The GM Collision Repair Network facility locator went live on May 17 at www.genuinegmparts.com/collision-repair-locations.
Last year, Mitchell was selected by GM as the administrator for its collision repair network. Starting Aug. 18, 2018, any collision repair facility in the U.S. could apply for inclusion in the GM Collision Repair Network through the enrollment portal.
To date, about 1,600 collision repair facilities have started the process of enrollment. About 1,400 are in some stage of completion and 200 are complete.
“We’ve been working on coaching facilities and helping them understand where they may not meet program requirements with their current equipment and training setup,” said Jack Rozint, senior vice president of sales and service for Mitchell. “Once you submit the application, it passes through an internal review process. There is a fast-track process for those facilities that have participated in other OE programs. And for those that have been through a recent on-site inspection by an approved provider, we don’t require another on-site inspection.
According to Rozint, the shops on the locator today are those that have the currently required training and equipment and have been through the entire process, either through fast-track or on-site inspection.
“They are now ready to process repairs and submit data on those repairs through Mitchell software,” says Rozint.
Rozint said GM picked Mitchell to administer their certification program because they realized that Mitchell, through their Freedom platform, could support the delivery of proper and safe repairs and create metrics around it.
“When you use Freedom, the repair procedures surface automatically so you don’t have to go looking for them,” Rozint says. “And, because the entire application suite is completely in the cloud, we can track every user and see a complete log of their repair procedure viewing.”
GM wants every vehicle to get a pre- and post-repair scan, and Freedom allows you to attach the pre- and post-repair scan document to the repair folder.
“You can see the percentage of repairs that had a pre-repair scan and the percentage that had a post-repair scan, and drill down to see what happened on the ones that didn’t,” says Rozint. “That’s important to GM because, with millions of vehicles being repaired each month, it’s just not possible to do a manual review of the repair files.”
The primary goals behind establishing the GM Collision Repair Network was twofold: to maintain customer loyalty (citing the popular statistic that 60% of consumers who have a bad collision repair experience will sell their vehicle within two years, and 60% of those will choose a different brand), by delivering exception customer service throughout the collision repair process and to support a process in which vehicles are repaired properly and safely.
“Safety is a high priority in everything that GM does,” says Rozint. “Making sure that complicated vehicles with ADAS are returned to pre-accident function is important.”
