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Making Segments that Work

Alright, you have run the reports, established the different levels of purchases, obtained accurate machine populations for the customers and have put this market segmentation code into the name and address record on your computer. Well now you have 64 market segments. I submit to you that this is too many segments to determine a strategy for each segment and have everyone understand. What next.

How about we take all of the Fleet (F) and Large (L) machine population segments that are also either A or B in either of Parts and Service purchases and make them one marketing segment? And let’s take the Medium (M) machine population and all of the C purchases for either of the Parts and Service and make them another marketing segment. Then we will have three segments. What I will call High Potential, Medium Potential and Low Potential.

The High Potential segment customers are the ones that should have a product support sales representatives call of them. The Medium Potential segment customers should be “touched” but perhaps you don’t have the budget to assign a product support representative. What are you to do? Assign and Instore Sales Representative and touch them on the telephone.

Did you know that in America Corporations fail at implementing their strategy 90% of the time? Typically that is because their employees don’t understand the strategy. In order to be able to lead people to conduct themselves in a manner that will allow successful implementation of strategy they have to first of all understand the strategy. Second they have to accept that the strategy is a good one. Finally then they can commit to making it happen.

  • Understanding
  • Acceptance
  • Commitment

We are at the portal of our market coverage strategy. Are you ready? The time is now.

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Market Coverage

Being all things to all people has long been impossible. Yet many dealers continue to operate without a strategy for market coverage and as a result continue to do what they have always done. Treat everyone the same, until that special customer has a problem.

To make matters worse for our customers – somewhere in the 1980’s resulting from the huge run up in interest rates, enacted by the Paul Volcker Federal Reserve, dealers made the decision that they didn’t have enough money to provide face to face market coverage. So they cut back on the number of salesmen in the field.

The intent was to reduce sales costs, read market coverage costs, but it meant something else. It meant that the decisions made on market coverage were made by a salesman not by the company. The salesmen were confronted with a time limit – they could only work so many hours. This left them with the decision of who to visit and who to ignore. I remember an old story about a dealership hiring a salesman. He visited with the Sales Manager on first day on the job and was given a customer list, the keys to a vehicle and the boss pointed at the door saying – “here is a list of your customers, your vehicle is parked outside the door, there is the door – see you.” I am sure this is fictitious aren’t you?

The trouble is we have not done a very good job of determining a market coverage strategy. It is all about market segmentation. You need to determine which of your customers you want to have a salesman touch in the field and unfortunately, due to costs, you have to decide who you don’t want to have assigned to a salesman. This can only be done with a proper and complete market segmentation plan – more on that in a future blog. The time is now.

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Points to Ponder v1.1

One of the advantages there is to travel is the ability to have time to read. In my cross country voyage yesterday I had a good chance to catch up on some of my late reading. One point came out that I really enjoyed.

“Social Cohesion at the risk of Truth” this is a quote from Jeff Bezos of Amazon fame.

I think it is amazing in its clarity. Ignoring the world around you, not implementing changes necessary, risks the truth. For some time, in my consulting life, there has is a constant. People are anxious, nervous, or just downright stubborn, when it comes to making the changes necessary. These changes might be required to improve customer service. They might be necessary to “save” the Company financially. They might be necessary for a whole host of solid rational sound reasons. Yet they are often approached with less than an excited mien. The status quo is much safer. This social cohesion – the comfort of everyone involved in many cases outweighs the needs to make change. The time is now.

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Points to Ponder v1.0

When I was a little person we had an elder from the church that we went to by the name of Tony Doxsey. He took an interest in my family and was a wonderful man. He was sophisticated, incredibly well-mannered and an entrepreneur. He owned and operated an Interior Decorating/Design business. So you can imagine the impeccable taste he must have had.

He used to tell me all kinds of things – little words of wisdom. One year he gave me a little pamphlet called “The Ten Commandments of Business.” I would like to share just one of them with you today.

“Be happy in your work…or…. work and be happy. You have no choice you MUST work.

I have remembered that for over fifty years now and it has become a habit. I feel good when I work hard and it makes me happy. And I am truly blessed because I am happy in my work. I hope the same is true for you. The time is now.

