Cole Strandberg: That needs to go straight in Sebastian’s LinkedIn bio. Precision visionary. It doesn’t get a whole lot better than that in terms of compliments, especially from somebody like you. From my perspective, the conversation covered so much and oftentimes the intake and estimating process, I think it’s overlooked. You look at what’s being talked about around the industry, it’s a lot of DRPs, it’s a lot of OE certifications and fixing cars on the back end the appropriate way and all of that. Obviously, especially that fixing cars on the back end appropriately are super important. But man, to be able to capture more of those keys and to make it as user friendly and experience for somebody who’s taken time out of their day to walk into your shop to let your team look at the car like you have them, just don’t mess it up. And the tools that you can utilize and deploy to make sure that you make the most of that is awesome. Another really cool part of this story, I think is something that resonates with a lot of our listeners is they were kind of slow to grow, right? They really were thoughtful about processes, procedures, getting it right in one store before making the leap into 2 and 3 and 4. And once they made that leap, they were really thoughtful about doing it the right way. Bill, I’ll start with you here, man. Before thinking about scale, what must be true about a shop’s intake and estimating process up front?

Bill Brower: Yeah, it’s really about mapping the process. I think a lot of times what happens is as an industry, and not just in the collision and repair industry and insurance industry, but as an industry, we tend to see something shiny and it’s like, oh, wow, that looks really cool. I should try that. But really, before you begin to implement any kind of new technology, I always recommend that businesses, I like the value stream map, the lean approach, if you will, of thinking about workflow and process. But, but just mapping out what currently happens today, in this case the claim intake, process, and then what should it look like? What could it look like in the future? And then what tools do you need? Where do they fit? And I think that’s really key. And when you think about this process, I mean, in fact, I just had a personal claim just recently, hadn’t had in a long time. But what I found, and this is where the shop that’s not using this kind of approach is, is, you know, I go in and I take my car and they take a look at it and they say, hey, I’ll get an estimate back to you in a couple of days. A couple days later I get the estimate via email, but then I need to call the shop back and you know, the person I need to talk to is probably with a customer and we play phone tag and. And it’s just, it’s a process that, you know, I mean, I was pleased with my repair process, but it just took too long. And when you think about what what Sebastian’s done is, he’s made it so simple leveraging AI that while if I were in his shop before I would leave the shop, I would actually know what the dam adjustment is, I’d be able to go ahead and schedule time to bring it in. And then there’s no phone tag trying to get the claim intake set up. It’s just a much more customer friendly approach, a more seamless approach.

Cole Strandberg: Well said, Erin. I want to bring that same question to you and even broaden it out a little bit. For shops looking to scale what needs to be right from a systems and process procedure to say, hey, I can take this from one store to two or three or five.

Erin Solis: You know, I like what Bill said about mapping it out and I think hanging something even on a wall, right. And taking your team around and letting them all map it out. This is what our process looks like. These are the additional things that we can do. I do think that you really have to have a solid process and a sol solid way for that process to expand. You can’t really wing it when you’re looking at opening a new store. And hopefully, you know, you move a couple people from this store over that store and they just, you know, spread the. The process around. You have to make sure that everybody knows what the process is and that you’re using the same process as you go over and start the new store. That way you can leverage the two locations load, you know, low leveraging whatever it may be to make sure that you are getting the most out of that process.

Cole Strandberg: Sheryl, how about from your perspective?

Sheryl Driggers: Yeah, so I go back to what I started with, what resonated with me the most. Right. It’s scheduling. Before we go to scale, we really need to have a solid scheduling process where we’re really taking into consideration our technicians capacity, their skill level and not just open slots, but, but also making sure that we have a solid repair planning process where we’re doing disassembly, a full disassembly, where we’re researching OEM repair procedures, where we have solid documentation, we’re identifying those post collision safety requirements. Because if that isn’t consistent, adding multiple locations is just gonna add multiple inconsistencies.

