When is it Time to Start Recalibrating?
By Abby Bowman
How do you know when to add recalibration to your auto glass shop’s services? Is now the time? Or would it be better to wait?
Shop owners facing this decision have to weigh many factors. Making the right decision can be daunting, especially when it seems like you have to add recalibration in order to survive. That’s the first consideration, according to Dave Leach, chief operating officer (COO) of Don’s Mobile Glass in Modesto, California. Can you survive without it?
“It’s an evolutionary thing. It just doesn’t make sense not to add it,” says Leach. “So when you’re deciding to do it, do you want to be in the glass business or not? Because [if you want to be in the glass business], that’s what’s coming.”
What Do You Have to Lose – Or Gain?
Companies must first decide how adding recalibration would change their business model.
Jeff Olive says glass shops that do not currently recalibrate typically send vehicles elsewhere for that step. As the director of quality and training for the Auto Glass Safety Council (AGSC) and throughout his career, he’s observed many shops. Olive says those who send the recalibration work elsewhere frequently find themselves frustrated.
“The amount of vehicles you have to calibrate are climbing compared to the amount you don’t,” Olive says. “So they start seeing [sending the work out] as throwing that money out the window or giving that profit to someone else.”
Josh McFarlin, the president and COO of AirPro Diagnostics, says performing recalibrations within your company allows businesses to build better customer relationships.
“You can work with a recalibrator, but I would argue if you work with them, you’re taking more time from the customer,” McFarlin says. “This will frustrate the customer, making you lose jobs and leave you with bad reviews.”
Stewart Peregrine, the senior executive of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) sales at Autel, says adding recalibration also improves business flow.
“Glass-focused shops have a lot of options,” Peregrine says. “Bringing recalibration in-house is most profitable. It also allows you to control your time.”
Do You Have What it Takes?
Shops must decide if they have or can add the space and employees recalibration requires. You need a controlled environment to safely and correctly perform static calibrations, says Leach.
His company accounts for as many variables as possible in their calibration space, including climate, what’s behind the target, and the evenness of the floor. This helps ensure consistent results.
Peregrine says controlling the lighting, keeping the system out of the wind and minimizing clutter are also important for static recalibration.
“You don’t want a bunch of checkered boards up on the wall if you’re putting a checkered board-style target in front of a vehicle,” he says. “You’ve got to make sure your space is clean.”
According to Peter Brown, president of Tiny & Sons, it’s best to hold off on adding recalibration if you don’t have the capacity for it yet.
“You’re talking about changing a side of your business,” he says. “…There are a lot of factors here. You need a technician to do it, you’d need the space and it’s a different liability. You have to weigh the options to determine if it’s for you or not.”
Brown waited until he was sure he had the space and technical ability before adding recalibration to his business. Though working with an outside calibrator isn’t always ideal, Brown says he worked successfully with a local automotive business to recalibrate windshield-mounted cameras for his customers.
“I partnered up with a local tire store that had their own recalibration side of the business, and I learned from them,” he says. “I spent five years working with them until I was confident enough my business would be ready for it.”
Companies that want to add recalibration but don’t have space for a controlled environment have options. According to McFarlin, dynamic recalibration is a good way to ease into recalibration if you don’t yet have the facility for static.
“You still have to go drive the vehicle, but you don’t have to make any other investment aside from your time and the diagnostic tool,” he says. “Start getting used to the recalibration process that way.”
Shop owners still have to make sure their location fits dynamic recalibration needs, says Peregrine.
“Make sure you have a clear road with good lines on which you can maintain a speed,” he says.
Companies in areas that get a lot of snow or ice might not be able to do dynamic recalibrations in the winter, he adds.
Though having a shop along a winding country road might not work well for dynamic recalibrations, being in a rural area could be good for recalibration business in general.
“If you were the only company that did recalibrations in that area, you could probably gain a lot of business,” Olive says.
Because camera calibrations maintain a potentially life-saving safety feature, Leach says business owners must think deeply about whether or not they can take on that kind of responsibility.
“Whoever’s making the decision has to look at it as a business owner and be honest with themselves,” says Leach. “The extra money you could earn isn’t the only consideration. You’ve got to know you have the infrastructure and ability to do this properly.”
He says this includes assessing employees’ skill and teachability levels, your capabilities and how much you can invest.
Counting the Cost
In terms of capital expense, McFarlin recommends thinking of the equipment like a new van for mobile glass installation or any other tool for the shop.
“Do a little bit of analysis to determine if you make that investment, when is it going to start to pay off?” he says. “Think about when you will start to make money off that, not just if you can afford it from your existing cash flow.”
Peregrine says to calculate based on how much you’d charge per recalibration. Though each part of the U.S. is different, he says the average is a couple of hundred additional dollars per job.
“When you get an average charge of around $250 to $300 per recalibration, it doesn’t take very long to pay for just the tooling,” Peregrine says.
Olive says this is especially true of shops that can work on multiple vehicles at once, though smaller shops still receive a good return on their investment.
