Articles

As many of you know by now I hate the word motivation. I am in a lonely minority of people who believe that motivation is an internal characteristic and that everyone has it within them until someone takes it away from them. Also you know that I am a nut about measurements. Performance standards and reviews of results are critical to having everyone understand what we need to do and how well we need to do it. I have called these Key Indicators and like to publish a Scorecard. I guess it comes from my teaching days.

So let’s make a list and measure our performance. Let’s let everyone know what doing a good job looks like and review our success regularly. So let’s start on our “29” measures, to celebrate Leap Year, with an unusual list.

Parts

• How many parts are still on backorder after 48 hours from the customer order being placed?
• How many parts that we backorder are on the shelf in the warehouse? We didn’t find it.
• How long are parts held in will call before they are picked up?
• How much of our inventory has not sold the past year?
• How many customers did each parts employee call on a sales call last month?
• How many outbound sales calls did the parts department make to customers last month?
• How many hours of personal development did each parts’ employee partake in last month?
• How much of the freight cost, inbound and outbound was recovered last month?
• How many hours were lost to absenteeism, or lateness, last month?
• How often did inside parts employees visit a customer in the field last month?

Service

• How many hours backlog of labor is there for each mechanic?
• What was the labor efficiency last month?
• What was the level of “redo” per mechanic last month?
• How many work orders met the completion date given to the customer?
• How long did it take to satisfy a customer need for field service? ¸ How many customers were visited by service management & supervision last month?
• How long did it take from work completion to invoice completion?
• How often did we have to make invoice adjustments due to jobs taking too long?
• How many jobs were completed within the estimated hours for the job?
• How many hours of training did each mechanic receive last month?

Product Support

• How many individual customers were called last month?
• How many customers stopped buying labor last month?
• How many customers stopped buying parts last month?
• How many customers who bought a machine 12 months ago have not bought parts?
• How many customers who bought a machine 12 months ago have not used the service department?
• How many new customers were acquired last month?
• Did the sales goals for parts and service get realized?
• For how many customers have parts and service specific sales targets been established?
• How many customers that buy parts don’t buy labor and vice versa?

Many of you will not know the answers to these questions. And some of you will not think they are critical questions. I would refer you to the Product Support Opportunities Handbook for what I believe is the most definitive survey in our Industry for Parts and Service in years. I would also refer you to the Product Support Handbook for a review of the performance standards for the Parts and Service. And I would refer you to the new Product Support Best Practices Handbook for opportunities to service the customer more effectively and make more money at the same time.

I sincerely believe that each employee wants to succeed at their job. They want the opportunity to learn and progress and develop professionally. We need to provide measures to allow them to understand what is important. We need to encourage each employee to come forward with methods and ideas to help us become better at what we do. After all they know their jobs better than anyone else. They know what is in their way from doing a better job. If only we ask and encourage change.

Shouldn’t you know the answers to my “29” Leap Year questions? I know you know the answer to that question. Now how about sharing the answers with everyone in Parts & Service and Product Support Sales?