Hans Hess Autoteile GmbH: Over 300 guests attend this year’s MOTOO Partner Convention
Brühl, 18.10.2011
For the seventh year in a row, MOTOO Garage Concept management invited their partners to its annual Garage Partner Convention recently. Over 300 guests accepted the invitation and made their way to Brühl, Germany and the Phantasialand amusement park for an informative and entertaining day.
“Look around. Contented faces everywhere you look!” With these words, a guest summarized his impressions of this year’s MOTOO Partner Convention. The event introduced new products and ideas, but there was also plenty of time for a lively exchange between the attending workshop professionals.
The information presented to MOTOO partners ranged from the big picture to optimization of minute details. Philipp Hess, Managing Director of Hans Hess Autoteile GmbH, kicked-off the conference with a summary of general developments on the passenger car aftermarket. This was followed by a presentation from MOTOO Director Mitja Bartsch about the successful development of the garage concept. In 2011, for instance, MOTOO expanded its online activities and new cooperative efforts were agreed upon. MOTOO was also active on Facebook where the garage concept communicates with more than 900 “friends” on its own page.
Applause greeted the many new workshop partners in attendance. Together with the other guests, they learned about past service campaigns and the MOTOO Classic Tour, in which 38 MOTOO workshops took part with their historic vehicles in 2011.
Focus on Quality to continue
That MOTOO will continue to confront quality issues in the future as it expands quantitatively was demonstrated by a presentation of the results of a voluntary, internal garage test and inspection carried out with Dekra during the last few months. Vehicle models that were up to 10 years old with 150,000 km on the odometer were pre-prepared with six defects. The participating MOTOO partners all agreed that this check of their own work was definitely worth the effort. According to Mitja Bartsch, about 30 percent of the garages participating passed the test with distinction and achieved a service-process compliance rate of at least 85 percent. Honoured by name were the three garages scoring highest on the test, who along with other workshops found all pre-prepared defects and were 100 percent when it came to service.
All 28 garages that took part in the test can be proud of how they scored on final tests conducted by Dekra. Checked were jobs like oil change, vehicle check, repeat repairs, tyre changing and planned vehicle inspections. “Here we determined that missing points can be traced back, not to fundamental recurring mistakes, but rather to carelessness in dealing with small things,” said Mitja Bartsch, making it clear where the areas of optimization are.
Integration of VIN Requests into the Parts Information System
Testing processes is not the only way to optimize the everyday operations of a repair shop – this can also be achieved through new technical developments. During the Partner Convention, MOTOO presented an updated version of its own parts information system “Spektrum Live” that now includes VIN requests. You can identify a vehicle exactly if you know its VIN. Knowing this allows a workshop to optimize the process of selecting and ordering the right spare parts and working components at a later date. By integrating a VIN request into the parts information system, workshops can avoid mistakes at the beginning when selecting parts. Thanks to the system’s clearly organised parts allocation, unnecessary waiting times at the workshop can be minimized. “Parts identified in this way are passed on to the vehicles that are currently on the hoists,” said Mitja Bartsch about this important benefit to garage partners.
Outlook
During his closing presentation Mitja Bartsch reported on cooperative efforts planned for the future, and on concrete efforts being made at optimization. Cooperative efforts with Easy Auto Service, for instance, and other cooperation partners will be expanded. A new product for courtesy cars was also introduced, along with the HESS Toolster. This is a new service vehicle with which products like garage equipment, C-parts, work wear and other products can be presented to workshops directly on-site. The MOTOO module “Legal Advice” has also been newly structured, and partners will now work with the Voigt law firm, which specializes in the motor industry and is active throughout Germany.
To make sure that end-customers also benefited from the convention, and not just the MOTOO staff and its partner garages, the MOTOO Sweepstakes winners were handed out as well. More than 10,000 end-customers took part in the drawing for a Seat Ibiza, as main prize, along with twelve additional prizes.
