July 14, 2024 • 33 mins
As the CollisionRight Co-founder and CEO, Rich Harrison brings over 30 years of global strategy coupled with operational and business development experience to the automotive aftermarket industry. As a proven C-Suite executive, he has developed a consistent track record of building high-performance teams and executing large-scale roll-up strategies in the automotive aftermarket space. To date, he has led efforts to complete over 100 acquisitions.Rich began his career with Belron International, the largest global auto glass repair and replacement company, and was responsible for strategy, business development, and operations for multiple divisions. After leading Belron’s entry into the U.S. market, he led Safelite AutoGlass integration efforts as its COO. Rich contributed to Safelite doubling in size, making it the leading auto glass repair and replacement brand in the U.S. Rich then co-founded TruRoad Holdings, where he held several senior executive positions
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Columbus in central Ohio have a richhistory of companies being headquartered here, everything
from technology, manufacturing, retail,insurance, and more. But what about
the leaders behind these companies? Whatmakes them tick? How do they get
their start? This is where youget to meet the captain of the ship.
Welcome to CEOs You Should Know andiHeartMedia Columbus Podcast. Welcome back to
(00:20):
another episode of CEOs You Should Knowand iHeartMedia Columbus Podcast. It's Boxer.
Our latest episode. We bring inRich Harrison, who is the co founder
and CEO of Collision Right. Thistakes you into the and it's interesting because
we're going to find out the backgroundwith Rich and it's funny how everything he's
done, his body of work hasa connection. And with this latest one
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with autobody repair, you've got overthirty years of global strategy which I want
to dive into. But first ofall, welcome to this podcast, Rich
Boxer. Great to be here,pleasure to meet you. Tell us what
Collision Right is. We are aleading collision repair company headquartered here in Columbus,
Ohio. We have ninety two shopsin ten states and what we do
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is we help people when they getinto a car crash, get back to
their lives. That's a great wayto put it. And I've been in
car accidents before. I've had togo through that, so many people have.
I'm sure you have more stats specificallyon how many people on average are
getting into accidents. But you know, when you think about the car rich
and that person with their community commutingin the morning and at night, we
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spent a lot of time at ourcar, so I would imagine that the
majority of people that are coming toyou and any body shop, there's an
emotional connection there for sure. Imean, this is not something people save
money up to go do to gettheir car repaired, so it's a nuisance
purchase. They're stressed out. Insome cases they've been in an accident where
(01:49):
they physically have been harmed, andso we want what we do at Collision
Ride is just put their mind atease and take care of everything, arranging
a rental car, making sure thattheir car is repaired quickly, updating them
on the status of the repair,and getting their car back as quick as
possible. And we love it whenwe hear from customers that my car is
better than the day that I boughtit. That's our goal is really to
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deliver that fantastic and exceptional customer serviceexperience. Rich Harrison is this week's guest
on CEOs You Should Know and IHeard Media Columbus podcast. Rich, of
course, is the co founder andCEO of Collision Right. Rich, Let's
get to know you a little bitand then I want to dive into you
know what you do on a dailybasis. But you're from Columbus, Ohio.
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No love Columbus. Lived here overseventeen years. This is the longest
I've lived in any one place.But I'm originally from Los Angeles, a
boxer. Don't hold it against me, but California, guys. Guy.
My wife from Oregon. So,but we moved here to Columbus in two
thousand and seven. The company thatI worked for, which was headquartered out
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of the UK, bought a businesshere in Columbus called safe Light. Yeah,
so I moved here, ran operationsthat at safe Flight for five years,
launched their advertising campaign, left thatbusiness, started my own autoglass company,
sold it, and then started CollisionRight in twenty nineteen. Late twenty
nineteen, So Rich, did youwere you one of the people behind safe
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Light slogan, what is it?Safe ive, prepair, safe Live reblaz
Boxer, you're an excellent singer.You might have missed your but I'm serious.
If you were part of that,you are a big time star right
now. In my eyes, it'sso memorable. Yeah. So I wish
I could take all the credit forit, but I can't. So are
the parent company, the current parentcompany of Safelight Bellron out of the United
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Kingdom. They own similar businesses aroundthe world in thirty different countries. And
that jingle that you so say soperfectly is the same jingle that is used
in Europe with a company in theUK called Autoglass, or on the continent
of Europe it's called car Glass andso it's car glass Repair, car Glass
Replace. I'm not gonna sing up, boxer, Oh come on. So
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I worked for that company and Iwas CEO of their business, and then
we bought safe Light. And soone of the things that we did is
we imported that campaign and that jinglefrom Europe and brought it to the US.
Rich I like to peel back thelayers a little bit on leaders that
come in here and like yourself.So you grew up in Los Angeles.
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What was life like growing up yourfamily? Well, my curses. I'm
a Raider fan. That's my footballteam, because you know, they're California
and then moved around and so I'vesuffered that fate for a lot of years
and I'm currently a season ticket holderin Las Vegas. So, Boxer,
if you ever want to go toa Raider game out in Vegas, it's
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it's really changed a lot from whenthey played in California, and it's just
a massive cocktail party, so youmight enjoy that. I've heard, yes,
I've heard that. So life wasgreat on the West Coast. You
know, people do a lot outdoors, not so much humidity in the summer,
and it's just a different vibe.But yeah, they can have it
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now. California, unfortunately, isa much different place than it was when
I grew up. Yeah, soI will not be buying any body shops
in California anytime. No no investmentsthere, Which is funny because I was
going to ask you about that alittle bit later. Where you plant expanding
to we could still go that direction. So you land here, Rich,
I always like to ask people this, who are from here? Your first
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impressions of Columbus Central Ohio. WhyI had to get the map out because
I know where Ohio is, likewith Columbus. Oh yeah, it's in
the middle. It's a capital.I remember, it's a capital of Ohio.
So actually, we've loved living here. Three children all went through the
school system in Upper Arlington. They'reallkay. Great, great place to raise
a family, just fantastic place tolive. Have a lot of great friends
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here and it's worked out very verywell. When you meet someone new and
they find out you are from California, I would have to imagine quite a
few you'll get rich. Why wouldyou leave, you know, southern California,
the beaches and the oceans. Buta lot of people that have now
transplanted here from there, they'll orFlorida. They'll say, hey, they
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can have it. I can alwaysgo visit. I can see an ocean
anytime. There's nothing like that.You can't get this everywhere. The quality
of life, well, that's agreat question. So I love risk.
So I have a lot of friendsfrom southern California who would never leave,
Like, why would I ever leavethis place? And it is so beautiful,
sunsets every night, the weather,it's fantastic, I want. I
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love building businesses. So I've livedin Montreal, I've lived in the UK,
in London, I've run business inGermany. So I have done work
all over the world. And becauseI'm up for it. I love new
challenges. I like meeting new people, learning about businesses in other countries.
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So that's fascinated me. And I'vedone that in the nineties. I've traveled
the world and I've helped companies grow. So with you living here the longest,
not an assumer, but you mustreally like it here are you?
Are you here to stay? Well, that's a great question, and it's
not my decision. It's my wife'smy wife, wife one wife, it's
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my wife's decision. So I thinkat some point we'll probably get a place
out west. There you go,but Ohio now is near and dear to
my heart, that's awesome. Rich. Let's dive into the business part of
things. So you're at Safelight,tell us about what you did there.
