chipsaway franchise

atrixblue.-MFR-.

i say support your local indipendant, keep those in buisiness rather than let your skilled tradesmen lose out to franchises.

Chippie

atrixblue.-MFR-. wrote: »

i say support your local indipendant, keep those in buisiness rather than let your skilled tradesmen lose out to franchises.

I've been saying that myself for years. However, it's wishful thinking. Success in business goes to those who earn it not those who wish they could!

Chippie

Skintski wrote: »

Smart repair is about the only area of the refinish trade seeing growth however repairing cars (no matter how small the repair) is an art form. A lot of people are out there spraying cars but few do it really well. It's not something you'll just pick up overnight.

I totally agree with you there! I would also say that the proportion of sunstandard operators does not IMO differ from franchised to independant or from SMART to full body shop. They all have their rogues and inadequates!

atrixblue.-MFR-.

Chippie wrote: »

I've been saying that myself for years. However, it's wishful thinking. Success in business goes to those who earn it not those who wish they could!

your confusing running a buisiness compared to skilled tradesmen who have years in the trade.

you cant beat a local with allot of skill good reputation and fair prices, compared to a franchised SE person who has no reputation other than the umbrella of a named franchise.

motorguy

atrixblue.-MFR-. wrote: »

your confusing running a buisiness compared to skilled tradesmen who have years in the trade.

you cant beat a local with allot of skill good reputation and fair prices, compared to a franchised SE person who has no reputation other than the umbrella of a named franchise.

+1

The guy I used has been at it 20 years, as opposed to some franchisee whos been on a 2 week "training course"

motorguy

Chippie wrote: »

a business that turns over in excess of £750k pa.

I love it when people quote 'big' numbers to try to show off.

Turnover impresses no-one, except the naive.

Chippie

atrixblue.-MFR-. wrote: »

your confusing running a buisiness compared to skilled tradesmen who have years in the trade.

you cant beat a local with allot of skill good reputation and fair prices, compared to a franchised SE person who has no reputation other than the umbrella of a named franchise.

Far from it. What I am saying is that you can be just as skilled and have just as good a reputation from within a franchise. I know at least 10 ChipsAway franchisees who are actually very experienced repairers with many years of experience in body shops. On the other hand I came into the franchise in 1999 with no experience at all. I did the basic training and then slowly expanded my business and reputation by offering a quality service whilst staying within my skill set, which grew over a couple of years until I moved into a fixed site and took on a couple of employees so that I could move on to market and grow the business full time. We then expanded into 2 units in 2006 and took on more experienced painters.

I appreciate that a franchised business is only as good as the local operator, but that gives us as many problems as anyone else, since we are associated with the name and so suffer because of the shortcomings of others outside our control. But the same can be said of independant repairers and of body shops. I chose to take on experienced, skilled staff to ensure that our reputation would stand us in good stead, and it has. We get 70% of new business from referrals, we have a similar rate on repeat business from our customer database and carry out end of lease preparations for local companies with a combined fleet of around 3000 cars (1000 returns per year). We offer a lifetime of ownership guarantee (with a minimum 3 years transfer of warranty on sale) on all our work and a re-work rate of less than 0.5%. We do no trade work except for out of area dealers as one offs and only charge retail prices.

I think we do it right and compared to virtually every independant in the region, either SMART or bodyshop, I'd say we do pretty well and continue to grow year on year.

r.jenkins36

Wow! My little question certainly opened up some debate! And to be truthful, despite the apparent conflict of views (or because of it) it has been tremendously helpful to me.

Thank you everybody who has contributed.

1886

I would'nt ever let anybody from Chipsaway do any work on my car. One of their guy's did some awful work on my friend's car. He luckily managed to cancel the payment as Chipsaway did'nt want to know..

[text deleted by MSE Forum Team]

Chippie

1886 wrote: »

I would'nt ever let anybody from Chipsaway do any work on my car. One of their guy's did some awful work on my friend's car. He luckily managed to cancel the payment as Chipsaway did'nt want to know..

Illogical.