From the Magazine: ‘Your customer is the most important part of your day’
With a focus on their professional customers and aspirations for only getting better, The St. Catharines branch of Motorcade Industries is the 2024 Jobber of the Year
The customer isn’t just a means to an end for a business. They’re the beating heart of the company, the very reason an automotive parts distributor opens the doors every morning.
And taking that task seriously is what separates the good stores from the great ones. They don’t approach customer service with a transactional mindset — it’s a relationship that is formed over time, one in which trust is developed and secured, all while ensuring the customer is given what they need for their automotive service and repair shop to be successful.
That’s what’s happening at the St. Catharines, Ont., branch at Motorcade Industries and it’s why they’re the 2024 Jobber of the Year.
A customer-centric approach is evident in every facet of the branch’s operations, from the store’s physical expansion to the way manager Shannon Black and her team manage expectations and build long-lasting relationships.
She has cultivated a family-like atmosphere where employees and customers alike feel valued and respected. It’s a philosophy that has not only helped the Motorcade branch thrive, but has also set a standard for what automotive parts distribution can and should be.
Running a successful automotive parts business is about more than just selling parts, Black explained. It’s about putting the customer first and fostering a family-like atmosphere where employees and customers alike feel valued and respected.
“The big picture is the same: Your customer is the most important part of your day,” she said. “Getting them the parts they need affects their business. And they’re more than just your customer.”
This customer-centric approach is evident in the way the store has grown over the years, expanding its 15,000-square-foot store to better accommodate the ever-changing needs of its clients.
They serve the entire Niagara region, a large geographical footprint with Lake Ontario to the north and Lake Erie to the south, with 30 inside staff, seven company drivers and 27 broker drivers. Being able to serve a diverse group of clients with a large variety of needs meant the store had to be able to accommodate all sorts of requests.
While she admitted that she places a heavy focus on keeping items in stock, no one can keep every product needed in the warehouse. That’s why the store makes two trips to Toronto and back every day to get the parts their customers need.
And to stay focused on their key customers, they don’t accept any retail requests — everything is wholesale.
“Our customer base is on-hoist orders for automotive shops and we don’t really deal with retail at all,” Black explained. “We have a few people we may have dealt with a long, long time ago that might have been at a shop at one time and maybe they have their own business. But besides that, it’s just professional and wholesale.”
Expectations
The branch typically gets a part off the shelf and out the door in six minutes. That’s how they see themselves as standing out from the crowd.
However, customer expectations need to be managed. Not every part will arrive immediately and not every part is in the warehouse. Black emphasized the importance of under-promising and over-delivering.
“I teach these guys to under-promise, over-deliver, but I also teach these guys that they have rapport,” Black explained. “I’ve probably been talking to a lot of these customers for 30 years, and I have people on the desk that have the same amount of experience.”
But even for a newer member of the staff who hasn’t been around that long, Black imparts to them the need to develop a relationship with the customer.
“You talk to these people every single day — they become more than just a customer,” she said. “And we have the best customer base. We’re not dealing with retail. Our customers are wonderful. They really are. If they’re upset, there’s a reason for it. You deal with it. And we really don’t have a lot of issues with our customers.”
This long-standing relationship with customers is a point of pride for Black, who sees them as more than just clients.
“My main business philosophy is that that person on the other side of the phone is your best friend,” she said. “They are the person that pays your paycheck. They take care of us. We need to take care of them.”
Developing that rapport is crucial for staff. Not every phone call that comes in needs to be strictly business — and it often never always is.
“Right off the bat, the people on the other end of the phone like to joke around, or they talk sports or they even [sass] each other a little bit — but they have fun. Really, in a day, we have a lot of fun,” Black explained.
And that’s important because when you feel that the customer is your friend, you want to do more for them.
“They are not to tell the customer that they can’t get [a part] until they’ve asked two other co-workers. And it’s a normal thing. You’ll hear them down there, ‘Hey, I can’t find this. I’ve tried this, this and this. What do you think?’”
One of the key members of the team was Nick Nedeff. He was with the Motorcade branch for 50 years, coming in to work every day, even until he few months before died in 2017 at the age of 93. He only took one vacation and that was to attend the wedding of a close relative
“Nick poured his heart and soul into this store,” Black said. “He was a lot of fun to joke around with and an amazing mentor.”
It speaks to the close-knit nature of the team at the branch. “People like to get up in the morning and look forward to coming to work,” Black explained.
