40 Years on, still going strong.
We’re offering a free health check for your business.
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Our full time Service Professionals will analyze all processes within your business and provide ‘optimizing perfomance’ strategies through training, tools and consultation. We empower you and your team to streamline performance and efficiencies, so your business achieves greater success with customer satisfaction, productivity and profits. You ready?
Why become an Acoat Selected Member?
Watch the video and see how we can super charge your workshop.
Your business is our success!
AkzoNobel pioneered the idea of a premium bodyshop network in the 1970s when it established Acoat Selected as a business improvement program for Sikkens customers, AkzoNobel’s premium vehicle refinishes brand. Its members, which include both independently owned bodyshops and bodyshop groups, are recognized as repair industry leaders, advancing their own performance and that of the industry as a whole.
Acoat Selected is a thriving international membership group with multiple country and regional networks, working to strengthen vehicle refinishing businesses across the globe.
Over the years, members have benefited from training on the latest technology and processes, meeting key industry partners and work providers, as well as sharing valuable knowledge and experiences. This has helped them build more sustainable repair shops, whose quality and reliability is underpinned by their Acoat Selected certification.
When you’re a member of Acoat you become part of a leading edge network, built on knowledge, integrity and confidentiality. Acoat Selected is a tailored, easy to understand body shop development program. We want you to be a part of our success.
We analyse six areas of your business.
We work with our Sikkens customers to continuously improve their business; developing sustainable practices that generate higher levels of service, quality of work, customer satisfaction and profit. Our comprehensive program looks into vital areas of business to help them achieve the best possible results.
Finance
We benchmark your financial performance against the best industry standards, helping you to identify and prioritize areas of opportunities. We assist you in optimising your paint and material management practices.
Process
We streamline your operations by creating and sustaining Process Centered Environment, which ultimately increases efficiency and promotes a culture of continuous improvement.
Talent
We work with you to transform your business to a high performing and rewarding place to work, helping you to retain and develop skills of your employees. We facilitate peer to peer networking events so you can compare your strategies and ideas with others.
Technical
We enhance your painters’ skills, from basic surface preparation to advanced repair techniques. We carry out regular technical checks and seminars, bodyshop audits, and embedding Standard Operating Procedures; all aimed to increase your business efficiency.
Sales
We maximise your bodyshop sales by developing strategies and providing tailored sales and services coaching and mentoring that capture more jobs coming to your door and increasing closing ratios.
Marketing
We sharpen the brand of your business by helping you to adopt the best and the most effective marketing practices that will attract more jobs to your door, building customer loyalty and satisfaction, position you as a supplier of choice.
Achieve more with our proven strategies.
Become an Acoat Member. Conditions apply.
Register your details and see what’s possible.
If you want to know more about our Acoat program, fill in this form and our consultants will get in touch with you.
Call +61 (03) 9644 1711 for more information.
With 40 years experience, your future looks bright.From humble beginnings…
Acoat Selected begun in Europe in 1970’s as the first partnership program for the collision industry.
The innovative idea of making business services a central element of the Sikkens approach developed progressively throughout the seventies and eighties. It became an important competitive advantage as AkzoNobel Car Refinishes launched a whole range of innovative services for customers. Once again, the company led the way and changed the face of the industry as competitors struggled to catch up.
“We always tried to be a step ahead of the others, and I think we were quite successful at it,” notes Van Klaveren, who managed the program then. “If we hadn’t launched the Acoat program, we would not have been so successful with the big enterprises and big body shops.”
“The basic idea,” says Henk Groen, an AkzoNobel Car Refinishes General Manager from the 70’s, “was that the price of paint in a painting job is perhaps five percent of the entire cost. So if a body shop is going to be profitable, then the other 95 percent has to be done well. And if we could help the body shop owner to improve his results, then he would be more likely to choose us.”
The program was originally targeted to a small selected group of forward thinking shops, driven by innovation. By the mid 1990’s the program became available for all Sikkens customers.
Today Acoat Selected is a comprehensive Services Program recognized globally throughout the Collision Repair industry.
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Here’s what our members are saying…
“When we signed up to the Acoat program, we gave it six months. If we didn’t turn it around we would’ve walked away from the business. Now, each month we’re breaking our previous month’s record — so we’re having biggest months ever, and not actually feeling like there’s that much more work going through the shop. It feels more controlled.”
David Winter“The meetings are great. Knowing that these things that we go through, we’re not alone. Getting ideas for things that are so simple — having someone say, ‘Have you tried it this way,’ and saying, ‘No, I haven’t thought of that’. And then taking it back and applying it — I really thrive on that.”
Ricci Lee Egan“Since signing up to the Acoat program, we have doubled our turn-over. From narrowing down the different aspects of the job — with the way that the quotes are written, to the way the cars are booked in, to the way the parts are ordered, the training of the staff, getting the cars through quicker — when there are fewer problems, you increase the profitability of your business.”
Craig McGregor“We’ve been with the Acoat program since I took over the business, eight years ago, and instantly, we started changing things. It obviously works because we’re getting more throughput, our quality control is there, and in the eight years, we’ve completely outgrown the site.”
Glenn Chesser