Toronto, Ontario — Fix Network Canada and Collision Repair magazine’s webinar “Behind The Wheel: How Fix Network Fuels Franchise Success” was broadcast live yesterday with 95 participants in attendance.
Matthew Mauro, Fix Network’s associate vice president of sales and operations oversees the Western and Ontario sales and operations team. The teams were combined to “eliminate silos,” he said, because the alignment provides a consistent message for stakeholders.
Mustafa Rajab, Fix Network’s national director of performance, said his role is to provide “a holistic view of the network’s performance and health,” using key performance indicator improvement, data and analytics and information from customer service to deliver excellence.
Both Mauro and Rajab emphasized the value of data in delivering results for franchisees to perform better. The advancement in technology in the collision repair industry is a challenge that Fix Network is piloting the impact of. Fix Network has training centres across the country where new equipment and technology are tested to determine their efficiency, failure rate, length of time for training aspects and more. Collecting this data makes it easier to provide recommendations to franchisees and insurance partners.
Fix Network is known for its strong partnerships with OEMs, and when asked how the company builds these relationships, Mauro and Rajab spoke to the importance of owner-operator involvement, again highlighting the heavy reliance on data-driven insights and the performance of their franchise partners.
For Rajab, Fix Network is “looking at data from a scientific viewpoint,” and gave the example of cycle time as one of the operational KPIs they look at. By breaking this KPI into multiple elements, such as parts ordering and dismantling, professionals can pinpoint what they need to focus on to answer “How can we reduce the length of rental?”
Mauro pointed out that the biggest lag in time is when a vehicle arrives at the shop, thereby making it the chance for the greatest opportunities. Rajab and Mauro say that in the next three to five years, the collision repair industry needs to be more involved with ADAS, performing as many repairs as possible in-house instead of subletting out. “The average age of the vehicles we are repairing now is ones from 2018-2019,” commented Rajab when discussing the advancement of technology.
The Fix system is their foundation in the shortage of technicians. Implementing standard operating procedures sets up shops for success, especially because it can be personalized according to individual markets. This way, franchisees have a foundation and flexibility through the Fix system, which is used by Fix on the online dashboard of Fix Network Pit Stop.
Rajab advises collision repair professionals to “look at [the] composition of your estimatics and [ask] does that align with industry standards?” When the use of AI in auto body shops was brought up by an attendee, Mauro and Rajab agreed that AI is not where technicians need it to be to help with the repair process: “We’re closer than you think to utilizing it, but still far away.”
Collision Repair magazine was honoured to hear Fix Network’s insights from “Behind The Wheel” and thanks Mauro and Rajab for their presentation. The webinar recording can be watched online.