I was chief operating officer, soeverything to do with the customer experience from
the initial call coming in all theway through to repairing the car, and
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pretty big business across the United States. So that's what I did, helped
them grow and it was a goodtime. Was that your first time getting
into anything that was a business thatwas repairing something of the automobile? No,
So before safe Flight, I workedfor Bellron International, which safe Flight's
parent, and I worked for themtheir business in the US. That was
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my second job out of college.And then I worked for them and helped
them grow their businesses around the world. So I'd had that experience in automotive
repair in the US and Canada,Europe. I did some work in South
Africa, Asia Wow, working forthis multinational automotive repair, and then we
acquired safe Flight in two thousand andseven. Somewhere along the lines, Rich
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you talked about being a risk taker. You must have felt the need to
do something different or go out onyour own. What was that burning thing
for Collision right, Well, it'sa great question. It was a combination
of things. I really wanted toown and lead my own organization, and
so sometimes you get that opportunity whereyou're at and sometimes you don't. So
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it's something that I wanted to doto really fully utilize all my skills and
talents, and so I left safeFlight. Then I started my own autoglass
company grew that quite quickly to thesecond largest auto glass company in the United
States, second to Safe Flight.That's incredible. And then they and then
they bought it. Oh wow,so you went out on your own,
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became their competitor basically, right,and they're like, wow, he's doing
such a great job. Wait ifwe don't buy him, we're going to
be in trouble. Well that mightbe a little too kind, but they
wanted to buy it, so thereare reasons for that. So that was
happened pretty quickly. So that wasexciting and fun. And you know that
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that's what the kind of stuff thatgets me excited up in the morning,
kind of like you with your energy, you know, just up, ready
to go. Yeah, up,ready to go. Early bird gets the
worm, right, Oh yeah,so rich as you sold this company.
By the way, I've always wonderedwhen when someone comes along and offers you
a dollar amount. You're obviously asmart guy, but did you how do
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you put a value on your company? How do you put that down on
paper? Is it? Is itdebt? Is you know? How do
you do that? Well, there'sa lot of different ways. Normally,
when I'm buying a business today,I'll look at the cash flow, the
profit from the business, and thenwe apply a multiple, and you take
different things into consideration the size ofthe company. But I think in some
instances, the situation where I starteda glass company in Belron acquired it,
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there is strategic reasons why businesses dodifferent things. Taking out the number two
competitor in a market. There's valuein doing that, and so they placed
value on that. But normally Itry to be very disciplined and how I
value a business and I look athow long the business has been in existence,
their brand position in the market.First thing I do when I see
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a business today, a body shopthat I might want to acquire, I
go online. I look at theirGoogle review how are the Are these folks
really committed to customer service? Andif they're a four point eight star review
and they've got five hundred reviews,I'm excited about that. Yeah, yeah,
that's amazing. You look at that. Ironically, I was looking at
yours, and you guys are prettystellar with your local reviewers. We'll talk
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a little bit about collision, right. So one of the things that differentiates
us is we keep all the localbrands so many of my competitors come in,
they buy a body shop, theyconvert the brand to their brand name.
We don't do that because we believe, I believe there's value in that
local brand. Many of the bodyshops that we've acquired have been around seventy
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five years. Yeah. One examplehere in Columbus would be Rife's Auto Body
which we own. That business hasbeen around over seventy years. They're part
of the local community. So there'sbrand value in that. So we embrace
that. So our business. Wehave ninety two shops today, we have
over thirty brands in ten states,and we really lean in on the value
of the local brand. That's interesting, Rich because normally you'll have I mean
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you know this, normally you'll havea company come in and eventually they'll they'll
change the name to whatever they are, you know, big guy coming in
with a new name. That's aninteresting strategy because you keep the local name
and you know, the locals feellike, oh it's still our hometown.
You know. Business absolutely. Sofor example, I'll be in the Upper
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Arlington Parade this upcoming Fourth of July. It's great driving a four four to
two, a cool muscle car.And we'll be promoting RIfS and three C
by the way, which we ownhere in Columbus, and then up in
Marysville, we've got a great businesscalled Sam Jackson's. So we've got all
these different brands. Now, don'tget me wrong, Boxer, all of
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those businesses are run as one company. So the brands are different, but
they're all on the same systems.Okay, we pay our people the same
way. We're on the same accountingplatform. We have a management team.
We run this like a real business, but we think the business is more
successful if we maintain those local brands. Absolutely the only it sounds to me
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like, okay, you don't changethe name bridge, but everything else in
the business is streamlined. That's right, make it more efficient, exactly correct.
So all the operating systems are one. Payroll is all one comes with
the collision right name on their paycheck. It's all one business. So rich
I remember back in high school alittle bit about me. I grew up
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in Minnesota. My dad, outof high school, went to school to
be an autobody have his own autobodybusiness. Cool. So by the time
I got older, he had donesomething else with his life. But on
the side. His side hustle wasautobody work. So on the weekends,
especially in the winter time, that'swhat I spent doing, is doing body
work. And I got to tellyou that that's my connection to you.
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Are you looking to do any parttime work? I'll do full time.
I mean if you pay me morethan here, which is it much?
Hey? Absolutely? All right,Now we will need to do a background
check, not Boxer, that's fine. Is that? Okay? Only arrested
once, only arrested once. That'sa great story. Now Minnesota Love Minnesota.
Did a lot of work up therein the aut glass industry, and
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they break a lot of windshields inMinnesota because it gets very very cold.
Yes, and uh been out?Have you been ice fishing? Oh?
Yeah, ice fishing? Yes,so Boxer, then you know it's an
excuse to drink. Yeah, ifyou've seen grumpy old men, yes,
legit, Yes, they talked mein. I've been a couple of times,
like we got to go do thisbecause I like to fish. I
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like to go out to Montana andfly fish. It's one of my hobbies.
So I was excited about this fishingup on the ice. Yeah,
nobody's fishing. It's just massive alcoholconsumption. It's a chance for people just
to get out of work. Oryeah, one may say that, yeah
there were no wives. There wereno just a lot of booze and nothing
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else happening. The wives do notcome along. They're smart, they're at
them all of America exactly. That'sa great story, rich, but you
know, knowing the amount of workand labor that goes into it, what
is that one of your biggest castso I would imagine, is labor.
And also I'm interested in the technologyused now, Oh absolutely, ask great
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questions. So our biggest costs arethe cost of the parts and labor.
And we've experienced, like most businesses, massive inflation wages and the cost of
the parts, and so that's beena big challenge and struggle because we're committed
to repairing the vehicles safely. Inorder to do that, you have to
train, have the right equipment,make sure you're using high quality products and
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materials, and so the whole industryhas been under inflationary pressure the past few
years and there's not enough autobody technicians. That's why I want you to come
work for us. Now that Iknow you're awesome at that in an industry
where demand has been quite high comingout of the pandemic. People got back
on the roads, a lot ofaccidents, a lot of demand. So
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the big constraints for us have beenlabor experienced technicians because most young people want
to go to college and they reallyshould consider the trades. Agree can become
a successful painter or have the abilityto work on vehicles. You can make
over six figures quite quickly. RichMy dad did everything. But in this
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day and age, especially with collision, right, are are there people that
do different things? Like is therea painter, is there someone that puts
on the new parts or are theredifferent positions? Absolutely very specialized. And
one of the things that has transformedthe collision industry and the autoglass industry is
all of the advanced technology on avehicle. So it's really an iPhone on
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wheels. And so I'm not quitesure what kind of car you drive today?
