Consultancy for the parts and aftersales sectors
It doesn’t matter if you know exactly what you want, or if you are not too sure, you have come to the right place, and we will be able to help you.
Here at Ascari, we don’t just have over 30 years consulting experience in automotive parts sales and aftersales service sectors; we have an absolute wealth of experience that comes from working in, managing, and owning parts and service operations. This level of experience from shop floor to board level gives us a unique level of subject matter expertise that is well, without putting too fine a point on it, considerable!
Accessory sales
Whether stand alone or through vehicle showrooms the accessory sales we have been able to generate leave clients with jaw dropping astonishment.
Parts Sales
From inbound telesales or customer visits to outbound telesales and territory field sales we have been able to develop stunning increases in sales, profitability, and productivity for clients.
Parts Sales Management
From internal to external sales, we have added considerable value to our customers businesses through introducing effective leadership and management practices.
Parts Inventory Control
Balancing inventory levels with stock availability is a fine line and we have been able to demonstrate just how to achieve that to increase sales levels, profit contribution and ultimately improved ROI for customers.
Aftersales
Customer retention
Keeping customers loyal to your business is of course the holy grail of the service industry. Through our expertise we have been able to show clients not only how to keep customers but to win back lost customers and attract new ones too. Nothing gimmicky, but a solution that builds substantial advocacy, increases sales considerably and improves profitability as a result.
Growing sales from service
Winning customers commitment to booking a service or repair is critical to building sales yet many operations do not treat this opportunity with the care attention and management it deserves. We have proven experience in helping retailers develop this key performance area.
Selling red, amber and green work from VHC’s.
VHC’s are a wonderful opportunity to create customer confidence, develop loyalty and build sales, yet selling up from these is often viewed with trepidation by many service advisors. We have worked with many operations to ensure their business are set up correctly to turn their opportunities into very worthwhile additional revenue.
Case Study 1
A global manufacturing giant of cars and vans wanted to improve trade parts sales across their UK network. We worked with them, studied their product range price positioning, marketing and distribution and then we set to work.
The business was as only as good as its retailer network, most of whom had very little experience of selling non captive parts to the trade. Sure, if body shops wanted panels and trim not a problem. If other retailers wanted parts to support their lower inventories, then they could help, but as for having a regular customer base of independent garage buying competitive fast-moving parts, that was virtually unheard of!
We set about remedying this with a strategic programme that covered everything from receiving enquiries and turning them in to orders, to driving sales through sales reps, outbound telesales calls, regular campaigns, effective sales management and of course sales training for everyone. The result? This became the first trade parts programme for a vehicle manufacturer in the UK and became a pan European programme adding 10’s of millions of pounds to their sales year on year.
Case Study 2
A European car and van manufacturer needed to take on their parent company’s 2nd line parts programme to supply retailers with an alternative product to compete with motor factors. The challenge facing the manufacturer was they had virtually zero experience of the trade parts business. Their business was reliant on the growth of vehicle sales and their service operations, and parts departments were bursting at the seams without looking for additional growth from a new sector. We set about understanding the vision and strategy of the parent company and then we adapted the strategy for the UK market and partnering their regional aftersales managers we built a very strong database of customers and created a digital marketing strategy supported by a highly effective field team and immediately started winning new business for this brand new business venture.
Case Study 3
One of the biggest vehicle manufacturers in the world wanted to make their retail networks more profitable as well as increasing the parts throughput of their service departments.
We were asked to go away, think about the task, and find a solution which would deliver against their goals within months.
We spent weeks poring over data, visiting retailers, and talking to customers. By the time we finished our analysis we knew exactly what was needed.
One meeting, lasting less than an hour, and we had agreement to a Test 3 pillar Service Development programme with 2 pilot regions of similar sizes but geographically very different. It didn’t take months to get results, it took weeks! The results even astonished us, we couldn’t believe what we were seeing. At the end of year one, one retailer had increased their sales by 212% and the worst just 71%! This programme was stopped as a test after just a few months and we were instructed to implement this without delay across the whole of the UK. Two years later it was being rolled out across the whole of Europe.
Case Study 4
The Warranty team of the export division of a global manufacturer was frustrated with the volume of warranty claims it was receiving, the costs to the business in dealing with the claims and the negative effect it had on relations between the manufacturer and its importers.
First, we set about understanding the scale of the challenge and the issues facing both parties. We then built a warranty cost reduction programme and delivered it across some 17 plus countries working with the manufacturers personnel as well as the importers management team training everyone on the warranty policies, procedures and protocol. Claims went down, warranty and goodwill costs went down, profit went up, and relationships dramatically improved!
Case Study 5
The marketing of accessories has long been overlooked by many vehicle manufacturers until one UK car and van manufacturer decided to examine the potential of this lucrative sector. We were approached and asked how we might go about increasing sales and market share. Armed with our already considerable knowledge, we examined how the retailers viewed accessories and largely found them to be anathema to many sales managers who saw them as being little more than nuisance value, body shop managers who saw them as low profit and high frustration and parts managers who thought that they were between a rock and a hard place as far as trying to market them. With a comprehensive strategy covering suggested inventories, minimised risk, maximised reward, team benefits, training in sales and fitting all complemented by promotional material, the programme was hugely successful with test retailers achieving sales on average of 5x that of the average retailer and with one retailer sales that were 30x!
Such was the success of the programme It was not surprising that it was rolled out across UK and Europe.
Case Study 6
An American giant in car manufacturing had decided to open a parts distribution centre in the Middle East to support its retailers within the region, however the retailers were reluctant to use it, preferring to deal with the manufacturers home sites in the US, Canada, and Asia. We approached the project by first understanding how and why there was mistrust between the manufacturer the PDC and the retailer network, then we researched the stock profiles and demand histories at the retailers and the PDC and then we started to make changes resulting in massive improvements in availability, a huge reduction in stocking levels for the retailers, much improved trust between all parties and a welcome increase in profitability for both.
Another successful consulting programme.
From a humble beginning in business-to-business sales training and consulting, we have helped our clients grow their business in parts, service, accessory sales, warranty reduction and inventory management.
And its not just vehicle and parts manufacturers and distributors that we’ve helped. We have also been engaged by companies to whom manufacturers have outsourced the management of their parts or aftersales sales or their training activity too.
Ascari, why search for anyone else?
