Editorial, January 1997

Customer satisfaction begins with tuning
to the customer's need

By Brian Alm, Editor

A.R.A. President Skip Evans was the keynote speaker at the Hire Association Europe annual conference in Warwickshire, England, on Oct. 26. You can read a slightly shortened transcript of his talk on page 121, and I recommend that you do, because it sheds some light on the current state of the rental industry in the United States, the changing structure of the industry, the competitive threats and the opportunities that exist for those rental businesses that are prepared to manage change and put their advantages to best use.
The full speech contains a point about the competitive advantage that every rental store, large and small alike, can seize if everyone in the organization understands this simple philosophy:
"I have to think of every market I serve as a rich mixture of individuals, all with their own unique ways of working and thinking, all with their own purposes. And I have to tap into their purposes - I have to see my business as an extension of their business. Customer satisfaction begins with tuning yourself to the customer's need. There will be no reason for customers to go elsewhere if I am satisfying their needs. And I can do that if I make every one feel like I'm in business to serve only him."
The gist of Skip's speech is that full-fledged, full-line, full-service rental businesses have a lot of competitive advantages and good cause for confidence if they pay close attention to business basics.
A friend of mine in the farm equipment business said one time that a farmer doesn't go out to the cornfield and yell, "Grow!" He cultivates and fertilizes and tends his crop. It seems so simple, yet who among us, in the heat of frustration over changes that seem beyond our control, has not simply yelled at the corn instead of tending to its needs? My father used to say, "You have to deal with things as they are, and not as you would like them to be." He did not mean you have to accept things as they are; he meant you have to deal with them - there's a difference.
Taichu Kanamoto is president of a large construction equipment rental business in Japan. He came here, to the A.R.A. offices in Moline, Ill., in October, to study the U.S. rental industry as a model of the trends, threats and opportunities that might one day affect him in Japan. Kanamoto is no amateur in the rental business, but he wanted to see how we deal with things; he recognizes that he must be a student first and then a president.
Next month more than 12,000 people from all over the globe will converge on New Orleans for the A.R.A. convention and trade show. This event is founded on one big issue: how to be successful in the rental business. The seminar speakers, the exhibitors and the A.R.A. people will have plenty of answers. And at Rental Management, too, we always say our job is to help rental people manage for success. So if you too are a student of your business and want to deal with your opportunities, you're in luck: A.R.A. is here to help.

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