What are you driving? Oh?I almost forgot a Ford Explorer?
Okay, So most new cars havesensors and cameras. Some of the cameras
now are even three hundred and sixtydegrees around the vehicle when you're backing up,
you can see your vehicle from above. How does it do that?
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So all of those cameras and sensorsplay a critical role in the safety of
the occupants as they drive, andso when a vehicle gets into an accident,
those sensors need to be replaced andrecalibrated. So I started a business
called three sixty a line which isowned by Collision Right. What that business
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does is after a vehicle is repaired, it resets all of the electronics in
the vehicle because you have to makesure those are working because you don't want
like lane departure warning, that's importantthat it works. You don't want your
steering wheel to turn to the rightright, it doesn't rightly too. So
all that's based off sensors and cameras. So we have a robust business just
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doing that. So to answer yourquestion, those people are specialized, they're
trained, and they're really computer technicians. That's absolutely amazing with your three sixty
Aligned company. So when when thecar is done, is that where it
moves to next? Is three sixtyAligned or cam So it depends on the
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vehicle. But the first thing wedo when we get a car in it's
been in an accent is we washthe car, We clean it because sometimes
you don't know all the damages.Some of these cars are dirty, so
we clean the car so we canexamine the damage. And then we perform
an electronic scan on all the computersystems in the vehicle. It's called the
pre scan, So that happens byour staff and in some cases three sixty
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aligned staff will come in to resetall of the electronics systems. Super important
in the collision industry and in theautoglass industry that after repair is done,
the car electronic systems are one hundredpercent reliable. Rich Harrison is the co
founder and CEO of Collision, Right, Rich, what about insurance companies?
I'm not asking you to dog onany of them, but in your line
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of work, how difficult can theybe to work with? Sometimes? Yeah,
would not dog on insurance companies.They're a key partner of ours.
So we have very very strong partnershipswith insurance companies all across the United States.
State Farm being the largest is anextremely important because of ours, and
we have partnerships with them and wetake care of their policy holders. So
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insurance companies very important when a policyholder, a consumer gets into an accident
that they have a great claim experience. If they don't, they're likely to
switch insurance companies. We know thedata shows us that. So insurance companies
are concerned, of course about cost, but they're also very concerned about retaining
their policy holders. You see allthe advertising going on with insurance companies trying
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to get you to move from onecompany to the next. So really important
that a claim is handled very verywell. So our focus, our core
values are around delivering an exceptional customerexperience and that's going to resonate with a
consumer when they're in an accident,they're more likely to stay with their insurance
company. So we get a lotof business from insurance companies. Have a
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whole team that just goes out andmeets with the insurance carriers and gets business
from them. So it's a criticalpart of our business. We would never
dog an insurance carrier. We lovethem rich. But clearly every car is
different. So you take my ForwardExplorer, it gets banged up, I
bring that in, but then there'sthe next guy who brings in is Lamborghini.
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How do you know, where doesthe knowledge come from on how to
repair these cars? That's great.It's another great question, what boxer?
You ask a lot of awesome questions. So we train our technicians. There's
a group called ICAR and this isthe Industry Resource for Training Certification, and
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all of our technicians and our shopsare ICAR Gold and that means that we
have a very high standard in termsof training and support for our technicians,
so they are able to work onvarious vehicles. We have resources that they
download to provide the repair instructions dependingupon the car. And some of our
shops have specialized certifications. For example, out of the ninety two shops,
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we have a handful of shops thatare test lesser and so that requires certain
tooling training, access to parts rifesfor example, Porche certified. So we
do have certain shops that specialize incertain brands, but most cars we can
repair at any of our shops.Rich you know, we'll have different leaders
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in here, like yourself, indifferent industries groceries for example, some will
report when I asked this of slimprofit margins, May I ask what's the
profit margin for autobody? Well,gross profit margins around forty two percent after
we pay for our labor and partsand then we have costs like every other
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business, so our profitabilities quite strong, double digits, and we look at
that compared to our competition and theindustry, so the margins are quite healthy.
The I think the exciting thing aboutgrowing a business is that when you
get scale, you get the benefitsof size and scale in terms of your
negotiation with suppliers. For example,we buy a lot of paint, and
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so when you're buying paint for ninetytwo shops, you can get a better
deal than if you're buying a paintfor one or two or three shops.
So that's really supercharged. Our profitabilityis economies of scale and efficiencies. Yeah,
Rich, you talked about the supplychain a little bit earlier and how
everyone was affected during that time period. First of all, are things kind
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of back to normal with the supplychain in parts or has everything's still gone
up with inflation? I guess yeah, it's returned to normal. So I
started this business in twenty twenty thisidea I was going to start a collision
right, and I was very excitedabout it. And then we all lived
through the pandemic and nobody was onthe roads. We track a metric in
our industry called v empty vehicle milestraveled, and during the trough of the
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pandemic March twenty twenty, vehicle milestraveled. We're it's down fifty percent.
We're all at home, scared.Is at the end of the world,
so people weren't driving. That's whenI started this business, sir. So
when you first started, I didn'tknow that rich. So when you first
started this, I mean, thingswere things kind of quietly quiet. The
phone wasn't ringing boxers. So Iwas very fortunate because collision repair was deemed
(23:14):
an essential service, so the bodyshops were open and at that time,
people weren't flying, and it wasa pretty scary time. So when I
started the company, I drove aroundOhio, Michigan, Kentucky, Pennsylvania,
meeting with body shop owners, reducingmyself. So the pandemic actually opened up
a door for me to get intothe market, to get some businesses acquired.
(23:40):
That I think, in hindsight,it was it was It was a
fantastic opportunity for me to start thebusiness because my competitors stopped buying shops at
that time because they were worried aboutdemand falling. So it allowed me to
get in rich when it when itwhen you were acquiring and it just I
guess hit me. When Collision Rightsstarted, it started with acquiring a body
(24:07):
shop, right, is that's howit first started. That's right, four
shops in Dayton, Ohio, LibertyCollision. And then we acquired a three
c here in Columbus. And thenwe bought a great business up in Michigan
and Kalamazoo called Autobody USA. Andthen down in Lexington, Kentucky. Loved
this brand, Kentucky Collision Center.What a name is that? Yeah,
so power brands all leaders in theirlocal markets. So we called those the
(24:32):
first four and those happened in twentytwenty. So I'm very proud of the
team that I've put together. Yeah, and one of our core values at
Collision Right is called embrace the challengestarting a business in the pandemic. Writing
that down start starting a business inthe pandemic was there were challenges, for
(24:53):
sure, especially in automotive repair.But I'm proud of the fifteen hundred teammates.
We now have Collision Right ninety twoshops. Our corporate office is down
at Bridge Park, so come seeme boxing. Yeah, I'm down there,
I get my hair cut there.Well, there you go. Yeah,
it looks pretty good. So we'rejust so proud of what we've accomplished.
