by Prentice St. Clair

Service Options

There are a number of services that go hand-in-hand with automotive detailing. Some are simply an extension of detailing while others are more advanced surface repair procedures.

On the interior of the vehicle, you can offer interior surface repairs such as leather repair and re-dyeing, vinyl and plastic repair, dashboard repair, velour and fabric repair, and carpet repair and dyeing.

Exterior services include windshield repair, paint touch-up, panel repair and spot-blending, paintless dent removal, headlamp clarification, and painted wheel repair.

Interior Surface Repair

Most of us with any detailing experience have been asked about the “ground-in dirt” on the driver’s seat. Cleaning the seat has no impact on this damage, which is actually exposed or bare leather that results from frictional removal of the factory-applied protective coating or “dye” that is subject to wear and tear over time. This wear cannot be “detailed away.” In fact, if it is left untreated, the leather in that area will eventually crack and, later, split open. Leather re-dyeing can not only make the seat look much better, it will also impede this process.

And if the process has already led to cracks, tears or holes, these too can be repaired. Leather repair and re-dyeing can bring in anywhere from $50 to $100 per hour with minimal supply cost. It is an easy sell to the customer because you can offer a relatively simple solution (a repair performed on-the-spot) at a fraction of the cost of traditional replacement techniques. Just as damaged leather can be repaired at great convenience for the customer, so can other interior surface materials, including dashboards, vinyl surfaces like arm rests and door panels, hard plastic surfaces like dash fascia, and fabric upholstered materials like door panel inserts and headliners.

Paint Touch-up

Detailing will also not remove rock chips and similar damage like chipped paint on door edges. But these can be made to look significantly better with careful application of touch-up paint, especially on darker colored vehicles and solid colors like red and white. Silvers and other light metallic colors do not respond as well to touch-up, and this must be explained to the customer before attempting.

Nonetheless, touch-up offers both the cosmetic enhancement of hiding chips as well as the structural advantage of helping to hinder the development of rust. Touch-up goes hand-in-hand with paint perfection activities.

Panel Repair & Spot-blending

Bumper scrapes and minor damage to doors and fenders can be fixed using panel repair and spot-blending techniques. This service is popular among the bumper repair vendors that service used car lots. This concept can be adopted to and offered for retail customers as a cost and time-saving alternative to traditional body shop repair.

For example, a simple bumper scrape can be made to look 95 percent better (never promise perfection!) in a couple of hours. Compare this to the high-end body shop approach, which is to take the car in for several days, replace the bumper, and charge the customer for several hours of repainting and installation.

Windshield Repair

Rock chips in windshields are quite common. So-called “star cracks” and “bulls-eyes” can very easily be fixed without the need to replace the windshield. Windshield repair is a great fit with detailing because you can set up the equipment and allow it to work while you continue with the detail. The advantage to the customer is in saving the money and aggravation of windshield replacement. Additionally, the vehicle’s original factory installed windshield is the best one to have in the vehicle—a replacement is never the same.

Paintless Dent Removal (PDR)

Door dings and dents are another common malady seen day-in and day-out by detailers. PDR, which uses special tools and techniques to “massage” the metal back to its original position, can be a great addition to a detail shop. It does take more time than other services to master PDR, which is part art and part science.

Headlamp Clarification

This process, discussed at length in last month’s issue, involves the process of removing yellowing and dullness from plastic headlamp lenses, renewing the shine, and then applying a protective coating that helps prevent the plastic from re-oxidizing. This is an especially easy service to learn, and, in my opinion, every detail operation should be doing it. It’s an easy sell to the customer when you compare the cost of repair to that of replacement.

Painted Wheel Repair

This service is very similar to spot-blending, and involves repairing minor scrapes, gouges and “curb rash.” Most factory-installed wheels may be called “alloy” wheels but they are actually painted, often with a two-stage basecoat-clearcoat treatment, just like the main body of the vehicle. Thus, the process for wheel repair is quite similar to that of spot-blending.

How Do I Get Started?

There are four things you will need to do to add a new service like the ones discussed above. These are: 1. Purchase repair equipment and supplies. 2. Learn how to do it. 3. Practice your new skills. 4. Market your new skills.

