Archive for category: Training

Buyer’s Needs – PTS-WE-U12

May 6, 2015/in Parts, Training/by learningwithoutscars

A new reality continues in its approach. By now everyone has been affected by “telemarketing,” your tele-selling future has gotten off to a successful start, and you have also learned how to handle the objections from the customers. You know all of the mechanics of selling. Now we need to make it easier for you by exposing the “buyer’s needs.”

The needs that the customer has in this transaction can stem from “ego satisfaction,” in other words knowing that they are making the right choice, to feeling that they are treated with respect. The sales person has to be sensitive to all of these various attributes and reasons which can underlie the buyer’s needs. But your customers also need your expertise and knowledge and experience. You are in a difficult position. In order to be able to satisfy the needs of the customer, you have to continue to keep yourself current on the product and Industry trends and competition. There is a lot to do.

This webinar deals with survey information obtained from the customers. If they are given a chance, customers will tell us what they need and want, and we then have to be in a position to deliver it.

Don’t miss out on this learning opportunity.

The time is now.

Webinar Learning Opportunities

May 3, 2015/in Training/by learningwithoutscars

This is going to be an exciting week.

We have eight webinars in process for this week:

Four for the parts business, and four for the service business.

They run Tuesday through Friday.

Parts at 9:00 AM Pacific Time – and Service at 11:00 AM Pacific Time.

Don’t miss out on this incredible opportunity for a knowledge transfer from one the foremost educators/trainers in the Capital Goods Industry.

Management vs. Leadership #MondayBlogs

April 27, 2015/in #MarketingMonday, #MondayBlogs, Management, Personnel, Training/by learningwithoutscars

Management vs. leadership is a topic that comes up in many of the programs I teach. It is often easy to miss the difference. When we are managers, we see ourselves as managers of people.

You manage processes, not people.

You lead people.

It is not enough to manage the process: you must have clearly defined goals and procedures that everyone has agreed upon. The days of the “invisible” employee should be behind us.

Remember Patrick Lencioni’s 3 signs of a miserable job –

anonymity
irrelevance
immeasurability

None of your employees need to be anonymous in your workplace. We spend so much time at work, we all know each other quite well. The same applies to irrelevance – with a leader in place who has sought and received feedback, each staff member has a voice and is entirely relevant to the work at hand and the future success of the department and company.

Immeasurability.

How do your employees know when they are doing a good job? It’s important to ask this question, as both praise and constructive criticism play a key role.

Just some food for thought for you this evening.

The time is now.

Webinars for 7 April, 2015

April 6, 2015/in Parts, Service, Training/by learningwithoutscars

Tomorrow morning we kick off our spring series of webinars.

We begin with an hour long webinar for the Parts Department on TeleSelling, at 9:00 a.m. PST.

That is followed by a webinar for the Service Department on Inspections, at 11:00 a.m. PST.

Please register at www.learningwithoutscars.org to begin your training program with us tomorrow morning.

The time is now.

Parts Management Webinars

March 31, 2015/in Management, Parts, Training/by learningwithoutscars

Our webinar learning series begins next week, with our Parts Management webinars on TeleSelling, Basic Inventory Control, Warehousing, and Pricing.

Our one-of-a-kind conference format for webinars enables you to have an interactive learning experience, without any of the travel.

This program is designed for all of the management and support staff in your parts department.

Please visit https://learningwithoutscars.org/webinars/parts-management/ to reserve your space today.

The time is now.

Product Support Selling

March 25, 2015/in Customer Service, Marketing, Product Support Selling, Training/by learningwithoutscars

Our seminar on Product Support Selling – The New Frontier is coming up in Dallas, Texas on April 15 and 16, 2015. This 2 day seminar encompasses 4 elements:

The fundamentals of selling
The foundation of territory management
Managing Customer Relationships
Customer Service Fundamentals

This program is geared towards Product Support Sales, Customer Service, Instore Sales, Supervisors, and Managers.

This course covers all the theories and applications necessary for Product Support Selling in the 21st Century.

The time is now.

Parts & Service Marketing

March 19, 2015/in Marketing, Parts, Personnel, Service, Training/by learningwithoutscars

Our Parts & Service Marketing seminar will be taking place in Dallas, Texas on April 13-14.

