By now everyone is getting ready for the coming slowdown. You know the one don’t you? That is the one we have been talking ourselves into for the past year of so. Perhaps the cyclical market that we have enjoyed will begin to slow down. So what are you going to do to continue to grow your business? Let me count the ways.

Parts Department

• Reinvigorate the telephone selling process.
• Assign 100 customers that are not covered by a product support salesman, to each instore parts employee.
• Create a program to sell specific parts families each month
• Follow up all backorders with a telephone call to ensure the customer got what they wanted.
• Follow our standard parts rules and make sure everyone gets it done.
• Find every part every customer is looking for every day
• Put away every stock order received today… today
• Ship every part ordered today….today
• Receive and ship every emergency order received today….today
• Parts Managers make personal calls in the field at least half a day every week.
• Review the customers who have stopped ordering parts and find out why.
• Review the fast moving parts inventory to ensure you never run out.

Customers say they want availability of parts more than any other thing. Why not give it to them? Let’s update our inventory control rules and establish expediting methods to satisfy this need. Find every part that customers and mechanics order each day the same day that the part is ordered. It is really quite simple. How often do we satisfy this need?

Service Department

• Reinvigorate the telephone selling process.
• Assign 100 customers that are not covered by a product support salesman, to each service department employee.
• Sell maintenance programs
• Sell inspection programs
• Follow up all work done for customers with a telephone call to ensure the customer got their needs satisfied.
• Follow our standard service rules and make sure everyone gets it done.
• Inspect each machine or component before we start work
• Provide a fixed price to the customer before we start work
• Provide a completion date to the customer before we start work
• Close and invoice all work completed today….today
• Service Managers make personal calls in the field at least half a day every week.
• Review the customers who have stopped giving us business and find out why.

Customers want a fair price and responsiveness from the service department. This means a “flat rate” price and a guaranteed completion date. Do we get this done? Why not?

Product Support Sales Department

• Segment and stratify our customer base.
• For parts
• For service
• Ensure that each of the “A” and “B” customers in parts and service are covered by a product support salesman.
• Establish a sales goal for each customer assigned to a product support salesman.
• Manage the relationship between salesmen and customers with a CRM program.
• Update and maintain the customer machine ownership files.
• Create a market share for each customer based on the Product Support Opportunity handbook.

This is the marketing and selling function within parts and service. You don’t get business from a customer simply by hanging out a shingle. You must ask for the business. You must earn the business.

It goes back to fundamentals. We must recapture momentum in parts and service from the days of trying to keep up with the business level that we are enjoying. We have been very busy over the past few years trying to keep up and I have heard often that we will get to those things when the market slows down. Well how about getting these things done now?

If the equipment business slows down we will have more man hours of mechanics available as a result of fewer preparations for delivery. We will have increased capacity for customer work. We have been turning business away every day with our lack of sufficient manpower to satisfy the needs of our customers. Something to remember; A mechanic generates about $400,000 of annual parts and service business. Most of our customers us more competitive labor than dealer labor to keep their equipment running. We have an opportunity to change that with the items listed above. Whether the market slows down or not shouldn’t we want to get these things done and improve our overall business? I thought so.