Commercial Tire Dealer™
Making it happen Dealers must diferentiate their service and help feets overcome their biggest obstacle – how to save money By Joy Kopcha
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leets place heavy demands on the tire dealers who serve them. Every move, every conversation, comes down to the same question: Can you save them money? “When you look at truck tires, they’re a commodity-based business,” says Scot McKenzie, vice president of the commercial division for Indy Tire Centers Inc. “Tere are a lot of dealers with the same brand. What separates you from your competition is your level of service. All the dealers have the same kinds of services, so it’s your level of service that diferentiates you.” Te Indianapolis-based dealer provides varying levels of service for feets. Some subscribe to the business’ mounted wheel program. Indy Tire Centers provides mounted tires and the feet replaces and installs them as necessary. Other feets rely on Indy Tire Centers to “take care of everything.” Te feet manager establishes a tread depth pull point. When the tire dealer’s service technicians perform maintenance checks and fnd a tire at or below that already-established tread depth, the tire is replaced. No correspondence with the feet is required. Still other feets want to do the tire work themselves, but rely on their dealer for information about the technological advances in tires. Tires are a feet’s second largest expense, behind fuel. “It’s important we stay on top of our game,” McKenzie says. Much of what fleets want — and need — depends on how big they are. “Small feets tend to do stuf more in house because they might have mechanics that have more time.” From McKenzie’s standpoint, small feets are those with 15 to 20 units, or less. A large feet includes at least 100 vehicles. Fleets bigger than that are the exception, he says, though one of Indy Tire Centers’ biggest feets, Ryder System Inc., has been a customer for almost 20 years. Generally, smaller feets need the most help identifying things to reduce their cost per mile, McKenzie says, “whether that’s technology in the tires What do feets want from you? or introducing retreadMTD’s sister publication Heavy Duty ing or a diferent tread Trucking tackles the topic ... 52 in retreading. “Make sure they have Nearly 60 retread products qualify full manufacturer’s supfor the Environmental Protection port. If there are wear Agency’s SmartWay program . . . 54 issues, work with them to see where they’re
Commercial Tire provides feet service to customers from its stores in four states, including a Boise, Idaho, store managed by Scott Schlager, pictured. More feet customers are asking for detailed tire tracking information.
ALSO IN CTD
Indy Tire Centers offers a mounted wheel program for some feets, and delivers the assemblies to those customers. The feet’s only responsibility is to wheel switch the assemblies on and off as the tread depth requires.
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MTD August 2015
