Hoffman maintains a fleet of more than 50 service vehicles to ensure customer’s uptime. Seen here, four of these vehicles sit, ready-to-go when and where they are needed.
The relationship of equipment owner and equipment dealer can be vexing.
That's because buying or fixing equipment sometimes is tense, with money at stake and a work schedule to maintain. Here's how Hoffman Equipment maintains the relationship: The customer always is right, or at least feels satisfaction with the outcome of a transaction.
"At the end of the day, if a customer doesn't feel like we are on the same page, we are not doing our job," said Patrick Hitpas, director of customer support. "My first priority is to develop our people and surround them with systems that enable us to exceed our customers' expectations. But while we're good, we are human, too, so when we make a mistake we try hard to rectify the situation and explain to the customer why things may have happened as they have. My biggest job in product support is ensuring customer satisfaction."
Hitpas has worked at this critical job for eight years, half of his tenure at Hoffman Equipment. His responsibility is sweeping: He oversees everything surrounding a piece of equipment after it has been sold, including warranty, service and parts. To that end, he manages every aspect of Hoffman's parts and service departments.
The number of technicians under his watch doubled in 2018 with the acquisition of Volvo dealerships in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Now nearly 65 techs are scattered among Hoffman's seven locations, part of a company work force numbering about 150 people. By and large, it is an experienced technical crew, with numerous Volvo dealership techs complementing many long-time Hoffman employees. Technicians work in the shops at each location as well as in the field from Hoffman's fleet of more than 50 service vehicles.
The operations manager at each of the company's seven locations reports to Hitpas. He's a sympathetic supervisor. As a former parts manager himself at Hoffman, Hitpas knows the stress of meeting the needs of customers at their level.
"It's not an easy job to be an operations manager," he said. "It's a tough job. When I was in the parts department, it was easy to feel like you can never do a good job … customers are very demanding and you feel really bad when you screw something up. It's kind of thankless, but we have a lot of really good people that work hard at it every day."
Who is the stereotypical Hoffman customer? Hitpas said it would be a large regional contractor with assorted pieces of heavy equipment. But in the customer mix as well are government maintenance departments, utility companies, multinational companies like Waste Management and the world's largest electronics and metal recycler, Sims Metal Management. Landscapers and underground utility contractors are steady buyers of midsize JCB and Case machinery. The Volvo line of excavators, haul trucks and wheel loaders has added to the customer base.
He was asked if, among the wide-ranging customers, one type is more demanding than another. "None of them are hard to deal with, but big corporate customers, national accounts, get a lot of attention," he said. "They have many machines and expect us to work very closely with them to keep them running. They rely on us and we on them."
Hitpas believes the biggest challenge for service and parts departments across the industry, including Hoffman Equipment, stems from Tier IV emissions regulations. The mandated devices and diesel engine modifications may have reduced environmental concerns, but they generate extra headaches in maintenance shops.
"Tier IV put a lot of stress on manufacturers and customers," he said. "The technology is new and all the sensitive sensors and monitors create significant challengs for us. When the sensors don't like what they're seeing, a machine won't operate, and customers become frustrated."
Emissions-related components constitute a healthy percentage of Hoffman Equipment's $4.5 million parts inventory — that's more than 150,000 parts. Hitpas said the company literally goes extra miles to get a part of any kind to a customer whose equipment suddenly is idled on a job site. This sometimes means throwing a needed part in a car and driving to a distant work site instead of waiting for a regularly scheduled commercial delivery.
"One vendor needed a part fast and I remember we rented a U-Haul truck to carry it from Ohio to Missouri to get him running," he recalled. "If a part isn't available and a customer is two hours away, we try our best not to say, ‘The best we can do is tomorrow.' We try to think of every outside-the-box option to make something happen TODAY."
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One of his partners in serving customers is Kathy Gould, Hoffman's crane service manager. She joined the company in 2003 as a service office manager and warranty administrator. Now she deals directly with crane customers — scheduling technicians, monitoring the work, following up with equipment owners, fielding calls from customers. A counterpart at Hoffman mirrors her responsibilities in dealing with earthmoving clients. The division of responsibility for cranes and earthmoving occurred after Hoffman acquired the Volvo line.
Gould credits her success in the taxing job to an ability to communicate clearly with customers who, she noted, "are calling because they have a problem. We do our best to keep them calm and get someone out to them as soon as possible. I communicate to the techs what is expected of them and make sure they have all the information they need on the road — correct addresses and contact numbers and try to load them up with the parts they will need in advance. Mastering numbers does play a part in managing the job. When we have bigger orders, we usually do estimates, so those numbers need to be managed."
She can't recall an especially memorable encounter with a customer in need and how the issue was resolved.
"I just try my best to make sure we get everyone's machine up and running as soon as we can. All of them are primarily concerned to minimize their downtime."
Does the fact she is a woman have any moderating effect on a disgruntled caller, who most likely is male?
"Some just yell anyway. Some get quieter when they realize they are talking to a woman. The tone of their voice sort of changes."
In respect to female employees, she noted that Hoffman has always been committed to advancing the role of women in the construction industry, noting that a few years ago, Hoffman even had some women technicians on staff, and while presently remain open to placing women at any position within the company.
Gould credited co-workers with consistently doing top-notch work.
"I think the team of people that we have in our department, and while I might be a little biased, I would say they are the best in the industry."
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Keeping employees on top of their game is another responsibility of Hitpas. He oversees training programs for technicians and parts personnel, both technical training and safety training. From the moment of hire, new employees begin a steady regimen of training by manufacturers as well as in-house trainers. The purpose of the investment of time and money is to raise the level of expertise and safety practices so as to enhance the customer's experience.
Because of its commitment to safety and a commitment from the top of the organization to improve industry best practices, Hoffman Equipment operates a crane operator certification program through which some 200 operators pass each year. They include employees and operators of Hoffman's equipment customers along with other companies that utilize cranes. The program is accredited by the National Commission for the Certification of Crane Operators (NCCCO) where company owner Tim Watters serves on the board of directors.
Hoffman's crane heritage also led it to offer a crane-rebuilding service. Hitpas said the rebuild center in Piscataway was especially busy just prior to the arrival of the Tier IV standards when crane owners elected to upgrade their units to Tier III and put a diesel particular filter on them so they could continue to utilize the older generation of machinery on job sites.
After that rush, rebuild activity fell back to a couple machines a year, usually big Manitowoc lattice crawlers or rough terrain units. Rebuilding a large crane can take up to six months, according to Hitpas, but in the end the massive machine is driven from the shop with a one-year warranty on parts and labor and usually is good for another 15,000 hours of lifting.
The director of customer support is a Clemson University grad with an economics degree, but he said his work is mostly about relationships.
"That's the key. We get to know our customers and understand what they need to be successful, then we tailor our support to help them succeed. When they do, they enjoy working with us. They come to trust that we will be there for them."
He added that while he is an advocate for his customers in executive meetings, he is no greater an advocate than other department heads. Furthermore, his customer support doesn't come at the expense of any of his colleagues at Hoffman.
"I've never terminated an employee because of a customer complaint. We don't hire willy-nilly and we don't let people go that way, either. I like to introduce our employees to our customers — I feel business flows much better when the people on either side of the transaction have met and established a relationship … we will always go the extra mile to make something right, and we are extremely loyal to our employees."
To do otherwise would be self-defeating, he suggested.
"Hoffman is our employees. At the end of the day, it is our employees who make us what we are."
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