Bill Brower: Yeah, sure, that’s a great point. And I remember from Sebastian’s points and he and I have talked about this a lot. When I think of AI estimating, I think most people think of AI estimating, they think of the drivable, simple repairs that aren’t as complicated. Sebastian’s gotten a lot of mileage out of his non drives and to your point, he told me that it would typically take 90 minutes before he employed this AI using our AI solution at Solar, he said it would normally take 90 minutes to get to a point of having a, a pretty solid repair plan or estimate. And now with the, with the AI powered solution, he’s actually getting a lot of this information carried over right away from the pictures. And then he goes in and he can start tearing it down and adding the parts. And he said he’s cut it down from 90 minutes I think he said, to maybe less than 30 minutes. And, and that’s, that’s a great way to, as you mentioned, to, to get that repair plan. And I think the other thing about AI, it creates more consistency. AI is still evolving and there’s still things that we’re doing to continue to improve it, but it is consistent and it’s going to allow you to be more consistent in terms of how you write the estimate, you know, what’s included, that kind of thing. It’s all automated so that it’s more consistent with the final output.

Cole Strandberg: It’s a great point. And God, the technology innovation we’ve seen in the past 24 months, maybe even 12 months, is just, it’s historic. Right? The integration of AI has changed the equation from a technology perspective in this industry and obviously far beyond at sema, even kind of early innings, there were a ton of new AI startups showing up for this industry at nada. In the broader aftermarket. Just last month, apparently there were like a hundred AI startups showing up. And so there’s going to be some amazing tools in there hidden within a lot of the noise, but a lot of these tools are not going to really be great. Either Bill, I want to start from you and each of us here have different experiences and kind of angles we approach new technology. But what do you see high performing shops do differently when selecting the right tools for them?

Bill Brower: Well, I kind of go back to the lean mapping is first understand what they’re trying, the problem they’re trying to solve and then begin to figure out where they need tools and solutions to improve that flow. Certainly. But I think the other to your point on AI, there’s a lot and I was at ITC and SEMA and a number of different industry events and you’re right, there are many, many AI solutions, a lot of really pretty decks and fancy looking graphics. But when you think about AI, and I spoke about this in a previous meeting that I had, it’s really about the data behind the AI. So if it’s a company that provides AI, but they don’t really have the millions and millions of data files that help to provide the intelligence that AI needs to come up with an accurate outcome, then it’s not going to be the product that’s going to probably meet the need of the shop or the insurance company. So I think when you’re going through the process, my view is probably three steps. One is, is definitely understand the workflow that you have and map it, understand what you need, carefully select a solution. Maybe you’re going to choose between a couple of solutions. But really be mindful of does that solution have all the features, Maybe the AI is okay, does it have the data that it needs to power it? And then third, what I like to call test and learn, Sebastian did this. He didn’t start out saying, hey, this is a new process, go do it on. He started out by trying a few things until he kind of landed on the model and the workflow and then they consistently followed it for a period of time to prove it out that it worked. I think those are really the three things I look for.

Cole Strandberg: To your point, it’s one thing for a company to kind of win the demo. It’s a different thing for them to consistently and over time win in the shop. Sheryl, from an evaluating new technology standpoint and from your background as a shop owner, how do you advise your clients and your friends in industry to think about all these tools we have available to us?

Sheryl Driggers: Yeah, so I’ve lived this at one point with our collision centers, we had three collision centers and we decided to switch management systems because of the technology that it offered and we thought that would be most impactful in our business. But three months later we switched back to the other management system that we had been with for so long because it didn’t fit our team, it didn’t fit our processes. So I always recommend, number one, does it support your overall goal? Does it support your processes in real life? Is it working with your workflow, with your people and with your way of doing business? And one of the things that I really thought was key that Sebastian mentioned was piloting the program right where we’re piloting with really strong team members who can help shape the form of how this is going to be incorporated in our operation and really make it work for our systems, our processes, our team.

Cole Strandberg: You know what, you highlighted something that I want to double click on a little bit. I think one of the coolest things about a forum like the Collision Vision is we can learn a ton from other people in industry’s wins. We might be able to learn even more from their failures too. With your specific, I mean that, that technology, when make the investment to purchase it, integrate it, train on it, that hurts to have to turn back and go around what failed in that instance for that technology in your experience.

