Three Main Revenue Streams: Wholesale, Service and Retail
Wholesale, Service, and Retail. Each of these customer types requires a different approach in order to ensure satisfaction. If your parts department can deliver an incredible experience to each customer, you can solidify yourself as a go-to provider for parts, build customer loyalty, and supercharge your revenue streams for years to come.
1) Service
Have the Part They Need
Knowing how your parts sell is essential to quickly and efficiently providing for your service
department. Leveraging historical sales figures and other data insights allows you to have a sharper eye for what you should keep in your inventory. This results in less obsolescence, a happier service department, more part sales, and more revenue coming into the dealership.
If You Don’t Have the Parts, Get Them Quickly
Where will you order the part from? How quickly can you get it for the car that’s up on a lift? RevolutionParts’ Local Delivery tool is a great way to quickly acquire parts from nearby suppliers, and part deliveries in as little as 1 hour can make a world of difference in providing for your service department.
Drive Parts Customers to the Service Department
When you have a customer who calls to inquire about a part, you have to do what you can to maximize the value of that interaction. Ask the caller what kind of repair they’re doing: if you have a better idea of the customer’s goals, you have an opportunity to add more parts or accessories to the sale. You can even use our Quoting Tool to build a customized quote for the customer, send it to their email and allow them to complete the transaction online.
Additionally, you should always advise the customer to come to the dealership for service. This requires a sales-minded parts staff — coach your parts advisors to make consistent use of the Quoting Tool and invite customers into the dealership for service to maximize the value of each interaction.
2) Retail
Embrace Digital Sales
Consumers have changed the way they shop forever, and there’s no turning back. That means if you don’t offer an online shopping option to your retail customers, then you’re effectively putting a ceiling on your sales potential. Launching an online presence for your part and accessory business is a huge undertaking, but the experts at RevolutionParts are here to help!
Have Good Customer Support
If a customer has a question about a part, are you available on the other end of the phone or computer to give them the information they need? Furthermore, can you get them an answer immediately? There are few things more important than being available to assist your customers, so make sure you have a process in place to quickly respond to any inquiries you might get throughout the day.
With plenty of online shopping options, leaving a customer hanging for too long will cause them to go somewhere else and likely never return. Likewise, communication shouldn’t end after the sale is made — you should be accessible to your customers throughout the process until their order arrives at their front doorstep.
Use Competitive Pricing
Online part and accessory pricing is much different than brick and mortar store pricing. The digital landscape is more competitive and demands lower pricing, but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. While the profit you collect on each individual sale may be less than what you would collect by selling that same part at the retail counter, it can be offset by additional profits from shipping, or from incentives you might obtain by moving more volume.
Provide Fast Fulfillment
The Amazon effect has completely altered customer expectations of order fulfillment. In order to stay competitive with platforms that stake their business on getting packages to their customers’ front doors in two days, you have to be diligent and organized. Ensure orders are processed quickly and efficiently, and if there’s any sort of delay or issue, communicate with your customers so they can adjust their expectations.
3) Wholesale
Use Strategic Pricing
Your wholesale customers purchase a high volume of parts from you, so they expect priority pricing. But do you have a strategic approach to how you’re pricing these parts to ensure both parties receive maximum benefit? Be sure to offer your wholesale customers fair pricing that contributes to your revenue goals and keeps them coming back to you.
Provide Fast Service
For a mechanic, speed is everything. If you get a call from one of your frequent wholesale customers saying they need a part right away to complete a repair, you need to have the resources and processes set in place to fulfill their needs. You will want to receive orders and have an infrastructure that allows you to deliver that part immediately.
Offer Reliable Parts Delivery
Can your wholesale customers depend on you every single time to get them the correct part, deliver it quickly, and give them great pricing? Your delivery fleet might not have the bandwidth to guarantee speedy service every time, so leverage the Local Delivery feature within your RevolutionParts account to “wow” your wholesale customers by getting to them faster, instead of leaving them waiting. This guarantees your customer gets exactly what they need quickly, solidifying your spot as their go-to parts provider.