By Prentice St. Clair
As professional detailers, we try our best to operate our businesses in a professional manner. We obtain the business licenses and permits required by our local municipalities, obtain the necessary training in order to provide professional service and maintain memberships in both the International Carwash Association as well as regional associations. There seems to be a certain amount of resistance, however, to a very important element of a professional operation--insurance. This is true especially among smaller operators. Part of this stems from the cost of insurance and part of it from lack of understanding of the type of insurance one needs.
In the early days of my detailing business, Detail in Progress, I, too, operated without insurance. But, knowing what I know now, I would never go back, regardless of the cost of the insurance. In this article, I hope to clarify both the importance of commercial insurance as well as the type of insurance to have.
The answer to this question is quite simple. Without insurance, you are exposing yourself, your business and your family to the gamble that nothing "bad" will ever happen while you are operating your business. Regardless of how careful you are or how good your intentions are, it only takes one accident or frivolous lawsuit to destroy your business with all its earning potential.
Unfortunately, our industry provides almost weekly examples of the risk of operating without insurance. Take, for instance, a shop that recently burned down after being ignited by a faulty battery charger hooked up to a vehicle parked inside the shop overnight. The owner was not properly insured and somehow has to come up with the money to cover the damage to the shop, the detailing equipment, as well as the five customer vehicles that were damaged in the incident. When faced with a situation like this, unless you happen to have several hundred thousand dollars stashed away somewhere, your business is dead.
The above example is, admittedly, on the extreme end of the range. Perhaps you are simply a mobile detailer operating alone or with a handful of employees. Imagine a situation as simple as damaged paint resulting from an employee who is a bit overzealous with the buffer. Or maybe the vehicle upon which you are working slips out of "park" and rolls into the owner's other vehicle. Or, heaven forbid, your employee is involved in an injury collision while pulling out into traffic in order to return a detailed vehicle to the office park next door. In each of these cases, you are faced with a repair bill that could total hundreds if not thousands of dollars. In the last case, you are also faced with the medical bills of the injured parties, which can easily go into the tens of thousands of dollars. Are you ready to pay that kind of money out of your savings account?
The proper insurance will go a long way to minimize the devastating impact of the situations that I have described. In essence, the insurance policy pays for most of the damage so you don't have to, thus allowing you to regroup and continue your business operations.
And if you are fortunate enough to never have cause to file a claim against your insurance policy, you still benefit from just having insurance. You can use the fact that you are insured as a powerful marketing tool. In general, customers feel much more comfortable turning over their vehicle to an operator who is insured. Furthermore, most customers understand that there are increased costs to operating a licensed, certified and insured business, and you will find that these customers are willing to pay higher prices for the increased level of professionalism. I strongly urge operators who have the proper insurance to advertise that fact in all of their promotional materials (e.g., "We are fully insured").
Damage to the customer's vehicle. You need to cover yourself in case you physically damage the customer's vehicle. This is generally known as "garage keeper's legal liability" coverage. It is calculated by multiplying the maximum number of customers' vehicles you expect to have in your possession at any given time by the average value of those vehicles.
For example, if I have a three-bay shop and never have more than three vehicles waiting while the bays are full, and I typically work on vehicles of mid-range value (e.g., 1999 Camry, 2000 Explorer, 1998 Buick, etc.), I may want a policy with a $60,000 liability limit (6 vehicles x $10,000 per vehicle). With this coverage, if all six vehicles are damaged in some freak accident, I will be covered for up to $60,000 worth of damage to the vehicles, minus the deductible, which is typically $500 per vehicle.
Garage keeper's legal liability also covers collision damage to the customer's vehicle with a typical deductible of $500 per vehicle. It is preferable to have a policy that is "direct and primary," meaning your policy pays out first without initial lengthy discussions between your insurance company and the customer's insurance company.
Damage to non-customers' vehicles. This covers you in the event that you are involved in an accident while driving a customer's vehicle. The other involved driver(s), who is not a customer, may have bodily injury as well as damage to the vehicle. This coverage is similar to your personal driver's insurance but covers you when you are working at your place of business driving customers' vehicles. It is called "garage keeper's liability, auto portion." The minimum limits of liability for this type of coverage is generally $1 million to $2 million dollars, and there is typically a $250 deductible.
