The importance of parts education
While our main offering is a parts inventory management and optimization tool, one of our other core missions is to provide free helpful, accessible, and ongoing parts education to all operations and individuals in our business. After working within the parts departments of dealerships across the country for over 20 years, we’ve witnessed an unbelievable lack of parts education- especially online. With an industry as ever-changing as ours, ongoing education is crucial to the health, wealth, and long-term success of your parts department not to mention overall dealership health. We often see parts and service overlooked by upper management, but it’s important to remember the parts department is responsible for just about 50% of overall dealership profits. Not only that, as times get tougher economically, customers are holding on to vehicles longer than ever creating a higher-than-ever demand for ongoing maintenance and repairs. Here’s why parts education is crucial for your dealership and how to implement a plan for consistent learning and growth.
Times They Are (always) A-Changin’
In a recent poll we conducted on LinkedIn it was good to see that 80% of respondees said they invest in parts training monthly, but unfortunately, 20% said only yearly or every few years. As is the case with most things, effective parts management is constantly faced with unexpected shifts in staffing, dealership policies, inventory management software, and larger market region and global market changes – just to name a few. In our opinion, monthly parts education is a MUST for staying ahead of the time and remaining on a proactive instead of a reactive course in your parts department.
Strength in perspective
One of the avenues of parts education that can be most impactful is training and/or support groups that allow folks to learn from each other’s experiences and discuss challenges together. The ability to brainstorm with colleagues and gain larger market insight and inspiration can be extremely impactful, motivating, and productive in continuing to pursue the healthiest possible inventory and operation. Speaking of groups, after our recent 7 week workshop, attendees expressed an interest in creating a digital meeting space to brainstorm opportunities and challenges in the business together. Enter: The Parts People Meetup! Launching November 17th 2022, we welcome everyone at the dealership to join and get to know your peers and parts department a little better. Reserve your free spot here.
Training vs ongoing support
While one-time workshops and training are a great way to stay up to date on best practices and industry changes, it can sometimes be tough to implement what can feel like a firehose of information in the day-to-day operation. That’s why we recommend operations find a resource for ongoing support for real-life issues and questions that arise in their departments. Whether it’s a colleague or a service like PartsEdge, find a way to give your parts departments the balance of training and on-demand support.
With PartsEdge you get access to on-demand expert part support every day. We help our clients with questions, run reports, and so much more. We have helped countless dealerships improve their parts expertise and inventory health through daily optimizations and support and custom matrixes. Our powerful monthly parts inventory optimization tool was designed by a Parts Manager and a DMS specialist who witnessed the gap between the demands on Parts Managers and the lack of resources to get everything done. PartsEdge saves Parts Managers hundreds of hours each year by taking all the guesswork out of DMS management and sourcing setup and optimization allowing them to focus on creating a successful operation. As a result, our clients see an average 20% drop in total inventory, 15% less idle inventory, a 50% increase in ROI, and a 20% increase in parts sales. If you’re ready to put our parts powertool to work, send us a message! Our testimonials speak for themselves.
