Customers, for the dealership service department, have grown used to performing service maintenance and minor repairs either themselves, or with the help of independent mechanics. This has led them to the conclusion that repairs are easily done and that they can diagnose problems with their equipment without much help from anybody.
While it is true that some of the customers employees and independent mechanics can perform very technical work it still remains the dealership that has access to all the technical expertise that is provided by the manufacturers of the equipment.
The parallel that will be presented in this program is that of the doctor. The technician performing the inspection is a qualified analyst, trained to know what to look for and what the symptoms mean. The inspections that we are talking about here are diagnostic inspections to be performed prior to conducting any repairs, quality control inspections to be done after work has been completed, and machine appraisals which would be required of machines being traded in or been purchased used.
This program, on inspections, will provide you with an outline, a process, to follow in developing the inspection programs, listed above, for your dealership that will allow you to improve all repair processes as well as have a more consistent condition report on used equipment.
Service Labor Rates February 20th 9:00 AM Pacific
Too often dealerships call around to the neighboring dealers and ask for their service pricing. While it is understandable to know what the pricing is in your territory it is more important to develop a price structure that is required to attract the business and also produce the profit necessary to operate a dealership.
We will expose the “peanut butter” labor pricing for what it is – an over simplified unrealistic pricing mechanism – and provide an alternative to consider. It all starts from the skills of the men and the degree of difficulty of the work involved. That requires we must know the skills of the men we employ and then use their skills on jobs that match that skill. Consider that the wage that is paid to the men is a direct reflection of the skills that the men have and we have a starting point to determine labor rates. It is called a “wage multiple.
This methodology has been in use for a long time but not by sufficiently large numbers of dealerships; currently most of us over price low skill work and under price high skill work. We will define and describe the wage multiple so that upon the completion of this webinar the participants will be able to return to work and recalculate their labor rates with this new method and evaluate whether or not they should apply it in their Service Department.
Service Work Order Process February 19th 12:00 Noon Pacific
The core function within every Service Department is the work order process. Yet little attention seems to have been given to this most important function. Dureing this webinar we will take you through the complete process from teh “Service Request” up to and including the invoicing of the finished job. The process is not complicated but there are a lot of details which if mishandled will not satisfy either the customer of the dealership.
The only group within an equipment dealership that allows a business to differentiate itself from the competition in the market is the Service Department. Yet the typical dealership leaves the service Department and the dealer business system to establish the methods to be used. This webinar addresses the complete process from labor posting to outside purchases; from ordering parts to returning them; from introducing the structure of the job to the scheduling of work. We will address them all.
The individual elements will be covered in complete detail in further webinars but the basic structure to employ will be detailed in this session. You will be able to return to your work and review how your structure relates to these “Best Practices” and begin the transformation of the department from a place where repairs and maintenance are performed to a productive, high quality, and safe service shop. This is the type of work order process that attracts talented people to work within it and retains customers who use it.
Service Inspections February 19th 9:00 AM Pacific
Customers, for the dealership service department, have grown used to performing service maintenance and minor repairs either themselves, or with the help of independent mechanics. This has led them to the conclusion that repairs are easily done and that they can diagnose problems with their equipment without much help from anybody.
While it is true that some of the customers employees and independent mechanics can perform very technical work it still remains the dealership that has access to all the technical expertise that is provided by the manufacturers of the equipment.
The parallel that will be presented in this program is that of the doctor. The technician performing the inspection is a qualified analyst, trained to know what to look for and what the symptoms mean. The inspections that we are talking about here are diagnostic inspections to be performed prior to conducting any repairs, quality control inspections to be done after work has been completed, and machine appraisals which would be required of machines being traded in or been purchased used.
This program, on inspections, will provide you with an outline, a process, to follow in developing the inspection programs, listed above, for your dealership that will allow you to improve all repair processes as well as have a more consistent condition report on used equipment.
WH Filosophy v1.6
Welcome back Bill
Courage is grace under pressure.
Ernest Hemingway, Author
It is wise to keep in mind that neither success nor failure is ever final.
