The Inspection Process: More Than Just a Need for a Certification Program

The need for an Inspection Certification program has been discussed in great length over the past year in P&A Magazine, but we have really not even touched on any of the “other” areas of the inspection process and these issues (or problems) warrant just as much attention as those that the certification program may solve.

So, I asked Jeff Roberts, Vice President of Claims Administration with Easy Care, Ron MacPherson, an independent inspector with Inspector LLC and L’Tonya Carr, owner of the inspection company Carr Appraisals, if they could provide their thoughts and ideas on ways they feel the process could be improved.

I first asked them what, in their opinion, was the reason for a decrease in volume of inspections that have occurred over the past couple of years. All three participants agreed that the economy was a major contributing factor to this decline. L’Tonya broke it down into three components:

• First, as Don Larsen mentioned in his article, inspections have historically been perceived as a “cause of considerable disruption, expense, and loss of productivity for the customer, dealership, and administrator.” In an attempt to control costs in a bad economy, many efforts are made to reduce this ‘necessary evil’ due to greater emphasis on customer service and retention.
• Second, as a result of the perception that there remains a lack of ‘quality inspectors/ inspections’ to choose from, Administrators/Providers may, and oftentimes do, decide to ‘cut costs’ by cutting out inspections altogether.
• Last, as history has proven, the worse the economy, the greater the fraud/upsell. So, although short-term costs of ceasing inspection services may be reduced, long-term costs of future claims can be exponential.

I next asked participants if they could provide some suggestions that they feel could improve any perceptions as well as reduce actual occurrences of disruptions, lost time and increased expenses?

Jeff Roberts noted, “There is no way around the fact that inspections are going to be disruptive, more expensive and create some lost productivity for everyone involved. But to put it in perspective, take a $4,000 transmission repair as an example, pulling it off the rack and pushing it aside for inspection doesn’t take any more time than waiting on a customer to make a decision on a repair. Most consumers will not provide an approval on your first call for something that expensive. They will likely call around for more estimates, talk to their friends and family for advice and then call back the next day or so with their decision. The repair facility ends up waiting on us or them either way.”

That being said, Roberts did go on to say that one of the best ways to minimize these perceptions &/or actual occurrences requires “good planning and good communication. The key is making sure the vehicle is truly ready for inspection, all disassembly is complete and the technician is available to show the failures.” Other suggestions included:

• The value of having the inspector called in should be explained to customers. They should be aware that inspections provide “protections” for them, as well as for other parties involved.
• L’Tonya recommended that Administrators and Providers could place greater emphasis on communicating their inspection expectations with the repair facility before the inspector arrives, and provided some examples such as, “type of testing, level of tear down, and how they want the failure demonstrated. Any of these would vastly improve overall process perception and relations between the involved parties.”
• Ms. Carr further recommended that a possible way to reduce perceived and actual disruptions, expenses and lost productivity for all parties involved is to put a tracking system in place which can “monitor and address issues that affect any of these areas, from both the Administrator and Inspection side.” She further explained that “Carr Appraisals tracks ‘re-inspections’ and looks for trends which impact expenses and performance; we track inspection ‘completion’ times/delays, and look for trends and issues which impact expenses, performance and productivity.” The system she uses reports the average time/hours of inspection completion by client and/or inspector, and can provide information on reasons and who caused them.
• Ron MacPherson has noticed that some repair facilities are trying to improve the process by utilizing extended warranty coverage as part of their customer servicing and some provide low cost rental or loaner automobiles to their customers.
• Lastly, L’Tonya suggested that there be better use of automated transfer of inspection requests and return of information. She noted that although almost all parties have the capabilities of doing so, a delay seems to occur which is often the result of being put at the low-end of the priority list and sometimes cost, though she stressed (and I have to agree) that with the “high-tech” world we live in today, there has been a decrease in most technology costs and therefore they shouldn’t be a driving factor.

I then asked, “What can be done to improve circumstances that lead an inspection to go awry due to poor communications with/from the repair facility, or poor preparation or insufficient processes within the administrator?”

All participants said that communication is of the utmost importance and that both inspectors and repair facilities need to be aware of any expectations that the Administrator and Provider have. Roberts noted that “the challenge is getting everyone on the same page. The service writer, the technician, the adjuster and the inspector all have to be on the same page as to what is trying to be accomplished.”

