FROM THE FIELD
April 2005
How Do You Measure Channel Support?

Much as we’d like to think our industry’s unique, it’s not that unique. We can gather ideas from other industries.

Like the auto industry, for example. Back in January, an automotive roundtable talk show happened to mention the then-upcoming National Automobile Dealers Association annual meeting. It was to be a big deal, panelists said. One of the panel members was predicting some hubbub, noting some NADA dealer members had their noses out of joint about a standardized customer satisfaction survey that NADA had developed for its members. The main concern, apparently, was that data from certain markets might be misinterpreted when bumped against national averages.

So nothing’s perfect, as NADA discovered, but never mind about the haggle points. The idea of an industry-standardized satisfaction survey might be worth a look.

Not that the concept translates perfectly to the equipment and supplies distribution business. New-car dealers generally share similar functions, with similar customer expectations. You walk into the dealership, you have an idea of what you want, you get some technical information, you consider pricing, and you make some decisions. You like how you’re treated, or you don’t. Then later, you either like the ongoing service or you don’t.

Nothing's perfect, as NADA discovered. But the idea of an industry-standardized satisfaction survey is worth a look.

E&S dealers, on the other hand, are a much more diverse lot, with drop-shippers, logistics specialists and full-service dealers performing different functions that would make a standardized yardstick difficult to apply. A replacement transaction is one thing; staging and managing a kitchen project is something else.

But there’s common ground, too. The auto biz is a big-ticket industry with a huge support component, not unlike the equipment side of E&S. Auto and E&S distribution also share OEM/OCM issues, fierce price/service challenges, and both are dominated by independently owned dealerships (multiunit or not). And besides, satisfaction is satisfaction.

So some industry-standard measurement might be interesting, at least for certain types of dealerships and certain types of transactions. What exactly would such a survey address? It’d have to be short, that’s for sure. Nobody wants to fill out more than a page. But even a page could provide useful information.

Maybe one form for “street” transactions could measure such things as courtesy, consultative assistance, quality and correctness of any applicable delivery/installation services and timeliness of those services. Something like that.

And maybe a different form could be used for “project” business. It’d cover all the topics listed above, plus any staging or other logistical issues.

As in most surveys, reading data too closely would miss the point, of course. But at the very least, a dealer could read it for trending. Rising scores would indicate improvements. Falling scores would be a warning sign. Not rocket science. And the big benefit over locally developed customer surveys would be that, in the broad sense, dealers could get a rough idea of how they compare to industry averages.

It’s hard to improve what you cannot measure. Standardizing some of the measuring tools could only help.

Brian Ward
Chief Editor