Sheryl Driggers: So. Well, first of all, we included our team in the decision. Right before we made a decision to switch systems, we included the team and there was one section of the business that was going to be taking a hit like the, the. We knew that, you know, the accounting department was not going to have the capabilities that they had before and accounting was willing to do that because we thought production, scheduling and all the other things were going to be that much better for our business. But then three months in, and I’ll say this, everyone, when you switch or you have any kind of new technology, I don’t care who you are or your experience, you want to pull your hair out. And so there’s going to be a time and a period of time I hate this and I want to throw it out. Right. But when you get to the point we were, to the point where we were three months in and we had the people who thought they were going to love it, hated it, and their, their day was consumed with being stressed out instead of it helping and supporting as leaders, we just made the decision, you know, okay, we’re going to go back and go back to what we know works for us.

Cole Strandberg: Love it. A powerful lesson across the board in there. Including of course, know when a sunk cost is a sunk cost. Gotta be right for your business. Erin, how about from your perspective on kind of choosing the right tools for your team?

Erin Solis: You know, I wanted to throw in there, talking to your peers, having, you know, talk to somebody else that has already started using the software or has looked at it, you know, on top of Sheryl’s point, Bill’s point to actually testing it out and you know, having a pilot of the program or something like that, I wanted to point out too, something Bill said earlier about knowing where your gaps are, where you might need some of this technology to fill in. I don’t know that that’s always true because I think sometimes there’s technology out there that you can use that’s going to fill in gaps you don’t even realize that you have. So using that kind of peer network in, oh, well, what did that do for you? These are all the things that solve problems I didn’t even know I had. And now all these things are so much easier because of our integration of whatever the tool may be.

Bill Brower: Sorry, great points. And Sheryl, I admire you. You gave it three months, right? So you made the decision to switch back, but you, you did a complete test. I do find that one of the places where companies sometimes slip up is like, like one things I was real impressed with with Sebastian. When they decided how they were going to go about implementing this AI, it was 100%, you know, everybody. The, to Sheryl’s point, he got the buy in of the team and there were a lot of discussions and some people were on board quickly and some people were not. One thing I remember that he talked about in the, in your interview as well was how he assured people that this isn’t costing anyone jobs. This is, this is how to make us more successful. And, but, but when they came up with this process, you know, they stuck to it for a period of time. They might have decided at some point in time to tweak something, but they stuck with it. And what I find that sometimes any, any business will do is they’ll kind of come in and say, well, Cole, here’s a new thing. Why don’t you try it a little bit and see what you think? Well, you might try it on a claim or two. And then to show this point, you get kind of frustrated because it didn’t work as well as you thought the first time. And so the next time you go back to your old habits and you never go back to it. And so where I see things like this failing is when people don’t, when they fail to truly, you know, follow a process for a period of time. I say it takes three weeks usually to change a behavior and sometimes longer. But if you give it your Best shot for three weeks. You’re going to know pretty soon, is this working? Do I need to make some changes or not? But if you allow people to have flexibility and Bill doesn’t do it and Cole does do it and things like that, I think it just creates a lot of friction and it prevents you from getting to the real answers.

Cole Strandberg: Implementation is going to be a big piece of our conversation a little bit later on because, yeah, the technology can be amazing, but if you roll it out in the wrong way or kind of selectively enforce its utilization, you’re going to have problems really, even before you get started. And rolling. Now you mentioned, Bill, in our conversation with Sebastian, we talked about that. I think there’s a lot of question marks in white collar America of AI going to be replacing jobs. How I’m viewing this, especially in, in this industry, in the broader blue collar universe, is it’s not replacing us, it’s giving us super strength. It’s that, that serum for Captain America to just super duty. What an individual can do from an estimator perspective, technician perspective, what have you, it should really help make each and every one of us a lot more productive than we would be on our own. Now, I mentioned I’ll get to the integration piece and I do want to spend appropriate time there. First off, Bill, I want to swing to you though, especially as it relates to the tools that Sebastian and I spoke on. He mentioned getting estimates to customers before they leave. How do shops make sure to protect accuracy while also moving as quickly as they really can or want to?