For example, if, while returning a freshly detailed vehicle to a customer's place of work, I am involved in an accident with another vehicle, garage keeper's liability coverage will cover damage to the other vehicle, as well as injuries to the other party. The coverage will pay out up to the limit of liability to the other party.
Customer injuries at your place of business. You need to also cover yourself in the event the customer injures him or herself at your place of business. This is called "garage liability, other than auto portion." For example, a customer pays for his freshly detailed vehicle and, while walking over to where the vehicle is parked, slips on a patch of tire dressing that was spilled by one of your technicians during the last detail. The resulting fall leaves the customer with some type of bodily injury, for which he blames you. He would then file a claim against your garage keeper's liability insurance policy and be paid for his medical bills and other expenses up to the limits of the policy, which is usually $1 million to $2 million per occurrence.
Fortunately, for simplicity's sake, the three above-mentioned coverages are generally included under one policy type. This is called a "garage keeper's insurance policy" and includes:
Damage to or theft of your equipment. If you are running a professional operation, you can have thousands of dollars worth of equipment, for which you need to be covered in the event that that equipment is damaged or stolen. This type of policy is known as "property insurance, contents portion." If you own the equipment, you should have this coverage whether or not you own the building. It is best to insure your equipment for "replacement value," meaning, in the event of loss of equipment, you will be reimbursed for the current cost of the same type of equipment. This clause in the policy may increase the premium slightly, but it is well worth the extra few dollars because non-replacement value policies would reimburse you an amount that reflects the depreciation of the equipment in question. The resulting reimbursement check can end up being quite a bit less than it will cost to buy new equipment.
To determine the limits of liability, add up the original cost of all of your equipment, including your detailing equipment and supplies and your business operations equipment (e.g., computers, phones, furniture, etc.). Unfortunately, most policies do not include tools, unless you insure these at an additional charge. It seems that tools have a funny way of walking off the premises (in the pockets of employees). And there is generally a deductible (perhaps $1,000) for equipment insurance.
Damage to the shop building. If you own the actual building that you are working out of (as opposed to renting it), you will need to insure that property. This is known as "property insurance, building portion." The limits of the liability will depend on the value of the building, which will be appraised by the insurance company before giving you a quote.
Bonds. A bond is coverage against theft of the customer's property by employees. Bonds are usually used by companies that have employees who routinely operate within a customer's home or place of business (e.g., janitorial service, installation service), where there is the potential for the employee to walk away with customer property. Although it is true that typical garage policies do not cover theft of personal belongings from the customer's vehicle, the use of bonds is not a typical practice in the detailing industry.
Worker's Compensation. Of course, if you have employees, you have to have worker's compensation coverage, with what are known as "statutory requirements." That is, your state will have limits of coverage established by law. Worker's compensation covers you in the event that one of your employees is injured or killed during the course of work.
Loss of Income/Business Interruption. This covers your normal and customary business expenses (rent or mortgage, insurance payments, loan payments, etc.) in the event that your business is unable to operate for an extended period of time, for example, due to natural disaster. Typically, there is an "elimination period" of 30 to 90 days. This is a waiting period between the time the business must shut down and the time you receive money to pay the bills. Business overhead and expense disability insurance does not cover your personal income--for that, you need personal disability insurance.
Disability Insurance. This type of coverage can also be called "income insurance" because it covers you in the event that you are not able to work due to physical injury or ailment. It pays a portion of your normal income after an elimination period of 60 to 120 days. Disability insurance can be expensive, but it is worth it, considering the fact that we are more likely to become disabled than to die by retirement age. That is, you are more likely to be unable to work because of physical injury or disease than because of death. Thus, this type of insurance is very important, especially for the business owner who does not have an employer to turn to for worker's compensation. Establish a policy that will not only increase in value as your income increases, but will stay in effect should your job description change.
This is one of those questions that is answered with a big "it depends." It depends on the size of your operation (i.e., the number of vehicles in your possession at any given time), the types of vehicles upon which you work, and the limits of liability that you choose. Your qualified commercial insurance expert will be able to run the numbers and make adjustments to the policy so the premiums fit your budget.
A "good" garage keeper's policy for an owner/operator mobile detailer with no employees will start at about $1,200 per year, or about $100 a month, on average. If you are not bringing in at least 30 times that much in gross income, you are not pricing your services correctly, you aren't working a full work week, or your marketing efforts are inadequate. In short, you should be able to afford a basic garage keeper's policy--if not, something's wrong with your business operations.
