By Mike Davey
Hamilton, Ontario — May 16, 2017 — Accreditation systems have been discussed in the collision repair industry for decades, but the last few years have actually seen some of these programs come into existence. Our latest survey asked our readers to let us know how familiar they are with these programs and which accreditations, if any, they possess.
Collision Repair magazine runs a new survey every week on a different topic. The next survey focuses on apprentices. It should take less than two minutes to fill out. You can access the apprenticeship survey here.
Accreditation differs from certification. Certification usually refers to a designation, typically from an OEM, that the collision centre is considered competent to perform repairs to those brands. Accreditation is usually done by a third-party that looks over the general equipment and training levels present in the shop.
Third-party accreditation programs currently operating in Canada include Canadian Collision Industry Accreditation Program (CCIAP), administered by AIA Canada; Certified Collision Repair (CCR), administered by the Automotive Retailers Association (ARA) of British Columbia; Certified Collision Care, administered by Assured Performance Network and Verified Quality (VQ), administered by Verifacts Automotive.
I-CAR’s Gold Class designation is not, in and of itself, an accreditation program. However, the training required to achieve that designation would generally be considered an excellent starting point to achieving accreditation. According to our survey results, 65 percent of respondents are currently pursuing I-CAR Gold Class. According to Andrew Shepherd, Executive Director of I-CAR Canada, there are approximately 80 full Gold Class shops in Canada, with another 400 in progress. This is a relatively small percentage of the total shop population.
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The majority of our survey respondents are currently pursuing I-CAR Gold Class, but {source}<br/>{/source}a significant number of shops are not working towards it. |
Next, we asked respondents to let us know which of the four third-party accreditation programs they were familiar with. Note that respondents could choose more than one answer, so the percentages given add up to more than 100 percent.
CCIAP is the clear winner in terms of recognition, with 80 percent of readers indicating they were familiar with it. The numbers drop rapidly after that point, with only 33 percent saying they were familiar with the CCR program administered by the ARA of BC. This program only operates in BC, though, and is very similar to CCIAP. In fact, the two associations have a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) regarding the programs. What this basically boils down to is that if you’re qualified for one, you would also likely qualify for the other, and there’s no need to become accredited under each program.
Certified Collision Care, in addition to being a third-party accreditation program, also carries a number of OEM designations, currently Ford, Nissan and FCA. A total of 27 percent of readers surveyed indicated they were familiar with the program. Finally, Verified Quality, administered by Verifacts Automotive, seems to have the lowest recognition among our readers at just 4 percent. Approximately 7 percent of survey respondents indicated they weren’t familiar with any of the programs.
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| CCIAP appears to be the most popular choice for shops pursuing accreditation. |
We also asked readers if they possessed any of those accreditations and which, if any, they were currently pursuing. Among those surveyed, accreditations are few and far between, with 86 percent of shops saying they don’t possess any of the accreditations listed.
Many shops are currently pursuing one or more, however. Again, respondents could choose more than one answer, so the percentages do not add up to 100. The single largest group (47 percent) are working towards CCIAP, but this is almost equaled by the number (43 percent) of shops that aren’t pursuing any accreditations. Ten percent of our survey respondents are working towards the Certified Collision Care accreditation, and 7 percent are working on their CCR accreditation.
Collision Repair magazine’s next survey looks at apprentices and apprenticeships. You can take part in that survey at this link, and make sure to watch next Wednesday for the results on collisionrepairmag.com!
