For 21 years we’ve produced reports on crashed cars. We still do. But for the last few years our clients have got so much more from us. Generally this was not a case of the client demanding, often they didn’t know how much extra we could give them, more us communicating about their pain points.
Partnering
Our first example of this occurred many years ago when a client had a Polish work referral source, needing car reports. To organise inspections meant speaking to a translator who would then speak to their client & back through the translator to us, which would normally delay matters, sometimes information would also get lost in translation. Our solution was to hire a Polish speaking customer service person so we could do everything ourselves. Suddenly we were turning inspections round much quicker meaning our client was happier as were their clients. Best part was it cost them nothing more than a conversation about their pain point.
This was the start of us trying to understand our clients’ goals rather than simply supplying a product. We started looking at ways we could do things differently, often at low cost to us, but would make a difference to the client, either in terms of cost, time or preferably both.
A great example is triage; the traditional claim model saw First Notification of Loss (FNOL) teams instructing repairers to collect cars, which they would bring to their site & estimate. A large percentage of these were total losses which needed values agreeing with policy holders & then transporting to salvage agents. The problem was that the repairer had wasted time collecting & often estimating a car that they wouldn’t repair. We jumped in at the FNOL stage to triage the state of the vehicle, weeding out total losses & those repairable but still drivable walking-wounded cars, thus cutting out the repairer’s wasted time. We can do this within an hour of instruction, or immediately if it’s urgent.
This process meant that our principals were aware of the status of their clients car at much earlier in the process. The bodyshop were only estimating cars that were repairable & didn’t have a load of scrap cars on site. Key-to-key times were thus reduced as was the global claim cost, with reductions in storage, hire cars & estimating fees.
Bespoke Automotive Solutions
We subsequently found that we were no longer merely supplying a product like a car report, but were working with our clients to develop clever solutions to their pain points. This partnership approach to the supply chain means that we can evolve a deeper understanding of their frustrations and wishes to design solutions to help. With so many technological advances at our fingertips, it has become more straight forward to provide added value to our clients.
We’re not resting on our laurels though; we love to keep developing & refining the various services that we offer. Our attitude has changed from ‘can we do that?’ to ‘what can we do even better?’.
Does your business have pain point or would you like to discuss how we can optimise elements of your supplier chain? Please click here to contact us or call 0151 342 9961