AI: A Collision Repairer’s Co-Pilot

AI in Collision Repair

In May 2024, the Collision Industry Electronic Commerce Association (CIECA) hosted a webinar led by Gaurav (Rav) Mendiratta. He is the CEO of SocioSquares, an AI software development and online marketing firm, and the chief product officer at Propel. During the webinar, he shared dramatized calls of customers speaking to AI, including one where a customer had just experienced a car accident and was still in the car.

“I can imagine that in the near future, AI-driven virtual assistants will be installed in every vehicle and will offer real-time advice and real-life reassurance, helping to reduce stress and ensure critical information is accurately recorded,” Mendiratta said. After showing an example of a call where a customer found a crack on his windshield, he said “it’s not quite there yet,” when it comes to communicating with the customer.

Mendiratta also shared tools that collision repair workers could use today, such as Altamira.ai, which estimators can use to analyze damage from photos. He also listed Tchek.ai and Tractable.ai.

“By automating routine tasks, AI can allow human estimators to focus on more complex cases and help improve overall efficiencies,” Mendiratta said in the webinar. “AI can also analyze vast amounts of data to optimize policy pricing, predict risk more accurately, and enhance customer service.”

AI in Customer Service

Ryan Taylor, the founder and CEO of BodyShop Booster, is certainly no stranger to using AI to enhance customer service.

While trying to reach him, FenderBender was greeted by his AI assistant named Liz. Not only did Liz schedule the interview time, but she also wanted clarification on what kind of questions Taylor should expect from us.

In the actual interview with FenderBender, he demonstrated a phone call in a live dramatized situation where he was involved in a car accident and the AI bot, still unnamed, is taking in his information while also showing care as a normal human being would. The crucial difference between the AI and a human phone receptionist at a body shop is that the AI is available to take your call 24/7 instead of a typical 8-5 Monday to Friday.

Taylor acknowledged that some people are hesitant to interact with AI, often due to negative experiences with less sophisticated systems. However, he emphasized that his company’s AI is much more intelligent and capable of handling different workflows. If a customer expresses a preference for speaking to a human, the AI will attempt to connect them with an available person. If no one is available, the AI will take a message and ensure it reaches the first available person.  

Future of AI in Collision Repair

Just like Mendiratta, Taylor’s AI will soon be able to analyze images, whether they’re videos or pictures. For example, he hopes to see technicians being able to use smart glasses or earbuds with cameras to get feedback on their work from the AI. However, this is future state stuff and will take a bit longer to implement.

Taylor and Body Shop Booster invested in AI’s usefulness in the collision repair industry after something that is very common in the industry, hail.

“We had a scaling problem,” Taylor said. “We would go from a relatively small team of eight body shops, and all of a sudden, we’d get a hailstorm that comes through a big area. We would go from handling a reasonable number of repairs to a boom, this huge influx. For example, in 2010, I had a hailstorm hit, and we got 13,000 claims overnight.”

Taylor sought technology as an answer. “And the other thing that we started seeing on the collision side, in particular, is the admin burden has been continuing to grow,” he said. “For example, in 1996 when I was getting going, we used to have one person in the front office for four production staff working in the back. That was our ratio, one to four, and now today most shops have one person in the front office and one production staff in the back.”

Taylor also mentioned that the AI can be customized and trained according to the specific operational preferences of each shop, making it a versatile tool for improving customer service in the collision repair industry. He encouraged listeners to call a demo number to experience the AI assistant firsthand.

With innovation often comes fear. The most common, of which history has proven time and time again, is of people losing their jobs.

In response to concerns about job loss in the collision industry due to AI, Taylor says the technology is a great copilot. It can reduce the admin burden by about 27%, according to his data, freeing up time for customer service representatives and estimators to focus on more valuable tasks. He believes that AI will make people more productive and that businesses will need to adapt to AI to remain competitive.

“Otherwise, it’s just going to be really difficult, time-consuming, and frustrating,” Taylor said.

As for the cost, Taylor explained that his AI solution is a subscription with a pay-as-you-go element. The AI is scalable, so to make it affordable, there will likely be a small subscription fee and then a pay-as-you-go usage fee. This makes it more accessible for businesses to get started with AI.

For those who are considering looking into how AI could help in their shop, Taylor had this to say:

“Start spending a little bit of your time understanding how AI can positively impact you and affect you. Because you don’t want to get into what we call the ‘laggard stage’ at the end of this, where all of a sudden, your competition is flying past you and you’re like, ‘How do I catch up?’ It’s really, really hard to catch up once somebody is already going at 100 miles an hour and you’re doing 10 miles an hour. It’s hard to get up to speed and try to catch up to someone ahead of you. So, getting into this stuff now is probably the best time to start looking at it and seeing how it’s going to affect you and if it’s going to be a positive thing to add to your business.”