Car sharing fleets, an opportunity for the body shop

Shared mobility vehicles constitute an attractive business opportunity for the body garage/shop. These are cars that require more maintenance and suffer more damages from accidents. Due to their intensive use, they accumulate many daily kilometers, most of it in urban areas, with a greater wear on the parts and a greater risk of suffering small accidents with body damage. If we add onto this the fact that the drivers are not the owners of the vehicles and do not always treat them as if they were their own, we can see why these vehicles are especially interesting for the garage/shop.

Recently, the Spanish shop/garage CertifiedFirst, specialized in body and paint work, received the distinction of being the best garage/shop in the world, an award given by an important spare parts company that had chosen it after comparing more than 6.000 shops/garages around the world. Amongst its differentiating characteristics is its attractive clientele mix, formed by individuals, insurers and car sharing fleets. José Manuel Casabella, manager of CertifiedFirst Futurwagen, explained during the acceptance of the award and also in numerous interviews, how important the car sharing fleets are to their shop/garage. Not only for the amount of business generated by them, but also for the need for optimizing repair processes that this type of client brings on. They are dealing with clients where one representative or fleet manager decides where to maintain and repair a large number of vehicles. Vehicles which, in addition, have a very intense daily use, in urban driving conditions that require rigorous preventive maintenance and, in general, a higher accident rate than the rest of the vehicles that share the road network. In addition, explained the manager of this Spanish CertifiedFirst, it is fundamental to optimize the repair process when working on vehicles that cannot be immobilized for much time, because their mobility is the center of the company’s business model. And this optimization results in a continuous improvement in the garage/shop professionals and in investments in technological tools that improve the efficiency of the repair cycle. That optimization and efficiency result in a greater profit not only in repairs for this type of client, but also for individuals, insurers and other business fleet types.