Complete coverage for a detail shop owner who also owns the property will cost about $2,000 per bay per year. But the cost of insurance for a fixed operation can vary widely depending on the location.
(Please note that the above examples of premium are suggested for reference only, and you should speak with your qualified commercial insurance agent to determine the exact amount of the premium that applies in your situation.)
The excuse I most often hear for not being insured is, "I can't afford it." For those who feel this way, I hope that a thorough reading of this article has you instead asking yourself, "Can I afford to not have insurance?"
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(The information in this article first appeared in the March 2007 issue of Modern Car Care.)
Automotive detailing attracts many entrepreneurs because it is relatively simple and inexpensive to begin such a business. However, there is a high level of turnover in the industry because many who enter it do not understand or cannot implement principles that create a profitable operation.
In my experience both personally and in talking with operators from around the country, I have identified seven ways to increase the profitability of an automotive detailing business. Now, these seven ways fall into two general categories. The first category includes activities that might be considered more traditional and are typical for many businesses. The second category are, although not exclusive to our industry in concept, perhaps more specifically related to the type of work that we are already performing.
The goal of sharing these concepts with you is to get you to think about things that you might not have already considered. You may not agree with every one of these ideas and not all of them will apply to your particular situation. But if one idea, properly implemented, increases your profit, then I have done my job.
Traditional Methods for Increasing Profit
In this section, I include activities that are common in business in general or those ideas that can perhaps even be considered “generally accepted.” These include:
Duplication. One person can only do so much work in a day. If you have more customers on the waiting list or plan to bring in more customers, you will need more hands. Then it becomes necessary to duplicate yourself by “creating” more technicians or more operations. The goal is to increase the number of vehicles that can be processed in a day. If you train and motivate your employees correctly, you can increase the number of vehicles completed by your operation per day, thus increasing revenue.
You will not make as much money per vehicle as you are used to making by yourself, because you have to pay the expenses associated with employment. Nonetheless, properly trained employees will allow you to “take a piece” out of more and more detail jobs.
Of course, you will have an initial expense, in training and equipping new stations; or outfitting a complete second unit. But this expense can be thought of more as an investment, especially if your business already has the customer demand. If the volume is not quite there yet or if the volume is not consistent, you will need to increase your marketing effort, which also may entail added advertising expense.
The advantage of a well-run operation that is effectively duplicated is that you will be able to process more vehicles than you could ever do by yourself. The disadvantage is the added management duties and the efforts required to ensure consistency of results. That is, if you already have an established reputation with your current customer base, they will expect the same results from others that you send to do the work.
There are at least two ways to keep your service reputation intact. One is to proactively ensure consistency by building it into your operation through effective training of new technicians. Create written standards for each detail package. Then create standard operating procedures that are designed to achieve those standards. Then teach those procedures and continuously improve them so that your technicians almost automatically achieve consistent results.
The other way to guard your reputation is to “assign” only new customers to your new work crew. The new customers have not seen your personal work and may not know what level of excellence to expect. If your staff is properly trained (as mentioned in the last paragraph), they will still be able to “wow” new customers.
Decrease monetary expenses. My experience is that detailers generally are not investing enough into their businesses. So this is probably a non-issue. However, it never hurts to take a look at your expenses every once in a while, for example, at least every six months. If you are keeping good books, you should be able to balance your books once a month and see exactly what your expenditures are and where they are going. Some examples of wasteful spending: buying small quantities at a time instead of bulk purchase of commodity chemicals, spending too much on the wrong kind of insurance, and spending money on ineffective advertising. There are other things that you might be doing that are “costing” you more than you think. We will discuss these ideas later in the “decreasing non-monetary expenses” section.
Increase operational efficiency. Maybe it’s simply taking you too long to get the work done. Surveys of detailing operations show that the typical complete detail (excluding the engine compartment) averages about four labor hours. If your complete detail takes significantly longer than four labor hours, perhaps you need to examine your efficiency while working. Efficiency can be improved by standardizing procedures, using the appropriate chemical for the surface at hand, and by using tools and machines that reduce the time that it typically takes to do a job by hand. You will find that if you take a serious look at improving efficiency using these ideas, there will be an additional benefit of improved results (effectiveness). So, you are not only getting the job done faster but the car looks better when you are done.
