PrintBob Juniper
President
Three-C Body Shop
When Three-C Body Shop of Columbus, Ohio, began to lose customers in 1992, Bob Juniper knew it wasn't due to the quality of his company's collision repairs. Since purchasing Three-C from his father in 1984, Juniper had maintained the same high standards that his dad started setting back in 1956.
Juniper quickly discovered that the insurance companies' direct repair programs (DRPs) were responsible for his diminishing customer base. Through DRPs, insurance companies were partnering with collision repair shops that agreed to provide discounted repair rates in return for steady customer referrals.
"At that time there were 225 body shops in Columbus," recalls Juniper. "And 224 of them were on board with the insurance companies." Juniper says he was the only body shop owner in Columbus who refused to comply with DRP guidelines and become one of the insurance companies' "preferred" providers.
Juniper refused to go along because he believed that DRP guidelines didn't guarantee that customers were getting the highest-quality work; merely that insurance companies were getting the lowest estimates. But if he bucked the industry trend, Juniper faced the risk of losing the insurance referrals and the new business he needed to succeed.
Instead of compromising, Juniper began to focus his efforts on three things: an advertising campaign, a new business approach and new collision repair processes. "I knew I had to change the way I was doing business," he says.
And that meant daring to be different. "Everyone says they do things differently and care about the customer," he admits. "But when I say we do things differently, I mean we do things really differently."
To stand out, Juniper launched an aggressive advertising campaign. Advertising was virtually unheard of in the collision repair industry, but Three-C's radio and print advertising blitz changed that.
The ads educated people about how the collision repair industry operates, exposing how body shops agreed with insurance companies on fixed-repair costs to secure future customer referrals. And the ads reminded consumers that they weren't limited to insurance company-approved body shops.
"We began looking out for the little guy," says Juniper. "Most body shops view the insurance company as the customer. We view the vehicle owner as the customer."
At the same time, Juniper improved quality at Three-C by changing the way it processes repairs. Years of industry experience told Juniper that a low-tech worker could handle 40 percent of a collision repair while 60 percent of a typical repair requires a high-tech touch. Now Three-C's repair process is based on a 40-60 work split. This ratio helps the body shop be more efficient by hiring low-tech workers to do the bulk of the work and reserving higher-paid technicians for complicated repairs.
With his initial $70,000 investment and his entrepreneurial spirit, Juniper has turned Three-C Body Shop into a $15 million business with 11 locations and 110 employees. Juniper attributes his success to his unique approach. "When you do things differently, you get out of your comfort zone — but it's worth it," he says. "I decided to do things differently and it's working."
— Karen Gujarathi
