Chartwell Director Chris Brightmore has encouraged repairers to ask themselves why they are doing the things they do instead of simply taking direction from others.
He said that only by understanding the ‘why’ can businesses begin to understand the ‘what’ and the ‘how’.
Addressing delegates at the ARC360 Gaining Ground Together event, which was held at The Manufacturing Technology Centre last month November, he said that Chartwell had only become the unique business it is because from the outset its leaders have taken the time to ask themselves ‘why’.
“We have got very good at asking why, and that’s probably why we’ve survived in the market we’re in,” he said.
Foundation
Chartwell was founded in Derby in 1966 as a family-run business serving the local market. Securing Mercedes approval in the 1970s represented a change-point, with BMW and Jaguar approvals following shortly afterwards.
However, the business was defined and its future direction established when it became an approved repairer for Aston Martin, investing upwards of £75,000 on new tooling and equipment to handle aluminium repairs.
Chris said, “Aston Martin was a step-change for us because then we were talking direct to the factory, not just a dealership. You do wonder about return on investment, but we were beginning to realise that if we understood manufacturers correctly things would start to change for us.
“Shortly afterwards we got Land Rover approval, which also included aluminium repair, and that gave us some confidence. It was that very day we decided to build this facility, investing £2.5m to build a site that met standards that weren’t even invented yet.”
More prestige manufacturer approvals followed, but none was more important to Chartwell than Ferrari, which required an incredible investment of both energy and money but established the business firmly as a supercar specialist.
Chris said, “We targeted Ferrari and we got it. It was a brave move to invest in the brand, probably the bravest move, and in the first 18 months we saw four cars. But we had to take our heads out of own business and understand why we were doing what we were doing. We wanted to be unique, to be visible; we wanted to exist.”
Focus
A decade ago Chartwell was an approved repairer for 16 of the most prestigious vehicle manufacturers in the world. It has now let half of these go to focus more on the brands that most closely align with its own business model.
That means delivering a superlative service in every single aspect of the repair journey.
Chris explained, “As a supercar-approved repairer we have to do things differently. About 70% of our business is models that represent 1.3% of the vehicle parc. So we have to produce our own standards and processes because we have discovered some unique problems from asking ourselves some important questions: Why do we do it? Why Chartwell? Why would an insurer want to deal with us?”
Trust
He said that underpinning everything Chartwell does is trust – trust from the customer who is handing over their pride and joy, trust from the manufacturer to protect the reputation of its brand, and trust from the insurer who will have to absorb the cost of the repair.
However, like everyone else Chartwell has had to earn that trust. Chris explained that by asking why things were going wrong, why there were delays or why engineers were not authorising repairs, he began to understand that the research data for supercars was not readily available to the wider industry.
“That information isn’t easy to get,” he said, “so we were just asking everyone to trust us. But we can’t expect blind trust. We realised that research is clarity, and clarity is trust, so now we try to evidence everything we do. That means that when we do an estimate, we dismantle the vehicle to check everything. Then we produce a huge document with loads of images and videos of evidence for the engineer so that they understand every detail of the repair.
“We are looking to achieve the gold standard and that requires teamwork, innovation, customer focus, and integrity – even if someone won’t notice if we don’t do something we’ll still do it. We’ve lived and died by this.”
Confidence
With this level of service and expertise – technician training days exceed 100 every single year – Chartwell has been confident enough to offer lifetime guarantees for its repairs for the past 15 years.
Chris concluded, “We understand our why, but my frustration with this industry is we get driven by someone else’s average or direction. We never stop and ask ourselves, ‘why am I in this market, why does it suit us, and why should I proceed?’”
ARC360’s Gaining Ground Together 2022 event was sponsored by GT Motive and supported by ARC360 Corporate Partners: Solera Audatex; BASF; BMS; CAPS; Copart; EMACS; Entegral; Enterprise; Innovation Group; Mirka; Nationwide Vehicle Recovery Assistance; and S&G; along with Partners: Repairify; The Green Parts Specialists; Indasa; and Prasco UK; and Associate Partners: Gemini ARC; Trend Tracker; and Thatcham Research.