Bill Brower: Well, good question. And I think the nice thing about the process that Sebastian’s put in place for customers that come into his shop, the admin person, the greeter, if you will, goes out, greets the customer, gets the pictures. It doesn’t have to be an estimator. This is someone who’s probably has been taught a bit about how to get quality pictures, but really is not a, you know, a true estimator, but a great customer service person. So that person captures the information. Then let’s say, you know, Bill is the estimator, busy handling things in the shop at the desk, but this pops up on the computer and, hey, this customer is waiting. And here’s the pictures and here’s the estimate. So the estimator is able to look at what’s been created from AI, make edits as needed, but also the car sitting right outside. So they could also walk outside, take a look, raise the hood, whatever might need to be done to make sure they’re Getting a good look at anything that’s in question if everything’s not visible from the picture. So I think that’s important. But it is, you know, the, the nice thing about the AI estimating, if you think about it, is, you know, because is really, if you think about it, is really like human guided AI estimating. Human guided AI estimating because in this case the estimator is still writing the estimate, but they’re guiding the AI, using it as a tool. So AI is like creating, you know, 20 lines of the estimate in seconds or within a couple minutes. And then the estimator is critiquing that to finish it. And so you’ve, you know, sometimes AI will pull things in that the estimator may even have forgotten to put on otherwise, so you’re getting some consistency. And then they have the opportunity, like I said, to walk out, look at the car if they like. I did notice that Sebastian also mentioned that he is moving forward now with the next stage because he’s pleased with the progress of AI. So the other way that he can use it and our tool supports it, is he can just push a link to the customer. Let’s say the customer is at their office, they’re tied up in meetings, but they could capture, take a link on their phone, walk out, take pictures of the car, push it back to Sebastian, it’ll come back to him as pictures and an estimate. And then he can decide, do I need this customer to stop by or do I have enough information that I’m good to go? Because this is all external damage, it’s easy to see in the images. So I think it is key that you have quality. You’re never going to eliminate supplements. It doesn’t matter if you bring the car in and tear it down. You’re probably going to have a supplement in a lot of cases. So there’s going to be some supplements. But I think the more you can leverage that AI power with a human eye, the more accurate you’re going to be in that first estimate so that you have less supplemental damages to be concerned with.

Cole Strandberg: Crazy how quickly this conversation evolved from a photo estimating standpoint. I mean, when it was first rolled out from some of the MSOs prematurely, in fairness, it felt so, so far away. And now it’s really, it’s, it’s reality. Really good shops are using really good quality software to create really good quality results. Erin, curious in, in your involvement with 20 groups and other peer groups, how often does the topic of some of this new technology come up?

Erin Solis: Almost Every conversation, there’s a lot of it out there. Like you said, all the stuff that was at SEMA and Nada a couple weeks ago, there’s a lot of it out there. I think there’s a lot of opportunity for a lot of software that can help. But I think Sebastian said it in your conversation with him too. You don’t want to remove the human element element for some of this stuff. Customers want to talk to an estimator or a csr. They want to talk to somebody at the shop. They want to build that relationship. They want to feel comfortable where they are and where their car is going to get fixed. And you can’t really remove that or replace it with AI. But I think, you know, to Bill’s point earlier, what he was doing in one car in an hour and a half before, he can now do with four cars in that same hour and a half. And I think that that’s the important thing to pay attention to. You were talking about making sure that customers get the copy of their estimate. And with the, you know, massive inflow that we’re seeing now of customer payment repairs and people that are not necessarily going through carriers, I think that’s even more important to have that human connection and that human element. And people need to leave with an understanding of how much the repairs are going to cost, what the possibility is of a supplement or something like that as well.

