To run your equipment dealership well, you need a powerful dealer management system in which the equipment is central. Because only then can you make the best decisions for your business and for your customers.
Tracking objects from cradle to grave
Focusing on the equipment allows you to follow it from cradle to grave and analyze it from every angle. That way, you know what happens to each equipment object throughout its life cycle. Which parts are replaced? What are the costs and revenues? What rental and service contracts are associated with the object? Which mechanic performed which maintenance and what were his or her observations? All the information you collect during the object's life cycle remains linked to the object and insightful at all times.
Optimal cooperation between departments
Finance, administration, sales, rental, service, field service - every equipment dealer, large or small, has multiple departments that in many cases function separately from one another. Each with its own system and its own data on which decisions are made. But this is inefficient and ineffective. By working with one powerful dealer management system as a company with the equipment at its core, you significantly improve internal cooperation. Service technicians link sales opportunities to sales, rental planning sees accounts receivable status, salespeople see outstanding complaints and work orders, etc. And in the process, everyone is looking at the same complete, real-time information instead of limited information from their own department.
"With equipment central to your DMS, you make decisions based on complete information."
Making fully informed decisions
And that's the next big advantage: with equipment centralized in your DMS, you make decisions based on complete information. Think, for example, about the right moment to take an object out of the rental fleet and make it available for sale. Or an analysis of used parts per model type. At many equipment dealers, decisions are made based on experience and gut feeling. But that doesn't outweigh the hard truth of numbers. Data-driven decisions deliver demonstrably better results for equipment dealers.
Providing the best customer service
Happy customers...that's what it's all about in the end. But equipment centralized in a strong dealer management system is going to help you with that, too. A few examples:
- A customer wants a rental property that is no longer available, but you can look for an alternative property that can also get the job done.
- There is an object at a customer's site that needs to be repaired and the service planner sees that a mechanic is going to the customer tomorrow for maintenance. The repair can be scheduled after that just fine.
- One of your salespeople is on his way to a customer, but sees that there is an outstanding complaint about a service invoice. The salesperson resolves this complaint for the customer even before he or she sits down to close a sales deal.
- A mechanic comes to repair an object and is asked by the customer to also inspect another unknown object. The mechanic creates the object, creates a work order, and all this information is immediately visible to the back office.
In short, equipment must be central to your DMS for optimal operations. This is necessary to work quickly, make the right decisions and provide that little bit of extra service.