“Larger shops are doing more installations, and they’re getting more vehicles that they have to do recalibrations on,” he says. “Those are the ones that tend to make their investment back in four to six months.”
Peregrine says you must also invest both training and money in a calibration technician.
“You have to look for an eager learner who will read, follow and execute instructions,” he says. “…you might have to pay a little more money to have that type of [recalibration] skill in your shop, but it doesn’t have to be someone with a ton of automotive experience.”
McFarlin says it’s essential to understand the available financial terms for recalibration equipment.
“You need to understand your options for paying for it,” he says. “Not just what the full cost is, but are there financing options?”
He has seen many successful methods of paying for recalibration equipment, including financing and corporate credit cards with preferential rates, but it really comes down to the individual business owner.
“You just have to take a look at how you are running your business and see what the options are,” he says.
Looking Long-term
Olive says that as Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) technology develops, it will become clear to other automotive services providers that recalibration is required after their work, too. The more auto glass shops that get into recalibration now, Olive says, the more likely they will become the designated recalibration experts for the whole automotive industry.
“Recalibration is not going away,” Olive says. “It’s going to continue to advance to the point where we have self-driving cars. I have a very strong feeling that auto glass shops are going to become recalibration shops that also do auto glass.”
Leach has a simple message to those questioning when they should add recalibration.
“If you can take an honest look at your business and know it is running well enough to properly do this, there’s never been a better time to get into recalibration,” Leach says. “Except yesterday.”
The Fight for Insurance Approval
Getting windshield-mounted recalibrations approved and paid for by insurance presents a common frustration for auto glass companies. According to multiple business owners, working with insurers to get properly reimbursed for recalibration jobs takes extra time and effort.
Though almost all cars with windshield-mounted cameras require recalibration post-replacement, that doesn’t mean insurance carriers or their third-party administrators (TPAs) automatically green-light the service. Most insurers require shop owners to get it pre-approved.
This doesn’t make sense to Dylan Muscutt, owner of Premier Glass in New Orleans.
“We all know that recalibration is required, so I don’t understand why we have to ask for approval for a service that should already be included in an installation,” he says.
It would be like having to ask for insurance approval to use urethane, he says. It’s necessary for the replacement, so it seems odd, he says, to check ahead of time if the insurance company will cover it. Muscutt says he had some insurance companies and TPAs deny recalibration or just not get back to him at all about approval.
Muscutt says it was particularly difficult to have original equipment (OE) parts approved, even if he believes it would make the recalibration more successful. He says he has to install the approved aftermarket windshield, have a recalibration fail, and then repeat the process over again before getting approval to use an OE windshield.
“It wastes a lot of time and money doing that,” Muscutt says. Now he almost exclusively takes jobs where the customer pays him directly.
Patricia Smiley, president of South Carolina-based Quackt Glass, says her shops frequently face the same problem. Smiley’s technicians will know from experience that a certain part causes recalibration problems, but the business still has to try using that part before insurance will approve an OE part.
“We’re not getting paid for the labor of installing glass more than once [per job], so at that point, you have to wonder if it’s even a profitable job,” she says.
Sean Fagan has trouble getting timely recalibration approval and payment from insurance companies. The owner of Appalachian Auto Glass in Boone, North Carolina, constantly has to follow up with a customer’s insurance company to make sure he gets paid and the customer doesn’t have to wait any longer.
“Eventually, I get payment, but it takes way more man-hours than it should,” Fagan says.
Sometimes, when the insurance company pays him, he discovers he’s been short-paid. There isn’t much he can do about that, he says.
Jasper Raynor, owner of Raynor Auto Glass in Helena, Alabama, struggles with a similar problem.
“My biggest frustration in dealing with insurance is getting paid,” he says.
To counterbalance the insurance payment issue, Raynor takes as many jobs as possible where the customer is paying him directly. That doesn’t always work out.
“In January, I had a lot of insurance work and not a lot of cash work,” he says. “I’m still waiting on payment for a lot of the insurance jobs.”
Supplementing with direct payment isn’t as much of an option for Smiley. According to the South Carolina Department of Insurance, insurers can’t charge a deductible for “safety glass repairs or replacements,” so customers generally don’t want to pay Quackt Glass directly.
Whether the company is waiting for insurance approval or payment, customers don’t appreciate the extra time the job takes. Both Fagan and Smiley say they make sure to inform the customer why there’s a delay and that they’re doing everything they can to speed the process up.
“One method we’ve tried is to get the customer’s insurance agent to call the insurer [about approval],” Smiley says.
Muscutt and Fagan have both run into approval and payment issues with most insurers, though some are worse than others. Fagan alerts others in the industry about difficult insurers as much as he can. Muscutt grew so frustrated that he took Premier Glass out of all insurance networks.
“No customer wants to wait a week or more [for their car],” he says.
Abby Bowman is the editor of AGRR magazine. Email her at abowman@glass.com and connect with her on LinkedIn.
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