Stacey Phillips is a freelance writer for the automotive industry based in Southern California. She has 20 years of experience as an editor including writing in a number of businesses and fields.
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...mobile repair technicians, we have more than 30 teams working in the field at any given time.
PDR Mobile Solutions supports the hail repair business estimatics, analytics and field operations for our mobile hail technicians.
The Claims Bridge International consists of a team of experienced U.S. and international insurance, reinsurance, claims and repair executives who joined forces to “reimagine” catastrophic auto hail claims and find a better way of handling these events for customers. We recently developed a technology solution for the industry.
What were your biggest challenges this year operating a national repair network during the pandemic?
It has been a difficult year for everyone. I’m appreciative of all of our employees, colleagues and customers across the U.S. for soldiering through 2020 and showing amazing resilience in a year that has seen the most significant economic disruption of our lifetimes.
The No. 1 challenge for us was access to customers and their vehicles to properly assess hail and/or crash damage. The fear factor of COVID-19 had a massive impact on when customers would file and/or take action to settle their claim. People just didn’t leave their homes unless it was absolutely necessary.
The silver lining here is that consumers are more engaged with self-serve options. With the consumer being more involved from a digital/virtual perspective, this will allow our businesses to prosper and leverage technology solutions to improve the customer experience.
Lastly, insurers had so many different requirements due to COVID-19 it was difficult to deliver what they needed, especially in the format they wanted. It was very challenging and no doubt frustrating for customers, and I feel that drove cost higher.
COVID may have stopped many things, but not accidents and hail storms! The silver lining is insurers are becoming open-minded and willing to interact with their insureds and repairers in a digital environment. It’s not an easy leap, but a necessary one that will drive future interactions.
How have you overcome these challenges?
Overcoming customer fear was outside our span of control; however, we offered a contactless digital assessment tool that the vehicle owner could use to triage the damage. We also provided...