How to Get the Best From Your Employees

There’s no doubt that today’s customers expect excellent service. And if you’re going to compete with large chains like Home Depot or Lowe’s, then your services needs to go above and beyond the call of duty.

Unfortunately, it can be hard to get your team on the same page. To them, working at your dealership might just be a job. So how can you motivate your team so that your customers are receiving the best service (and, in turn, walking through your door again and again)?

1. Define What Excellent Customer Service MEANS

Many owners want their team to provide excellent customer service. But, this means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

Photo © by www.lumaxart.com

You need to write out exactly what “Excellent Customer Service” means to YOU. And, post the list somewhere where everyone on your team can see it.

Your team needs to see that the customer is the most important person in the business, even more important than you. Go over the list with them, emphasizing why each element is so vital to the success of the dealership. After all, if customers don’t continue to come through the door, then the doors are going to close. Once your team fully understands this, they’ll hop on board.

2. Make Sure You’re Hiring the Best

Your employees are often the first people to interact with your customers, which is why you need to focus on hiring the very best employees you can find.

When you’re hiring, make sure your short-list of applicants take a drug test before your final decision. This will let you know who shouldn’t be trusted to work in your store.

It’s also important for you to pay attention to their personality. Do they talk easily to others? Are they well-groomed? Do they smile often?

You should also check and make sure that they’re comfortable using a computer. Put them in front of your OPE point of sale software, and just go through the basics with them. The faster they are on the computer, the less time your customers are going to have to wait.

Remember, this person is going to be interacting with your customers, representing your business. Choose someone who’s going to make a great impression. A good rule of thumb is to hire slowly, and fire quickly!

3. Never Make Training a One-Shot Affair

Many employees get trained when they start at a dealership. And then, that’s it.

Successful dealerships know that training should be continuous. The more experts you have on your team, the more your customers are going to keep coming back for the priceless advice they’re giving out.

Training is essential to creating a great team. Contact your suppliers and see if they can come out at least once per year for training sessions.

4. Make Sure Your Team Understands Their Worth

Does your team understand how valuable they are. Probably not.

So, let them know regularly what a great job they’re doing. Remind them, on a personal level, why you hired them. Hold them accountable for your dealership’s goals.

The more your team sees how much you value them the more pride they’re going to take in their work. They’ll feel a sense of ownership in the dealership which will, in turn, show up in the way they treat customers.

Last Word…

Getting your team on the same page as you when it comes to customer service isn’t that hard. All you have to do is give first: give them training, support, and a clear list of your expectations. Make sure they understand that you value them, and keep reminding them on a regular basis why you hired them. The more pride they feel in your dealership, the better they’re going to perform.

The Power of Small

Common Mistakes That Cause Your Dealership to Lose Customers

As an owner, it’s all too easy for you to become blind to the small details of your dealership. After all, you’re there every day. And when you’re there, you’re busy. You can’t go over everything with a fine toothed comb on a daily basis, right?

Well, no. But it’s helpful to take a step back every few weeks and look at the small things. Because it’s these small things that could be driving away your best customers.

Here are a few small, common mistakes that owners often overlook in their dealership.

Mistake #1: Exhaust Fumes

What do you think your customers think when they walk into your showroom and smell exhaust fumes? Now, some of your customers may like it. But many won’t. Today’s customers want clean stores that sparkle and smell good. Do what you can to put up additional barriers between your service department and the showroom to eliminate exhaust fumes leaking in.

Even if you don’t have a direct access from your showroom to the service department, check the smell of your space anyway. Is it pleasant, or at least neutral?

Try opening windows and doors when the weather is nice to let in some fresh air. Offgassing from equipment can create a stuffy, “plastic-smelling” environment which is not only unpleasant, but can actually be unhealthy. The more fresh air you can let in, the better your showroom will smell.

Mistake #2: A Low Fill Rate

It’s never a good business strategy to try and be all things to all people. But when a customer comes into your store, they usually want to get in and get out. Having what people need, versus an overstocked, overpriced stockroom, is a very fine line.

Dealerships should strive for a 90% fill rate. This means that 90% of the time, you have what your customers need right there in your store.

This is where OPE point of sale software comes in. A quality OPE point of sale software will allow you to track your customers’ buying habits, which will enable you to fully understand what they’re looking for. And when someone comes in and asks for something you don’t have, you can track that as well. Knowing what your customers want, and what they don’t want, will allow you to reach that 90% fill rate.

Mistake #3: Unclean Restrooms

Many owners don’t give much thought to the restroom. After all, most of the time it’s an area that someone else deals with. But many customers, especially women, pay very close attention to the cleanliness of restrooms.

How do you think customers react when they go into a store’s restroom and it’s dirty? What if they have small children, and have to change a diaper? Would you want to change your child’s diaper in a dirty restroom? Definitely not.

