The industry gathered in Baltimore in October for Auto Glass Week 2014.
National Windshield Repair Association (NWRA) president Rich Campfield offered AGRR company owners at Auto Glass Week™ tips to drive up profits by utilizing windshield repairs as a profit center.
Campfield said there’s nothing more profitable than the windshield repair business. “The cost to fix a stone break is a few cents,” he said. “The profit is over 99 percent.”
He stressed that beyond stone breaks, small and large cracks, alike, can also be sufficiently repaired. “If you can fix 6 inches, you can fix 12,” he said.
Campfield explained that only 6 to 7 percent of all windshields in the U.S. are replaced each year, leaving a large market open for repairs. To further drive home the point, Campfield shared results from a recent study in which his company teamed up with a few other businesses from around the country to survey parking lots in 14 cities. Out of 5,523 vehicles surveyed, 2,202—nearly 50 percent—had stone breaks.
“That market is 500-percent larger market than the replacement market,” he said.
Meanwhile, 14 percent of the windshields in the survey had cracks. If a business starts doing repairs on those cracks instead of focusing solely on the replacement sector, “you’ve just doubled your market,” Campfield pointed out.
While insurance providers typically sway customers to replace their windshield and usually only cover $65 dollars for a repair, the cost of the balance of a repair, as opposed to a replacement is lower, he added.
It’s cost-effective for the customer, said Campfield, and repairs tend to result in an increase of referrals, which is good for business.
Jeff Reddell, owner of Pace Glass in Texas and a fellow NWRA board member, joined Campfield in presenting the seminar to tell a decade-old story about one of his customers.
Weeks after having a windshield repair done by Pace Glass, the customer was in a rollover accident. She fortunately escaped the accident unharmed and went back to Reddell to share with him the car’s condition—the windshield was almost completely destroyed, and the only part that actually held up was the repaired section of the glass.
While Reddell explained that this example doesn’t represent all cases, it does show just how effective a repair can be.
“It’s a no-brainer,” Reddell said. “Windshield repair is relatively easy and requires minimal training … It provides a great return on your investment.”