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We've got great folks that are passionateabout the collision repair industry, that
really care about these consumers who arestressed out. It's not a pleasant experience
to have your car in an accident. And excited about the business that we've
built, Rich can I ask youit's probably more of an industry question,
but with the price of parts,and then you have insurance companies who have
(25:38):
their magic formula as well. Haveyou noticed depending on what's happened to the
car, a spike in what insurancecompanies would call okay, Well that's you
know, that's just it's completely total. There's just because of the price of
parts. Yeah, another awesome question, Boxer. So here here's what has
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happened in the industry when we're comingout of the pandemic. If you recall,
it was very hard to get cars, so there was a scarcity of
used cars, so the price pricingfor used cars went up a lot.
It was really hard to get aused car and they were expensive. So
that meant that insurance companies would repairmore at a higher price than they normally
would. Now, what we've seenis that used car pricing has fallen,
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and so in some cases, ifthe cost of the repair gets too high
higher than the value of the usedcar, they'll write a check to the
policyholder. That's called the total loss. So those have increased in the past
year coming out of the pandemic.Okay, and also on parts. One
of the things in this industry isthat there are more parts required to repair
(26:44):
vehicles now than five ten years agobecause of the complexity of the vehicles,
and many of those parts are computerrelated system parts. So repairs have become
more complex, they require more parts, the cost of increased, and this
technology has completely changed the industry.Uh. But when it comes to that
(27:10):
rich, I mean, does thebody shop, does collision right lose if
the insurance company just cuts the policyholdera check. Not really, because we're
most concerned about the consumer. Sowe want to have raving fans of our
business and our various brands, andso if it makes the most sense for
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in a case where there's a heavyhit for the insurance company to provide the
policy holder with a check, cansay you a new car hey, that's
fine. And and big massive accidentswe call them heavy hits do just take
a long time. They're super complex. We don't make as much money on
those, so it's probably better foreveryone. Then they go get a new
car. Yeah. Customer service isI know, top tier for you at
(27:53):
collision right, just from everything Iread, just from listening to you.
How important is it to do?Do you have to be a therapist sometimes
to your customers. I'm a therapistto the customers, to my three children
and my wife. Well, mywife would say she's a therapist for me.
I get on my phone boxer.I see every five star Google review
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that the company gets, and we'reservicing one hundred thousand customers a year now.
It was easier when it was fourshops and now ninety two. And
I also see all the one starreviews, and luckily there are very very
few of those. So in myDNA, it's all about the customer.
This might sound old fashion, butI really believe the health of a company
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is directly linked to their culture aroundthe customer, and surprise, surprise,
that's linked to the culture with youremployees. So you can't expect your employees
to treat customers any better than theirtreated. So if we look at our
mission and vision of this business thatI've founded, it's all around the customer.
And how do you achieve that greatcustomer service by being the best place
(29:00):
to work. Yeah, that's whatwe're doing. So we're not necessarily in
the collision business. We're in theacquisition, integration and people business. I
love that. By the way,Rich, you seem like a guy who
if you did see a bad reviewon Google, that either you or someone
on your team is going to reachout to them. Hurts my heart when
(29:22):
I see it. So now thatthe business is much bigger. In the
early days, I would follow uppersonally, I'd call the customer, or
I would talk to our shops.I have a team now at our corporate
office that they follow up on eachone of those. And the goal is,
and they know they have my fullsupport, move am ounta and be
creative. We want that customer happy. Ideally they'd go back and change their
review. Not so much worried aboutthat as I am about that customer that
(29:45):
had a bad experience. What's yourday and the life like well, I
try to get up and work outearly helps manage my stress. But before
I go work out, I jumpon my emails and then I work.
I was in the office until Idon't want to tell you too, pretty
late ten thirty or so, justcatching up on stuff because it's pretty quiet
(30:07):
for me in the office after sixseven o'clock people go home, So some
nights all catch up on a tonof work. I like to cycle,
so I'm doing the pelotonia again myseventh year. Wow, thank you for
doing that. Of course, greatorganization. And I like to spend time
with my family and travel and dothat kind of fun stuff. Yeah,
that's awesome. What drives you?You have a great attitude, so I
(30:32):
think I might know the answer,But what drives you bananas? What pisses
you off? Wow? And Ican't mention any people? Well, that's
up to you, No, Iwhat pisses me off? You know?
I like to view. One ofmy mentors early on talked about skill and
(30:53):
will, two different variables that youcan assess people, or you can view
situations. Does somebody have the skillto do the job or they and do
they have the will? Ideally theyhave both and if they have the will,
if they're really up for it,you could teach the skill. People
that have don't have the will ora crappy attitude. I don't have time
for that, so I'd say thatpisses me off because I'm working hard.
(31:15):
I want to support my team.I want everybody working for us to have
a successful career. But I wantyou to be there and I want you
to bring the right attitude. Absolutely. Look, we'll wrap this up rich
when it comes to the future ofCollision, right, what do you see
in the future, what's next?We're going to grow. We're buying a
business today in Champagne, Illinois.Wow, that's neat and it's a testament
(31:38):
to my team. In the earlydays, I did all that myself.
I'd be there with the business theday that we bought it. I'd be
meeting with the employees. We'd bedoing all the banking, and I have
a teams that handle all that now. So we're at ninety two shops.
Our goal is to get to twohundred and fifty shops in the past three
to five years, take the businessto a billion dollars in revenue, which
we're going to do incredible. Whichis there a fear though? As you
(32:01):
get bigger, you lose touch locallyor that magic formula that you had with
customer service? Is there a fearand talk of we've got to make sure
that doesn't happen. Yeah. Tome, it comes down to people.
So I have a responsibility to makesure that my team understands the vision where
(32:22):
we're going. They have my supportand they have clarity on what's expected,
and then they have to do thatwith their team. So as you begin
to scale a business, it allcomes back to leadership, clarity, your
systems. So I'm very confident becauseI've done this before, that we can
scale the business and not lose thatcore passion for the customer. Yeah.
(32:44):
By the way, just out ofcuriosity. When you do have spare time,
I doubt that's very often. Whatdo you do? What is there
chill time for you? Ever?What is it? Sometimes I go out
into the desert and I will meditateand drink green drinks. Are you being
for real? Yeah? Really?Yeah? What desert? What just out
palm desert. I'll go out thereand I'll chill out and uh, I
(33:07):
do my thing, a little zen, maybe a little yoga, and and
then I that recharges my batteries.So random I love that you times I
go out to Vegas and uh gowatch a football game and how you cocktail.
Unfortunately, it's a life of extremes, Boxer. I love your life.
It's fascinating. Rich Harrison, Iappreciate you spending time with this co
(33:28):
founder and CEO of Collision Right.Uh. For those that want more info
on Collision right, best places togo, collision right dot com. Uh,
you can look me up on LinkedInas well, Rich Harrison, That's
how you'd find it. Rich,A real pleasure to have your congrats and
all your success a Boxer. Let'stalk about you getting back into the collision
industry. Let's do it careful.What you asked for Pleasure CEOs You Should
(33:49):
Know is hosted and produced by BrandonBoxer, a production of iHeartMedia, Columbus
Columbus in central Ohio have a richhistory of companies being headquartered here, everything
from technology, manufacturing, retail,insurance, and more. But what about
the leaders behind these companies? Whatmakes them tick? How do they get
their start? This is where youget to meet the captain of the ship.
