Slower periods represent the ideal opportunity to enhance your processes and focus on the long-term.

For many of us, the last five years have been a rollercoaster ride and 2025 is shaping up to be no different. In recent months we’ve seen a decline in insurance claims and that means less work coming to the door. One reason is the increase in repair costs and an elevated cost of living which is meaning fewer consumers are putting in claims, due to affordability concerns related both to premiums and deductibles.

Even keel

In times like these, when insurance demand is slower, it’s important to remain on an even keel and not to react to the prevailing economic conditions. If the COVID-19 pandemic taught us anything, it was maximizing the opportunity to invest in our businesses for the long-term.

When times are slower, it’s a great opportunity to investing in training and send your technicians away to further enhance their skills and leverage that ability to train and develop your new hires and apprentices. It’s also a great time to focus on investments in equipment and making sure your OEM Certifications are up to date.

Times of lower demand are also a great opportunity to review processes and see where inefficiencies exist, so you can take steps to reduce and eliminate them. Often, it is the little things that can have the biggest impact when it comes to operational efficiency and productivity. Have a good look at your Standard Operating Procedures, dissect your entire repair process and make sure you’ve got or establish benchmarks for your profit centres.

New revenue streams

Slower times are also great opportunities to look for new revenue streams, such as more lease returns and used vehicle reconditioning, as well as customer pay work. Also look at classic vehicle restorations, and custom painting for other types of services such as furniture. You’ve made major investments in spray booths and refinishing equipment, so why not leverage it as much as possible?

Also take the opportunity to review your stakeholder and vendor partnerships. A key one is ensuring you have consistent and clear communication with them, including your insurance partners.

We’ve seen instances where during slower times, insurers tend to scrutinize each repair more closely, which can be frustrating, especially when you’re having to contend with lower overall repair volumes. 

Effective communication

Nevertheless, you can take steps to ensure effective communication at each stage of the repair and make sure that your estimators are putting together carefully prepared and fully documented repair plans. It’s important to understand that shops, insurers, vendors and all stakeholders are in this together, since ultimately it is in their collective interest to provide the collision repair customer with the best experience possible, whether the shop is busy or not. 

By doing so on a consistent basis, not only does it ensure a smoother, better repair process, but also serves to elevate brand reputation in the eyes of the consumer, creating a win-win for each stakeholder involved.