Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/86182
Best Practices Employees of James River Equip- ment's Charlotte, N.C., branch receive recognition as SatisfYd's top rated service department, based on customer satisfaction. Success by Any Measure What two best-in-class product support departments are doing to improve customer service BY JOANNE COSTIN Would your customers recommend your dealer- ship to a friend or colleague? Research has shown this to be a key question in measuring customer satisfaction, and in fact, some researchers say the answer could even predict your success. More than a 1,000 dealers routinely ask this question of their Parts and Service Department customers using the SatisfYd survey process. SatisfYd recently honored the top scoring Parts and Service Departments, so we caught up with the highest scoring dealers to learn the secrets of their success. Flint Equipment Company, Macon, Ga., Branch: Best Parts Department Good Relationships and Parts Availability Work Hand-in-Hand to Create Customer Satisfaction Customers of Flint Equipment Company's Macon, Ga., branch voted a resounding "yes" when it came to recom- mending the dealership's Parts Department – virtually 100 percent of the customers surveyed would recommend them. What's the secret to getting and maintaining good scores? "There is no secret," said Chris Cannon, president of Flint Equipment Co. "It's blocking and tackling every day. It's being consistently good managers and hiring good counter folks." Flint Equipment uses customer experience surveys to identify less-than-satisfied customers. Results are forwarded to branch managers who work to resolve any 50 | www.cedmag.com | Construction Equipment Distribution | October 2012 issues immediately. The company also examines results on a quarterly basis across all of the company's locations. Manager of Product Support Operations Don Tracy credits the long-term relationships that Macon branch employees have with their customers as one of the primary reasons for their stellar survey results. "They interact very well with customers," said Tracy. "It proves that staying in the same place and coming through for customers time and again allows you to develop relation- ships. It doesn't matter what the problem is. Customers come back to you." According to Tracy, successful parts personnel must not only anticipate parts needs based on machine population in their service area, but also recognize how failed parts interact with other parts on the machine and to deter- mine what is needed. Macon's parts counter salesperson Shane Densmore worked in the Macon branch since 1984 as service technician and field technician before transfer- ring to parts in 2004. "It's very difficult to find someone with that kind of knowledge," said Tracy. According to Cannon, the biggest complaint among customers is parts availability. "Every dealer can't have parts 100 percent of the time, so it becomes a difficult situation for the customer. There's an expectation to have the part on the shelf," said Cannon. The more diverse your product line and customer base, the bigger the challenge and investment needed to keep parts on the shelves. Since 2009, Flint Equipment has