Welcome to CEOs You Should Know andiHeartMedia Columbus Podcast. Welcome back to
(00:20):
another episode of CEOs You Should Knowand iHeartMedia Columbus Podcast. It's Boxer.
Our latest episode. We bring inRich Harrison, who is the co founder
and CEO of Collision Right. Thistakes you into the and it's interesting because
we're going to find out the backgroundwith Rich and it's funny how everything he's
done, his body of work hasa connection. And with this latest one
(00:43):
with autobody repair, you've got overthirty years of global strategy which I want
to dive into. But first ofall, welcome to this podcast, Rich
Boxer. Great to be here,pleasure to meet you. Tell us what
Collision Right is. We are aleading collision repair company headquartered here in Columbus,
Ohio. We have ninety two shopsin ten states and what we do
(01:03):
is we help people when they getinto a car crash, get back to
their lives. That's a great wayto put it. And I've been in
car accidents before. I've had togo through that, so many people have.
I'm sure you have more stats specificallyon how many people on average are
getting into accidents. But you know, when you think about the car rich
and that person with their community commutingin the morning and at night, we
(01:26):
spent a lot of time at ourcar, so I would imagine that the
majority of people that are coming toyou and any body shop, there's an
emotional connection there for sure. Imean, this is not something people save
money up to go do to gettheir car repaired, so it's a nuisance
purchase. They're stressed out. Insome cases they've been in an accident where
(01:49):
they physically have been harmed, andso we want what we do at Collision
Ride is just put their mind atease and take care of everything, arranging
a rental car, making sure thattheir car is repaired quickly, updating them
on the status of the repair,and getting their car back as quick as
possible. And we love it whenwe hear from customers that my car is
better than the day that I boughtit. That's our goal is really to
(02:10):
deliver that fantastic and exceptional customer serviceexperience. Rich Harrison is this week's guest
on CEOs You Should Know and IHeard Media Columbus podcast. Rich, of
course, is the co founder andCEO of Collision Right. Rich, Let's
get to know you a little bitand then I want to dive into you
know what you do on a dailybasis. But you're from Columbus, Ohio.
(02:32):
No love Columbus. Lived here overseventeen years. This is the longest
I've lived in any one place.But I'm originally from Los Angeles, a
boxer. Don't hold it against me, but California, guys. Guy.
My wife from Oregon. So,but we moved here to Columbus in two
thousand and seven. The company thatI worked for, which was headquartered out
(02:54):
of the UK, bought a businesshere in Columbus called safe Light. Yeah,
so I moved here, ran operationsthat at safe Flight for five years,
launched their advertising campaign, left thatbusiness, started my own autoglass company,
sold it, and then started CollisionRight in twenty nineteen. Late twenty
nineteen, So Rich, did youwere you one of the people behind safe
(03:20):
Light slogan, what is it?Safe ive, prepair, safe Live reblaz
Boxer, you're an excellent singer.You might have missed your but I'm serious.
If you were part of that,you are a big time star right
now. In my eyes, it'sso memorable. Yeah. So I wish
I could take all the credit forit, but I can't. So are
the parent company, the current parentcompany of Safelight Bellron out of the United
(03:43):
Kingdom. They own similar businesses aroundthe world in thirty different countries. And
that jingle that you so say soperfectly is the same jingle that is used
in Europe with a company in theUK called Autoglass, or on the continent
of Europe it's called car Glass andso it's car glass Repair, car Glass
Replace. I'm not gonna sing up, boxer, Oh come on. So
(04:06):
I worked for that company and Iwas CEO of their business, and then
we bought safe Light. And soone of the things that we did is
we imported that campaign and that jinglefrom Europe and brought it to the US.
Rich I like to peel back thelayers a little bit on leaders that
come in here and like yourself.So you grew up in Los Angeles.
(04:27):
What was life like growing up yourfamily? Well, my curses. I'm
a Raider fan. That's my footballteam, because you know, they're California
and then moved around and so I'vesuffered that fate for a lot of years
and I'm currently a season ticket holderin Las Vegas. So, Boxer,
if you ever want to go toa Raider game out in Vegas, it's
(04:47):
it's really changed a lot from whenthey played in California, and it's just
a massive cocktail party, so youmight enjoy that. I've heard, yes,
I've heard that. So life wasgreat on the West Coast. You
know, people do a lot outdoors, not so much humidity in the summer,
and it's just a different vibe.But yeah, they can have it
(05:08):
now. California, unfortunately, isa much different place than it was when
I grew up. Yeah, soI will not be buying any body shops
in California anytime. No no investmentsthere, Which is funny because I was
going to ask you about that alittle bit later. Where you plant expanding
to we could still go that direction. So you land here, Rich,
I always like to ask people this, who are from here? Your first
(05:29):
impressions of Columbus Central Ohio. WhyI had to get the map out because
I know where Ohio is, likewith Columbus. Oh yeah, it's in
the middle. It's a capital.I remember, it's a capital of Ohio.
So actually, we've loved living here. Three children all went through the
school system in Upper Arlington. They'reallkay. Great, great place to raise
a family, just fantastic place tolive. Have a lot of great friends
(05:51):
here and it's worked out very verywell. When you meet someone new and
they find out you are from California, I would have to imagine quite a
few you'll get rich. Why wouldyou leave, you know, southern California,
the beaches and the oceans. Buta lot of people that have now
transplanted here from there, they'll orFlorida. They'll say, hey, they
(06:13):
can have it. I can alwaysgo visit. I can see an ocean
anytime. There's nothing like that.You can't get this everywhere. The quality
of life, well, that's agreat question. So I love risk.
So I have a lot of friendsfrom southern California who would never leave,
Like, why would I ever leavethis place? And it is so beautiful,
sunsets every night, the weather,it's fantastic, I want. I
(06:36):
love building businesses. So I've livedin Montreal, I've lived in the UK,
in London, I've run business inGermany. So I have done work
all over the world. And becauseI'm up for it. I love new
challenges. I like meeting new people, learning about businesses in other countries.
(06:57):
So that's fascinated me. And I'vedone that in the nineties. I've traveled
the world and I've helped companies grow. So with you living here the longest,
not an assumer, but you mustreally like it here are you?
Are you here to stay? Well, that's a great question, and it's
not my decision. It's my wife'smy wife, wife one wife, it's
(07:18):
my wife's decision. So I thinkat some point we'll probably get a place
out west. There you go,but Ohio now is near and dear to
my heart, that's awesome. Rich. Let's dive into the business part of
things. So you're at Safelight,tell us about what you did there.
