The Automotive Management Institute (AMI) has approved three additional Sikkens Acoat selected classes for credit toward the Accredited Automotive Manager (AAM) designation. 

The new courses include: "Planning Additional Locations," (8 credits); "Principles of Mentorship," (8 credits); and "The Cus-tomer Service Representative" (16 credits).

"These three courses address critical aspects of running a successful business," said Mike Sillay, North American services manager for Akzo Nobel. "The new courses offer valuable insight into internal business practices that will help bring more cars to the shops, enhance employee training and improve customer service. The Sikkens Acoat selected program pioneered the industry's awareness of tools designed to evaluate the total businesses profitability. Having AMI validate the value that these courses bring to the collision repair industry is extremely rewarding."

With the addition of the three new courses, Akzo Nobel is currently the single largest paint manufacturer providing the most AMI certificated courses. Akzo Nobel offers 15 total classes in all.

AMI Executive Director Toni Slaton said: "AMI is proud to work closely with Akzo Nobel to provide their customers with quality management education. Continuing education not only helps ensure the business success of collision repair professionals, it also improves the professionalism of the entire automotive service industry."

Planning Additional Locations is a course that will assist collision repair professionals who are planning to build or acquire additional repair centers. The class discusses the Greenfield, Brownfield and Acquisition approaches. It also reveals tools to help with projecting start-up costs.

The course will also delve into identifying an optimal location, forecasting potential sales from an additional location, forecasting start-up costs, selecting a business entity structure, selecting a finance plan, establishing a project timeline and establishing standard operating procedures.

The Principals of Mentorship course is designed to teach mentor technicians how to contribute to the successful transition of a young technician to a full journeyman technician.

The Customer Service Representative course focuses on the body shop's ability to satisfy the customer's unspoken needs - the need for professionalism, organization, information, etc. This course will help attendees establish procedures to process customer files efficiently and effectively.