Unclean restrooms can create a very negative reaction in your customers, both men and women. Make sure they’re cleaned daily (or more, if you’re busy). Make sure there is good soap, ample paper towels, and hand sanitizer. It also wouldn’t hurt to hang up some attractive pictures, and make it as comfortable and pleasant as possible. Your customers will notice.

Last Word…

When you’re looking for ways to keep your current customers coming in your door, don’t forget to notice the little things. They may not seem like much, but it’s often the smallest changes that can make the biggest difference.

Easy Strategies to Get Customers in Your Door

As the owner of a dealership, whether it’s large or small, it’s easy to get tied up in the day-to-day workings of your business and forget to step back and look at your larger purpose: that is, providing amazing service to your customers.

But first you have to get them in the door. Let’s take a look at some tips you can use to make your customers happy and set yourself apart from your competition.

Strategy #1: Improve Your Parking

Many owners don’t think twice about their parking. After all, it’s a parking lot. What’s the big deal?

Well, it’s a big deal to your customers because most of the time, they’re in a hurry. They want to get in and get out so they can get on with their day. Customers can easily get annoyed with parking lots that are too small. And, this annoyance can cause them to go somewhere else.

A good rule of thumb is that for every square foot of your retail store, you need five square feet of parking.

It’s also important to analyze how your lot is laid out. Many customers can’t walk easily on gravel, so using asphalt is your best bet. Your lot should always be clean and attractively landscaped. Remember, this is your customers’ first impression of your dealership when they pull in. Make it a good one.

Strategy #2: Improve Your Curb Appeal

Your customers want to know that they’re shopping at the best store. And, this realization starts with how your store looks from the outside. Curb appeal is extremely important for dealerships, and yet most owners don’t give it a second thought. Their focus is the inside of their store-not the outside.

Go outside and look at your building from across the street. How does your store look…is it attractive, or dirty? Can potential customers easily read your signs? Is your garbage bin placed where everyone can see it, or is it hidden in the back? Are the windows clean?

Make every effort to improve the curb appeal of your building. All these little details send big signals to your potential customers about the quality of service they can expect from you and your team. When you take excellent care of your building, and how it looks, your customers know that they can expect the same level of attention once they go inside.

Strategy #3: Make Sure You Have an Identity

Some dealerships try to be all things to all people. But you know how the old saying goes…when you try to please everyone you end up pleasing no one. Dealers that carry several different brands of the same product just end up confusing their customers with information overload. And then, they don’t end up making a purchasing decision.

If this sounds like you, then use your OPE point of sale software to determine which products you’re selling the most of. These products should become your identity. Take the time to become an expert on these core products, and let the rest go. You’ll better service your customers with your in-depth knowledge of these items, and you’ll help them avoid the confusion from having too many choices.

Last Word…

Having a successful dealership means you put your customers, and their wants and needs, first. Strategies like improving your parking lot, improving your curb appeal, and using your OPE point of sale software to improve your product selection can go a long way towards getting customers in the door, and keeping them around over the long term.

2 Strategies For Improving Profits In Your Service Department

Every dealership wants to be profitable. But if there’s a weak area for most owners, it’s going to be the service department. Between managing techs, managing parts, and overseeing billing, there are plenty of places costs can spiral out of control and opportunities for increasing profit margins can get overlooked.

The good news is that there are plenty of ways you can ensure efficiency and stay on top of your billing and techs in your service department.

Strategy #1: Know Where You’re At

Profitable dealerships always know where they’re at financially. Not knowing where you stand is just like setting out on long journey with no map, and no idea where you’re starting from. It’s just not a smart way to move forward!

Quality OPE office management software allows you to see within seconds exactly where your dealership, and your shop specifically, stands financially. You can keep track of parts inventory, your techs billable hours, and how much work you have scheduled in the days and weeks to come.

Staying on top of these metrics gives you, as an owner, a feeling of control that you simply don’t have without a smart system in place. Plus, having a complete picture of your shop, and where you stand, allows you to spot opportunities for growth, or areas where you could trim costs.

Strategy #2: Stop Real Time Billing

Another smart strategy you can use to make your shop more profitable is to stop real time billing.

Real time billing is when you work on a piece of equipment for ½ hour, and then you charge your customer for ½ hour’s worth of work. The problem with real time billing is that it eats away at your profits.

For instance, you may know that a certain job is going to take your A-level techs half an hour to complete, so that’s what you quote your customer. But what happens when you only have a B-level tech available, and it takes them ¾ hour to do the job? Well, you just lost that ¼ hour.

Dealers that have profitable service departments operate more like car dealerships. They have an extensive list of menu and flat-rate pricing on the bulk of the work they do.