L’Tonya suggested that the Administrator/Provider provide as much information regarding the present claim and any past claim or occurrences available. And, Ron further commented that often times the repair facility has difficulties contacting the advisor or that time is wasted waiting for the advisor to return the call(s) regarding the claim. He suggested that alternative means of contacting these advisors by means of cell phones or by providing the advisor with an alternate contact at the repair facility like a shop foreman or service manager so that time is not wasted waiting for the advisor’s return call to the repair facility.

Not only do these solutions address the communication factor, they can also improve turn around time as well.

L’Tonya also mentioned that an area in need of improvement that affects turn around time is how quickly photo documentation is available. She noted that “there are several field inspectors who already utilize equipment in the field to transfer quality photo documentation directly from the repair facility and this has expedited the process immensely.”

Turnaround time at EasyCare is pretty satisfactory according to Jeff Roberts. He noted, “Sure we would like to have a quicker turn around time but almost all of our inspections are completed within 24 hours of the request and many are done the very same day. We are very sensitive to the needs of the repair facility where they need to be working on vehicles, not standing around waiting for inspections.” His thoughts are that if a clear expectation is communicated of what is needed to be reviewed when the inspector arrives, turn around time will remain optimal and hold-ups are less likely to occur.

While still on the subject of communication, L’Tonya said that if Administrator and Provider standards were possible, it would help with consistency among methods to communicate credible inspection findings & other information. An example she gave was that she could be looking at identical GM model transmissions with two different Administrators, and the inspection test or procedure and information required by each administrator could be VERY different. This not only can cause confusion but can also prove cumbersome for the inspector.

Technology is a major player in the job of the inspector. It also plays a huge role in the communication between the inspector and the Administrator &/or Provider. Don Larsen’s July 2010 article mentioned that we were on the threshold of having the ability to communicate with the inspector while they were still at the repair facility so that the review of photographic documentation could occur in real-time rather than waiting for uploads the next day. So, I was curious to find out if we have passed the threshold and if real-time communication was occurring almost one-year later. The responses I received varied.

Being in Hawaii proves to be a bit of a challenge for Ron MacPherson, and although calling in reports from repair facilities has been a part of their process for some time now, loading pictures (including formatting, titling and resizing) is not always possible. This is because 1) this process takes time, and 2) Wifi coverage is not always available, making it impossible to download the picture while on site.

Like Ron, L’Tonya Carr said that they have been verbally communicating with clients from the repair facility for years, but because the internet is much more reliable at her client sites, the majority of the inspectors who work with her are able to transfer the necessary photo documentation directly from the facility to Carr Appraisals website allowing “the Administrator almost instant access to the picture.”

Many of these roadblocks occur because everyone is pointing the finger at each other. So how do we hold everyone accountable? Based on L’Tonya and Ron, the following suggestions were recommended:

Repair Facility – Communication between the inspector and the repair facility is, again, of extreme importance and can stymie the entire inspection process. Number one is to make sure the vehicle is ready for inspection before the inspector arrives on site. Perhaps the repair facility should be monetarily responsible should the inspector incur prolonged wait time for the vehicle to be ready or should it be necessary for the inspector to make a return visit to complete the inspection. Repair facilities should not restrict needed customer information from the inspector.

Inspector – It is the inspector’s responsibility to make sure the inspection is thoroughly performed and completed before he/she leaves the premises. The inspector should be held responsible monetarily for any damage resulting from his/her neglectful actions.

Administrator &/or Provider – as mentioned earlier, expectations should be clearly communicated to both the repair facility and the inspector BEFORE the inspection begins. Perhaps a monetary responsibility should be imposed here as well.

My final question covered compensation. From both the inspectors view and an administrator view, the consensus was that there should be a standard “minimum” rate. Jeff Roberts commented that “Some inspections will be close by and take little time to inspect, while others will take longer and involve more traveling distance. By charging a ‘fair’ flat rate for all your inspections, you make it fairer for everyone and keeps things simple from a billing perspective.”

L’Tonya noted that though there is truth to this, she feels that additional monetary consideration should be given based on experience, education, technical abilities, full-certification, and locations of inspection site (especially if outside a particular range of the inspector’s base territory, for example 50 miles).

While Jeff, L’Tonya, and Ron provided a wealth of insight about the additional issues that are perceived or that actually occur in the inspection process, and they definitely provided some terrific ideas to improve the processes, it looks as though it may get rougher before it gets easier. The good news is that communication was the number one mentioned improvement or solution for almost all issues. If each party could simply work on ways to better improve the process through improved communication, it seems very likely that the changes to come will be off to a great start.