Emerging technologies are impacting every aspect of the automotive incident repair industry, and reshaping the future of the entire sector.
From first notification of claim to repair methods and customer service, processes, people and priorities are having to evolve to keep pace. But with great change comes great challenge – particularly around safety – and also opportunity.
Here, we ask Jeff Mack, National Account Manager of Nationwide Vehicle Recovery Assistance, what the trends are within vehicle recovery and how NWVA is adapting.
Can you give us an insight into the services Nationwide Vehicle Recovery Assistance offers?
We offer vehicle recovery as our core business, but so much more also, such as getting customers home, invoice checks for clients, full aftercare packages, such as hotel arrangements, repatriation from Europe, taxis etc. We handle in all types of vehicles from motorcycles to cars, vans, heavy commercials, tankers, ADR recovery, flood assistance, specialist chemical assistance.
In terms of alternative fuelled vehicles, we specialise in post-accident EV recovery, with fully qualified level three IMI accredited staff.
How has your business/processes evolved post Covid?
It’s been very interesting, challenging but fortuitous in many ways. We pride ourselves on being able to respond very quickly, so we did that, kept going throughout without losing many people. We diversified into vehicle deliveries for car manufacturers as they could no longer use a chase car, with a second driver.
Processes have evolved and, in reality, doing more online in terms of meetings is much more efficient.
Another benefit, it transpires, is we have more of our clients using our web portal to log their assistance cases rather than phoning, making the entire process more fluid and efficient.
How do you see processes changing in the next five years?
There will be more clients wanting to integrate our portal into their systems via API link; this will increase our volumes. In car connectivity, it will be interesting to find out who holds the power – the vehicle manufacturers or the insurers.
Congestion zones will become more challenging for insurers, because very few councils will give exemptions to recovery vehicles, so there will need to be charging and invoicing processes developed. And also, realistic expectations will have to be set regarding time taken to get to customers as part of SLA’s.
How is the changing car parc impacting your operations?
Post-covid our volumes just keeps increasing, which, I believe, is from the excellent service provided through and since Covid. Like the other emergency services, we have to be available 24/7 and 365 a year – and we were, when many clients of other providers were let down. Essentially, we were given a chance to prove ourselves and we did. Our business is built on first class service.
Can you tell us how you are developing partnerships with the wider industry?
There are so many initiatives, partnerships we have, most of these relationships are already there. For example, we are approved for 29 vehicle manufacturers, eight insurers, numerous claims management companies, five truck manufacturers, specialist waste disposal and hazardous chemical disposal companies.
We also sponsor ILC and attend each event, and are supplier members of the NBRA, and consult regularly with senior management at all of our clients.
What is the greatest challenge you face at the moment, and how are you overcoming it?
We are facing what everyone else is at the moment – fuel prices, staff shortages, and agents closing post-covid.
For our sector, congestion zone recoveries is becoming an increasing issue, but probably the biggest threat is the recovery and storage of electric vehicles with potential battery damage.
But we are adapting successfully. One example is a project we started in the first month of lockdown. We set up and created our own alternative fuelled vehicle post-accident course and got it IMI certificated, because we didn’t feel that the training available was sufficient to keep people safe.
All of our in-house drivers and control centre staff have now been trained and qualified. We are now training our agents to the same required standard, even though we are not a training company.
As a European provider, how has Brexit impacted your business?
Again, we have adapted. When Brexit was announced we opened our Netherlands-based company and since Brexit and Covid our business has grown by 145%.
What are you doing to meet ever-tighter sustainability targets?
We are always looking inwards and seeing how we can continue to improve and be more efficient to reduce our carbon footprint. And we are also having open and clear dialogue with clients over the shared issue.
Do you foresee any looming crises coming down the road, and is the industry taking the necessary steps to prepare for them?
Yes, electric vehicles. We helped to set up an industry roundtable back in May with Kirsty Mckno from Cogent and Chris Weeks from the NBRA to address the issue. From there a full technical report has been authored for all sectors of the industry and working groups formed.
The mini conclusion is that in terms of infrastructure for EVs, it’s analogous to building a house on some flat concrete, the back digging to put in the foundations. Simply put, the industry has no chance of being ready.
In terms of recovery, the reason we developed a course specifically for post-RTC and storage is because that is the point of liability, when these things can go as wrong as is possible, and the results are literally life threatening as these don’t just catch fire – they cannot be extinguished and will keep going into thermal runaway, sometimes over several weeks.
Our key message we are training is: ‘Know what you are dealing with.’
We have a duty of care to our drivers our incident managers and our client’s driver, so we take this very seriously. Sadly, most others are burying their heads in the sand.
In an ideal world, how would vehicle recovery integrate with the repair industry to provide a more holistic service in terms of efficiency, parts supply and customer satisfaction?
We are an essential cog in a huge wheel, effectively the fourth emergency service. How we engage with the client’s customer is what we build on. Just greater communication would be great, without individual agendas.
And better links through technology, which would allow for diagnosis at scene, straight to a VDA, and to the claims centre. This would cut down on cycle time and unnecessary movements of vehicles.
