What market must do in the very first time is to get educated, to learn what a proved or certificated entity has to -and will do- in order to keep the certified standards ir claims for.
Any AGRR action beneficiary must ask, watch and acknowledge a proof of the competence of either the Technician and/or the Company for the action in discution, being it a repair or a replacement. No doubt, this certification must be issued by an official organization, say DOT, or any nation/world wide recognized organization e.g. NGA, IGA, AGRSS or what so ever. To make a long story short: customer must demand a quality proof. Period.
Our problem is: how to educate customers, as they are in acontinuous strive for survival: chasing bounties or bargains and, as you mention in your post, cheer for a “bargain” as they won the Big Prise at Million Lottery ?!
As it might interest anyone, I will share my experience:
since 2001, I started applying a tiny sticker with my logo in the left bottom corner inside of any windshield we replace. From the outside, one can see the name, headquarters address and telephone emergency number of our Company. On the inside, we note any detail that might produce a warranty claim ( Tempertatue, humidity, adhesive type and batch, code of the technicians performing the replace, the geographical place of the job, a.s.o.).
No doubt, the data is duplicated in the Order portfolio kept at the Company’s HQ, but for the Customer mind comfort and for our advertising, such method proved to be an excellent asset and was embraced even by Romanian branch of Pilkington Automotive.
We had situations when customers detached the stickers, for anti-ad reasons or “clean” car re-sale, but as they were taught about the life-time guarantee job linked with the keeping of the sticker, their later claims could not be considered seriously.
We intend to implement the same method for the repair jobs, but as the warranty for the reparation of a glass is limited, we have to work on a set of side both sides statment to set the limits of liabilities. All in all, an extra bureaucracy.
We have nothing else to do but to improve the quality of our jobs, to fight for the Independent AGRR samurais rights and to hope that regular customer learns and applies the basic rules of a decent commerce.
From Romania, with love,
Daniel

I really think you should seriously consider Rick;s post, but use the short version to keep them guessing.

ATS inc. or the long version…Anti-Trust Solutions.

This way you could still install glass for insurers and not get your hands dirty. You wouldn’t even have to take on the liability of installs if you formed a totally “separate” company called ATA, inc or Anti-Trust Autoglass.

Both companies could have the same president, but of course no data would be exchanged between the two of them.