I was chief operating officer, soeverything to do with the customer experience from
the initial call coming in all theway through to repairing the car, and
(07:41):
pretty big business across the United States. So that's what I did, helped
them grow and it was a goodtime. Was that your first time getting
into anything that was a business thatwas repairing something of the automobile? No,
So before safe Flight, I workedfor Bellron International, which safe Flight's
parent, and I worked for themtheir business in the US. That was
(08:03):
my second job out of college.And then I worked for them and helped
them grow their businesses around the world. So I'd had that experience in automotive
repair in the US and Canada,Europe. I did some work in South
Africa, Asia Wow, working forthis multinational automotive repair, and then we
acquired safe Flight in two thousand andseven. Somewhere along the lines, Rich
(08:28):
you talked about being a risk taker. You must have felt the need to
do something different or go out onyour own. What was that burning thing
for Collision right, Well, it'sa great question. It was a combination
of things. I really wanted toown and lead my own organization, and
so sometimes you get that opportunity whereyou're at and sometimes you don't. So
(08:48):
it's something that I wanted to doto really fully utilize all my skills and
talents, and so I left safeFlight. Then I started my own autoglass
company grew that quite quickly to thesecond largest auto glass company in the United
States, second to Safe Flight.That's incredible. And then they and then
they bought it. Oh wow,so you went out on your own,
(09:09):
became their competitor basically, right,and they're like, wow, he's doing
such a great job. Wait ifwe don't buy him, we're going to
be in trouble. Well that mightbe a little too kind, but they
wanted to buy it, so thereare reasons for that. So that was
happened pretty quickly. So that wasexciting and fun. And you know that
(09:30):
that's what the kind of stuff thatgets me excited up in the morning,
kind of like you with your energy, you know, just up, ready
to go. Yeah, up,ready to go. Early bird gets the
worm, right, Oh yeah,so rich as you sold this company.
By the way, I've always wonderedwhen when someone comes along and offers you
a dollar amount. You're obviously asmart guy, but did you how do
(09:54):
you put a value on your company? How do you put that down on
paper? Is it? Is itdebt? Is you know? How do
you do that? Well, there'sa lot of different ways. Normally,
when I'm buying a business today,I'll look at the cash flow, the
profit from the business, and thenwe apply a multiple, and you take
different things into consideration the size ofthe company. But I think in some
instances, the situation where I starteda glass company in Belron acquired it,
(10:18):
there is strategic reasons why businesses dodifferent things. Taking out the number two
competitor in a market. There's valuein doing that, and so they placed
value on that. But normally Itry to be very disciplined and how I
value a business and I look athow long the business has been in existence,
their brand position in the market.First thing I do when I see
(10:39):
a business today, a body shopthat I might want to acquire, I
go online. I look at theirGoogle review how are the Are these folks
really committed to customer service? Andif they're a four point eight star review
and they've got five hundred reviews,I'm excited about that. Yeah, yeah,
that's amazing. You look at that. Ironically, I was looking at
yours, and you guys are prettystellar with your local reviewers. We'll talk
(11:01):
a little bit about collision, right. So one of the things that differentiates
us is we keep all the localbrands so many of my competitors come in,
they buy a body shop, theyconvert the brand to their brand name.
We don't do that because we believe, I believe there's value in that
local brand. Many of the bodyshops that we've acquired have been around seventy
(11:22):
five years. Yeah. One examplehere in Columbus would be Rife's Auto Body
which we own. That business hasbeen around over seventy years. They're part
of the local community. So there'sbrand value in that. So we embrace
that. So our business. Wehave ninety two shops today, we have
over thirty brands in ten states,and we really lean in on the value
of the local brand. That's interesting, Rich because normally you'll have I mean
(11:45):
you know this, normally you'll havea company come in and eventually they'll they'll
change the name to whatever they are, you know, big guy coming in
with a new name. That's aninteresting strategy because you keep the local name
and you know, the locals feellike, oh it's still our hometown.
You know. Business absolutely. Sofor example, I'll be in the Upper
(12:07):
Arlington Parade this upcoming Fourth of July. It's great driving a four four to
two, a cool muscle car.And we'll be promoting RIfS and three C
by the way, which we ownhere in Columbus, and then up in
Marysville, we've got a great businesscalled Sam Jackson's. So we've got all
these different brands. Now, don'tget me wrong, Boxer, all of
(12:30):
those businesses are run as one company. So the brands are different, but
they're all on the same systems.Okay, we pay our people the same
way. We're on the same accountingplatform. We have a management team.
We run this like a real business, but we think the business is more
successful if we maintain those local brands. Absolutely the only it sounds to me
(12:52):
like, okay, you don't changethe name bridge, but everything else in
the business is streamlined. That's right, make it more efficient, exactly correct.
So all the operating systems are one. Payroll is all one comes with
the collision right name on their paycheck. It's all one business. So rich
I remember back in high school alittle bit about me. I grew up
(13:16):
in Minnesota. My dad, outof high school, went to school to
be an autobody have his own autobodybusiness. Cool. So by the time
I got older, he had donesomething else with his life. But on
the side. His side hustle wasautobody work. So on the weekends,
especially in the winter time, that'swhat I spent doing, is doing body
work. And I got to tellyou that that's my connection to you.
(13:39):
Are you looking to do any parttime work? I'll do full time.
I mean if you pay me morethan here, which is it much?
Hey? Absolutely? All right,Now we will need to do a background
check, not Boxer, that's fine. Is that? Okay? Only arrested
once, only arrested once. That'sa great story. Now Minnesota Love Minnesota.
Did a lot of work up therein the aut glass industry, and
(14:01):
they break a lot of windshields inMinnesota because it gets very very cold.
Yes, and uh been out?Have you been ice fishing? Oh?
Yeah, ice fishing? Yes,so Boxer, then you know it's an
excuse to drink. Yeah, ifyou've seen grumpy old men, yes,
legit, Yes, they talked mein. I've been a couple of times,
like we got to go do thisbecause I like to fish. I
(14:22):
like to go out to Montana andfly fish. It's one of my hobbies.
So I was excited about this fishingup on the ice. Yeah,
nobody's fishing. It's just massive alcoholconsumption. It's a chance for people just
to get out of work. Oryeah, one may say that, yeah
there were no wives. There wereno just a lot of booze and nothing
(14:45):
else happening. The wives do notcome along. They're smart, they're at
them all of America exactly. That'sa great story, rich, but you
know, knowing the amount of workand labor that goes into it, what
is that one of your biggest castso I would imagine, is labor.
And also I'm interested in the technologyused now, Oh absolutely, ask great
(15:05):
questions. So our biggest costs arethe cost of the parts and labor.
And we've experienced, like most businesses, massive inflation wages and the cost of
the parts, and so that's beena big challenge and struggle because we're committed
to repairing the vehicles safely. Inorder to do that, you have to
train, have the right equipment,make sure you're using high quality products and
(15:28):
materials, and so the whole industryhas been under inflationary pressure the past few
years and there's not enough autobody technicians. That's why I want you to come
work for us. Now that Iknow you're awesome at that in an industry
where demand has been quite high comingout of the pandemic. People got back
on the roads, a lot ofaccidents, a lot of demand. So
(15:50):
the big constraints for us have beenlabor experienced technicians because most young people want
to go to college and they reallyshould consider the trades. Agree can become
a successful painter or have the abilityto work on vehicles. You can make
over six figures quite quickly. RichMy dad did everything. But in this
(16:11):
day and age, especially with collision, right, are are there people that
do different things? Like is therea painter, is there someone that puts
on the new parts or are theredifferent positions? Absolutely very specialized. And
one of the things that has transformedthe collision industry and the autoglass industry is
all of the advanced technology on avehicle. So it's really an iPhone on
(16:33):
wheels. And so I'm not quitesure what kind of car you drive today?
