Alan Fishenburg, owner

Tell us about your company and the services you offer.

Southwest Inspections has been performing mechanical breakdown inspections since 1985. We operate nationwide, including parts of Alaska and Hawaii, parts of Canada and Puerto Rico.

How does your service work, and how is it different from other inspections services?

We review 100 percent of our reports before they are available for the administrators. We check them for grammatical errors and continuity and accuracy of the findings. Everyone in our technical department has worked in the automotive service segment and all have worked for mechanical breakdown administrators; we are well aware of their needs and concerns. Our website is state of the art and extremely user-friendly.

Who are your target markets, and what message do you want to express to them?

Any and all mechanical breakdown administrators. If they are in need of an inspection company, we have the experience and reputation for quality work at extremely competitive rates.

What channels do you use to sell your services?

Direct contact with administrators by phone call, emails or “snail mail.”

Looking back over the past five years, how has the inspection industry changed? How do you see it changing in the future?

The biggest change I see is in the use of video. Initially, I was not completely sold on it. But now that it’s here, I have seen multiple examples of creative photography documenting what still photos cannot. I have encouraged its use and appreciate inspectors thinking outside the box in their documentation. I see technology advancing our industry with the increased speed of the Internet and the multiple choices out there for digital equipment, specifically, real-time pictures and video from the inspection site. It has already started, but I see it being becoming widespread in a very short time.

What technology or additional services do you believe will drive your future success?

We have had a one-touch button for ordering inspections for some time now. I am starting to see more and more companies use this along with providing the reports back to them in various ways that allow them to keep the inspection reports close to and inside the claim file. Ordering claims this way is a time saver, as is receiving them and the ease to retrieve these reports at the click of a button many months or years after the report is completed.