Think about this example: if you’re replacing the center spindle on a zero-turn mower, you know your A-level tech can get this done in about ¼ hour if he’s using a lift. But, you would bill this at ¾ hour. Why? Because there’s a good chance that one of your B-level techs

will be doing this job, and it’s going to take them almost ¾ hour to get it finished.

This not only improves your profits when an A-level tech does this job, but it ensures you’re not losing money when a B-level tech gets involved.

You can manage this by making sure every piece of equipment that’s brought into your shop is looked at by a qualified technician. This way a time and a price has been put on that equipment before it’s processed for service. The advantage to this “triage system” is that technicians know beforehand how much time has been allocated to complete that particular job.

Your technicians should also be keeping track of their time with outdoor power equipment technician software, or at least some kind of time log. Many dealers will use these time logs to spur efficiency and motivation in their techs.

Your service department can be an incredibly profitable part of your dealership. By using quality outdoor power equipment office management software to stay on top of key metrics and by setting up a flat rate pricing system, you’ll ensure that your service department carries their weight in the years to come.

Are You Measuring These Key Metrics In Your Dealership?

When was the last time you looked at the gross profit margin in your service department? Or, for that matter, how long has it been since you measured the profit margin of your showroom compared to your available square footage?

It’s easy for owners to get so wrapped up in the day-to-day workings of their dealerships that they neglect to look at key metrics on a weekly or monthly basis. But, these metrics exist for one purpose: to help you measure the health and forward progress of your business. When you go without looking at them, it’s like trying to sail a ship without a rudder or a map. In other words, it’s not something you want to do unless you actually want to get somewhere.

Successful dealerships use quality outdoor power equipment office software to help them measure these key metrics. OPE office management software can give you access to vital information about your business in just minutes, and can drastically shorten the “information gathering” time you’d spend without it.

So, what should you be looking at on a weekly basis to make sure you’re meeting your goals for the year?

The most important performance indicator that you need to be looking at weekly is your gross profit margin on parts, whole goods, and service. If you do rentals in your dealership, then you also need to look at your gross profit margins in this department as well.

Determining where you need to be will vary slightly with each dealership, but in your service department you should be aiming for a gross profit margin of 50%-55%. Your parts should be 48%-53% for OEM, and for aftermarket 60%-70%.

When it comes to your whole goods, you need to analyze this number as it’s compared to the total square footage of your showroom space.

Another key metric you should be looking at is the management cost per dollar sold in each department. Some dealerships are very small, which means that owners are also working as managers. If this is the case in your dealership, then you need to take into account your salary just as you would a manager that you had working for you full time.

When it comes to the metrics you need to be looking at on a monthly basis, parts aging and inventory turns are probably the most important. Now, doing this without OPE office management software is going to be challenging, which is why so many owners find that investing in quality software is more than worth it.

The reason why it’s so important to look at these two metrics monthly is because it’s so easy to let parts and inventory slide through the cracks, especially during the busy seasons. Most dealers only look at this information at the end of the year, since that’s when they do the bulk of their buying.

Staying on top of the key metrics of your dealership is easy if you have quality software to do the work for you. Even if you don’t, however, it’s vital you spend the time compiling this information. These metrics show you clearly how your business is doing. If you discover that you have aging parts and falling margins, you can take action to fix the problem before things get out of control. And that can make the difference between a thriving, and failing, dealership.

How To Earn More Money In Your Parts Department

Photo © by swanksalot

Every owner knows that managing parts can be an incredible headache. You can have literally thousands of parts stocked, but if they’re the wrong ones then they’re not going to move. And then you’re left with a ton of cash tied up in something that’s just sitting on the shelf.

The good news here is that there are several strategies you can use to make sure that your parts department earns you money consistently.

Strategy #1: Identify Your Biggest Customer

Many dealers make the mistake of thinking that when it comes to parts, their biggest customers are the commercial accounts or individuals that walk through the door. But, this is almost always wrong.

Why?

Because the customer buying the most parts from you is your own service department.

Successful dealerships recognize this, and they earn more simply by structuring their parts department to fit the needs of their service department. Service departments, when run well, can really add to the profitability of a dealership. Your goal should be to make sure the service department has the parts they need on-hand so shop efficiency is improved.

Strategy #2: Don’t Try To Stock Everything

Many dealers try to keep everything they can in stock for when customers walk through the door. Some even strive to have parts on-hand for equipment that’s 30 or 40 years old!
What’s wrong with this?

Well, doing this means you’re trying up money and shelf space on parts that very few, if any, customers will ever come looking for. Even manufacturers don’t have a fill rate of 100%. So why should you?

Focus on the parts your shop needs first, and then on the parts that your customers come looking for most. You can track this information with quality OPE office management software, and this can really take the headache out of looking for this data.

