By Mike Davey
Hamilton, Ontario — February 8, 2017 — Industry-focused events provide opportunities for education, networking and much more. But which particular event provides the most value? Collision Repair magazine recently surveyed its readership to find out which events give repairers the most bang for the buck.
The first question in the survey asked readers to let us know which event they found to be the most valuable. Further questions drilled down into exactly why that was.
Our next weekly survey focuses on relationships with car rental companies and average length of rental. You can take the survey here. It should take less than two minutes to fill out.
Survey respondents were given a choice between NACE Automechanika, the SEMA Show, CCIF and local trade shows to let us know which provided them with the most value.
The Canadian Collision Industry Forum (CCIF) was the clear winner in this case, drawing 55 percent of responses. This was followed by NACE Automechanika at 28 percent and the SEMA Show at 14 percent. Local trade shows had the most value for just 3 percent of respondents. Those totals do not include respondents who indicated they had never attended one of the listed events.
Next, the survey asked if respondents attended CCIF meetings and if so, how often they attended. Attendance at CCIF was very strong, with 44 percent of respondents indicating that they attended every meeting. A combined total of 22 percent or respondents have either attended at least one CCIF meeting or attend every local CCIF meeting. The final 33 percent of respondents have never attended a CCIF meeting.
Readers were encouraged to comment on this question and let us know why they hadn’t attended CCIF meetings in the past. There were a variety of answers, but the two provided below illustrate the general tone of responses. As always, these comments are presented anonymously and with minimal editing.
– Location is also a reason, cost.
– A mix of work load and cost, also was not sure how much a small shop might benefit from the event.
Those who had attended CCIF were asked to let us know which aspect of the Forum was of the most value. These responses were all over the map, with approximately equal numbers placing the highest value on industry updates, presentations and networking.
Next we asked how many respondents had attended NACE one or more times. The majority of respondents (44 percent) have attended once, with a further 31 percent having attended on multiple occasions. Lastly, 25 percent of our survey respondents have never been. This group was asked why they had never attended. The answers were split evenly with not wanting to take time away from work and the cost of the event, travel, etc.
We asked similar questions about the SEMA Show, but the answers given were substantially different. The major of our survey respondents (45 percent) had never attended the event. 36 percent of respondents had attended the SEMA Show on more than one occasion, with the last 19 percent of respondents saying they had been to the show just once.
It’s certainly not a surprise, but local trade shows were the clear winner when it came to how often our readers had attended such a show. A full 78 percent of survey respondents indicated they had attended more than one local trade show. An additional 12 percent had attended a local trade show at least once, and just 10 percent of respondents indicated they had never attended a local trade show. The most common reason given for not attending a local show was simply that none had been offered in their area.
The next Collision Repair magazine survey puts the focus on relationships with car rental companies and average length of rental. You can take the survey here and watch for results next Wednesday on collisionrepairmag.com!
