John Shoemaker's Page

I recently read an article “Robots Ate My Road Trip” in my July Automobile magazine.  In the article David Brancaccio wrote about how he traveled across the United States without dealing with a human, and described the various types of robots that helped him.

Reading this article stirred some thoughts about some shops I have walked into where the humans have become robotic.   You have seen them, they hand you a clipboard, tell you to have a seat, fill out the form and somebody will be…

Marketing your customer base is important to maintain workflow.  When talking about marketing to shops I hear "I have five DRP's, they keep me busy".  My question to them is how many of them are repeat customers and how many are new.  My bet is most of them are new. Relying on your DRP to market for you makes you susceptible to their ebbs and flows negatively affecting your workflow.

By marketing your customer base you retain your customer regardless of their insurance company…

Severity has been a buzz in shops lately, not that it is a new buzz but shops I have been in lately seem to have it at the top of their mind.  Makes sense since the top three insurance focus points are Severity, Cycle Time and CSI.

There are several ways to control severity, I think the quickest way to make an impact on severity is by repairing bumpers.  Bumpers have become more and more costly as they become a major portion of the front of a vehicle. Take a look in your trash…

Is there value in change – absolutely, is there value in change for the sake of change – doubtful!  Change for the right reason is always good; some will say if you are not changing you are not growing and I can agree with that.  The problem lies when change happens for the wrong reason which affects stability and this is especially true in personnel changes.  Something isn’t going right so you make a personnel change and hmm, that didn’t work, let me make another change.

A big issue…