Driven Brands collision leadership says company honing in on OEM certifications
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Driven Brands U.S. Collision COO Damien Reyna said Thursday the company and its stores are growing shop OEM certifications, and seeing the benefit of doing so.
He and Brand Collision President Sabrina Thring discussed their outlook on the industry and answered questions during a media roundtable held at the three-day Driven Brands “Limitless 2024” conference in Dallas, Texas.
The primary driver for the ramp-up is to ensure repairers have the knowledge and skills to properly repair today’s advanced vehicles according to OEM repair operations, Reyna said.
The “tipping point” for franchise owners to seek certifications has been a good return on investment — the main reason for hesitancy in the past — through safety and peace of mind that vehicles are repaired correctly, he added.
He noted that Tesla’s certification program has been a big advantage for Driven Brands’ system helping double EV repairs in terms of average company repairs versus the industry overall. Reyna also said achieving Tesla certification is a good segway for shops to seek Rivian certification.
Driven Brands currently has more than 90 Tesla-certified locations and more than 150 OEM certifications have been added to the network this year, surpassing Driven Brands’ goal for the year of 100.
As for challenges in the year ahead, two that Thring mentioned centered on getting back to typical company standards now that workloads are decreasing following “extra capacity” volumes.
“We had so much work we didn’t know what to do with it,” she said. “I feel, personally, the insurers let go of a couple of things through that period and I feel like we did too, to some degree, because there was so much work to be done that they weren’t challenging every KPI. They were very lenient on normal standards for what we would typically perform to.”
Part of getting back to the norm is getting everyone back to a focus on data-driven performance, Thring said. Reyna previously said during the roundtable that “data” in terms of operations for Driven Brands means watching analytics and trends and using historical data to forecast company trajectory.
“Fixing cars right is a big challenge that we are navigating through,” Thring said. “There is no franchisee in our system, that I can think of, that would ever tolerate an incorrect or unsafe repair. The ability to repair these vehicles safely and get them back on the road and to standard versus what those technicians get paid to do it continues to be a challenge.”
According to a Driven Brands news release about topics discussed during the second day of the conference, Reyna said, “The collision repair industry is constantly evolving and the competition for every repair dollar is intense,” said Reyna, “Maintaining our industry-leading position and commitment to the highest-quality vehicle repairs requires that we work side-by-side with our franchise partners to maximize our performance, our margins and our profitability.”
Reyna said another focus Driven Brands has locked in on is making sure career paths are offered to technicians, especially those who are younger because without a trajectory they get discouraged and leave the industry.
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Featured image: Driven Brands U.S. Collision COO Damien Reyna speaks Thursday during the company’s “Limitless 2024” conference in Dallas, Texas. (Credit: Driven Brands and Aranco Productions)