So how do you find out about ways to improve efficiency? You need to plug into the industry. Read the trade magazines, go to the trade shows and conventions of our industry, go to detailing seminars put on by your supplier and other experts in the industry, purchase training videos and manuals, and maybe even attend a detailing training school. I have conducted detailing classes with experienced detailers who said they learned a lot even though the class was designed for novices.
Also, talk with other detailing professionals. I get some great ideas from chatting with others in the detailing industry. You can even learn from your competitors. Your detailing competitor does not have to be your rival. There are plenty of vehicles to work on for all of us, so we might as well work together to improve our results so that customers expect more and are willing to pay more for detailing in general.
New Ideas for our Industry
The next four ideas for increasing profits are more specific to the detailing industry. If you are serious about being successful in this venture and making a good living, you need to seriously consider one or all of these ideas, including:
Increase or change pricing structure. One of the most common problems in the detailing industry today is inappropriate pricing. Many technicians simply are not charging enough for their service; or they are providing only marginal service in order to justify keeping the prices low. To determine how your pricing compares, I suggest that you divide the price of your most popular detailing package by the average number of hours it takes to complete that job. Take away half of that dollars-per-hour figure to account for taxes and business expenses and you have a rough idea of how much money you are making per hour (i.e., net income). If, you are netting less than $25 per hour, I suggest that something needs to be changed. That means that you should be shooting for an average gross of at least $50 per hour.
You can make more money per hour by increasing prices, increasing efficiency, duplicating yourself (with employees), or adding high-profit services. The easiest of these is charging, but I recommend that you also add extra value for the customer instead of simply raising prices. Think about simple tasks that you can add to your existing packages that will make an increased price more palatable to your existing customers. Here are a few examples:
Another important point: As you raise prices, make sure that you spend a little extra time making sure that the job is done well—that is, provide excellent service for the higher price.
We live in a time when expenses go up automatically every year. I believe it is reasonable for detailing prices to go up annually to reflect the increased cost of doing business. Most customers will understand a $5 or $10 annual increase in prices.
Change target market. If your customers are not willing to pay more for your service, perhaps you are working in the wrong market. For retail detailing, I recommend targeting the vehicle owners who have the disposable income to pay for and the desire for automotive appearance perfection. This usually means approaching the population that is in the upper 10% of the income group in your area. These people are already accustomed to paying others, like housekeepers and landscapers, to provide service. So it will make sense to them to pay for quality vehicle care as well. Plus they typically have the money to pay for the service and the desire to receive excellent results.
If you can’t afford to spend advertising dollars to go after a quick shift in your customer base, you may have to utilize your referral network. Look at a list of your current customers and categorize them into three groups:
Now, prepare a script with which you can call your A-list clients and ask them for referrals. Start by complimenting them: “you are a great customer and I wish I had many more like you.” Then, get out a piece of paper, and ask them for the names and numbers of three to five people that they think would be interested in your level of work. Make sure that it’s okay to call those referrals and to mention that your current customer suggested that you call. It will take time, but you will start to see your customer referral base make a shift as you come into contact with more and more A-list clients.
Add new profit centers. Every professional detailer reaches a plateau at which the price for the job is as high as the market will bear and the efficiency is at its highest level. At this point, the profitability of the operation has “max’ed out.” So, to make more money, the operator must do something different, like add more shops, add more employees, or add new ways to profit from each vehicle that comes in. There are several services that can be provided that will bring in a much larger gross per-hour rate than standard detailing. A simple and low-cost way to do this is to add premium protection to your package options. For example, selling the customer on application of a polymer paint sealant instead of standard wax is fairly easy, since sealants provide better protection and last longer than waxes. Thus you can mark up the price significantly without spending any more time on the vehicle than you normally would. Another great premium protection idea is liquid repellent for the carpeting and fabric seats. This ten minute service can fetch as much as $100 per application in addition to the standard detail price!
Beyond detailing, there are a number of services that can be added with a relatively small price, like windshield repair, paintless dent removal, paint touch-up and spot blending, and interior surface repairs. Many of these services can fetch as much as three times the per hour profit that a detailer is used to getting.
Decrease non-monetary expenses: The most important non-monetary expense is time. In discussing time management with detailing consulting clients over the years, I have observed three main areas where time can be wasted: illness, lack of delegation, and unnecessary distractions.
