CollisionCast

Greg Lachner has spent most of his life working in body shops. Now, through his company Auto Body Training Solutions, he galvanizes others to learn the best and most efficient ways to fix their vehicles once, and only once. 

Today on CollisionCast, we speak with Brittney Valentine, customer service representative for All Angles Collision Repair, located in Wichita, Kansas. Brittney shares her experiences as a customer and how it affected the way she views her customer service role; Valentine not only focuses on making her customers' experiences memorable, but also helps train other customer service representatives at...

Jim Huard, a managing partner with Fix Auto, explains how shop operators can best go about educating their staffs regarding rapidly evolving vehicle technology. 

Today on CollisionCast, we're joined by Dr. Nick Morgan, one of America's top communications theorists and coaches. Dr. Morgan is the founder and CEO of Public Words consulting company, and shares a few strategies about bettering your everyday body language for yourself, your employees, and your customers.  

2018 FenderBender award winner Cynthia Varnell reveals how her employee initiatives outside the shop empower them from within. 

Charlie Robertson, president of the Collision Career Institute, explains how shop operators can prepare their entry-level workers properly in the modern era, and eventually make them a shop asset. 

DJ Mitchell has seen it all as first the COO of Car Guys Automotive and now the Regional Director of Joe Hudson's Collision Center. Listen to his insight as he discusses the unique challenges and opportunities of new staffs, new shops, and growing a family business. 

Josh Avello, an automotive collision repair instructor at Ranken Technical College in St. Louis, explains how shop owners can help prepare their technicians for success when they take welding certification tests. 

Mitchell’s latest Industry Trends report explores the importance of having a complete, objective view in its feature article, “The Power of Perspective: Seeing the Full Picture of a Claim.” Nina Smith, Mitchell’s executive vice president and general manager of casualty solutions, explains how integration and how the technology and data provides the insights required to give adjusters a full pictur...

Shop owner Danny Szarka explains the best, current methods for finding quality entry-level technicians among job applicants.

Dubbed "the future of collision repair" by industry superstar Mike Anderson, shop owner Jason Boggs, joins CollisionCast to discuss his evolution as both a shop owner and a leader. Boggs discusses how he figured out  his own leadership style (and how it differs from his shop owner father's), how he tweaks his leadership style according to the employee, and the surprising parallels between collisio...

Barrett Stamps, manager of Auburn Collision 1, shares his secrets to not only providing excellent customer service but gaining customer loyalty. 

ABRA Auto Body & Glass has made moves to becoming not only the repairer of choice but the employer of choice. FenderBender sat down with Carmen Thiede, chief people officer for ABRA, and dived further into how the company goes about finding, retaining and developing leaders.

Brian Wasson, manager, program delivery for I-CAR, shares the ins and outs, from price to flexibility of the product, of choosing the right welder for your shop. 

Travis Fitchie was only 20 years old when he was promoted to the manager position at Apland's Auto Body. Jodie Apland, vice president of the shop, and Mike Apland, president of the shop, witnessed Fitchie raise the shop's sales through a "bite-your-fingernails" stage. Here is why and how the Aplands decided to hire a millennial manager.

Robert Molina is this year's FenderBender Award winner in the Executive category. He led his $12 million body shop beloved by his Miami community by investing in people and technology and instituting a customer-first mentality. Here's how he built his massive, technologically advanced operation.

Island Fender used to receive 90 percent of its business from DRPs. Feeling he was losing control of his body shop, owner Van Takemoto decided to tone his DRP business down. While painful at first, now his business is thriving. Here's how he did it.

While, ideally, driver-assist systems reduce the likelihood of crashes, there are still going to be opportunities for work for collision repair shops. To help clear things up, David Aylor, director of active safety testing Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, gives a rundown on the current state of ADAS technology and how those vehicles affect body repair procedures.

Controversial auto industry consultant Denny Hecker sat down with FenderBender to discuss what he views as the long-term viability of the collision repair industry. Hecker, one of the original franchisees of ABRA in Minnesota, says that, these days, shop operators need to know their market better than ever. 

Not long ago, two bills in Rhode Island, Senate Bill 2679 and House Bill 8013, were passed into law. They sought to expand restrictions currently in place on aftermarket parts in first-party claims to any collision damaged vehicle. This resparked a long-running debate between OEM vs. aftermarket parts. Bill Hanvey, president and CEO of the Auto Care Association, says the law unfairly requires cons...

From hiring the right manager to keeping tabs on their performance, there's a lot that goes into finding your right hand man. Here's everything to consider. Here are some tips from Steve Morrow, owner of Capitol Collision Center, on how to find the perfect manager.

Conner Brothers Body Shop has become a beloved, embraced body shop in the Chester, Va., community. Owner Kevin Conner details how he grew that operation and how he built himself back up after his father sold three of the family's four body shops.

Jenna Gross, chief marketing officer for Moving Targets, shares some insights into how to form a game plan for your target audience via social media and online advertisements.

As the general manager of five Cole's Collision Centers, Josh Jewett has a ton of experience mentoring managers in training. In this episode, he details his keys for grooming managers for success, the difficulties one can often run into when coaching managers, and how to empower managers who feel unsure of themselves.

Barry Snyder of Axalta Coating Systems discusses how a paint job in your body shop can affect the LiDAR technology that’s crucial to how autonomous vehicles function.