Cole Strandberg: Erin, you might as well have been in Bill and I’s pre show conversation. He mentioned it earlier in our episode here today about him filing a claim recently. He just lived some of the removal of the human element. Bill, I’m going to kick it over to you in just a minute to dive into that story. Before I do, Erin, I want to, I want to stick with you for just another minute on. When talking about some of these software and technology investments, how do you advise folks look at roi? I mean, ultimately that’s what it comes down to, right? Everything we’re talking about here leads to an ROI calculation. Talk me through around what those conversations look like today.

Erin Solis: It really depends on what kind of solution you’re looking at. Again, if you can process four cars in what used to take you an hour and a half to just do one car, now you’re talking about getting four more cars into production. So, you know, if it is a Thursday afternoon, say, and you get, you know, two tow ins or whatever, now within that afternoon, that car can actually be into production, getting torn down, finding, you know, any additional damages, getting measured, doing the inspections, any of that Sort of thing. It’s in process and it’s now moving through the, through the repair process. And you know, if you, you have to put an ROI to that, right, like if this really, truly helps you get more cars through the shop, if you’ve got four technicians that are all sitting around just waiting for an estimator to get done with it so that it can hit pre wash or tear down or whatever, those four people are standing there doing nothing, whereas now they are already starting on these cars that before were caught up in the front office process or whatever that may look like. So I think it depends on the software that you’re looking at. You need to look at what the tool is, right, the AI tool is and what area of your impact that, what area of your business that can actually impact. And that’s where you go to start to dive for your roi. Does it get the cars through faster? Does it free up scheduling? Does it free up somebody from answering a phone? Does it free up, you know, somebody from manually entering invoices into the system, whatever it may be, does it free up people to now start to, to move those vehicles and cars through the process smoother and does it get more through the shop? Because really sales is where, you know, it’s where the money comes from.

Cole Strandberg: Where is that bottleneck is super important. Bill, talk a little bit about keeping the human element in the era of AI.

Bill Brower: Yes, I actually did a session on AM Best TV a few years ago. I was looking back at it about the need to have empathy with digital capabilities. And I think that was like seven years ago that I had that conversation. And it’s so true. Never more true than it is today. So yes, I’ve been driving over 40 years. I’ve had three accidents in my lifetime. Fortunately I haven’t been at fault, but two, two of those accidents happened in a 30 day period just this year. It’s crazy. It’s really crazy. But I was able to, to kind of experience from, from the consumer standpoint, the claims experience. Right. Didn’t really want to do it that way, but anyway I learned so two different situations. One that, that was pretty interesting is, and I don’t know if you call it necessarily AI, I guess you would call it AI. But today a lot of the phone systems are geared to identify you. So when I call an insurance company that I work with, they recognize my phone number, they identify me very quickly. I do a little bit of validation, but it all happens with a couple of clicks, which is really cool. I like that, and then the phone system tries to identify why I might be calling, which is pretty cool as well. But what I found is in, in my particular situation, you have to be careful not to, to have a balance. You can’t do everything digital. You’ve got to have that opportunity for a customer to opt out where they need to. So in my situation, I remember one example where I needed to reach an adjuster. It was kind of time sensitive. I needed some information very quickly. It was very simple. I thought it’s like a two minute conversation, but I need to reach someone. And the tool routed me to a voicemail and the voicemail says, hey, it’ll be 24 hours, I’ll get back with you in 24 hours. Well, I needed the information like that afternoon. So then, you know, but it kept routing me and I, and I kind of got caught in this, in this, I don’t know, phone digital system that I couldn’t get out of. I couldn’t talk to a person. And so as we think about how to design processes, we always have to be thinking about everything’s not going to be the smooth, happy path where it gets handled through a digital process. You always have to have that opt out to talk to a customer or to, to a, to a claims person. In this case. Another situation that came up because I had a couple different insurance companies I was working with. Another situation that came up was, was where I felt like the adjuster felt they really couldn’t make a decision other than what technology told them to do. They couldn’t, they couldn’t adjust. And I think when you’re thinking about a claim situation, you know, claims are, you know, I’ve grown up in this business, been doing claims since before the days of estimating software. And you, you want adjusters to make decisions. There are exceptions that need to be made that a person, a human, needs to act on, not a machine. And so while I’m in the software business and I’m 100% behind software technology, I do realize that you, you’ve got to have that balance. And where I see this, this AI and this technology making the adjuster superhuman, things that can be done that don’t require a person are done through the AI. Decisions that need to be made by an experienced person can be done by the human. It makes them much more productive, but it makes the customer much more satisfied because things are getting processed quickly. If they need to talk to somebody, they’re getting someone that can answer their question. So I think when you think about the future it’s really how do you integrate whether you’re in a body shop, an insurance company, any kind of business, how do you make sure that your integration of digital is, is, is, is complemented with human touch where needed to create that opportunity for, for example, in a claim to have that empathy. Sometimes people may report to claim maybe they need to talk to somebody right after that you can have a way for that customer to reach a live person and have that conversation, which just makes the whole experience much more productive and much more satisfying.

