PARTS PRIZE: From left, Larry DeHoop; Steve Brenton, C.F.O. Slotegraaf Group; John Slotegraaf, President, Slotegraaf Group; John Croft, Parts Sales Manager Volvo/Mack; Boyd Brenton, Slotegraaf VP.

MISSISSAUGA — Lunch was “on the house” for staff at the Mack/Volvo dealer Performance Equipment Friday  of last week as the brass from head office dropped in to officially present the parts department with the Mack/Volvo  Canadian Parts Dealer of the Year Award.

Larry DeHoop is Corporate Parts Manager for the parent company, the Slotegraaf Group,  which owns Mack, Volvo and Hino dealerships in several centers around Southern Ontario.  

And if he runs his department anything like he responds to requests for information, it’s small wonder he got the prize. 

Because when todaystrucking.com asked DeHoop to share some of his secrets for success, he was more than forthcoming. So here’s an (abridged) version of what makes his parts people so great:

“I feel that our customer service level is far and above anything out in the market place. From the live voice of the receptionist that answers the phone, to our highly trained counter staff [not only on product, but customer service skills as well].

“This coupled with the fact that we have a 50,000- sq.ft. warehouse / training centre located in Cambridge where we store trailer loads of product that we buy in bulk to get ‘the good guy ‘ price, in turn we pass the savings on to the customer to drive extra parts business.

“A couple of examples of this would be our ‘partnership’ with Fleetguard Filters and Chevron Oil. This warehouse is centrally located to our five dealerships in Southern Ontario [Cambridge, London, Stoney Creek, Mississauga, and Etobicoke].

“We also have a 12-bay collision repair shop located in Cambridge that doubles as a P.D.I. centre for all of our branch’s new truck departments. This ensures consistency in all of our new truck delivery processes.
 
Another reason I feel we are successful is the focus from the ownership of the company. Their focus is really aimed at our Service and Parts departments.

“All of our parts and service counter staff go through a program called ‘Aftermarket Edge’. This is a customer-service training process specifically aimed at truck dealership parts-and-service departments.

“They even go through the process of a ‘secret shopper’ to make sure we are using what we have been taught.

“Another new program is called MVSELECT. This is an online customer ordering system where a customer logs on to a website, uses a given user name and password and has the ability to order their own parts directly from the parts department.

“It shows their specific price, quantity on hand, as well as all of our other locations quantity on hand. They can review or print historical invoices, create their own parts list, price parts etc. 

“Tied into this MVSELECT system is a program called “IMPACT”. This gives the customer the ability to look up parts for the specific Mack’s and or Volvo’s in their fleet. They also have access to the service side of the business for repair or diagnostics on their fleet.

“No need to buy expensive service manuals that are outdated once they are printed. These are the same tools that the service and parts departments use each day to look up parts, or fix trucks in our own dealerships. All this and at no charge.”