What we know:
Motor vehicle customers want their equipment to be fixed right the first time and they want it done at an ever faster pace. Carlisle’s 2021 consumer sentiment survey, an annual questionnaire with over 2,000 responses, shows speedy repairs vying with cost as a top factor when choosing service!
Which items are most important to you when selecting a service/repair provider?
| Satisfaction | How satisfied are you with: |
|---|---|
| The cost is reasonable | 102200% |
| My vehicle gets fixed correctly the first time + as quickly as possible | 93300% |
Of course, without available parts, manufacturers are not able to support their customer’s desire for speedy repairs. Carlisle’s North America Parts Benchmark includes four separate metrics to measure parts availability:
Best
Type: Dealership Fill
Timing: Same Day
Performance: Imprecise due to measurement issues
Good
Type: Facing Fill
Timing: +1 day
Performance: 89.3% of lines filled from the “facing warehouse”
Tolerable
Type: System fill
Timing: +2 days
Performance: 95.5% of lines filled from the network
Poor
Type: Back orders
Timing: + at least 3 days
Performance: Duration and volume are 3x their 2018 levels
Manufactures have historically preferenced facing fill as the preeminent metric for parts availability and have invested significant time and money to increase it. Strategies include adding warehouses or warehouse space to the network to support under-served geographic areas, adding hundreds of millions of dollars of inventory, and altering where inventory is housed in the network.
There can be no doubt that increasing facing fill improves parts availability. But our ultimate goal is to improve customer satisfaction. Is facing fill the best way to do that?
As customer facing representatives of OEMs, we consider dealers an invaluable resource for understanding and satisfying customer requirements. Carlisle’s annual North America Auto Parts Manager Survey, which includes the results of over 10,000 Parts Managers representing 28 brands, sheds light on their views:
What we can learn:
1
Overall satisfaction could be better, and satisfaction with parts availability is even lower
| Satisfaction | Top Box Satisfaction |
|---|---|
| Overall Satisfaction | 34% |
| Satisfaction with Parts Availability (excluding recall campaigns) | 24% |
Parts availability is the largest driver of overall satisfaction
| Xaxis | R²=0.7745 | Overall Satisfaction |
|---|---|---|
| 22% | 0.398 | |
| 3% | 0.12 | |
| 12% | 0.262 | |
| 15% | 0.411 | |
| 26% | 0.304 | |
| 31% | 0.354 | |
| 33% | 0.347 | |
| 3% | 0.16 | |
| 18% | 0.262 | |
| 23% | 0.331 | |
| 12% | 0.137 | |
| 68% | 0.746 | |
| 55% | 0.649 | |
| 27% | 0.32 | |
| 3% | 0.165 | |
| 55% | 0.6 |
2
Facing fill satisfaction is higher than overall satisfaction…hard to imagine it’s a key driver
| Satisfaction | Top Box Satisfaction |
|---|---|
| Overall Satisfaction | 34% |
| Satisfaction with Parts Availability (excluding recall campaigns) | 24% |
| Satisfaction with Facing Fill | 38% |
In fact, OEMs that show excellent facing fill see no impact on dealer satisfaction
| Xaxis | R²=0.1468 | Overall Satisfaction w Parts Avaialbility |
|---|---|---|
| 93% | 0.222 | |
| 93% | 0.147 | |
| 91% | 0.26 | |
| 93% | 0.311 | |
| 92% | 0.332 | |
| 94% | 0.178 | |
| 93% | 0.235 | |
| 92% | 0.555 | |
| 93% | 0.27 | |
| 91% | 0.367 | |
| 94% | 0.185 |
3
System fill (different metric from facing fill!) correlates positively with satisfaction
| Xaxis | R²=0.6135 | Overall Satisfaction w Parts Avaialbility |
|---|---|---|
| 97% | 0.222 | |
| 92% | 0.03 | |
| 92% | 0.119 | |
| 97% | 0.147 | |
| 97% | 0.26 | |
| 98% | 0.311 | |
| 98% | 0.332 | |
| 92% | 0.027 | |
| 98% | 0.178 | |
| 98% | 0.235 | |
| 99% | 0.555 | |
| 96% | 0.27 | |
| 92% | 0.25 | |
| 99% | 0.345 |
What happens when you miss system fill? You get a back order, which has the lowest dealers satisfaction rate
| Satisfaction | Top Box Satisfaction |
|---|---|
| Overall Satisfaction | 34% |
| Satisfaction with Parts Availability (excluding recall campaigns) | 24% |
| Order Fill from Facing Warehouse | 38% |
| Back Orders: Time to Receive | 13% |
4
High back order duration strongly correlates to parts availability (and therefore overall satisfaction)
| Xaxis | R²=0.7627 | Overall Satisfaction w Parts Avaialbility |
|---|---|---|
| 17 | 0.222 | |
| 20 | 0.03 | |
| 19 | 0.119 | |
| 17 | 0.147 | |
| 13 | 0.26 | |
| 14 | 0.311 | |
| 12 | 0.332 | |
| 20 | 0.027 | |
| 14 | 0.235 | |
| 17 | 0.27 | |
| 12 | 0.335 | |
| 20 | 0.077 |
Short back orders isn’t an excuse. High back order volume also correlates with satisfaction
| Xaxis | R²=0.7987 | Overall Satisfaction w Parts Avaialbility |
|---|---|---|
| 42% | 0.222 | |
| 159% | 0.03 | |
| 121% | 0.119 | |
| 42% | 0.147 | |
| 38% | 0.26 | |
| 47% | 0.311 | |
| 28% | 0.332 | |
| 159% | 0.027 | |
| 57% | 0.178 | |
| 47% | 0.235 | |
| 42% | 0.27 | |
| 28% | 0.275 | |
| 160% | 0.06 |
Conclusion:
We already know that OEMs appreciate the importance of parts availability. They have been paying close attention to this metric for years. What we learned is that they should consider more than just facing fill when assessing or trying to improve their parts availability.
Dealers are telling us every year they are unsatisfied with the number and length of backorders. This issue is not isolated, low backorder satisfaction correlates quite strongly with overall satisfaction. Moving forward, a solution that balances additional investments in facing fill with an attention to backorders is the recipe for improved parts availability, dealer satisfaction, and ultimately, for satisfying customer requirements.
Carlisle’s Executives
Nate Chenenko
Director