Quick Clips | David Caulfield | EP 34

Quick Clips today with David Caulfield, CEO of Flashback Forward Inc.  as well as the owner of Fix Auto Anaheim North, a specialized collision repair center that separates work on lighter and heavier hit vehicles into two buildings. With over 42 years of experience in collision repair, he has founded several Fix Auto locations and created industry-differentiating processes and software programs to improve efficiency, customer service, and standardize quality control.

Caulfield's latest invention is MyQCIQ.com, which allows body shops to track and grade the repair process in real-time. He encourages shop owners to maximize the potential of technology tools like Word and Excel to improve their businesses.

Listen to the FULL EPISODE 34 of this quick clips with David Caulfield:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1895628/11661753

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Transcript

 Hey guys, this is Adam from the podcast and you are listening to Quick Clips. Quick Clips are condensed versions from one of our previous podcast episodes featuring some of the interesting things our guests had to say. If you want to hear the full episode, we'll have it in the show notes below. And with that, let's start the show.

You working on this kind of like production type setting? Yeah, it seems. , early in your career, you were in situations where efficiency and standard operating procedures and everything like that were vital to making it work, where, you know, the, sure you could work for shops that, you know, had a higher ticket per car, but mm-hmm.

you, you know, you were just doing volume. What are, just real quick, what are some of the things that you found out early on were some of the.  time savers, uh, when it came to production shop. Uh, you know, stuff like that. Yeah. I mean, are we talking the production era? Yep. Yeah. Um, time management, you know, you, you're dealing with a small dollar amount.

You need to make the best of it. You need to be correct the first time, and, uh, any processes and you need flow. And, uh, those were the, the pieces that, uh, had the best.  for sure. So, fast forward a couple more years, you have a guy that Yeah. Is interested in buying you out, merging and everything like that.

Mm-hmm. , yeah. What was, what was having a partner like all of a sudden, like how, how did you navigate differences of opinions and stuff like that? Well, you know, I think one of the, the, the first things that someone would think you have to overcome is not having your.  in Spotlight. And, uh, I was humbled enough to know that it wasn't all about my name as about what the, the, the power of two people could do together to, to, uh, grow a business and, and, uh, without losing my values and so forth.

So Eric Bickett was, uh, was a real good partner and he brought a lot to the table. I mean, a lot. We both brought good things to the table. Um, I had a lot of the production side that I brought to it. The, uh, the vision for the operations and so forth. And Eric wanted to focus very much on having a successful launch to, uh, fix auto.

And, uh, it was new to the country and, uh, that was fresh down from Canada. And, uh, he wanted to put the shops together and, uh, he wanted to create that network. And so I was real happy to be able to support that and, uh, become a fish fix shop and change my name from East Hills to, to fix. . And then, uh, um, Eric brought a lot of, uh, accounting experience, financial experience, um, quite a bit of thinking outside the box, uh, to the table.

And, uh, he was very inviting to whatever I had. He was very supportive. And, um, when I am in a partnership, it's absolutely a marriage. There's no question about it. There's no turning back. We were very, uh, much 50 50 partners. We didn't leave the. Uh, without a solution. When we had a challenge, uh, challenges were very few and, uh, it worked out great.

So I would say that, uh, that was quite an asset, uh, uh, period in my life and, uh, it's taught me a lot to where I'm at today. So, um, very comfortable with the partnership. So, uh, fast forwarding to. This first piece of technology that you come around with, uh, would you say it was, it was Update Plus? Was that, was that what it was?

Um, it was, it was a company called Update Promise. Update com. Update Promise. Yeah. And, uh, it was a, um, it was a, uh, text messaging system that, uh, updated the consumer from the time they brought their car in to the time they, they left with calm and passive and simple messages that weren't autobody related, but, uh, more on the psyche that, , they're being kept in the loop and that everything's fine and just, uh, we got your back.

So that worked out well. How that became to be invented was that I would hear estimators, uh, on a daily basis updating consumers because there was a big push back in the early, you know, nineties and two thousands to make sure, you know, the customers are being updated properly and so forth. So I saw Adam that.

Most people, when they updated a consumer, they would say that, Hey, everything's fine. And we're on track for Friday, but our technician, uh, broke the belt molding and we're running over to BMW to pick it up. And, and uh, as soon as we get that back, uh, and put on the car, we'll wash it and we'll call you. So I always kind of imagined that a husband and wife were walking down the aisles of a grocery store and the wife took that call, and when she hung up, the husband asked, what was that about?

