Something y'all aren't considering, or are unaware of.

Every Ford Dealer I worked for over 35 years, and every other dealer (Ford or not) that I'm aware of, answer all the telephone calls first, because most of the calls are from wholesale accounts.

One does not want to p!ss off wholesale accounts by putting them on hold while attempting to help walk-in customers, some of which are clueless, so it takes more time to wait on them.

Wholesale accounts, when put on hold (referred to as "put on ignore" in the biz), will soon hang up, taking their business elsewhere to buy parts.

Auto-Zone, Kragens and other chain autoparts stores have killed off many of the indie autoparts stores and are now delivering parts to dealers, body shops and garages...wholesale accounts.

35-40% of the monthly $ sales figures from wholesale accounts are the norm with dealers. Walk-in customers only produce about 10% of the dealers monthly $ sales figures. Their shops produce the rest.

Since the chain autoparts stores have no new car dept, no garage or body shop, I would assume that 80-85% of their monthly $ sales figures are gleened from...wholesale accounts.

 

Wow it has been a while since I heard "put on ignore"!

Right on the money about taking care of your wholesale accounts. They are your bread and butter. The shop I go to everyone understands that because a majority of the customers are wholesale accounts. It's just part of the deal. Just put yourself in place of the person calling in.

I always try to support the mom & pop stores first, then I hit the chains. I always try to buy local first but sometimes it is impossible so I go to the internet and buy things. Besides the dedicated sites such as classic haulers I use Speedway motors and of course jegs and/or summit.

jim

 

Very true Bill, and understandable. But, (there's always a but) Most "Dealerships" have a person(s) designated for the wholesale work, just as they typically have at least one person designated for the front counter(public) and at least one person for the mechanics counter (and bodyshop counter). I've worked in my share of dealerships.

When I take the time to go to a parts store, live and in person, I shouldn't have to wait in line (repeatedly) for the phone in customers.

Most of the time when I'm looking or something oddball or something that might work. I'll use the online databases for NAPA, AZ, O'Reiley's etc. Once I find the part I need, I'll call the local store to do a parts check and see if they have it in stock. That way I can just stop in the store and pick it up and not have to deal with hassle.

Bobby

 

This comment was not aimed at auto zone or any other chain store .Just at the way so much of our American businesses are using other countries to sell their products when we have a huge number of our own Americans out of work. I don't use AZ much because the closest store is over 20 miles away and the NAPA store is 2 miles away. I do not like it if i am ready to pay for something and the person helping me grabs the phone and makes me stand there with cash in hand while they look up a number of parts for somebody. They should put them on hold and finish with me even if they have a big buying customer on line. I don't care if that's at a chain store or a big auto dealer store,i was there first and i went out of my way to drive there. O.K. nuff said.

 

My favorite Advance Auto experience was on a Sunday afternoon last year. I was having trouble with my F-2 and figured out the condenser was the problem. Easy simple part to find even for a AZ counter person, wrong. I go in and tell the counter guy I wanted a condenser for a '49 Ford truck with a flathead six. He goes through 4-5 windows on his computer and some what condescendingly tells me '49 Fords didn't come with condensers. I twist his monitor slightly so I could better see the screen and he has the air conditioner system screen up. I inform him I know that they didn't come with air conditioning, I'm looking for an "ignition" condenser. That must have confounded him because he still couldn't find it. Lucky for me another counter guy came up, found out what I was looking for and told the first guy what shelf the part was on.

 

Councilman, I don't deserve "what I get" when standing in line AND being ignored at my local parts house. I did not ask for the "cheapest part possible" as I would gladly pay for quality parts when given the option. I frequent the larger chain stores for the exact reasons that Mountaindoc has outlined above, hours of availability, etc. After 15 years in the automotive service industry I tend to take offense when I get transfered to INDIA for support needed in my hometown store....Please remember that this forum is made up of hard working (maybe a few slackers) men and women that happen to love American built trucks from a time when America was prosperous and proud.
Thanks for stopping by,
Wade

 

Hey! Are you inferring I'm a slacker!!! Them are fightin' words buddy!!