Back by popular demand, this course is geared towards sales personnel looking to make a difference.

Material will cover:

Defining Customers
Market Coverage
Customer Loyalty
Measuring and Managing Success

This seminar offers the fundamentals of Parts & Service Marketing for any personnel that deal with your customers.

For more information, and to register for the seminar, please visit https://learningwithoutscars.org/classes/parts-service-marketing/making-a-difference/.

The time is now.

Training Tidbit – for the Service Department

March 2, 2015/in Service, Technology, Training/by learningwithoutscars

Service has changed. Have you? Are you staying current? YOU must maintain your skills and knowledge. That is accomplished through reading and attending learning opportunities. We have management seminars in Dallas in a few weeks. Don’t miss out. The following might provoke some more thinking on your part.

I recently viewed a show on YouTube from BMW showing a technician replacing a radiator core. Nothing very fancy, right? Well, this technician walks up to his tool box and puts on a pair of glasses. Makes adjustments and pushes on them to start. He is standing in front of the car and an image is transposed over the engine compartment and shows in color the items to be worked on and then tells him vocally what to do. When he has completed a step he says “next step.” What a wonderful use of technology. As our world becomes more of a remove and- install of components and things, the technical skills needed from mechanics is reduced; at least for some categories of the work.

One of my many complaints about the operations of a service department that many of you have read over the years is that we have a peanut butter mentality to the work. We charge the same price no matter the skills of the technician, nor the tooling required, nor the degree of difficulty of the work— did we spread it equally, like peanut butter. We don’t schedule labor but we do give completion dates to customers for much of the work. How do we do that when we have variable skills required for the work and variable skills available from the technicians? Peanut butter. This is why we rarely meet completion dates and have lost so much of the available labor market.

We now have new technological tools and new uses of longstanding technology. Who will buy this technology and have it available for use?

We now have new technological tools and new uses of longstanding technology. Who will buy this technology and have it available for use? Hopefully it will be the authorized dealers and distributors.

In another direction, we also have technology roaring to our assistance but it isn’t loud enough yet, as I don’t see many dealers rushing to implement it. It seems that the rental industry has leapt ahead of the authorized distributors in how they treat their technicians. How so?

Well, the technician can stay in the bay and look up on a computer terminal and determine their parts requirement. Okay, some of you are saying that you already do that. Now, let’s start from the make, model and serial number of the machine they are working on and automatically go to a library of schematics and select the appropriate one that will allow them to select the parts they need. Do you do that, too? Oh, and they do that with a touchscreen. You do that, too? Well, then the parts list, which is in a “shopping cart,” is processed as an order in their computer system and prints a pick ticket in the warehouse, their store, so that the parts group can pick the part and deliver it to the technician in their bay. Do you do all that too? I didn’t think so.

It is long past time that we start putting technology to better use. These two illustrations are examples of where and how we can improve labor efficiency on the job. My estimate is that this will increase in labor efficiency by 30 to 60 minutes each day for each technician. Yes, that is right. The time that a technician spends each day walking back and forth to the parts department wastes that much time every day. If you think I am wrong, go watch the floor for a while. In the field it is worse because the technician has to drive to get the parts. And all that time the technician is on the clock.

I think we better get serious, and what better time than now?

The management of a service operation is aimed at two specific major elements: labor efficiency and quality. If we can keep the technicians in the bay where the work is done we can improve their labor efficiency. If we can deliver current accurate schematics from which they can order the necessary parts we will improve the quality.

Are you ready for that? This is not a question of if you will use technology effectively; it is a question of when. This is coming to us and we don’t have any control over it. In this market and these conditions I believe the sooner that we implement these technologies the better. The choice is yours.

Training Tidbits for the Parts Department

March 1, 2015/in Parts, Training/by learningwithoutscars

Here’s some food for thought and training tidbits for members of your Parts Department. I’ve had the thought of keeping “current” on my mind lately, and so wanted to share this with you.

You have the responsibility to maintain your skills and knowledge. How are you doing in that regard? Don’t miss the opportunity to attend one of our Parts Management seminars in a few weeks in Dallas.

