Mar 20, 2019 | Magazine Article
In a recent customer satisfaction survey, 73 percent of customers said they didn’t give up on a company because of poor product quality, poor service, or price. They took their business elsewhere because they didn’t feel appreciated. Many believe customer service and...
Mar 20, 2019 | Magazine Article
You will recognize the title of this article is the popular definition for insanity. Surely that definition doesn’t fit your dealership. I know that you want to be more successful next year than this year and that speaks to the name of a best-selling book What Got You...
Mar 20, 2019 | Magazine Article
Gordon Ramsay of the television show Kitchen Nightmares exposes some of the worst restaurant practices, leadership skills, and building conditions. Unfortunately, many dealerships are cooking up and serving as many unproductive activities and images as those seen on...
Dec 20, 2018 | Magazine Article
THIS TITLE is not an oxymoron. I’m writing this article for two critical reasons: First, feedback is required for us to improve performance. Second, most supervisors cringe at the thought of providing performance feedback to employees. And it gets worse. I’ve talked...
Dec 20, 2018 | Magazine Article
AT A DEALERSHIP, just like any business, there are two critical things required to survive: 1. turn a profit 2. generate cash Yes, many other things are important, including customer experience, employee morale, safety, marketing, and branding, to name a few. However,...
Dec 20, 2018 | Magazine Article
Last fall at a national dealers’ meeting, a manufacturer announced that its dealer network would be reimbursed for warranty service travel expenses. The reimbursement will be for service truck fees or mileage when a technician is traveling to a warranty service job....
Oct 21, 2018 | Magazine Article
Creating a service labor budget can be a stressful and intimidating time for many service managers. In many cases, service managers are comfortable when it comes to technical product knowledge but are less familiar with financial budgeting. For some dealers, the...
Oct 21, 2018 | Magazine Article
As many of you know, time is one of our most precious and expensive resources. Calculate how much it costs the dealership to keep you employed per hour. Then do the same to determine the cost to run the dealership per hour. Research suggests that we lose 25 – 30...
Jun 21, 2018 | Magazine Article
“Are you nuts?” That was the reaction I received when I proposed the idea of selling our equipment dealership. My partners, all in their thirties, were shocked. By their reaction, it was obvious that they were not clear on the reasons behind the suggestion....
Jun 20, 2018 | Magazine Article
“A successful dealership is like a successful sports team – not only should the manager be keeping his/her eye on the ball, but so should each team member.” The above is from Kelly Mathison’s article in the 2018 spring edition of Western Equipment Dealer and it’s...
Apr 21, 2018 | Magazine Article
When it comes to parts and service departments, there is no shortage of metrics to watch so it’s hard to narrow it down to only one. To use a sports analogy, a successful baseball team must do many things well to win. When asked to narrow it down to the most important...
Apr 20, 2018 | Magazine Article
“I just don’t know what to do.” This is a common comment from the calls we are receiving. These calls come from department managers, salespeople, branch managers, dealer principals – every position in the store. The underlying message – they are just lost on what to...
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