VeriFacts Holds 5th Annual Conference in the Motor City

New Estimator Coaching Program To Be Added

Detroit, MI , May 5, 2008 — VeriFacts Automotive recently held their annual Coaches Conference in Detroit. This annual event had the theme of “Unify, Educate and Calibrate”; something VeriFacts management takes very seriously.
“Our coaches come in contact with nearly 5,000 technicians each and every month so it’s critically important that we keep on the cutting edge of OEM repair procedures,” said Mark Olson, VeriFacts COO.

While in Detroit, the VeriFacts team attended the American Iron and Steel Institute’s Great Designs in Steel Conference. This provided them with the opportunity to see the upcoming changes in automobile manufacturing and the increased use of advanced high strength steels in the vehicles planned for release as soon as later this year.

General Motors hosted the VeriFacts Coaches for a special behind the scenes tour of the Lake Orion manufacturing facility where the Chevy Malibu and Pontiac G6 are made. VeriFacts VP of Operations, Mark Claypool summed up the tour of this facility, “This was a great way for us to see how GM welds and applies corrosion protection to their vehicles. This will give us unique insights into the repair process that we can share with technicians out in the field.”

Robert Hartman, Collision/Insurance Liaison from GM and Gerry Bonanni, Ford’s Damageability/Collision Repair Engineer both made technical presentations on their organization’s repair procedures. According to Olson, “People look to us to be on top of the latest in repair procedures. Having GM and Ford present at our conference and to have the opportunity to ask them questions further expands our knowledge base and will enable us to best serve our customers.”

Also rolled out during the VeriFacts Coaches Conference was the newest service VeriFacts will be offering its clients: the coaching of estimators much like they currently coach technicians. After field testing this service in the first quarter of this year, this soon-to-be released addition to the VeriFacts services will deal specifically with helping estimators write good sheets and coaching them to a higher level.

Farzam Afshar, President of VeriFacts, puts it this way, “There is a direct correlation between the way the estimate is written and the final outcome of the repair, or, in other words, a quality repair begins with a good thorough estimate. VeriFacts, in addition to coaching the fundamentals of repairs, will now also coach the estimator in proper estimating and will audit estimates as well. Estimators have a lot of training classes available but not a very good system to coach them on their estimates. This is the logical next step for VeriFacts and was very well received by the shops that we worked with in our pilot project.”

VeriFacts coaches have an average of 30+ years of experience in. Their backgrounds include being professional trainers through I-CAR, as college professors, and insurance companies. Each has extensive hands-on experience as technicians, estimators, managers and owners as well as insurance industry experience as adjuster and more. The VeriFacts technical coaching staff carries over 600 collective years of experience in the Collision Repair Industry.