Roger Babson, American entrepreneur and business theorist
Well done is better than well said.
Benjamin Franklin, American inventor and statesman
Life is too short to be little.
Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British prime minister and writer
The time is now.
Parts Pondering 2.3
Walking through airports or shopping malls you see a new item – vending machines that sell other than drinks and sweets. Theses vending machines are a new retail opportunity for some suppliers. You can buy electronics, safety items, communications products and accessories and much more.
This got me to thinking about our business. Why don’t we consider some parts or tools for a vending machine and put them on job sites? I would be very interested in your thoughts and comments on this as I believe that this represents a terrific customer service opportunity which would also produce revenue.
The time is now.
Friday Filosophy #2013-05
The great artist and thinker are the simplifiers.
Henri Frederic Amiel
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
Mahatma Gandhi
There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept responsibility for changing them.
Denis Waitley
The time is now…..
Marketing Missiles 2.1
In the Construction Equipment market the parts and service groups have very low market capture rates.
I don’t think that any customer service provider is aiming to have less than a 50% or even less than a 25% market capture rate. Yet that is where the parts and service departments are in these critical measures. The employees care about the service they provide to their customers. Yet obviously there have been events that have caused many customers to find solutions to their needs elsewhere.
I am convinced that part of this is created by the lack of market coverage that is provided to customers.
How do you rate on market coverage? Are you engaged with ALL customers every year? Do you know your defection rate? Do you know your market capture rates? These are important questions with serious answer from which you can make the necessary business decisions. In this case ignorance is not anything like bliss.
The time is now.
Warehousing
The prevalent thinking is that a warehouse is strictly a store room. How wrong can we be?
I remember visiting a consumer goods distribution center in Chicago and watching in awe. The order pickers were given a days work when they arrived and told they could leave when they had finished. There was another visit to a Kodak plant in Stuttgart, Germany which went with no emplyoees at all. No lights on unless someone went into teh building. Finally a tool distribution center with a 30 meter high facility. One of the storage aisles had been out of commission for months until they discovered that there was a deflection on the mast which for safety reasons disabled the motion motors.
Warehousing and distribution centers can be complicated or they can be simple. It is like most things, the more you know the more yioi uare prepared to accept that you don’t know it all.
Join us on our webinar February 13th and learn and enjoy. See you then.
The time is now.
Technology Tidbits 1.0
The current crop of Dealer Management Systems (DMS) mostly provides process management tools rather than business improvement tools. This appears to be the continuation of the evolution of systems from the service bureau days when computers were overly expensive and out of reach for most dealers.
The system would put the image of the “old” paper forms on the screen and the dealer personnel would fill in the blanks. This was an incredible cash machine for the companies providing these services.
Today we seem to finesse the issues with “portals;” an interesting approach to say the least.
When the customer knows the part numbers they want and are calling in for parts they have two basic questions on their mind; Have you got it? How much is it? Yet typically the DMS starts with the question – “who are you?” Have you got your customer number of give me your name is where we have to start into the parts process and it is the same for the other departmental order and inquiry processes. Not a particularly good way to start a customer service process is it?
With the ease of program development today and the needs of the dealership; with the “size” of the current crop of DMS offerings in machine usage and process time; with the customer opportunities of doing their own ordering increasing I think it is time a “radical” rethink takes place at both the service providers and at the dealer/manufacturer level. What is it we need and want from technology? Do we want to continue to do what we have always done or do we want to step out into the sunshine.
The time is now.
Technology
We comment on a series of subjects related to the capital goods industry supply chain; from parts to service to management and to my take on filosophy. I am introducing a new one this week – Technology.
I will attempt to address various areas of the use of technology in the capital goods supply chains whether from the dealer or the customer perspective. I am sure this will be controversial at times and I invite your participation in the discussion. The more the merrier. It is never important that we all agree on a subject or a topic but it is critically important that we hear and understand other positions.
Management is about communication. It is about three major pillars – understanding, accepting and committing. I hope you will participate in the discussion.
The time is now.