See, now that sarcasm!!

 

Now THAT is funny!
w

 

I use autozone whenever I can, I have an autozone rewards card. I use it whenever I buy stuff for me or others. Others meaning the older kids brake jobs,friends when I do anything on their vehicles. it gives you money back in points. then occasionally I get a treat when I go to buy a fourty dollar part and it only costs me 10 ! thats like Christmas in the summer!
Overpriced Groceries at Walmart? and Kroger? And Local small stores? its everywhere! I don't like the price of fuel either! And my freakin house taxes go up every dang year! I am about to make a lean-to in the woods somewhere, make me a bow and arrow, kill me a deer for a loin cloth.
oh I gotta hook up with arrowhead fred first...bottom line is I don't know what to do about it...all I do know is that when I get paid, it just disappears into the "ETERNAL VACUUM CLEANER" aka checking acct.
okay well back to work!

 

When I first moved to Morgan Hill CA, the NAPA distribution center for the Western states was in town. Our local Napa could get just about anything in an hour. Politics and business practices move the dist center to Fresno and Salt Lake City (I think), so we're back to one or two day orders on strange parts. We also had a locally owned store that had the same counter guys for 23 years....they were bought out by Carquest. I'm pretty sure that the old timers were offered counter jobs at minimum wage. O'Reilly did hire in one of the guys & they seem to have a lot of stuff in stock. AZ is building a new store, so we'll have 4 major parts chain stores in a town of 35,000 people.

If you think about it, just about every great company in the US changes for the worse when the founder retires and hands the reins to a board of directors whose primary job is to keep stockholders happy.

 

Funny you should mention that as we have the 4 majors here plus a mom and pop organization. AS one of the guys said when talking about the AA store coming into town, The slice of the pie got smaller as the number of buyers has stayed about the same. Enventually somebody is going to feel the pinch.

jim

 

Very rarely have I seen a better situation where a bigger company moves in and either swallows a small local company or forces them out of the local market. Some may argument that doing this allows for better pricing, which is true but the cost usually exchanged is poorer service and eventually lowering quality. The auto parts industry isn't alone. Look at banking, an independent neighborhood bank is as rare as a locally owned auto parts store. I left a bank because it changed names 5 times in the eight years I did business with. I rarely saw the same personel when I'd go in once a week. Finally, the last time they were bought out by a even bigger bank they implemented new banking procedures, that was it, we moved to another smaller bank in town but who knows who will be running that one next week. For now I see the same people and they greet me by name.

I run a business in the industrial control industry for over ten years. In this time almost all of my suppliers, which were locally family owned were bought out by larger regional corporations. In the past all of these business would have customer appreciation days with very nice lunches and other promotions and I knew the counter people and salesmen by name. Now every time I go in there is some one new at the counter and I rarely see my salesman. The customer appreciation days are a thing of the past. Also, I've noticed overall service and delivery has gone down. Parts orders get screwed up and there seems to be little concern about correcting the problems.

So it seems to be a societal problem across the board. I'm a very conservative person but I think the take over by the large conglomerates is not a good thing.

 

I think one of the core problems is that every year a new crop of graduates with shiny new MBA degrees shows up at all of the corporations. The culture that they've created says that they all have to do something right now to show that they're worth their salt.

That means that if you work for a corporation, you can expect a cut here or there....medical insurance deductables will go up. Free sodas in the company fridge will go away. Any perk that employees had will disappear. And....yes....customer appreciation days are a thing of the past....they cost money!! Think of all of the wasted wages of the employees who take a half hour off to eat a hot dog while they yak with customers.

 

I don't like the idea of an offsite call center, and I would let them know. I've found that my success in getting the correct parts isn't the name on the store, it's the people. My favorite napa has one guy, Dusty, that I always go to. If he's not there, the manager at oreillys is good, and there's a good guy at AZ. If I get bad service there, or at any chain business, I go up the ladder to make my complaints.

 

Yep- I agree.