What are you driving? Oh?I almost forgot a Ford Explorer?
Okay, So most new cars havesensors and cameras. Some of the cameras
now are even three hundred and sixtydegrees around the vehicle when you're backing up,
you can see your vehicle from above. How does it do that?
(16:53):
So all of those cameras and sensorsplay a critical role in the safety of
the occupants as they drive, andso when a vehicle gets into an accident,
those sensors need to be replaced andrecalibrated. So I started a business
called three sixty a line which isowned by Collision Right. What that business
(17:15):
does is after a vehicle is repaired, it resets all of the electronics in
the vehicle because you have to makesure those are working because you don't want
like lane departure warning, that's importantthat it works. You don't want your
steering wheel to turn to the rightright, it doesn't rightly too. So
all that's based off sensors and cameras. So we have a robust business just
(17:36):
doing that. So to answer yourquestion, those people are specialized, they're
trained, and they're really computer technicians. That's absolutely amazing with your three sixty
Aligned company. So when when thecar is done, is that where it
moves to next? Is three sixtyAligned or cam So it depends on the
(17:56):
vehicle. But the first thing wedo when we get a car in it's
been in an accent is we washthe car, We clean it because sometimes
you don't know all the damages.Some of these cars are dirty, so
we clean the car so we canexamine the damage. And then we perform
an electronic scan on all the computersystems in the vehicle. It's called the
pre scan, So that happens byour staff and in some cases three sixty
(18:21):
aligned staff will come in to resetall of the electronics systems. Super important
in the collision industry and in theautoglass industry that after repair is done,
the car electronic systems are one hundredpercent reliable. Rich Harrison is the co
founder and CEO of Collision, Right, Rich, what about insurance companies?
I'm not asking you to dog onany of them, but in your line
(18:42):
of work, how difficult can theybe to work with? Sometimes? Yeah,
would not dog on insurance companies.They're a key partner of ours.
So we have very very strong partnershipswith insurance companies all across the United States.
State Farm being the largest is anextremely important because of ours, and
we have partnerships with them and wetake care of their policy holders. So
(19:03):
insurance companies very important when a policyholder, a consumer gets into an accident
that they have a great claim experience. If they don't, they're likely to
switch insurance companies. We know thedata shows us that. So insurance companies
are concerned, of course about cost, but they're also very concerned about retaining
their policy holders. You see allthe advertising going on with insurance companies trying
(19:27):
to get you to move from onecompany to the next. So really important
that a claim is handled very verywell. So our focus, our core
values are around delivering an exceptional customerexperience and that's going to resonate with a
consumer when they're in an accident,they're more likely to stay with their insurance
company. So we get a lotof business from insurance companies. Have a
(19:48):
whole team that just goes out andmeets with the insurance carriers and gets business
from them. So it's a criticalpart of our business. We would never
dog an insurance carrier. We lovethem rich. But clearly every car is
different. So you take my ForwardExplorer, it gets banged up, I
bring that in, but then there'sthe next guy who brings in is Lamborghini.
(20:12):
How do you know, where doesthe knowledge come from on how to
repair these cars? That's great.It's another great question, what boxer?
You ask a lot of awesome questions. So we train our technicians. There's
a group called ICAR and this isthe Industry Resource for Training Certification, and
(20:33):
all of our technicians and our shopsare ICAR Gold and that means that we
have a very high standard in termsof training and support for our technicians,
so they are able to work onvarious vehicles. We have resources that they
download to provide the repair instructions dependingupon the car. And some of our
shops have specialized certifications. For example, out of the ninety two shops,
(20:57):
we have a handful of shops thatare test lesser and so that requires certain
tooling training, access to parts rifesfor example, Porche certified. So we
do have certain shops that specialize incertain brands, but most cars we can
repair at any of our shops.Rich you know, we'll have different leaders
(21:18):
in here, like yourself, indifferent industries groceries for example, some will
report when I asked this of slimprofit margins, May I ask what's the
profit margin for autobody? Well,gross profit margins around forty two percent after
we pay for our labor and partsand then we have costs like every other
(21:40):
business, so our profitabilities quite strong, double digits, and we look at
that compared to our competition and theindustry, so the margins are quite healthy.
The I think the exciting thing aboutgrowing a business is that when you
get scale, you get the benefitsof size and scale in terms of your
negotiation with suppliers. For example,we buy a lot of paint, and
(22:03):
so when you're buying paint for ninetytwo shops, you can get a better
deal than if you're buying a paintfor one or two or three shops.
So that's really supercharged. Our profitabilityis economies of scale and efficiencies. Yeah,
Rich, you talked about the supplychain a little bit earlier and how
everyone was affected during that time period. First of all, are things kind
(22:25):
of back to normal with the supplychain in parts or has everything's still gone
up with inflation? I guess yeah, it's returned to normal. So I
started this business in twenty twenty thisidea I was going to start a collision
right, and I was very excitedabout it. And then we all lived
through the pandemic and nobody was onthe roads. We track a metric in
our industry called v empty vehicle milestraveled, and during the trough of the
(22:48):
pandemic March twenty twenty, vehicle milestraveled. We're it's down fifty percent.
We're all at home, scared.Is at the end of the world,
so people weren't driving. That's whenI started this business, sir. So
when you first started, I didn'tknow that rich. So when you first
started this, I mean, thingswere things kind of quietly quiet. The
phone wasn't ringing boxers. So Iwas very fortunate because collision repair was deemed
(23:14):
an essential service, so the bodyshops were open and at that time,
people weren't flying, and it wasa pretty scary time. So when I
started the company, I drove aroundOhio, Michigan, Kentucky, Pennsylvania,
meeting with body shop owners, reducingmyself. So the pandemic actually opened up
a door for me to get intothe market, to get some businesses acquired.
(23:40):
That I think, in hindsight,it was it was It was a
fantastic opportunity for me to start thebusiness because my competitors stopped buying shops at
that time because they were worried aboutdemand falling. So it allowed me to
get in rich when it when itwhen you were acquiring and it just I
guess hit me. When Collision Rightsstarted, it started with acquiring a body
(24:07):
shop, right, is that's howit first started. That's right, four
shops in Dayton, Ohio, LibertyCollision. And then we acquired a three
c here in Columbus. And thenwe bought a great business up in Michigan
and Kalamazoo called Autobody USA. Andthen down in Lexington, Kentucky. Loved
this brand, Kentucky Collision Center.What a name is that? Yeah,
so power brands all leaders in theirlocal markets. So we called those the
(24:32):
first four and those happened in twentytwenty. So I'm very proud of the
team that I've put together. Yeah, and one of our core values at
Collision Right is called embrace the challengestarting a business in the pandemic. Writing
that down start starting a business inthe pandemic was there were challenges, for
(24:53):
sure, especially in automotive repair.But I'm proud of the fifteen hundred teammates.
We now have Collision Right ninety twoshops. Our corporate office is down
at Bridge Park, so come seeme boxing. Yeah, I'm down there,
I get my hair cut there.Well, there you go. Yeah,
it looks pretty good. So we'rejust so proud of what we've accomplished.