And she would say, I believe, well, that was the body shop, and they said something about a broken molding. And I thought, well, that was unnecessary because they missed the intent. The intent was is that your car is fine and it's coming home on Friday. So I felt that communication could be standardized in that we could say the things that were important to the consumer and be honest about.

If we say the car's coming home on Friday, it's coming home on Friday, and why don't we just shut up and leave it at that and leave those nuts and bolts of the operation to the operation and have the customer in a more calm environment and, uh, looking forward to picking their car up on Friday. So that worked out and still used today, and I use it.

Okay, so let's fast forward really quick to, um, Q C I Q. Yeah. Uh, how did that come around? What was the thought process for that? Because obviously, I mean, I can definitely see where, um, update plus or, you know, whatever, it's, uh, sorry, whatever it's known as now. Um, I keep hearing the name of it, but, um, CCC Update plus, uh, yes.

CCC update plus I keep getting the previous name and the, the now name, uh, mixed up. Yeah, sure. I can definitely see the path for that, you know, the clear thinking on that, but what was, what was the thinking behind Q C I Q and um, what led you to do that and how long did it take you to implement? You know, back in probably, um, 2018, I had a repair in a shop that I sold, and I had that shop for 27 years.

That was the one that we merged together with. With a partner there. And that was in Ur, Belinda, California. I did a rear body panel repair on a, uh, on a vehicle. And we were doing about 400,000 a month at the time. And it was a, a Lexus rear body panel repair for about $2,300. And, uh, state Farm was insurance company.

We had a great relationship with State Farm. We were a good D R P for them. And, uh, we had been a D R P with them since probably 1990. And, uh, what happened was, was that, uh, they had, uh, real good guidelines for the program. They, uh, were very fair company and, uh, however, if a, if a client did not like the repair or had an issue with the repair, they had the choice to go wherever they wanted.

They did not have to come back to you. That particular rear body panel, uh, for $2,300 was just a repair. And, um, and I undermined it. I, I missed, uh, a little bit of an imperfection on the inside of the rear body panel. I could have fixed it in five minutes before it got painted. We missed it. We didn't do it.

And, uh, the car got through the, through the cracks and the company and, and, uh, the consumer, um, questioned it when he looked at it and took it to a friend in another city who was not A D R P was not a State Farm. And, uh, they somehow came up with a bill for $6,300 to make it correct. I got to go down there to look at the car and it was obviously repairable and minor, but they wanted to change the rear body panel because that's what the customer wanted.

And for whatever reasons, and next thing you know, you're blending quarter panels, you're pulling sunroof, you're doing all these things and changing the moldings and, and what have you. So State Forum sent me a.  and they said, uh, you need to pay the bill. And I said, okay. I mean, I was getting a hundred thousand dollars a month from that account and uh, I felt embarrassed about it.

I didn't want it to happen again. So I got to the drawing board and started mapping out on some napkins. Uh, how can I catch things like this in the future? What kind of a check and balance? You know, do I need to create that can help myself and help the industry? So since there's a lack of standardization in a QC process in a body shop, I felt that this was the next update promise, and that, that there was a need, uh, to, to standardize a quality process.

And so basically the app in general has, uh, three modules to it. A customer care module, which is what we recommend you start out with. It's after the car is. It's for the appearance items on the vehicle from clean carpets to fingerprints on a window to smeared glass, to tires dressed and so forth. And the paint looks clean and the car is washed and and so forth.

And that gives a shop an opportunity to verify that, uh, that product has, has a great first impression set up on it for when the consumer looks at it. Nothing to do with the nuts and bolts of the car, but it's an elementary level to start a QC process. And it's also dresses the items. That the consumer grades you on, you know, they're not educated on the nuts and bolts of the car.

That's for the body shop to do. Um, the next module is, is, uh, highly recommended as a post audit. Repair, you know, qc when the vehicle's done, the estimate lines populate into the app, gives you, gives you or a user the ability to say, I like that line, or I don't like that line. It gives a shop the final ability to verify.

Adam, the existence and the quality of the products and services they sold to somebody. So if you have a hundred estimate lines or 20 estimate lines in your repair order, they bridge automatically into the app. Supplements are updated in real time. It gives an end user a chance to look at each line, see what they charged, look at the car and say, I like it, or I don't like it.

