A new reality is approaching.  By now, everyone has been affected by “telemarketing.” Customers and consumers are starting to resist it. That is clear from the laws that are being presented and passed.  Customers want service, and they want customer service calls.  As a result, the rules that are set forth for your telemarketing program should emphasize your wish to have an effective telemarketing program to provide your customer base with high quality customer service. It can be as simple as a word. That word is tele-selling.

Each person has an aura, a reputation in the company or in the market.  This presence is a function of many things: knowledge, personality, the quality of voice, the intangibles of attitude.  It is the feeling of trust that the customer has in the person on the other end of the telephone.  This is a condition that is earned and achieved.  It is not something that can be mandated.

In telephone selling the customer either has called with the need or you are calling to see if there is a need. Yet now we confront the dilemma. Rarely, if ever, has anybody provided training on tele-selling.  This program will provide you with an outline – an approach – to use when selling on the telephone.  This class will provide you with a plan and a structure, and with this structure your tele-selling future can get off to a successful start.

With everything that goes on in a labor business it is easy to forget that we also have a responsibility to make money. We have to make money to be able to pay competitive wages to attract and retain talented employees. We have to make money to have available buildings and equipment that allows us to perform repairs and rebuilds and maintenance on the equipment we represent. We need to make money to be able to provide the most current tooling and training to provide effective and efficient labor.

This program provides you with the understanding of the costs of operating the service business. It exposes you to the means and methods of how to make money. From understanding how the labor prices are created and how those pricing systems work. How the prices are calculated and the variables that are in use. You will learn their effect on the gross profit. The approach used to derive the price points based on skill sets, job degree of difficulty and frequency, will be explained in detail.

When performing repairs and maintenance the employee needs to understand the impact that their work makes on the profitability of the department and in fact, on the dealership as a whole. This class provides all of that.

With everything that goes on in a parts business it is easy to forget that we also have a responsibility to make money. We have to make money to be able to pay competitive wages to attract and retain talented employees. We have to make money to have available buildings and equipment that allows us to store the parts and have space for the people. We need to make money to be able to provide the most current equipment and training to provide effective and efficient labor.

This program provides you with the understanding of the costs of operating the parts business. It exposes you to the means and methods of how to make money. From understanding how the parts pricing systems work. How the prices are structured and the variables and how they are calculated. You will learn their effect on the gross profit. The approach used to derive the price point is based on sales activity, prices and the companies and products with which we must work and compete.

When selling parts, or processing orders, the employee needs to understand the impact that their work makes on the profitability of the department and in fact on the dealership as a while. This class provides all of that.

Everything that we do in the labor business has a profound impact on our customers, suppliers, coworkers, and other stakeholders. There has to be a difference in what and how you do your work that is visible and obvious to everyone that you touch in the performance of your work.

You have to be able to answer two very simple questions. But they are not that easy to answer. What do you provide?  What do you do? Most of us will look at these questions and think it is obvious, it is self-evident. We supply labor solutions – repairs, rebuilds and maintenance.  Pretty simple, isn’t it? The trouble with it is that there are many people trying to do it. We have to recapture the business we have lost from our customers and competitors. We have to make a difference. We have to make what we do “matter.”

We will explore who you are and what you bring to the organization and to the customer. We will explore how and why you make a difference. Each of us has to create our own brand. That is how we will differentiate ourselves and what we do from the crowd. We will explore serving people in the parts business. We will explore all that our work means to the market and how we make a difference: how we make it matter.

Customers want to know how much the repair work will cost before they approve the job you will perform. We have to provide this important information. In order to do this, we must manage our repairs with job codes. We must determine standard jobs, and then track them every time we perform them. In this way, we can develop a “standard time” which is different than average time. You will learn the secrets of flat rating in this very detailed program.

The job code structure is where this begins. The manufacturers provide a job code for use with warranty jobs. This is the same logic that dealers must use to manage the repair and maintenance jobs. The code needs to be easy to understand and search out in a file or on a system. Once we have the job codes, then the inspections and job structures need to follow the same logic. How to develop the job codes and then utilize them to develop and manage history is a critical element of this program.

The determination of the standard time is also misunderstood by most. It is NOT about the average time to perform the job. Learn the perils of assuming all the risk on jobs, and how to provide for those risks with standard times. This program will be of value to anyone in management who wants to move away from a job shop structure.

In the parts business we communicate with the marketplace in a variety of methods. With the telephone, with people walking into your store, some customers will send orders by mail, or via a fax, and some use the internet. But the variations of the work don’t stop there: we also have to contend with a variety of “delivery” systems as well. These are not transportation systems. This is a customer service delivery system.

We process sales orders for our customers and we all know that not all customers are created equal. Some customers spend a lot of money with you and deserve to get special treatment. Well, we also have some processes that are cost intensive but also some that are very efficient. These are the customer service delivery systems.

From the customer who does not know the part numbers that they need, to the customer that can order parts from an electronic catalogue on the internet, there are wide ranges of differences. Each of the delivery systems has a different cost component, and that can lead us to provide differentiated services dependent on the delivery system that is chosen by the customer. We explore all aspects of the delivery systems we offer to the market in this important class.

One of the most important and significant activities in which we can be involved, in our professional lives, is helping in the development of the younger less experienced employees. Whether it is a direct coaching job or we mentor the younger less experienced workers we have a responsibility to transfer our knowledge to them. In older times each new employee was assigned to a “mentor” with whom they spent time. They would take breaks together, have lunch together, and this new employee worked as if they were helpers for the experienced employees.

The dilemma with this is that not everyone is good at transferring their knowledge and some employees will just not do it. Selecting the proper people to assign this responsibility is critical. Starting through all of the job functions, from the beginning to the end. Communicated in a different manner from the time the employee arrives at work until they leave at the end of the day. Everything and anything that pertains to the work.

This is part of developing a strong corporate culture. Culture is aimed at your heart. In this style of “onboarding” new employees, each person will feel part of the team. This is an extremely important function and this class will help you avoid the difficulties in performing this function.

Everyone knows about the repair and rebuild business. That is where the excitement is for technical people. In the product support business, we have two major goals: reduce the owning and operating costs for the machine owner, and protect the residual value of the machine. The first step to understanding how to reduce owning and operating costs is to understand the importance of the maintenance service recommended by the OEM. Most customers view maintenance as the necessary evil of changing fluids and filters. There is much more to it than that. How to develop a maintenance program to reduce those operating costs is the theme in this program.

There is a fundamental conflict that has to be dealt with in the labor management group. Maintenance is boring, anyone can do it. In fact the OEM dealer has less than 6.5% of the maintenance market. Nearly 90% of the maintenance is done by a customer mechanic. Yet survey data indicates that nearly 90% of the customers would give the maintenance business to the dealership if their price was less than what the customer currently pays.

This program will discuss the methods and processes to follow in order to be able to meet that price and performance need.