Two of the newest executives at a leading player in the collision industry recently addressed a webinar audience on their visions for asTech and its parent company, Repairify. Srisu Subrahmanyam joined the organization recently as CEO, and Keith Crerar took the role of chief technology officer.
Subrahmanyam came from OPENLANE, an automotive marketing company, which sells cars on mostly digital platforms. His roots in car sales go back to his management of the physical auction business ADESA, which sold to Carvana in 2022 and put him in proximity to the collision industry with a handful of company-owned shops that readied cars for sale.
Crerar’s automotive industry roots go back 25 years; he managed a large dealer in Toronto, moved on to ADESA and then Car Global and finally OPENLANE, where he functioned as operating executive for the past 15 years. His experience at ADESA ranged from sales to the automotive auto auction space, which included a mobile application called Trade Rev, to customer experience and global shared services, which included functions like logistics, claims arbitration and financial operations.
The Customer Viewpoint
Subrahmanyam spoke of his experience with Repairify as a customer and explained that this being in this situation puts employees in a unique position when it comes to understanding the companies they work for. During his time with ADESA, he said, he became aware of asTech tools for remote diagnosis, including scanning device Blue Driver.
Describing his first six weeks with Repairify, Subrahmanyam said he’s encountered an organization that understands the automotive repair space and also acknowledges areas where it has room to improve.
Seeing things from the customer viewpoint, Crerar said, is also important to the transformation office he heads.
“The thing that we've talked a lot about early on is, through the lens of the customer, being very good listeners — listening to our customers and getting their feedback and then actioning that feedback as we can,” he said.
Transformation office goals comprise three goals, Crerar said. The first is enhancing customer experience through the listening piece and providing service and products accordingly. The second is to drive business growth through revenue and profitability initiatives with a faster, easier experience for the customer in mind. The final goal is operational efficiency — reducing cycle times through streamlining with skilled, fast technicians and information at the ready for customers.
Identifying Customer Needs
Crerar also addressed the need for Repairify to stay connected to evolving shop needs.
“Having the two of us join recently gives us a chance to re-engage with our customers very differently and with clear eyes,” he said of his and Subrahmanyam’s entrances. “We understand the history. We weren't here to experience it, so we get to have this outsider’s perspective on what our customers are really telling us and how we're going to approach solving some of the complex problems that our customers are experiencing.”
Part of that understanding has come from spending time in the field at delivery centers with customers in their shops and with technicians using scan tools and calibration equipment to understand workflow. Crerar said he’s also spoken with existing customers and some who have left about what the company does well and where missteps have taken place, where the needs to see added value lie, where confusion might exist and where constraints on technicians might be eased.
Customers, he said, are likely looking to make sure Repairify understands their needs, can anticipate industry changes and can bring across reliability and cost-effectiveness for frictionless service.
By his own assessment, the company may not always measure up in all categories.
“We have been successful, and we’ve provided the service for a long time, but to be honest, we don't excel in these areas consistently,” he said. “I think we're pretty good but we're not excellent at it.”
He cited, for instance, tech-related issues have caused service degradation in the past with longer wait times for customers. Solutions moving forward center on looking for root causes and not accepting those longer waits, he said.
Feedback from the Field
For Crerar, addressing client challenges that come up during conversations in the field has been important. The company, he said, has gathered feedback through a net promoter score survey and through one-question satisfaction surveys for customers who call in for help, and also through a satisfaction rating question issued to technicians when a work order is closed.
Also helpful, he said, has been a process of talking to business leaders the company partners with to understand how they see asTech and where improvement might take place. Customers, he said, are expressing appreciation of the Gen 2 device and the way it speeds execution. Others want a streamline of offering in tools. Still others want more options in identifying necessary calibrations.
Challenges the company faces in customer relations have arisen surrounding asTech’s agreement with insurance giant GEICO and the "environment" that decision has created Subrahmanyam said. The agreement, which standardizes pricing of some repair services, has drawn criticisms from some shop owners who say they feel left out.
“I don’t have all the answers. In fact, I have very little answers at this point, but I am willing to listen, learn and adapt to what our customers need,” he said. “I'm very practical about where we are and how to go about listening to our customers and rebuilding trust with them, but we have a lot of work to do in this respect.”
Simplifying Solutions
Moving forward, making calibrations easy to execute with increased information for technicians and shop managers should be a goal for the company’s transformation initiatives, Crerar said. Helping shops drive efficiency could include recorded information on what needs to be done, how it was completed and back-end reporting for those who want to see what resources were available and which work was completed.
Supporting estimators is also a priority with more streamlined options for invoicing, payments and reimbursement, Crerar said. Simplification in general is a prominent goal, but it’s also important to stay “engaged and thoughtful” about industry partnerships that are important to customers. Delivering integrations customers want and respecting partnerships will take a collaborative approach, he said.
Providing solutions for day-to-day operational issues customers face is also a priority, and recognizing different levels of complexity is important here, Subrahmanyam said. Lots of customers are currently turning to asTech technology for scanning when other methods fail. Using current intelligence to identify the correct repairs and implement integrations that allow customers to complete repairs and get reimbursed.
Making life simpler for customers through problem solving builds trust, and Subrahmanyam encouraged webinar attendees to fill out any surveys they receive from the company to up the amount of feedback toward that process.
Streamlined Tools, Seamless Workflow
Looking toward the next 12 months for Repairify, Subrahmanyam said, brings with it the acknowledgement that the collision industry is trending downward as ADAS technology has proliferated and total loss rates have risen.
“That has put a lot of pressure on repair shops to become more efficient and, hopefully, more effective as well,” he said. “Some have even gone into a restructuring phase focused on cost control programs to reduce their cost structure.”
Having tools at the ready for repairs that need to get done will allow asTech and Repairfy to maximize existing opportunities to help shops as they attempt to up efficiency and drive down costs, he said. He acknowledged that ADAS technologies in newer cars is more pervasive and sophisticated, meaning more repairs require extensive calibration.
Crerar cited ADASThink as an impactful technology when it comes to isolating hard-to-identify issues. Building out capabilities like this one and identifying ways to integrate them into the current customer workflow in order to help execute more calibrations and make sure customers are capturing information they need.
Getting ahead with new technologies to help Repairify customers with questions about newer cars is a goal, and company’s research and development team is helping with that proactive stance in understanding industry happenings, Crerar said.
To that end, asTech is developing a Gen 3 diagnostic tool, a step up from its current Gen 2 tool, to deliver high-speed connectivity and high-level reliability, Subrahmanyam said. The Repair360 workflow tool is also helping with customer efficiency and effectiveness, especially in the context of calibrations.
Tens of thousands of shop employees are already using repairer tools like Mobile Tech RX and ReconPro, Subrahmanyam pointed out. Integrating more of these tools is important in upping value for customers, as is streamlining them into a more simplified solution, he said. Becoming the most relied-upon vendor is a significant goal for Repairify in Subrahmanyam’s eyes, and making life easier for customers by adding value to workflow is key here.
“We also have to be cognizant of the fact that our workflow, the work that we do is not the main work for our customers. It's an important part of the piece of the puzzle,” he said. “But that's not the entire piece. So, whatever we do needs to be easy for them to use, seamless.”
Elizabeth Green