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Updating the Add to stock blog from yesterday

Yesterday we had difficulty in format for the table of probabilities. With this update we hope we can clear up any misunderstandings. The first column is the time between the last two calls of a part number. The second column is the probability of a sale in the coming twelve month period of time.

  • Time between Calls        Probability of 1 Call
  • 3 Mths                                  98%
  • 4 Mths                                  95%
  • 5 Mths                                  91%
  • 6 Mths                                  87%
  • 7 Mths                                  82%
  • 8 Mths                                  78%
  • 9 Mths                                  74%
  • 10 Mths                                70%
  • 11 Mths                                66%
  • 12 Mths                                64%
  • 15 Mths                                56%
  • 18 Mths                                49%

The above percentages represent the probability of AT LEAST one call in the coming twelve months. This should give you more help in determining when to add a part to stock. The time is now.

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Adding Parts to Inventory

Since we started this blog we have written on inventory management three times. Once on variable lead times, once on economic order quantities and once on the only part that matters. They have each received a lot of reads.  Thank you.

Let me introduce a fourth line of attack on managing the inventory – when do you add a part to stock. For years if not decades we have added parts on the basis on two calls in six months or three calls in a year add the part to your stocking inventory. This has been the “norm” since I entered the Industry in 1969. It hasn’t really changed at all. How about we use probability theory in determining when to add a part to stock and yes when to drop a part out of the stock inventory.

  • Time Between Calls        # Calls Last 12 Months                                    Probability of 1 Call
  •                                  0             1             2             3             4             5+
  • 3 Mths                  2%          7%          14%        19%        20%        38%        98%
  • 4 Mths                  5%          15%        22%        22%        17%        19%        95%
  • 5 Mths                  9%          21%        26%        21%        13%        10%        91%
  • 6 Mths                  13%        27%        27%        18%          9%          6%        87%
  • 7 Mths                  18%        31%        26%        15%          6%          4%        82%
  • 8 Mths                  22%        33%        25%        13%          5%          2%        78%
  • 9 Mths                  26%        35%        24%        11%          4%          0%        74%
  • 10 Mths                30%        36%        22%          9%          3%          0%        70%
  • 11 Mths                34%        37%        20%          7%          2%          0%        66%
  • 12 Mths                36%        37%        19%          6%          2%          0%        64%
  • 15 Mths                44%        36%        15%          4%          1%          0%        56%
  • 18 Mths                51%        34%        12%          3%          0%          0%        49%

The above table shows the probabilities of future events based on the time between the last two events.  Take the first line “3 MONTHS”. The columns as headed 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5+. That is the number of calls in the coming twelve months. So under 0 is 2%, 7% under 1, 14% under 3 etc. Those represent the probability of the number of calls in the coming twelve months. Si there is a 7% probability that there will be 1 sale in the coming twelve months- or a 20% probability of 4 sales in the coming twelve months.

This is quite a good barometer to use for determining when to add a part to stock. If the last two calls are three months apart there is a 98% probability that you will sell at least one part in the coming year – 87% probability of at least one sale if the last two sales were 6 months apart etc… Don’t you think you should use this type of statistical truth in establishing when you want to add a part to your inventory? The time is now.

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A Customer Service Tool

VoIP – voice over internet protocol. What a name. Well what it does is quite remarkable. This is where your computer drives your phone system. A call comes into your Company and the computer directs the call to the appropriate extension while at the same time it paints your computer screen with the pertinent information from your name and address on the customer. Not only that, it can delivery almost whatever information you want.

“Hello Dave, how are you? Wow, we haven’t spoken since last October, where have you been?”

“Hi Dave, congratulations on your anniversary, how many years has it been?”

“Dave I have been meaning to call you, congratulations on your recent purchase of our “xx” machine.”

I am sure you can imagine various pieces of information that you would like to have displayed before picking up the telephone. There is a machine in the shop, or there is backorder outstanding – pretty critical information that would help you in your discussion with the customer.This is similar to the “Vonage” service that runs through your cable. Contact your dealer business system provider or your telephone system provider and ask what is necessary for you to obtain this type of tool. It will give you a terrific tool for customer service. The time is now.