For as long as I can remember, the No. 1 requirement for customers from an equipment dealership’s parts department is parts availability. I want to review what we do in parts inventory management, expediting and delivery systems to live up to this availability challenge.

Inventory Control Systems and Processes. The business system suppliers (DMS) and vendors have not been sitting still. The use of statistical probabilities and the demand pattern matching with various statistics models has helped dramatically. The statistical approaches vary by vendor; MMI from Volvo, Poisson from Caterpillar, John Deere with their Critical Codes, and Komatsu’s shared approach with their dealers. Yet they all are aiming at the same target: higher availability for customers via the supply chain. The main software providers have been making adjustments as well. From lead times by part numbers to abnormal demand recognition and much stronger interfaces between vendors and distributors and worldwide search patterns on shortages, systems are much more responsive to the needs of customers and dealers.

Replenishment Cycles. Over my career, the replenishment cycles (lead times) have been reduced dramatically. It starts with the order frequency being increased. Most of the major vendors today offer daily stock orders. From a biweekly or weekly stock order to daily is a very significant improvement. With the increased order frequency the order size is reduced, allowing the vendors to turn around stock orders much more quickly. Transportation logistics have also improved. Today “best practice” vendors have replenishment cycles consistently approaching two to three days. That consistency leads to differing inventory levels and much better serviceability. That is truly something to brag about in the marketplace.

Delivery Systems. From customers walking into dealer/distributor stores to using the telephone, to the Internet and parts kiosks, delivery systems have become much more user friendly. Electronic catalogs allow customers and technicians to determine their own parts requirements, and use of the “shopping cart” online order style for customer convenience and responsiveness has become much more common.

Operating Standards. The goals are more evident, clear and visible. Put away every stock order the same day it is received. Find every part that the dealer is short the day of the order, and communicate with the customer as to where the part is available before the end of the day. Ship every order the same day it is ordered. Simple goals that make a difference to the customers. Isn’t that what we are here to do?

So with all of these improvements, why shift the emphasis? I am not sure we can do much better in the support systems, but I want to move the solution closer to the customers. In the words of Jack Welsh, “When the world around you is changing at a faster pace than you are, the end is near.” Let’s look at the world around us.

Amazon offers a “club” for frequent buyers called Prime. This comes with perks for the customers – access to a lending library, access to streaming videos, elimination of freight charges, to name a few. American Express has their “member rewards” and catalog and Internet retail sales, plus entertainment venues for select card members. Visa and Master Card offer their programs, too. Everyone is trying hard to differentiate themselves in the retail world from their competitors.

I believe that the differentiation that used to exist with parts availability has been eliminated. Almost every major vendor in the capital goods industries provides similar levels of availability. The large differences have completely disappeared. Availability is good from everyone. So, we need to find enhanced serviceability standards and methods.

Perhaps convenience will become more of an issue. We could have supply items “stores” more conveniently located to the customer jobsites. We could bring our parts to jobsites with vans and “Sprinter” type vehicles, rather than waiting for our customers to order from us. We should help customers with their purchasing. We could deliver parts to the customer – what a concept.

With the Opportunity Model in the PSOH, we should know what the customer will need, discuss this with the customer, and make buying easier for them – not just easier for those of us in the distribution channel.

The time is now.

Service Management Training

February 26, 2015/in Service, Training/by learningwithoutscars

Our Service Management Training seminar series begins in Dallas, Texas on March 11th. This is the introductory level to the 3 part program.

Attendees will learn:

The Principles of Management
Introduction to Accounting and Finance for Service Personnel
The Operational and Process Foundation
Customer Service

To bring your Service Department up to a new level of profitability, be sure to register your staff for this course on “What It Looks Like When It’s Right.” This training is beneficial for Service Leads, Instore Sales Leads, Supervisors, Managers, and Executives.

To learn more and register, please click on the following link:

https://learningwithoutscars.org/classes/service-management/what-it-looks-like/

The time is now.

TESTIMONIALS

The Digital Dealership, Your Audience: Strategic Segmentation Part 1

In tonight's blog post, guest writer Mets Kramer continues his exploration of the digital dealership. Part 1 of a series, tonight we look at strategic segmentation of your audience.

You customers are only a small part of your Audience

All of us have heard the term “audience” over the last few years. Long gone is the past association of audience with something the queen granted or with sitcom television. An audience is no longer a small group of people because the internet has grown everyone’s audience.

