Customer Profile
One of the largest paintless dent removal companies in the U.S.
Industry
Field Service
Region
Americas
View or DownloadCase Study:
Carmedic Automates Data Capture At The Point of Service With Digital Pen And Paper Solution From ExpeData
Cost of doing business is lower and technicians are more productive, providing competitive advantage in challenging economic times
The Challenge
Carmedic is one of the largest and most respected paintless dent removal companies in the U.S. with approximately 90 locations operating in more than 25 states. It is a field-services business with mobile technicians providing services at automotive shops across their assigned territories.
Carmedic was processing 90,000 invoices per year manually, which caused a number of problems for the company. First, the company was running up significant costs from the physical transport of invoices via U.S. mail and other delivery services. Second, paper invoices required manual data entry which imposed additional productivity and cost burdens on the company, while also creating a paper logjam and slowed payments to partners and Carmedic branch owners.
Carmedic realized it either needed to hire more people to process the invoices, which would further exacerbate the cost burden of its manual processes, or find an automated approach. The company chose the latter and began searching for a mobile solution that required little or no user training, to avoid field-force disruption, and that could effectively capture field-based information securely and route it back to Carmedic headquarters in real time.
Such a solution would solve a variety of problems for the company, including:
- Elimination of the latency and cost associated with physical invoice delivery.
- Elimination of lost paperwork and the associated lost revenue.
- Reduction of postage costs.
- Reduction of data entry time, cost and errors.
- Improvement of cash flow by accelerating invoice-processing.
The Solution
Originally Carmedic evaluated solutions based on handheld hardware devices, but found them to be too training-intensive and expensive, especially considering the cost that would inevitably occur with replacing lost or damaged devices. Carmedic then consulted with major cell phone carriers to inquire about alternative mobile solutions. Verizon, the company’s telecommunications partner, suggested that Carmedic speak with ExpeData, an innovative software company that provides digital writing platform solutions.
ExpeData proposed a digital pen and paper solution leveraging Anoto functionality that would meet Carmedic’s business requirements perfectly. The solution would combine software, Digital Pen and Paper technology, and BlackBerry® smartphones to enable automated data capture, transmission and processing, while imposing minimal user training requirements, since field technicians use the same interface they’ve always used: pen and paper forms.
How it works
Carmedic supplies each technician with a BlackBerry® 8703 or 8830, a digital pen and forms pre-printed with the Anoto dot pattern. Once a job is complete, the technician fills out a paper invoice form, which contains a graphical illustration to document the services provided, and the handwritten information is recorded onto a chip in the digital pen. When the form is completed, the data in the pen is transferred via Bluetooth® to a BlackBerry®, which then transmits the information to a digital writing server that converts the handwriting into industry-standard electronic data that is sent to downstream systems (in this case Quickbooks) for immediate use.
For archiving and disaster recovery purposes, a duplicate original image of the handwritten document is stored and retrieved electronically as needed, eliminating the need for long-term storage of paper documents.
Deploying the technology
Prior to deployment, Carmedic and ExpeData performed a thorough analysis of the application workflow and data capture. Once that was completed, Carmedic conducted a field test with 10 percent of the mobile workforce to make sure the process ran smoothly. After the successful pilot, the application was integrated with QuickBooks software to provide an end-to-end invoice-processing capability.
With the application tested, integrated and ready to go into production, Carmedic conducted a phased rollout across 25 locations in the United States. This was carried out by training senior field staff members at the Carmedic home office who then conducted regional training for their local personnel.
Training was relatively simple, since the new paper invoices were almost identical to the traditional paper ones. This enabled technicians to migrate to the new solution with virtually no disruption to Carmedic’s business, resulting in almost instant cost reductions and productivity improvements.
“A key strength of the Digital Pen and Paper technology is that there has been very little change to the field technician’s process,” said Dan Binkley, president of Carmedic. “The training took less than an hour, so we were up and running very quickly. The deployment was painless and exceeded expectations, which also built significant credibility for the corporate staff among the field workforce.”
The Results
Carmedic achieved 100 percent ROI just six months after its deployment of the ExpeData solution through decreased costs and improved administrative productivity. The company has reduced invoicing cycle time by a full week, which has improved cash flow and accelerated reimbursements, resulting in greater partner satisfaction. The solution also delivered unexpected benefits, such as a phone cost savings of 50 percent, which amounted to approximately $10,000 per month.
“Digital pen and paper has been the ideal choice for us since we didn’t have to change the way we work,” explained Binkley. “The technicians still write on invoices that are very similar to the ones they have always used. This not only enables us to solve our internal invoice-processing issues without adding any personnel; it also allows technicians to spend more time generating revenue and less time processing paper.”
Significant areas of cost savings and productivity gains achieved by Carmedic include:
Decreased mail costs – Since paperwork order forms no longer needed to be physically sent to corporate offices, Carmedic has reduced postage costs by thousands of dollars each month. In addition, staff no longer needs to prepare shipments or drop off packages of work order forms for overnight shipment, saving approximately 4 hours per month per franchise.
Newly captured revenue – Approximately one percent of Carmedic’s documents were lost and never invoiced. The digital pen and paper solution eliminates lost paperwork and ensures full revenue capture – adding that one percent of formerly lost revenue directly to Carmedic’s bottom line.
Ability to scale – Digital Pen and Paper technology provides a way for Carmedic to scale the business without having to add additional staff to process the new billings.
Improved communications – Field staff now have real-time communication with other staff and the home office enabling knowledge transfer and the ability to answer questions and address issues in a more rapid fashion. This has improved productivity per technician (resulting in 100 hours a month in total savings and improved customer service. The solution has also been deployed to facilitate the organization’s competency management assessments. New trainees can be assessed in the field and results reported in an expedited fashion, streamlining the onboarding process.
The ExpeData digital pen and paper solution is now fully deployed across Carmedic throughout the United States. It has positioned Carmedic among customers as a technology innovator in what is typically considered a late adopter industry, and improved morale across its field force. A bonus was the impact on partner recruitment as Carmedic has demonstrated that it offers the latest technology to make its partners more profitable.