Cole Strandberg: Such a balancing act that is going to be more and more important to each and every one of our businesses moving forward because of how that technology is evolving. I mentioned I’d want to come back and spend a fair bit of time on the implementation and the team buy in when you’re rolling out a new piece of technology or software. And Sheryl, I want to start with you and how do you bring your team along A without overwhelming them and B, how do we as leaders communicate why these changes matter, not just do it?

Sheryl Driggers: Yeah. So I think the biggest mistake when we roll things out is assuming buy in. Right. We just assume that because we see the vision everybody else is going to. So we have to really articulate, clear, clearly the why it matters and not just how to use it, but why and how it’s going to improve their day as human beings. We are all first focused on how is this going to impact me? And so when there is that unknown, when they don’t understand of how this is going to impact me, there’s going to be hesitation. So for example, with customer experience team members, when we can communicate how this, you know, number one, we want a relational intake with our customers. Right. We want to build relationships. So we, we want to make sure that technology is helping us be more efficient where we can have more time to be more effective with our customers. And so, you know, communicating how you’ll have more time for those relational conversations with customers. So it reduces, you know, the number of angry phone calls that you’re going to have to make throughout the extension experience to repair planners, I’ve really so articulating so they can see how technology is going to better structure their initial repair plan. Right. So in my mind, you know, technology we’re using this at number one, our how we’re communicating to our customers as this is, you know, we can start the process using this technology and then internally being able to use it to start that solid initial repair plan and then how that being able to communicate to our repair planners of how it’s going to make their lives better. So you have a solid repair plan, which I think Bill and Sebastian said it cut the time. I don’t remember exactly, but it used to take 90 minutes and now it takes just minutes to get that initial. And so just making sure that, number one, everybody understands the why and the how. And then also, also I’ll go back to what I’ve already talked about is that pilot, right. Making sure that we’re working out the friction where a couple of our strong team members are really shaping how we’re going to implement it and then making sure that there’s accountability once we do implement. Because I believe Bill, you mentioned something about this earlier of the hardest thing is to sustain when things are uncomfortable or hard. And so once we’ve made that commitment, we really need that accountability of, hey, this is how we’re going to do things.

Cole Strandberg: So many great points you just made in there, Sheryl. And I think ultimately we talk about buy in. We talked about your story earlier of having your team be a part of the decision making process. It really boils down to one word, which I appreciate. You just didn’t say one word and dropped the mic. Your answer was better. But so much of it’s to do with culture. Erin, anything to add to what Sheryl was throwing out there?

Erin Solis: A hundred percent. So, you know, I think culture has come up in every single conversation I’ve had with you and, and Sheryl and. But so it’s really interesting when you watch the dynamics of like if you go into a shop and you watch the dynamics of all of the people in the shop and I’m going to speak from my personal experience here. When I was still in operations, we were rolling out a whole new process. It was a more lean. We had a sort of a lean process. This was a advanced lean process. And I had a coach at the time that was like, just stand over here and watch. Watch all of your employees, watch them move around during the day, watch how they interact with the rest of their teammates. Find your influencers and find your sniper in the weeds. And it doesn’t matter. I think from a culture standpoint, if you have that sniper in the weeds there to your face, they’re going to be like, oh yeah, this is great. I’m going to play with this. It’s going to be awesome. And as soon as you turn around, they’re picking people off. Right.

