Repeat Business for Forklift Dealerships: How to be Comebackable

Forklifts in the Wild

I bookmarked a LinkedIn post three weeks ago and now I keep thinking about it.

Jon Acuff met Dolly Parton. He wanted to put this photo on his driver's license if the DMV weren't so strict. I laughed out loud, saved it to the folder where I keep other people's writing I intend to steal, and moved on.

Then Monday happened.

So I went looking for the forklift in it.

Dolly gave away more than 200 million books through the Imagination Library. Every one of those books sat on a pallet in a warehouse and got moved by somebody on a forklift.

Then I spent twenty minutes looking for material handling words that rhyme with Jolene. Gasoline, machine, routine, clean. Then I made myself stop.

Now I'm wondering about the forklifts at Dollywood. Are they covered in rhinestones? How will I sleep without knowing the answer?

I just searched forklift dealers in Pigeon Forge, TN. Who has this account? I need to know.

Forklift Dealership Marketing Tip

Every job is an audition for a department the customer hasn't hired yet

Here's the complaint I hear from my forklift dealers more than any other, in some version or another:

Why don't our customers know we sell more than forklifts?

Can I show you something? Go pull up your own homepage right now. I'll wait.

Now tell me how many times loading docks, pallet racking, or forklift batteries show up on it.

You have built, over many years and at considerable expense, a website that says forklift on every page, a service van fleet that says forklift on the side, and a trade show booth that says forklift on the banner. And then you're surprised your customer bought his racking from somebody else.

He isn't being disloyal. He's reading.

The dock and door job that was really a fleet deal

Disclaimer: AI-generated image. This forklift doesn't really exist... yet.

A dealer I work with landed a dock-and-door PM agreement with a customer they'd been chasing for a long time.

The competition let them down, and my client came in at just the right time.

They didn't sell them a fleet of forklifts, but now they had a foot in the loading dock door.

The dock-and-door PM agreement was an audition. If they performed well, more business would follow.

You already know what else is in that building. Forklifts, PM, parts, rentals, operator training, dock and doors, pallet racking, floor cleaning, allied equipment. At a forklift dealership, repeat business means he buys a different department/solution.

Fumble the dock-and-door agreement, and you don't just lose the dock-and-door agreement. You lose the fleet you've been chasing, the PM agreement behind it, the racking, the training, and the referral to his buddy's plant across town. And you never see it happen. There's no lost-deal report. 

How to be Comebackable

At most forklift dealerships, the customer places an order and waits for the equipment to arrive. That wait can run months on new forklifts.

Ignoring your customer during this time can cost you. It's human nature that after any big purchase, a buyer second-guesses himself. He wants proof that he picked the right dealership. If you stay quiet, the only evidence he finds is the invoice, and the only dealership talking to him is the competitor who calls to ask how the new equipment is working out.

I'm here to remind you that the weeks after the sale are a real stage of the customer journey. On the marketing hourglass, they're stage five of seven:

Know ➡ Like ➡ Trust ➡ Try ➡ Buy ➡ Repeat ➡ Refer

The Marketing Hourglass. Credit: John Jantsch and Duct Tape Marketing

Most dealerships put all their marketing into the first four stages, winning the customer, and none into the last three, keeping him. Joey Coleman's book Never Lose a Customer Again puts a number on how fast that decision happens: a new customer decides within his first 100 days whether he'll buy from you again.

If nothing happens on purpose during those 100 days, the only difference the customer ever felt between you and the other dealership was the number on the quote. And when the next quote comes in lower, that's the difference he'll act on.

The quick win

To help your forklift dealership get more repeat business, consider assigning a marketing person to be in charge of the customer's first 100 days. 

Their job is to remove the customer's burden of not knowing what's going on.

“Make it someone’s job to remove the customer’s burden of not knowing what’s going on.” – Julie Clarke-Bush

One question

Think about the last new truck order you took. What did that customer hear from your dealership between the PO and the delivery, on purpose?

Reply and tell me, even if the honest answer is nothing. Especially if it's nothing.

(Dollywood intel also accepted.)

Stay visible (even after the sale),

Julie

P.S. Don't be the dealer singing  Jolene.