We built Helios because our own shop was drowning.
Three whiteboards, a spreadsheet nobody trusted, and a manager who spent half his day walking the floor to answer one question. Every tool we tried was built for mechanical service writing. So we built the one we actually needed.
The crew at Klopp Collision, Sewell NJ — a family shop since 1947, still repairing cars on Helios.
What three generations in a body shop teach you about software
Rob and Tricia Klopp have run a collision shop in Sewell, New Jersey for more than twenty years, continuing a family legacy that goes back to 1947. When the shop grew into a second location, the system that had worked — a whiteboard, a good memory, and shouting across the floor — stopped working all at once.
The tools on the market were built by people who had never stood in a paint booth. They tracked repair orders beautifully and told you nothing about your floor. What Rob wanted was simple and apparently didn’t exist: one screen showing where every vehicle is, right now.
So Helios got built from the ground up around the realities of a working body shop, in partnership with Blackhawk Innovations — a software firm whose whole philosophy is practical software that solves real business problems rather than impressive software that solves imaginary ones.
The part we’re proudest of: Klopp Collision still runs on Helios every day. If a feature doesn’t survive contact with a Tuesday afternoon in the body shop, it doesn’t ship.
How we got here
The family shop opens
Three generations of collision repair begin in southern New Jersey.
Rob & Tricia take over
Two decades of running the shop, and two decades of whiteboards.
The second location breaks the system
Growth makes the whiteboard untenable. Nothing on the market shows the floor.
Helios is built with Blackhawk Innovations
The first production board goes live in the Klopp Collision shop — and stays.
CCC ONE integration ships
Estimates flow in automatically. Duplicate data entry ends.
Six-week planning board launches
Shops stop scheduling one week at a time.
500+ shops on the board
From single-bay independents to three-location groups.
Who you’ll actually talk to
Co-founder. Twenty years on the floor. Still runs the shop Helios was built in.
Co-founder. Runs customer success — and knows what a bad Tuesday looks like.
The engineering team. Practical software that solves real problems.
Weekdays 8am–6pm ET. A person answers, and that person has used the product in a shop.