November 2020

between them getting it wrong and getting it right next time. Knowledge is power.” Difference We asked Tim if it feels like he is making a difference: “It sounds a bit corny, but I do. It’s fulfilling and rewarding and I imagine any school teacher would feel the same. Going forward, these kids have learnt something. The difference is I am doing it with big kids, and I include myself in that as well, we never really grow up do we? We are trying to share information with them that will make their job easier. This is a tough industry to be in, especially if you are an all-makes garage. “You cannot be an expert on everything all the time. If we don’t help the technicians, they are not going to want to fit our product. If they have a problem, nine times out of 10 it is blamed on the parts. Because of the introduction of the no- quibble warranty years ago it’s almost suggesting there’s a good chance there may be something wrong with the parts, so we’ll just give you more if it goes wrong. This doesn’t solve the problem. It just says let’s have a ‘best of three’ go at the job. “We work with car manufacturers producing OE components. Product development can take between two and five years on average, sometimes longer. This gives us a foot in each camp. We make what is here today, we made what’s in the past and we are developing what is coming next. So, we have a major influence in how it turns out.” Tim concluded: “It is a really great job, and I am enthused today as I was when I first started in the trade. I’ll be 64 this year, 47 years in the trade. I’ve seen most things, but I am still as excited as I was when I was a younger man, just in a different way.” NOVEMBER 2020 AFTERMARKET 47 www.aftermarketonline.net updating what you do, trying to keep it fresh and interesting. There’s nothing worse than watching someone be killed by you with PowerPoint, with no humour, no excitement, and no real-life comparisons. Today it is difficult, but we try to make it as touchy-feely as we can, so there are lots of things you can get hands-on with, which we believe the technicians can relate to because these are the parts they are changing every day.” Information REPXPERTs will often be found searching for answers in the parts you throw away: “The scrap parts we look at are actually quite exciting, to find out what has gone on at the scene of the crime really, trying to find out what course of events has caused it to fail, and then trying to find out what has caused the failure. We then take this information and share it with as many technicians that will listen to us, and in that way, we can hopefully prevent another failure from happening.” Then, they take it back to the techs via training: “We will often get someone who says: ‘I had this’. Then we get techs who say: ‘I had this – and I had THIS as well!’ Then we’re off on another mission to check that out, it can really open up a can of worms. “There is a saying; ‘Every day is a school day’. It always sounds corny, but we can’t work without these guys. When something goes wrong and we are told about it, we will check to see if there have been any other instances. Then we will speak to the technician, find out the sequence of events that led up to the failure, and then we will try and take ownership of that, and hopefully solve the problem. We then put together a little presentation that will tell people what can go wrong. Job done!” Garage visits One of the things we see is the REPXPERTs visiting garages. We asked Tim if it was something he enjoyed doing: “I love it,” he replied. “I’m a people person, and I like to engage. When I go and visit a garage, I know pretty much the stuff they are likely to know, and I know the things they are not likely to know. My challenge is to try to get them to share some of their precious time with me. I don’t know everything and that is why I need to enlist their help with whatever the particular issue is I’m working on at the time, and don’t forget this could also be of benefit to them as well if it’s a new problem, so we both win!” Garages are generally really flying at the moment, which is great, but trying to spend time with them is always going to be more difficult than when they’re quiet and have time to spare: “Trying to engage with them is a two-way conversation, I’m not there to tell them how to do their job, I am just sharing information. We have a good conversation, but then as soon as you say to someone what about ‘training’, that suggests they don’t know what they are doing, which is totally wrong. “There may be some massive gaps in their knowledge though. Take the technician who is time-served who might have done his apprenticeship 20 years ago. On something like wheel bearings or timing systems, he knows what he learned at college, then what he learned from being hands-on in the workshop. The rest is what they see, or what might be learnt from an article in a magazine like Aftermarket, YouTube videos, which can be dangerous, or at trade shows. “All we do is say ‘right, come along and see us. For sure there will be stuff you know, there will be stuff you know that you have forgotten, and there will be stuff that you don’t know. I’ll tell you all three’. The response we get 99 times out of 100 is very positive. Delegates say; ‘That’s good, I learned something new today’, which might only be 5% or 10% of the content, but that is the 5% or 10% that makes the difference If we don’t help the technicians they are not going to want to fit our product ” Above: Tim Adams