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You CAN make a difference

A number of years ago, 2005 to be precise, Ken Blanchard and Barbara Glanz published a short book called “Johnny the Bagger.” It is based on a story than Ms. Glanz used in her talks. Her signature, for her customer service talks, was a room surrounded on all sides by colorful posters. She told stories about customer service examples in business and had highlights on the colorful posters.

One of the stories started with her receiving a call from a front line employee from a supermarket. She had spoken to the supermarket in the previous month. The call came from a 19 year old bagger named Johnny. Johnny told her he had Down’s Syndrome, he was proud of it, and that he didn’t think that he could do much to impact customer service. Then he told her about an idea he had.

He said that when he would come home from work he would think of saying he liked and if he couldn’t think of one he would make one up. With the help of his father he would write the idea on a piece of paper 6 times and each night they would print off 50 copies. He cut out each quote and wrote his name on the back.

When he got to work he put the slips in a bag where he worked and put one in teh customers each bag after he had finished packing up the groceries for them. Isn’t that fantastic? My wish for each of you is that you have a wonderful weekend and that you can each find such an idea to influence the people in your world on a daily basis.

A month later the Store Manager called Barbara. He told her a story. He was making his rounds one day and noticed that one of the lines at the checkout stand was three times longer than any other. He called for more cashiers. But no one moved from the line. He started asking and they told him they wanted to get Johnny’s thought of the day. Well as you can imagine the concept spread and before you knew it customers were being pinned with flowers that could not be sold. A Snoopy decal was used at the meat stand. All kinds of things happen.

It is many times the smallest things that can sometimes make the largest impact. Are you able to think of something that would influence your world as significantly? The time is now.

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Tablets, PDA’s and Laptops

Over the years we have collected labor to apply to work orders in a myriad of manners. We started from an attendance time card which the mechanics completed at the end of the day telling us what times they worked on which jobs. Then we moved to individual job time cards while still retaining an attendance time card for payroll. Then some of the companies got racy and had only one time card which fed work in process but was data entered to the payroll system. Can you imagine? Then we had one card feed both systems – think of that some efficiencies arriving. Finally technology showed up and we had scanning devices either hand held or bar code scanners to record time. A long road travelled over forty years.

The objective is still the same isn’t it? We need to collect time against a job so that we can update standard job times, record time to create an invoice for the customer and provide an entry into the payroll for the technical so they can be paid.

So now we have laptops and tablets and PDA’s. And each of these devices can be used to collect labor information.

So why not take the leap and get labor entered by the technician and give them a device with which they can place their own parts orders? I have no idea why we can’t get this done. So contact your business system supplier and tell them you want the technician to be able to use a laptop or a tablet, an iPad, Galaxy or any Android device or a Thinkpad Tablet, like I use, any of which can be connected to the internet to have access to the electronic parts catalogues and service documentation. They can get that done for you. Then both you and the technicians will be much further ahead than with what you are using today. The time is now.

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The Most Important Part

The first article I wrote for an Industry publication I called “The Only Part That Matters.” This is of course the part that you don’t have available.

I was referencing the fact that too often we are driven by metrics. Off the shelf availability has to be more than 90% of some such number. That is all well and good – but what about the 10% that you are programming yourself to accept?

Early in my career I got a call in the wee hours on a Sunday morning. It was the Vice President of Parts and Service. There was a Department of Defense station in the Arctic that needed a part for their source of power – a Caterpillar Engine. Of course we didn’t have the part. We found the part in Europe. We sent an employee on a plane to go and get it, bring it back, and then we shipped it to the customer. That gentleman’s name was Rod Boileau and although most of you won’t know Rod he is one of the men that I blame for continuing to be in this Industry some 42 years later. He provided a lesson I have never forgotten. He said “if the part you don’t give me keeps my machine down – you have given me zero.” And this simple example made his point. No part – no power – no power death.

Ever since I have been harping on the fact that no matter what you goal is for off the shelf service you are programming yourself to accept to tolerate a level of shortages. That is why my first rule in the parts business is to find every part every day before you go home. No it is not acceptable to place the part on a backorder at a supplier but you need to know that the part is available and can be shipped that day. That is parts availability. The time is now.