(25:14):
We've got great folks that are passionateabout the collision repair industry, that
really care about these consumers who arestressed out. It's not a pleasant experience
to have your car in an accident. And excited about the business that we've
built, Rich can I ask youit's probably more of an industry question,
but with the price of parts,and then you have insurance companies who have
(25:38):
their magic formula as well. Haveyou noticed depending on what's happened to the
car, a spike in what insurancecompanies would call okay, Well that's you
know, that's just it's completely total. There's just because of the price of
parts. Yeah, another awesome question, Boxer. So here here's what has
(25:59):
happened in the industry when we're comingout of the pandemic. If you recall,
it was very hard to get cars, so there was a scarcity of
used cars, so the price pricingfor used cars went up a lot.
It was really hard to get aused car and they were expensive. So
that meant that insurance companies would repairmore at a higher price than they normally
would. Now, what we've seenis that used car pricing has fallen,
(26:22):
and so in some cases, ifthe cost of the repair gets too high
higher than the value of the usedcar, they'll write a check to the
policyholder. That's called the total loss. So those have increased in the past
year coming out of the pandemic.Okay, and also on parts. One
of the things in this industry isthat there are more parts required to repair
(26:44):
vehicles now than five ten years agobecause of the complexity of the vehicles,
and many of those parts are computerrelated system parts. So repairs have become
more complex, they require more parts, the cost of increased, and this
technology has completely changed the industry.Uh. But when it comes to that
(27:10):
rich, I mean, does thebody shop, does collision right lose if
the insurance company just cuts the policyholdera check. Not really, because we're
most concerned about the consumer. Sowe want to have raving fans of our
business and our various brands, andso if it makes the most sense for
(27:30):
in a case where there's a heavyhit for the insurance company to provide the
policy holder with a check, cansay you a new car hey, that's
fine. And and big massive accidentswe call them heavy hits do just take
a long time. They're super complex. We don't make as much money on
those, so it's probably better foreveryone. Then they go get a new
car. Yeah. Customer service isI know, top tier for you at
(27:53):
collision right, just from everything Iread, just from listening to you.
How important is it to do?Do you have to be a therapist sometimes
to your customers. I'm a therapistto the customers, to my three children
and my wife. Well, mywife would say she's a therapist for me.
I get on my phone boxer.I see every five star Google review
(28:15):
that the company gets, and we'reservicing one hundred thousand customers a year now.
It was easier when it was fourshops and now ninety two. And
I also see all the one starreviews, and luckily there are very very
few of those. So in myDNA, it's all about the customer.
This might sound old fashion, butI really believe the health of a company
(28:37):
is directly linked to their culture aroundthe customer, and surprise, surprise,
that's linked to the culture with youremployees. So you can't expect your employees
to treat customers any better than theirtreated. So if we look at our
mission and vision of this business thatI've founded, it's all around the customer.
And how do you achieve that greatcustomer service by being the best place
(29:00):
to work. Yeah, that's whatwe're doing. So we're not necessarily in
the collision business. We're in theacquisition, integration and people business. I
love that. By the way,Rich, you seem like a guy who
if you did see a bad reviewon Google, that either you or someone
on your team is going to reachout to them. Hurts my heart when
(29:22):
I see it. So now thatthe business is much bigger. In the
early days, I would follow uppersonally, I'd call the customer, or
I would talk to our shops.I have a team now at our corporate
office that they follow up on eachone of those. And the goal is,
and they know they have my fullsupport, move am ounta and be
creative. We want that customer happy. Ideally they'd go back and change their
review. Not so much worried aboutthat as I am about that customer that
(29:45):
had a bad experience. What's yourday and the life like well, I
try to get up and work outearly helps manage my stress. But before
I go work out, I jumpon my emails and then I work.
I was in the office until Idon't want to tell you too, pretty
late ten thirty or so, justcatching up on stuff because it's pretty quiet
(30:07):
for me in the office after sixseven o'clock people go home, So some
nights all catch up on a tonof work. I like to cycle,
so I'm doing the pelotonia again myseventh year. Wow, thank you for
doing that. Of course, greatorganization. And I like to spend time
with my family and travel and dothat kind of fun stuff. Yeah,
that's awesome. What drives you?You have a great attitude, so I
(30:32):
think I might know the answer,But what drives you bananas? What pisses
you off? Wow? And Ican't mention any people? Well, that's
up to you, No, Iwhat pisses me off? You know?
I like to view. One ofmy mentors early on talked about skill and
(30:53):
will, two different variables that youcan assess people, or you can view
situations. Does somebody have the skillto do the job or they and do
they have the will? Ideally theyhave both and if they have the will,
if they're really up for it,you could teach the skill. People
that have don't have the will ora crappy attitude. I don't have time
for that, so I'd say thatpisses me off because I'm working hard.
(31:15):
I want to support my team.I want everybody working for us to have
a successful career. But I wantyou to be there and I want you
to bring the right attitude. Absolutely. Look, we'll wrap this up rich
when it comes to the future ofCollision, right, what do you see
in the future, what's next?We're going to grow. We're buying a
business today in Champagne, Illinois.Wow, that's neat and it's a testament
(31:38):
to my team. In the earlydays, I did all that myself.
I'd be there with the business theday that we bought it. I'd be
meeting with the employees. We'd bedoing all the banking, and I have
a teams that handle all that now. So we're at ninety two shops.
Our goal is to get to twohundred and fifty shops in the past three
to five years, take the businessto a billion dollars in revenue, which
we're going to do incredible. Whichis there a fear though? As you
(32:01):
get bigger, you lose touch locallyor that magic formula that you had with
customer service? Is there a fearand talk of we've got to make sure
that doesn't happen. Yeah. Tome, it comes down to people.
So I have a responsibility to makesure that my team understands the vision where
(32:22):
we're going. They have my supportand they have clarity on what's expected,
and then they have to do thatwith their team. So as you begin
to scale a business, it allcomes back to leadership, clarity, your
systems. So I'm very confident becauseI've done this before, that we can
scale the business and not lose thatcore passion for the customer. Yeah.
(32:44):
By the way, just out ofcuriosity. When you do have spare time,
I doubt that's very often. Whatdo you do? What is there
chill time for you? Ever?What is it? Sometimes I go out
into the desert and I will meditateand drink green drinks. Are you being
for real? Yeah? Really?Yeah? What desert? What just out
palm desert. I'll go out thereand I'll chill out and uh, I
(33:07):
do my thing, a little zen, maybe a little yoga, and and
then I that recharges my batteries.So random I love that you times I
go out to Vegas and uh gowatch a football game and how you cocktail.
Unfortunately, it's a life of extremes, Boxer. I love your life.
It's fascinating. Rich Harrison, Iappreciate you spending time with this co
(33:28):
founder and CEO of Collision Right.Uh. For those that want more info
on Collision right, best places togo, collision right dot com. Uh,
you can look me up on LinkedInas well, Rich Harrison, That's
how you'd find it. Rich,A real pleasure to have your congrats and
all your success a Boxer. Let'stalk about you getting back into the collision
industry. Let's do it careful.What you asked for Pleasure CEOs You Should
(33:49):
Know is hosted and produced by BrandonBoxer, a production of iHeartMedia, Columbus
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