Bill Brower: And the people that you thought were on board before. So I love Sheryl’s point to using the tool and you get the people that are your influencers that are really carrying the healthiest part of your culture and your business. Those are the people that you want to let, touch, feel, play with it, shape, you know, how it’s going to work within the business and how it’s going to benefit everyone and let them go out and tell people what they liked about it, what they hated about it, what made, you know, life easier for them, what’s going to make life easier for the other employees. Those are the people, and that’s the culture that you really want. And, you know, from my own personal experience, what I found out was my sniper in the weeds might have been one of my best techs or, you know, most producing person, but he had to go because he was toxic for the culture. And that was what would kill any kind of process or new software or anything that we tried to implement.

Cole Strandberg: Man, I love all those analogies that sniper in the weeds. Every organization seems to have one when you’re trying to do something new and do something different and grow. And as painful as it might be, we got to figure out how to. How to work around that or deal with that very, very directly. Bill, the culture thing came up in my conversation with Sebastian. And in all of his methodology, I think he kept his team’s thoughts and feelings and overall productivity top of mind, which boils down to culture. Now, he piloted in one store. For folks listening to this today, maybe they have multiple stores, maybe they intend to. What’s the right framework to decide when and how to pilot a new technology as you’re rolling it out to an organization?

Bill Brower: Yes, and I talk with insurance executives all the time about this sort of, this test and learn concept. So in my prior experience, I spent a lot of time with two major insurers, Nationwide Insurance and Liberty Mutual Insurance. And both companies, very innovative. We did a lot of innovation. I’ve seen both solutions. One where you try to innovate in a lab where it’s people that are not really in production, but maybe you just set up this sort of fictitious group or not, you know, make up claims and, and just let them sort of tinker with it, kind of like a laboratory. And that can be good. You can learn a lot. But. But what happens is then when you try to give that to the frontline employees, they’re like, well, you were just in the ivory tower. You were just, you know, you had all the cool toys to play with. It doesn’t really work that way in, in. In the real world. So I do find that you want to get people that are in the real world production people. That’s where I like to test, you know. Yes, I like to pick people that are forward thinking, innovative and you know, at least forward thinking. But it’s good to have a mix because I really like it. When to Erin’s point, if there’s a sniper in that group, you know, maybe you’re going to need to coach them a little bit differently. You’re gonna have to watch them a little bit more. You don’t want them to disrupt what’s happening. But it, but if you get someone who’s sort of normally been a naysayer come out of this and say oh my goodness, this. I couldn’t believe it. This really was great. Then you will get buy in from others. They’ll, they’ll learn about this. And one other thing I’d add to this is I find interesting you write culture and how do people adopt something new and something that still amazes me and it does, doesn’t have anything to do with claims but you know, I don’t shop a lot but when I do go into some of these places like Home Depot, I probably frequent more. I notice there’s the self service area and then there’s the staffed area and a lot of times the line is longer on the self service side than it is for the staff. And I think it is. And I think what, what happened to kind of help push that along was probably during the COVID time when you know, we were a little less interested in being close to other people while we were dealing with the COVID and people got more accustomed to all kinds of self service things. Right. And it became sort of a culture shift. And then I think we’ve, it’s just kind of grown on us and it’s like well you know what, I’ll just do it myself. So culture is an interesting thing. I mean what I like in the lean model that I’ve used over the years, one of the things that’s a part of that process, change or innovation is that you have morning standups every morning you pull the team together for like 15 minutes. It’s not a long meeting and you just have stand ups. What worked yesterday, what didn’t work yesterday, what could we do differently? So what I would suggest for any team that’s doing something different doesn’t matter if it’s AI estimating or anything, if you’re really making a significant change, if you can find a way to pull the group together that’s participating in it for just 15 minutes a day because Then you’re going to be able to call out the sniper who’s got the issue, who’s going to like every day have an issue. Maybe you can work on that person between the meetings, but you’re going to have other people that have legitimate issues or hey, you know what? I discovered that something worked super well, then that becomes an influence and it’s, it’s just a way to get people thinking because what we’re trying to do to increase productivity, simplify the process, provide more automation, the software and all the technology needed for this is available today. The only thing that prevents us from being much more advanced in the space is culture and just being anchored to, you know, maybe legacy processes.

