A Hands-On Approach to Understanding Our Customers

As a part of our continuous education initiative with our team members, the Indianapolis branch held a three day hands-on Panel Repair Workshop with our field and home office team members. During the training, everyone started with bare metal panels and went through the repair process a collision repair professional would follow to fix dents on a vehicle.

• Cleaning the metal
• Sanding around the dents
• Filling dents with filler
• Sanding the entire panel
• Using finishing glaze
• Priming/sealing
• Guide coating and wet sanding
• Base coating and clearing
• Compounding and polishing

One of the benefits of the workshop was to give our employees a hands-on view of our products, enabling them to not only learn about their use, but also understand how different products work together.  The main benefit, however, was for our customers.  By equipping our team members with hands-on knowledge of our products, they can recommend a similar or equivalent product to a customer who is ordering a product that might be out of stock or discontinued.  The ability to recommend a replacement immediately improves our customer’s overall experience and helps us continually exceed their expectations. 

Through the process of performing a repair from start to finish, our team members saw the work our customers are putting in each and every job they complete. This especially helps our Contact Center Agents because they understand the frustration our customers occasionally encounter when they are in a hurry for a product, needing to quickly correct an issue or tackle one of the many defects that can occur in the overall repair job. Such as:

• Sanding too heavy
• Using the wrong grits of paper
• Not properly prepping the metal / plastic
• Poor coverage with the primer / sealer
• Bad painting techniques
• Trash in final coats
• Contamination issues

This workshop was a great team building event and demonstration of the basics in dent repair. Our team members walked away with an appreciation for the challenges our customers face every day.