Is Brand-Specific Auto Body Repair Sound Practice?

As an auto body repair shop owner, would it benefit your business if you specialized on a specific Japanese, American or European brand? If you look at industry publications, you will see quite a few shops that are advertising their specialization in specific car brands. This is of course these shops' attempt to capture a specific customer base in a certain area. Would this be the wave of the future or is this a strategy that can backfire in the future? The answer here would depend on a lot of factors, such as what car brand the auto body repair shop will specialize in, the area where the shop is located, the affluence of the community, the quality of the shop's technicians and even the capitalization available to the owners of the shop. There a lot more factors that can work for or against a shop specializing in a specific car brand, but these are the more obvious ones.

The obvious advantages of targeting a specific are a more controlled inventory, less need to learn about different repair techniques, possibly less expenditure for tools and equipment a valid claim that the shop is a specialist in a particular brand. And if the shop has a good enough relationship with the car company, there is the assurance that the latest techniques, technical bulletins and support will be made available to the body shop.

But there are also factors which work against auto body repair shops specializing in a specific brand. Primary among these is the size of the market. Obviously, there would be more Toyotas than, say, Mercedes-Benzes although more affluent areas would have a higher number of luxury cars. It would seem logical then that an auto body repair shop would be better off specializing in Toyotas instead of Benzes. But a savvy manager must look at the margins too, as specializing in luxury cars would probably yield better margins.

Deciding whether to specialize or not in a specific car brand is not a trivial decision to make for the manager of an auto body repair shop. While being assured of a captive customer base, there is also the risk of not having enough cars in that target market in your area. Whatever the case, age-old values like quality, value for money, professionalism and good customer relations will still carry the day, whether an auto body repair shop decides to specialize in a specific brand or not.