Cole Strandberg: Man. It brings me back to something that Erin highlighted earlier and that’s the importance of speaking with peers and figuring out what worked for you. Whether it’s a technology, whether it’s a rollout, whatever it is, man. Other people have made the mistakes that we’re about to make. Let’s avoid them by working together and keeping the lines of communication open. Guys, you’ve all been extremely generous with your time. We’re recording this late one, even late one day, early one evening and really appreciate for everyone making it happen. I want to end with around the horn kind of of one rapid fire question and that is, and Sheryl, I’m going to start with you. What’s the biggest opportunity that operators are missing right now at kind of the front of the house in all this intake estimating that we’re talking about?

Sheryl Driggers: Yeah, I believe it is having relational conversations with our customers. I think so many times it’s so transactional whether it is including AI or not. We’re just, you know, focused on the transaction. Okay, here’s the customer, write the estimate, get, get the keys and deal with everything else later. So I think we really have an opportunity to have more time to be, to have those relational conversations when we have AI that will help us be more efficient. And so that would be my, my thoughts there.

Cole Strandberg: Love that. Erin, how about you?

Erin Solis: Well, quite along the same as Sheryl, since her and I think a lot alike in a lot of ways. That customer service point I think is lacking for a lot because they are so busy and there are so many things that they have to do now. And a lot of these new AI solutions can help with some of that. So not to give the same answer to Sheryl, I think, and I heard Sebastian say it, when you are looking at an MSO type of scenario, you’re a, you know, family owned operator, you’ve got six, seven stores. You’ve got a little bit of a different process in each of the stores and as soon as you’re done putting out a fire at 1, the fire pops up over here and then it pops up over here. So having that solid team, maybe it’s your corporate team or whatever, having that process be straight across all of the, the stores and, and across the whole organization and the culture flows across the whole thing I think is hugely important as well.

Cole Strandberg: Love it. Bill, let’s round it out with you. Same question.

Bill Brower
So I would, I would say the biggest thing particularly for MSOs is having that test and learn approach because you know, if I’ve got multiple stores, it’s, it’s not too disruptive to have one store, try something new and give and give reports on it and whether it’s AI estimating, whether it’s, you know, whether it’s how you’re engaging with the customer, whatever these things are. I just feel like that we do tend to, you know, we’re humans, we’re creatures of habit. We tend to do things we’ve done the same way for 15, 20 years. I think if, if I ran a, no, if I ran an MSO group today, I would have two or three of my locations would be my test beds trying new things and then sharing that with the, with the, with the whole group and, and just looking at how to make this process simpler because today, and as I told someone not too long ago, in my claims experience, even in the one that I had this most recent claims experience last month, the process for getting the claim set up for, you know, identifying the shop, for connecting with the shop, for estimating for getting the intake set up, for scheduling, it was no different. No different. Even though we have all the technology, it was no different than it would have been in 1995 if I’d had a claim at that time. Because process wise it really didn’t change. And so it’s really on us to think differently and be pushing the envelope on how we can take a process that’s been around for 25 years and make it better.

Cole Strandberg: Love it. Everyone. Really appreciate the conversation today and the thoughtful feedback, the thoughtful addressing of a wonderful conversation with Sebastian. Really enjoyed him. Think highly of him and think highly of all of you as always. Now on this panel style discussion, I’m not going to go around the horn and ask for your contact information or where people can reach you. That will be in the show notes for anybody listening who wants to get in touch with any of these amazing guests, please feel free to reach out directly via the links and contact information in those show notes. Sheryl, Erin, Bill, thank you all so much for joining us for a wonderful conversation here on the Collision Vision.