Continuing the interview:

Hunsaker: With PartsTrader came a load of additional administrative steps and tasks in the parts ordering process. There has been a significant cost associated with managing the program.

With the volume of State Farm work we do, it requires a “half person” all day to oversee the process. But I can’t hire people in “halves.” So I had to hire another full-time office employee—an additional administrative cost of $50,000. That’s money that otherwise would have been profit. Because of that, I have to do $500,000 worth of State Farm work annually just to pay for that extra person. That equates to spending about three months working on State Farm jobs just to pay for the person who had to be hired because of the program.

Huffstutler: Our office staff likes using PartsTrader because it has streamlined administrative responsibilities. Without PartsTrader, our office staff is constantly on the phone hunting for parts, making orders and tracking delivery schedules. PartsTrader has eliminated that manual labor, and we don’t have to hunt for parts anymore; dealers do that on our behalf. We’re also able to electronically track orders and deliveries through automatic email updates, which we weren’t able to do before. We have not had to add any manpower in the office to manage the program.

Morris: PartsTrader has reduced administrative tasks associated with sourcing parts. With typical insurance companies, we have three separate parts searches for every job—aftermarket, reconditioned and OEM. That requires phone calls, emails or faxes to suppliers of each part type. Then we have to wait for responses and assess pricing. With PartsTrader, we’re able to search all three of those part types simultaneously. Its one blast and you’re done. We now have less and easier work to do with parts searches for State Farm jobs compared to other insurance carriers.