In our profession, our bodies are our most important tool. It is wise to invest in your “equipment” by taking good care of yourself—exercising, eating right, and seeking regular body maintenance provided by health practitioners like massage therapists and chiropractors. There are two main time benefits to taking good care of yourself: (1) you are likely to have less down time due to illness or injury, and, (2) you will work faster, stronger, and more efficiently if you keep yourself in good shape.
Next, let’s take a lesson from that upper 10% of the population that I mentioned earlier: pay someone to do the jobs that take you too much time. There are professionals like bookkeepers, lawyers, accountants, and others that can perform necessary business tasks much more efficiently and effectively than you for a relatively small fee, freeing you up to make more money.
Finally, think about some of the things that distract you from your work—like broken tools, or stopping work to answer the phone, or providing warranty work to dissatisfied customers instead of getting it right the first time. If you can take an objective look at your day-to-day activities, you will probably find some things that are eating up your time, yet have simple solutions.
Summary
This has certainly not been a complete discourse on all the possible dysfunctions of an automotive reconditioning business, just some common examples. You may find other examples within your own business. My recommendation is to make a list of the issues that you know can be improved within your business, prioritize it, and then create an achievable schedule for attacking each of the items one-by-one. For example, you may want to handle one issue per month. Write some action steps for each issue and start with the first few action steps during the first week of the month. Then watch your profits grow!
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(This information first appeared in the March, 2006 issue of America’s Car Care Business.)
Most trades require extensive training and some even require formal certification or licensure before the technician can perform professional services. Most skilled professionals, like plumbers, construction contractors, or mechanics, wouldn’t dream of trying to perform their trades without proper training and education. Some trades require weeks or months of classroom and hands-on training to achieve certification.
Detailing, by it’s nature, appears to be an easy business to start. Some detailers start a “detailing business” simply because they like working on their own cars and have done a couple of jobs for friends or neighbors that were highly praised. This minimal experience certainly does not qualify someone as a professional detailer. Even a detailer who has been operating for several months or years with no formal training, relying solely on experience and tips from other detailers, is unlikely to have the same knowledge or skill as a relatively new detailer who has been through a comprehensive training program.
Experience Only?
A detailer who is learning his or her trade by experimenting on customer’s vehicles is doing those customers a disservice by providing results that are inadequate and perhaps even damaging. That is not to say that experience is unimportant--quite the contrary. Experience is a very important learning tool and is far more powerful if it is built upon a foundation of formal training.
Another major disadvantage of learning detailing by experience only is the impact it has on your customer’s level of satisfaction with the final result. If the customer is not absolutely thrilled with your work, he or she is less likely to call you back or to refer you to others. This delays the process of building up a network of delighted customers and keeps your customer base small.
A high-quality formal training event can replace months and years of day-to-day experience. The choice is yours: get up-to-speed in a few days of training or spend years guessing. Another critical problem is that lack of knowledge usually leads to a lack of confidence which, in a service industry, usually leads to a lack of pricing confidence. Thus, the untrained detailer tends to charge far less than the market will bear because of his or her relative lack of confidence in providing service.
Good training will also help you create a detailing system that increases your efficiency and effectiveness. With increased efficiency, the job gets done faster. Think about it . . . are your detail jobs taking too long? Lack of training may be a big cause of that. With increased effectiveness, the jobs come out looking much better. Again, think about it . . . do your customers express happiness or elation with your work or do they simply pay you and send you on your way? With increased effectiveness, you can expect to hear comments such as, “Wow, the car hasn’t looked that good since we bought it!”
Starting the Journey
Detailing, like any other profession, is like a journey. Extending this analogy, you can imagine that before embarking on the trip, you would want to be fully packed with all of the needed clothes and supplies. A formal training experience is like this pre-trip preparation. In contrast, learning detailing by experience alone would be like picking up your clothes and supplies along the way, which would make the trip more difficult, expensive, and uncomfortable. So, if you are starting a detailing business, “prepare for the journey” by attending a formal training event first.
Seek out a detailing school that is recognized in the industry. Such a school should provide an organized and systematic training program provided by experienced instructors who are recognized as leaders in the industry. The training program should follow a set schedule and be geared toward the fulfillment of specific learning objectives, which should be available upon request.
The best training experience for the detailing technician will have an appropriate balance of classroom lecture, hands-on activities, and written resource materials. Classroom lecture and discussion familiarizes the trainee with some detailing basics and allows some question-and-answer exchanges. Hands-on activities should be performed on actual vehicles whenever possible, as this closely simulates the actual detailing experience. Hands-on training allows the detailing trainee to experience, first-hand, the impact that each chemical and piece of equipment has on the vehicle surfaces. The written resource materials should be a written documentation of almost everything that is covered in class so that the trainee, upon returning home, can have a comprehensive resource guide.