Should they not like it? Adam? It's a great learning experience. The system prompts them to take a. Of the area that they don't like, put their finger on the epicenter of the area they don't like, and then the system automatically text messages the technician privately and personally to his own phone saying This is an area that, you know, could use some rep, uh, some attention.

This is the reason that we can't pass it. And then once that technician resolves that issue, the item is passed, the technician gets a sign off with a photo of it resolved what he did to resolve. And then that tracked the downtime of, uh, of a rework. And, uh, it works out pretty good. So shops are jumping on board.

There's a movement today to get this, uh, across the industry here. Uh, the third module is an in-process app. That's for the, the, uh, the shops that, uh, want to look at every nut and bolt. And, uh, gives them an opportunity to check off the R of rni, you know, the remove, it's done, I did it. And then when it's reinstalled, they check that off.

That is probably, uh, months to years away of, of people actually diving into a module like that. That is the correct way. To check a car. But with today's time constraints, the KPIs that we face, all the pressure, um, it's important that we just look at the car before it leaves. We must look at it in interviewing shop owners across the country.

To my surprise, uh, not shocked, but to my surprise, a majority, and when I say majority, eight outta 10 shop owners and shop manager. Admit, they do not have the time to look at the car to verify the existence of the products and services that they sold for quality and that they actually do exist. And, uh, they have regret in that.

They're not totally comfortable with that, but it's going on. It's going on. And for their sake and for the sake of the insurer and the consumer most, you know, importantly, Vehicles need to be looked at. It just takes a few minutes. Some people will say, Hey, that took me 22 minutes to QC that car. The longer it takes you to QC a car, the more money you got paid.

That's it. So 22 minute investment into something that was $15,000. Great. Three to seven minutes for your average repair. Well worth it. You know, you've shopped at Costco, Adam, 'em, you know when you go to Costco, maybe you have, maybe you haven't, but in the Costco process, you'll buy something, you'll walk through the, or go to exit the door.

They'll stop you. They'll look at the receipt, they'll make sure it was paid for. They'll make sure you got what you paid for. They'll look at the quality of the product that you're taking out of there so the box isn't damaged or, or what have you, and they control that. So what's going out of that store is paid for.

It exist. And it was in good shape. And Costco's doing that for a bag of nuts. Why aren't we doing that for a $5,000 collision repair? Why aren't we taking that extra few minutes to take a look at that car? And if you look at the connotation on reviews most often, you know, um, the biggest correlation to a, to a body shop, uh, um, referring another customer to that body shop is, uh, It has the highest correlation to, would you recommend a body shop when quality is missed, it tanks.

So that was the uh, intent behind that. Hey guys. Adam from the podcast. I hope you are enjoying today's episode. Just wanted to ask you a quick favor. If the show has brought you value in some way, would you mind giving us a review and sharing the show? It really helps the show get out there. Also, if you are looking to expand the services that your shop offers and you want to do more than collision work, you should really check out our company Clarity.

Clarity Coat is a peelable paint that allows body shops to offer color changes cheaper than a repaint, while still looking like real paint. You can also offer clear protection that has no edges and is sprayed instead of laid. Unlike vinyl and ppf, clarity coat can be sanded and polished so you can give your customer the exact look that they are wanting.

If you are looking to expand your shop services, go to clarity coat.com and fill out our Become an Installer form. All right, let's get back to. Just outta curiosity, do you happen to have any data or statistical, um, data that backs why or the improvements that a shop has made in having, in implementing some sort of quality control in, I mean, specifically your, your guys', um, software, or not specifically your guys' software?

Sure. Do you, you have anything data points on that? Yeah. You know, like I mentioned earlier and, and is that the, the number one. Correlation to high CSI is, would a consumer recommend that body shop? The number one correlation to recommend a body shop is quality, so absolutely. Shops that have improved quality through the application are not through the application who have high quality repairs, have a much higher csi, a much more solid and friendly connot.

On social media as far as to surveys, you know, reviews and so forth. So there's an absolute correlation to quality and high customer, uh, uh, surveys. Uh, survey responses. Alright, that does it for today's Quick Clips. If this episode has brought you value, would you mind giving us a review? Also, if you would like to learn more about Clarity Coat and what it can do for your business, please visit us@claritycoat.com.

See you on the next one.