Aftermarket Dave Baiocchi
Farewell For the past six years, I have had the distinct honor of writing for Material Handling Wholesaler. When I left my dealership to enter the consulting world in late 2016, I had no idea what to expect. I was well aware of many of the challenges that lie under the surface of the day-to-day operations in a dealership. My own company tackled some of these things head-on, and along the way, found innovative solutions that we never expected. As a consultant, I was able to tie these victories to key “best practices”. I believed then (as I do now), that any dealer, in any marketplace, can be successful if they commit themselves to a “best practice” methodology. Not every dealer faces the same dragons. The challenges are many: • OEM relationships • Undercapitalization • Debt Ratio • Expense control • Personnel issues • Regulatory agencies • Taxes No need to fill up the page. We all get it. The best practices that I focus on in my business are the low-hanging fruit. We many times miss harvesting that fruit because the noise and confusion of the current marketplace tend to drive us toward “problem-focused” activity instead of “process-focused” activity. Please make no mistake, I am not advocating ignoring or discounting existential threats to the health of your dealership. It’s important to always create and deploy countermeasures for known and perceived threats. This is why I advise that dealers utilize a regular SWOT analysis. The issue I see too often however is when the leadership gets so focused on solving individual issues, they lose focus on their core best practice regimen. The processes and accountability measures that undergird profitable day-today, operations, cannot be abandoned for any 10
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September 2022
reason. Problems are actually more easily and sustainably solved when solutions are achieved through the enhancement of best practices….not by subverting them or putting them on hiatus. During my time with RDS, I have assisted many dealers in creating and refining processes that continue to pay handsome dividends today. I have developed programs from the ground up, and have also helped dealers refine and focus existing programs for improved results. RDS has addressed almost every internal and external area of the dealership’s aftermarket departments. • Expansion of customer maintenance programs • Improving the field service customer experience • Refining field service van inventory policies • Service and parts teambuilding and motivation • Compensation programs that engender a unified team • SOP creation (or refinement) • Effective, repeatable industry onboarding Even the best-performing dealerships were not ready for what was waiting for us in Spring 2020. Here we sit over two years later, still trying to cope with the aftermath of the single largest disruption to American business we may ever encounter. Even some of my most trusted metrics and ratios regarding rental assets, sales coverage, and marketing had to be adjusted for this unprecedented interruption to the status quo. While internal metrics (in extreme circumstances) should be adjusted based on market conditions, the “client-facing” processes that govern customer contact, pricing, documentation, internal expenses, and invoicing should be exempt from attenuation, especially when the headwinds blow. My consulting efforts during this COVID interlude were understandably affected. Visiting dealerships, and helping dealers establish new initiatives were really not on the menu during
