San Diego, California — February 5, 2014 — Mitchell has released its Industry Trends Report (ITR) for the first quarter of 2014. The latest ITR starts 2014 by providing crucial data to insurance carriers and payers, collision repair shops and other key constituents in the property and casualty market. Mitchell highlights its own proprietary data, along with J.D. Power data, to give insights into market drivers that affect how shops work and interact with customers, and outline how insurers can reduce inefficiencies within various business processes.
Greg Horn, vice president of industry relations, examines labour rates in his feature article titled ‘Do Lower Labor Rates Lead to More Repair?’ He derives three main conclusions from all repairable first-party collision estimates on passenger cars in 2013 for all 50 U.S. states:
– Lower labour rates do not mean additional operations written on the estimate
– Lower labour rates do mean more panel repairing occurs
– Lower labour rates does not translate into additional refinish hours
“The discussion of disparity in labour rates is always very lively, and the analysis of data and my fact-based conclusions draws many responses from collision repairers,” said Horn. “The data we look at represents labor rates from shops that do and do not participate in Direct Repair Programs, so it provides a thorough glance at rates in various states.”
Labour rates are valuable for shop billing and the statements are just one aspect of a shop’s interactions with its customers. The overall experience, which typically encompasses service delivery, shop quality and service, and communications regarding a repair, has an impact on a shop’s overall reputation.
The bonus article, by Brian Doyle, customer experience product manager for Mitchell’s Auto Physical Damage Solutions, discusses the importance of a shop’s Net Promoter Score and how to effectively gauge customer loyalty.
The complete report is available at mitchell.com/industry-trends-report. Mitchell also offers a webinar, Industry Trends Live, on the Auto Physical Damage edition of the report. Greg Horn will provide a deeper look into the trends, information and studies highlighted in this quarter’s ITR today at noon. To sign up for webinar, visit go.mitchell.com/register.
