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From Where I Sit

Reap Your Share Denise L. Rondini | Editor | drondini@rrpub.com t is where you make your highest proﬁt margin and by some estimates it is a $30 billion market. Yet, according to recent survey results, you are missing out on a major portion of the market. It is the service labor market. This issue’s cover story (see page 18) presents results from a survey conducted by C CJ , sister publication to Successful Dealer, in which C CJ’s ﬂeet readers were asked about a variety of things including the factors that impact their decision to outsource vehicle repair and maintenance and to whom those repairs are outsourced. They also indicated how much repair and maintenance they keep in house—a surprising amount even for vehicles that are still under warranty—and how much they send out to either dealers or independent repair garages. According to survey respondent Mike Maher, ﬂeet supervisor, KC Power & Light Co., “Doing repair work in house keeps our ﬂeet availability at 99+ percent. No dealership or independent shop can provide service at this level, plus it is more cost effective to do it in house.” And as if being perceived as too expensive is not bad enough, according to Allen Phibbs, professional advisor, Keith Ely & Associates, ﬂeets also think dealers are hard to get along with. They most likely have this perception because they historically have experienced long wait times at your shop. And wait time equals downtime, which is something ﬂeets try to avoid. To make your dealership easier to do business with, consider designating a service bay or two to perform a rapid assessment of vehicles. Get vehicles into this bay and determine what the problem is, how long it will take to ﬁx and what it will cost. Then communicate that to the customer giving him I a realistic estimate of when the vehicle will be ready. Information is power and the sooner the ﬂeet manager has information on the condition of his vehicle and what it will take to ﬁx it, the sooner he can determine what the best course of action is. Information also can be a powerful tool for you. The more information you have about your ﬂeet customers, the better you will be positioned to anticipate their needs and develop solutions that can help improve their uptime. Since ﬂeets initially interact with you when they purchase their vehicles, you have a prime opportunity to start gathering information about them and building strong relationships long before your independent aftermarket competitors get a chance. Adam Chamberlain, logistics manager at Access Distribution, says, “It is essential that you have a team of qualiﬁed professionals to back up your investment. Once the match is found, a company should be able to have a long relationship. Arguing about price or time spent only aggravates the situation. Ultimately a broken truck doesn’t generate revenue, and we are all about revenue these days.” The best way to ensure that you are that match the customer is looking for is to bulletproof your customer service process and do what you can to reduce cycle time so that your customers’ trucks are on the road where they should be and you are reaping your share of that $30 billion dollar market. 2 | SUCCESSFUL DEALER | August 2010

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