It was pretty raucous for the morning, but there was something big to celebrate. Gwen Stefani of the rock band No Doubt was screaming from the loudspeakers that she wanted to “keep on dancing,” and the employees of ALLDATA no doubt felt the same way. The night before, they had notched their 70,000th customer, and now the party was on.
“We’ve got 70,000 now, but we have 140,000 to 150,000 shops targeted, so we’re not stopping there,” ALLDATA President Jeff Lagges said to employees and members of the media at the event on April 3.
A poignant and, at times, humorous video presentation produced by Lagges himself chronicled ALLDATA’s climb from a simple dream in 1986 to a full-fledged provider of manufacturers’ service and repair information, shop management software and customer relations tools for the automotive repair and collision industries. Lagges said the key to its success has been customer service.
“We’ve always maintained direct contact with our customers on a constant, daily basis,” he said. “We always knew that outsourcing customer support would not be in our best interests.”
ALLDATA prides itself on being a “one-stop shop” for automotive and collision repair solutions. Its four main products are ALLDATA Repair, which it says is the industry’s largest up-to-date database; ALLDATA Manage, an advanced business tool to increase productivity and profitability; ALLDATA Market, a flexible, Web-based customer retention management tool; and ALLDATA Collision, a source for manufacturer’s collision repair information.
ALLDATA entered the collision repair market only eight months ago, but its product offering OEM collision information from a single source has already been well accepted.
“We’re trying to stress how the product fits into the business environment,” says Dan Espersen, senior collision program manager. “The guys who see the value of it and the impact it has on their business, you couldn’t pull it away from them.
“The industry’s moving toward a lean environment where shops are monitoring efficiencies and trying to figure out how they can better their business models from point A to point B,” Espersen added. “We’re trying to show them where ALLDATA fits into that daily process, from the estimator’s standpoint all the way to the technician’s hands, and how it can help make those cars move faster through the shop.”
To see a video of Editor Jason Stahl interviewing ALLDATA Senior Collision Program Manager on the effect his company is having on the collision repair industry, click here.
For more information on ALLDATA, visit www.ALLDATA.com.
ALLDATA Customer Growth
1988 – First customer
1991 – 1,000
1993 – 5,000
1995 – 10,000
1999 – 25,000
2005 – 60,000
2008 – 70,000
