C ONFESSI ONS OF A R ETAIL ER
Keeping Your Pipeline Moving: Part 4 By Donovan Bankhead In Part 1 of “Keeping Your Pipeline Moving” (January 2018 issue, p. 80), we discussed the most important pipeline: your people. In Part 2 (August 2018, p. 42), we discussed the sales pipeline. In Part 3 (January issue, p. 70), we discussed lessons. In Part 4, we will talk about keeping your repair pipeline full. Those of us who’ve been in music retail for more than two decades will remember that in the old days, your repair department was a loss leader, something you did to build traffic in your retail stores so that customers would come in and make purchases. And while a quality repair department will still certainly do that, I feel that, in today’s ecommerce age, it’s important for your physical services, such as repair, to be profit centers in their own right. Those of you who do a large part of your business in school service rentals will still have a high labor cost when contrasted to the “paid-for” repair that your techs are doing, but if you factor any monthly maintenance income you are receiving into your repair shop profits, you can likely flip that number around to make that department profitable. But let’s focus on how to get more walk-in repair business. Before we begin, let me come clean and admit that, like many of my good ideas, these are borrowed from other people who have demonstrated a proven ability in this area. Folks like Robert Christie from A&G Central Music, author of “Retailing Better” in this magazine, and Scott Mandeville from Tim’s Music have been big resources for me. This, in fact, is my first tip: Find people who are doing this successfully and reach out to them for advice. Some of the key concepts that I’ve learned and that we’ve used at Springfield Music are: 42
When customers bring in their instruments for repair, train your salespeople and your repair staff to open the case and see what items are in there currently. Is there an adequate fresh supply of lubricants, cloths, tuners, metronomes, extra strings, rosin, etc.? Those small, high-margin items really add up, especially when looked at on an annualized basis. You also want to make sure that, during the check-in process, your staff is asking the customer what the trouble spot is so that your technician can be sure to address it. Maybe it’s just us, but we’ve had times where a customer is complaining about something that wasn’t really a problem, and thus, the tech didn’t address it, which creates disappointment with the customer when they get the instrument back, only to find that the “problem” wasn’t addressed. Estimates. Think of how a high-quality auto mechanic runs their shop. In fact, it might be worth a field trip to one of the better mechanics in your area to see how they operate. I bet if you ask around, you’ll find a shop that will be happy to show you how they operate their business if it would help a non-competitive business thrive in their town (bring coffee and doughnuts/bagels to show your appreciation). We have found that estimating the repair is better left to the technicians and not the salesperson. We ask customers to drop off their instruments and let them know they will receive a phone call to discuss the estimate. In order to make the best use of our repair technician’s time, we try not to pull them off the bench to do estimates. We have found this to be more efficient, and it allows us to more accurately assess what the instrument needs. I recommend that you train your technicians to give the customer a few options for repair: • The Works: This is everything that is needed to make the instrument play like new again. • Optimal: This includes the basics, plus a few additional services that will make a demonstrable difference to the look, feel and playability of the instrument. • The Basics: This is the bare minimum that is needed to solve the issue that brought the instrument into the shop that day. I recommend presenting them in the order I have shown here: best, better and good. Due to the concept of price anchoring, by starting at the top, you’ll find many more customers will choose the “best” and “better” options combined than the “good” option. Marketing. For most of us, our repair departments are not visible to the customer. If they don’t see that you offer repairs, then many will assume that you don’t. Certainly, if you could make your repair shop more visible in your store without impeding the workflow of your repair technicians, this would be a great idea! Like a restaurant with an open kitchen, you can see what’s going on, but you aren’t going back there to talk to the cooks. But for the rest of us, using social media to show before-and-after pictures of repairs you have completed is a great way to show off the skill of your technicians and the services that your store provides. Using Facebook and Instagram are great, low-cost ways to show what you offer. Doing so will help earn top-of-mind awareness with your customers when the time comes to service their instrument(s). These tips have helped us to create a strong, profitable repair department in all of our stores, but I’d love to read what you are doing to grow the profits in your repair shop. Share your ideas with me by emailing me at donovan@musicretailconsulting.com. JUNE 2019