Yet, even with the automatic growth of everyone’s audience, many dealers don’t think about their audience as they build their digital dealership. Many of us think about our customers as audience.   Customers come through the door, call our phones and send us emails. Our customers work with us daily, weekly or monthly as they use the equipment they purchased, or are looking for newer equipment.   Still, our customers are only part of our audience, even if they are a small and important subgroup.

The broader concept of audience is important for us to consider in several ways. It’s important first when planning our marketing, second in designing operations and finally in developing our strategy.   For this article let’s start with Strategy, since it lays the groundwork for the rest.

The first thing to think about is how will you define or identify your audience. What groups of people and companies will you want to draw in and communicate with?   This will vary depending on the type of dealership you have, and will need to be adjusted, as you reconsider who your audience is. This is called segmentation.

For example, for a few large, well-established dealers the audience tends to be fairly set. It typically consists of all the users of their brand of equipment, in their territory. Potentially it might only include those customers with accounts in the dealer’s business system. Another example is a smaller farm and yard equipment dealership. Here the number of interactions with each customer will be lower, and the dealership needs to find new customers constantly. A strategic approach to audience segmentation will be different for both these example dealers, but for both, clearly defining it lays the ground work for their business.

To define a dealership’s focus audience, we need to determine what audience segments fit into your strategy. Start with these 3 audience segments or categories.   How important is each to your business?

Repeat or Existing Customers

Prospect Customers

Unknown Audience (This is typically where your new leads come from)

Next, consider where your audience members are.

Are they: Local, Regional, National or even farther? How far do you want to reach? How will your strategy differ for those near you and those far away?

With all the audience segments identified, and priority segments selected, we can create a strategy for each of them.

For each segment the dealership wants to reach, 4 main things must be considered.   First the message, next the communication channels and third the response method. The final item to be considered is an important part of what makes your dealership the Digital Dealership, it is the integration of known audience information with each strategy.

In creating the strategy dealers need to think about the message.   This is often the product they want to communicate to each audience segment. Is the product the machine, the dealer’s experience or something else?   Many dealers think they are selling equipment when a significant aspect of value is the dealership. When communicating to unknown audience members, they merely provide the details of a machine in inventory, they forget to include the more important value the dealership brings.

The strategy should consider the channel for communication.   Dealers should understand what digital channels and platforms their target audience segments are on, where the audience will see or receive the message. Channels include traditional communications, social media, email etc. Depending on the product and the audience segment, different channels should be used. Don’t use the same channel for everything and assume your message reaches the audience.

An often-forgotten aspect of communicating with the audience is the response method.   Typically, the faster the response from the dealer is the better. Also, the response method should more closely matched the original communication method. For example, if people are reading your email, they likely want to respond the same way.   We often see dealers mismatching the channel and the response method and seeing poor engagement.

Finally, before we can look at marketing and operations in the next article, we always need to consider the most important aspect of the Digital Dealership, the use of information. This starts by having clear strategies for each segment. By using the information already known about the audience to fine tune the strategy, we get a much more targeted strategy.   For example, sending marketing campaigns to customers and prospect customers about a new backhoe, to customers known to have backhoes of a replacement age. Image if your next email campaign started with “Hi Mets, because you currently own a 2012 Case 580SN, we’d like to share information on this 2017 CAT 430F.

In my next article I’ll continue and look specifically at Marketing and advertising to segmented audiences. I’ll also post a work sheet for your dealership to work through to get started.

Mets Kramer

Mets.kramer@strategicevolutions.ca

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October 20, 2021

Celebrated the world over for his gentle wit and keen insight into human behavior, Charles Handy is widely regarded as one of today’s best social and business philosophers. This latest collection of Handy’s work groups twenty-one of the revered BBC commentator’s best essays on why organizations and the people in them behave the way they do. Beginning with “A World of Differences,” which voices Handy’s fresh take on diversity in the workplace, each essay is a bite-sized bit of humor and wisdom that sheds new light on what motivates people on the job. As useful as they are incisive, these twenty-one ideas should be heard by anyone seeking fresh perspectives on how better to manage themselves and others.

April 1, 2024