Karen Fiest with TABPA, filling this form out and submitting will hold more weight for correcting the problem than hearsay or complaining. However, she said that very few shops take the time to submit the form. I encourage you to start using this form with any of your CAPA complaints. http://www.capacertified.org/complaint.asp
Insurance Complaints
Progressive speaker, Chris Andreoli attended the meeting last year. As I mentioned, I was not there, but I heard it was a little rough. Chris attended again this year and asked the shop owners if any improvements resulted from last years meeting. Many shop owners agreed that their have been some improvements. He mentioned by knowing what the concerns were, helped him address the company, which resulted in improvements. He plans to continue listening to the concerns of the collision industry and looking for ways to address them. If you have an insurance complaint, the best way is to submit the complaint through your state insurance department. In Kansas visit HERE and submit the complaint. Jim Welch, with the Kansas Insurance Department attended our last months ASA Wichita meeting and he too said that he can not move forward unless he has a complaint on file.
This is just a scratch off the surface of the issues the collision repair industry face. I encourage all business leaders to get involved and help pave the way to success in the collision industry.
To help make a difference join ASA at www.asashop.org If you’re in the Wichita, Kansas area, we recently started a new ASA Wichita Collision Chapter. Our next meeting is June, 23 at 7PM in Wichita. For more information contact our Chapter President:
Brad Shelton, Shelton Collision Repair
(316) 788-1528 / [email protected]
If you’re not in collision repair industry yet, but you would like to learn more about seeking a career in the industry contact me:
Donnie Smith, Butler Community College
316-323-6890 / [email protected]
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