Prepackaged kits will help take the guess-work out of figuring out what you need to perform the repairs. But sometimes the prepackaged kits include some seldom-used items and what I like to call “extravagant” (read: unnecessary) items that make the kit look more flashy and valuable. You can certainly buy equipment separately, but without guidance, you will spend a lot of time and effort “re-inventing the wheel.”

There are many fine automotive reconditioning training “schools” that are more than willing to sell you your supplies, often in kit form, and teach you how to perform the repairs. This is likely to involve a large financial obligation and travel expenses to the school of your choice. Some offer financing, and, of course, the costs incurred in your training are tax deductable as a legitimate business expense.

Another way to learn is through video training. If you are “good with your hands” and learn well through visual demonstration, this might be a much more reasonable way to pick up a new service. However, you will loose some of the great tips and tricks that are learned during live demonstration and hands-on supervised practice. If you go the video training route, give yourself extra practice time to learn the new skills. You WILL make mistakes the first few times—we all did.

If you are looking for the best training possible, I believe it can be found through onsite training at your location. One advantage of this approach is that it allows the instructor to customize the training to fit your specific situation, including, your shop layout, your customer profile, your staff, the types of damage that you typically see, the local climate, and regulations in your area. A reconditioning school typically throws several trainees from completely different operations into the same class that teaches the same “canned” approach, month after month.

Then there is the perennial problem of training employees who then leave “with their training.” You will have to find clever ways to encourage the employee to stay on after the training. It is also wise to include in the training a key member of your staff like a supervisor or manager who is more likely to stay. It is good for the manager of the trainee to learn the skills so that he or she understands the repair process, including its capabilities and limitations.

With any of the services listed above, there will be a training phase and a practice phase before mastery is achieved. For example, with panel repair or spot-blending or wheel repair, the basic techniques can be taught in two to four days, but the complete process will need to be practiced 10 to 20 times before the technician begins to feel comfortable with the newly-learned skills.

PDR is typically taught in one to four week classes, but can take months of dedicated daily practice to become proficient. Moreover, most PDR technicians will tell you that they are constantly improving skills and learning new tricks. PDR is thus definitely NOT a quick-add service; it is a long-term commitment.

Windshield repair and headlamp clarification can each be taught in a matter of hours and require only a few completed repairs to achieve a good comfort level. Interior surface repair requires several days to teach, assuming all types of material repairs are being taught. Interior repair requires several complete practice repairs on each material to bring most technicians to a reasonable level of comfort.

How to Market

The most important piece of advice I can offer in marketing automotive reconditioning service is to sell it correctly. Never promise perfection. In fact, under-promise and over-deliver as best you can. Make sure your customers understand that you are providing a repair service that saves lots of money and time, but it will not make the area look factory new. If the customer demands perfection, he or she must also be willing to pay for traditional replacement service that costs significantly more—this is not our customer.

Those with existing operations have a built-in market from which to attract customers. You have customers who already trust and love your detailing service. It will be relatively easy to sell these customers on your newer services. This concept is known as cross-marketing. Make sure your sales staff and detail technicians check out each incoming job for opportunities to provide your new services.

Include all of your service offerings in your estimation service. By packaging several different services offered on the same vehicle, you can increase the average revenue per vehicle. Your customers will also spend more money with you on services other than detailing. Offer the convenience of one-stop shopping for all your customer’s automotive reconditioning needs.

With additional services to offer, you can also market to new customers who have not yet used or been interested in your detailing services. Most publications offer free press release inserts. Many local newspapers also offer a free posting in their “what’s new in local business” section, in which you can talk about your new service offering. You will find that adding recon services and the accompanying marketing that goes with it will create “buzz” around your operation.

Make sure to include in your marketing materials the notion that “just because you drive an older vehicle doesn’t mean it has to look or feel older.”

Summary

Whether you have a thriving or a struggling detail operation, consider the profit opportunity afforded by offering additional reconditioning services. Even a struggling operation can probably afford the small investment required to learn and supply headlamp clarification or windshield repair. The larger operation can create a “one-stop auto salon” where vehicles come in dinged-up inside and out, and come out looking relatively new. Choose your training and equipment suppliers carefully and allow time to learn the new skills and you will be on your way to increasing profits!

Prentice St. Clair is the president of San Diego-based Detail in Progress Inc. which offers consulting and training in the automotive detailing and reconditioning industries. He can be reached directly at 619.701.1100 or by e-mail at prentice@ detailinprogress.com.