Strategy #3: Create A Reliable Stocking Point

So how do you know which parts you should be stocking? Successful dealerships make it a rule not to keep a part on-hand unless three customers come looking for it within a 70-day period.

This information can be almost impossible to track without good OPE office management software. Your software can record this as a “lost sale” every time a customer comes asking for it, which will allow you to see what people are looking for and which opportunities you’re missing to add revenue to your dealership.

It’s important to stick to the formula of three customers within 70-days. When someone needs a part, many dealers will place an order and then add an extra part on to keep on-hand. But this is how a parts department gets bloated, tying up more revenue and shelf space than it needs to.

Sticking to the guideline of three customers within 70-days will ensure that your department doesn’t get out of control with parts people just aren’t looking for.

Although managing parts can be challenging, using smart strategies and having good OPE office management software can make all the difference.

NEWEST Version of Ideal Business Software Provides Outdoor Power Equipment Dealers with the Latest in Cutting-Edge Technology

Cedar Rapids, IA – April 1, 2010 – Ideal Computer Systems, the leading provider of business management software for Outdoor Power Equipment dealers, is pleased to announce the release of Ideal 7.0 – its most powerful software to date.  Included in this new version is the ability to Schedule Appointments, view Key Performance Indicators on a mobile device, and finance deals with a fully-integrated F&I (Finance and Insurance) package.

“We’ve taken the leading business management software in our industry and just made it even better with the release of Ideal 7.0,” said Dennis Haefner, president of Ideal Computer Systems.  “With the ability to schedule all of your daily appointments and view daily metrics on a mobile device, we’ve immediately saved drastic amounts of time and improved efficiency for the dealer.”

But utilizing some of the new features included in Ideal 7.0, dealers will be able to…

-  Streamline their process for scheduling Work Orders, pickups, and deliveries.

-  Plan automated routes for pick ups and deliveries.

-  Keep tabs on key performance indicators of their business via mobile device from any location.

And much more!

In addition, Ideal 7.0 now includes an optional, fully-integrated F&I package – perfect for any OPE dealer that wants to finance their own unit sales.  The F&I package is loaded with money-making features including an exclusive Menu Selling Option feature that allows dealers to provide several different plans and payment options for their customers to work with.

“For anyone who uses F&I, or is looking to introduce it to their business, our new F&I module is an excellent fit,” said Haefner.  “We spent several months working with F&I specialists to make sure this package was the very best for dealer success.”

For more information about Ideal 7.0, you can request a free demo and information kit today by calling 800-737-1620 or visiting www.idealcomputersystems.com

Saving Money with Strategic Inventory Management

Any outdoor power equipment dealer knows that when it comes to making a profit, inventory management is vital. And in a down economy it becomes even more important. By strategically managing your inventory, however, you can make a big difference in your bottom line.

During the slow time of year, your parts inventory should only be 20% of what your inventory was at peak of the season. For instance, if you carry $300,000 in inventory during peak summer then your off-season inventory should only be around $60,000.

Manufacturers used to be terrible at getting dealers parts on a short notice, so most dealers overstocked so they could service customers better and do repairs. Now, however, A-level manufacturers have a fill rate of 93-95%, and there’s no need to stock parts that you can order in 24-48 hours. We know that dealers love the idea of having the right part in stock every time a customer needs it, but it’s just not a smart practice in a down economy like this one. Even manufacturers don’t have a fill rate of 100% because it would just cost too much money to stock every arcane part. So, your dealership shouldn’t have that goal either.

To save money going into 2010 dealers should change their expectations and shoot for an 80%-85% fill rate at the counter. Doing this helps reduce your costs in inventory. Many dealers structure their parts department to primarily serve the service department. So, in many dealerships the service department becomes the biggest customer of the parts department, buying 60% or more of the parts in the existing inventory.

So what’s the secret to getting rid of your slow moving inventory?

The key is to create a good stocking point. One effective strategy is not to put a part in stock unless you get 3 demands for it within 70 days. And, this includes demands made from the service department. You can monitor these demands easily with good OPE business software.

Another mistake that dealers often make is ordering too many parts to stock when demand is going up. For instance, if you sell 4 parts one season and then 12 the next, you might be tempted to keep at least 6 of those parts in stock. But you have to analyze what’s happening with your customers. The reason they’re buying those parts in the first place is because that particular product is nearing the end of its lifecycle. This means demand is going to go up, and then drop off as that product is replaced. If you have several of those parts in stock, you might be stuck with them.

Overall, it’s vital not to let your parts inventory big in the beginning. It’s important to be as aggressive as possible with the manufacturers to get every part returned that you can, and keep your existing inventory low during the off-season. Investing in good OPE business software can help you strategically manage your inventory so that your dealership thrives during the upcoming year!