The detailing trainee should be taught the appropriate chemicals, equipment, and techniques to clean and protect each surface on the vehicle. Formal detailing training should include instruction in the following general areas:
The Prep Wash. You should expect to learn how to properly prepare the vehicle for detailing. Expect a discussion of the appropriate chemicals to use to clean the wheels, wheel wells, front grill area, and the painted panels. It is also important to understand the necessary and optional equipment involved, including pressure washers, water tanks, and water reclamation devices. Additionally, there should be a discussion of special topics like water treatment and acid washing.
Engine Compartment Detailing. You should expect to learn how to degrease and beautify the engine compartment. This starts with a discussion about the benefits and risks of working in this area. You should be shown how to clean the engine compartment without causing any mechanical damage. Then you need to understand the types of chemicals that are safe to use under the hood. And then, you need to know what to do if something goes wrong.
Interior Detailing. You should learn how to clean and protect each of the interior surfaces, including the headliner, windows, leather seats, vinyl and plastic panels, and carpeting and mats. Topics of additional discussion or demonstration might include deodorization and special problems like red stain removal. You should learn how to use a carpet extractor, professional vacuum, and perhaps a steamer and odor eliminating machines.
Exterior Detailing. Education in this area will be heavy in the reconditioning and protection of the painted surfaces. You should expect to learn about paint technology, common paint problems and their remedies, chemicals for paint rejuvenation an protection, and polisher choices. You also need to understand how to care for other surfaces like rubber, vinyl, glass, chrome, and aluminum. Additional discussions will cover wetsanding, high-speed polishing, wheel polishing, and paint touch-up.
Additional Service Options. Traditional detailing is just the tip of the iceberg. There are plenty of other things that can be done to recondition and beautify a vehicle. Your training should include introduction to or demonstration of other service options like, carpet dyeing, paint perfection, windshield repair, interior surface repair, plastic lens clarification, paintless dent removal, and many other services that can bring in extra profit.
For the detailing trainee who owns or plans to start a business, additional topics should include: business basics; marketing, promotion, and salesmanship; and pricing and packaging. The importance of these topics cannot be overstated. You can be the best technician in the world, but if you don’t know how to run the business, your technical skills are almost worthless.
An important sign of an excellent training facility is one that offers a guarantee of some sort. Additionally, the facility ideally provides ongoing technical support, which most trainees will undoubtedly need at some point during the few months following training.
I strongly recommend that you do whatever it takes to find the time and money to receive formal education and training in detailing. This relatively small investment can potentially reap huge rewards in the near and distant future. Should your situation absolutely preclude attendance at a formal training event, at least consider purchasing some type of written or video-taped training, review of which is still better than no training at all.
Continuing the Journey
Going back to our “journey” analogy for a moment, you can imagine that an extensive trip will not only require preparation, but also re-supply along the way. You may also run into unexpected detours and side-trips along the way that require new supplies and special arrangements.
Operating a professional detailing business is no different. Like most professions, the detailing industry is ever-changing. Fortunately, such changes are usually small and slow. But it is still important to stay in touch with the experts in the industry and “keep your finger on the pulse.” Certainly chat with fellow detailers, who will be able to share tips and tricks. Also, stay in touch with your detail suppliers, who can keep you abreast of new products and tools that may help you in your operation. Another good source of “continuing education” is to read the monthly offerings of the various trade publications that cater to the carwash and detailing industries. Also check out the annual conventions of the various trade organizations.
Additionally, be open to the concept that continuing education also may include adding new profit centers to increase the profit potential of your business. This will involve investing in further training and equipment to learn new automotive reconditioning skills such as windshield repair, interior surface repair, paint touch-up, and paintless dent repair. Having such services on board will not only allow you to provide more comprehensive service to your customers but will also increase your per-vehicle revenue.
Summary
Relying on day-to-day experience to learn automotive detailing is limiting not only to the technician, but also limits the bottom line and the level of customer satisfaction. Formal training in automotive detailing is an essential foundation to developing a profitable and effective operation. Supplementing that foundation with experience and exposure to the industry’s trade publications and trade organizations will ensure continued operational excellence.
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