glassBYTEs™ asked Chris Umble, vice president, strategic initiatives for
LYNX Services, to respond to the suggestion by the Independent Glass Association
that it take 25 cents from each claim it processes to let AGRSS administer an
industry registry service (see glassBYTEs Tuesday,
August 2). Here is his response.
Thanks for your question about the extent to which LYNX Services is supportive
of AGRSS. There were several interesting questions presented in the IGA article
posted on your Web site. METRYX is an initiative sponsored by LYNX Services that
is designed to, among other things, help customers associate value with professional
training, certification, and related credentials that are earned by glass repair
and/or replacement companies. The combination of these verifiable attributes will
help to establish a more complete picture of the value, in addition to competitive
price, that glass service providers offer to customers. That more complete picture
of value, when presented to customers, will in the future help create an improved
return on investment for time and money spent by shops on training and professional
development
We applaud and support the efforts of various industry groups and associations
to promote quality standards and training in the industry. But what these efforts
have lacked is the ability to involve these quality attributes in the customer
service workflow. By involving these quality metrics in the day-to-day customer
service workflow, LYNX will, over time, help to quantify and demonstrate the value
of the standards and training investments made by companies. For example, by involving
quality metrics in the work flow, we may see data that demonstrates companies
holding AGRSS certification/registration produce fewer warranty call backs, better
cycle time, and therefore consistently higher customer satisfaction. This is data
that would create increased demand for companies that are AGRSS registered. In
time, customers can be presented with not only price, but also with the quantifiable
value represented by glass service provider that adhere to industry-leading quality
and professional standards.
LYNX will not be the arbiter of these results; the marketplace will generate the
results and gravitate to the standards, training, tools and procedures that create
the best results. METRYX will simply be the mechanism in which the industry can
report, manage, measure, and ultimately differentiate using the quality tools
that prove to create the most value to customers.
The development and advancement of quality and professional standards in the industry
has many able contributors. NGA, NWRA, and IGA provide programs for training technicians
and others in the industry, as do various for-profit providers of training. AGRSS
has pioneered standards to which all capable companies can certify their compliance.
LYNX does not provide training or certification, but has a different role to play.
By sponsoring the industry services registry, LYNX Services is providing a service
that is inclusive of all these industry leaders, and promotes their efforts by
helping to quantify and associate value with adherence to professional and quality
standards.
The verification of METRYX-collected information will involve oversight by a long
list of third parties. We've already initiated working with the NGA, NWRA, AGRSS,
IGA and others to create the audits required to validate information. Meanwhile,
with respect to your question on our support of AGRSS, METRYX is advancing and
promoting the value of AGRSS standards by involving these attributes in the customer
service process. Creating the capability to do this, and the capability for the
industry to access and update its credentials via the Web, is a sizeable investment
that LYNX is already making. And so, in very real dollars and cents terms, we
are already contributing to the value and advancement of AGRSS. Each organization
is making good-faith efforts-AGRSS to establish and LYNX to help promote the value-to
advance quality installation standards in the industry.
