SCHMICK Scratch and Dent Assist program, which has more than 150,000 members, has recently developed internally a repairs app which manages the entire back end of the onsite vehicle repair business.

The Schmick membership program assists with the repairs of minor scratches and dents delivered from a fleet of fully equipped company-owned mobile repair vans staffed by qualified spray painters who repair cars on site for a low fee that is usually just $50 per repair.

It is run along the lines of car club roadside assist services, and saves members hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars compared to panel shop repairs and prevents loss of vehicle for days on end for relatively minor damage repairs.

The managing director of Schmick, Jason Jaap, told GoAutoNews Premium: “This has really pushed the business to the next level and puts us in a really strong position to propel growth to that next level while maintaining our high customer service levels once we’re on the other side of this COVID-19 crisis.”

He said the app was developed so that mobile devices used by technicians in the field can plug into the management system in real time.

“As a repair request comes in, the details of the job along with a photo of the damage is sent to the appropriate technician. The app helps manage every aspect of the repair from booking through to invoicing and everything in between. There are no hard diaries or manual invoicing – everything is managed via our app,” he said.

“Technicians pick up their jobs from the app, it will track and record the details and outcomes of every call, so it notes who they have talked to, and when, and manages each step of every job through to invoicing.

“The beauty of this is the complete transparency. We know the progress on every job.

“It is also easier for the technicians. They can easily book jobs, change jobs, order all their repair consumables from the app and we know where all the vans are located at any time. We can move jobs around very easily if we need to.

“It basically gives us so much more control over the operations of the business as we know what everyone is doing at any one time and allows us to provide a higher level of service.

“So now we have a platform that will help us to do so much more,” Mr Jaap said.

As part of the first upgrade, Schmick introduced SMS reminders for all customer appointments.

“This is common in the likes of the medical profession and other industries even for car servicing but it is not something we have been able to do as there is no off-the-shelf product that has all our software requirements which is the reason we have custom-built our own,” Mr Jaap said.

“Our own software and this recent app has really pushed the business to the next level. It has improved our proficiency. We are more professional in our dealings with our members and equally as important, we are more professional in our dealings with our staff and partnering dealerships.

“It all comes back to delivering on our promise when our members and partnering dealerships can see that we clearly are an organisation that knows what it is doing.”

Mr Jaap said this new system was needed to manage Schmick’s membership growth.

“We knew at the beginning when Schmick was just an idea that the first few thousand members would be relatively easy to manage and service but replicating and maintaining the high level of service on a large scale was always going to be the challenge,” he said.

“We have not only met the challenge up to now but we are now exceptionally well equipped to manage and continue delivering our high service levels well into the future.”

By John Mellor