Articles

Last month I asked whether you’re in the parts business or the parts numbers business. More often than not, we view ourselves as being in the latter category.

The telephone and counter sales group has become an order-processing factory. If someone calls or walks in, your people process orders. Maybe this is a byproduct of the changes undergone in the industry since the early 1980s, when the industry required a sales-employee mentality rather than a customer-service approach. This has left many dealers without enough people to do the job properly.

What defines a job done right? Operationally, it’s simple: Process and ship every order received today; receive and reship every back order received today; find all parts that we are short today. Oh, and do this in a pleasing and professional manner. Yet, few dealerships pass this simple test of customer service.

And just how well do we know our customers? Do we call them to stay in touch? Do we keep them informed on the status of their back orders? Do we know when they are dissatisfied or satisfied? Do we know when their buying patterns change?

We must determine if we are meeting our customers’ needs. In the equipment supply chain, dealers are the only link interested in the health of the machines we sell. We need to be driven to reduce owning and operating costs for our customers. We also need to be interested in preserving the residual value of the machines our customers buy. More important, our customers have to witness our commitment to these goals.

While we should welcome this aspect of our business with open arms, we seem to be falling short of the mark.

And what about the hardware that we use in our service departments? Are we using the same products we represent and sell to our customers? Does the service manager have a hardware supplier who comes into the shop, counts the inventory, fills out a purchase order, gets it signed and then replenishes the bins? This is much too common in our business. Our parts department should supply everything we use in our service department. Doesn’t this make good business sense?

Serving customers is worthwhile work. And it should be fun. Potential customers are just waiting for someone to pay attention to them and help them. “When the world becomes more high tech...people crave high touch.” John Naisbitt’s famous quote sure rings true. Think about your own experiences in buying things. Restaurants, hotels, airlines, corner stores and, yes, even banks. Don’t you prefer the personal touch?

We can, and must, bring all the technology we can into our operations and in so doing reduce our costs. But measuring customer service has to be equally important. Unfortunately, the chances of that happening soon are remote. Measuring sales from your parts department is vital. We need to measure how much of our sales results from the efforts of the talented people in our parts department.

So how do we measure the impact our parts department has on sales? A simple telephone call is all that’s needed. Have your counter and telephone sales people make follow-up calls. The worst that can happen is a repeat customer.

Set up an incentive program to reward in-store sales people when the sales to these customers increase. What have you got to lose? You just may discover some untapped sales talent in your shop.

And who knows? We could actually start selling parts again. This would be quite a concept.