Staffing
No doubt that staffing remains the top challenge for Motorcade St. Catharines. But when you have such a great relationship with your customers, they become your advocates. Black explained that her shop clients will often recommend people come work for her.
But even so, the challenge is to make sure they fit in within the culture that the branch has set — it’s a team that will go out for dinners together or have a group outing. So she developed strategies to ensure she brings on individuals who will thrive in the branch’s close-knit environment.
For example, she’ll bring in a potential new hire for a day with pay and see how they fit in. And she can tell pretty quickly when someone just isn’t the right fit for the place. But when they are, it clearly shows.
“One thing that sticks out with the young people I have now is they get excited,” Black said. She’s seen her younger staff get pumped about the journey to look for a part they have trouble finding at the start.
“Then they actually come up with a part. At the end, they get excited. That right there shows how much they care. And that’s huge.”
She has other staff members who had no knowledge of working the counter and wanted to learn. They came to her and said, “‘If I don’t have enough experience, then how do I get experience?’” Black recalled. “And they’re just very driven. And you can see that, as opposed to somebody that’s not.”
But they’re also not thrown into the fire. A person new to the role will always sit with a more experienced staff member until Black feels they’re good enough to be on their own.
And all staff will back each other up. If one parts picker is sick or they’re busy, someone will be there to help keep things moving.
“You talk to these people every single day — they become more than just a customer. And we have the best customer base. We’re not dealing with retail. Our customers are wonderful. They really are. If they’re upset, there’s a reason for it. You deal with it.”
Background
Black is a long-time veteran of the auto care sector. She began her career as an automotive technician. But after having her first child, she moved into the management side of things at a local car dealership where she held roles such as parts manager and service manager. After moving on to another dealership which later closed, the opportunity came up to run this Motorcade branch. She went up against 18 other candidates — all men.
Facing a male-dominated field, one might expect Black to have encountered significant obstacles, but she maintains that her gender was never an issue. “It was a long process. But no, it was very professional, and it was probably the best interview that I’ve ever been to,” she says.
Black’s unwavering confidence and competence have been the driving forces behind her success, not only in landing and thriving in the role at Motorcade, but in navigating the male-dominated automotive industry as a whole.
“I’ve never had any issues, not at all. The people I’ve worked with who have seen how hard I worked, that has never been an issue,” she said. “It’s more of an issue from outside looking in, [like] the people that you’re working on their vehicle. Never with the people that I’ve actually worked with.”
Now, with 16 years under her belt at Motorcade, Black has become a respected leader in the industry, her passion and dedication serving as an inspiration to those around her.
Supporting their customers’ efforts
While Motorcade’s St. Catharine’s branch may focus on providing top-notch service and parts to its wholesale customers, the store also takes pride in its involvement within the local community and the broader automotive industry.
Rather than lead their own initiative, they look to support the causes that are close to their customers’ hearts. For example, Black noted, one customer is involved with a women’s support centre in Niagara Falls and they sold raffle tickets on their behalf to help out.
But they also support their customers’ efforts to improve their own operations. Black explained that the Niagara area is different than others — there are many smaller, privately-owned shops in the area. They have a strong and loyal customer base.
The COVID-19 pandemic shifted how some of these shops operate. “I think everybody realized what was important. I really do. I realized there was a lot of getting back to basics, getting back to family time.”
That meant closing the shop on weekends or taking long weekends when desired. The shop’s customer base was so strong that they could do those things — but only if Motorcade’s St. Catharines branch was able to help these shops get those customers serviced while the doors were open.
“It’s become very different because people have started to take extra long weekends and close their doors on Saturdays,” Black said. “And we support them in any way possible that we could.”
Advice
As with every Jobber of the Year Award winner, Black was asked what advice she would give to her peers.
“Respect is huge, and it goes both ways. If you give respect, you get respect,” she said.
And that goes for both staff and customers. There needs to be respect provided by both ends. It shows that you care.
“If they’re in a bind and they need something, we will do absolutely everything we can to get them what they need,” Black said.
It doesn’t matter if the customer made the mistake — if they did, then you should do everything you can to help them get out of the bind — and if you made the mistake, accept responsibility and move on.
“That goes a long way. Honesty and respect for everyone,” Black said.
This article originally appeared in the November issue of Jobber News
The post <span style=color:#ff0000>From the Magazine:</span> ‘Your customer is the most important part of your day’ appeared first on Auto Service World.