According to a recent Associated Equipment Distributors survey, more than 90 percent of member dealers who responded predicted an increase in service sales in 2004, with 44.3 percent expecting growth to reach 6 percent or more.
AED reported that 99 percent of those surveyed forecasted continued service sales growth in 2005, with 36.4 percent expecting that growth to be 6 percent or more. In 2006, 94.3 percent expect another year of growth, though only 27.3 percent forecasted growth of 6 percent or more.
No dealer responding to the survey forecasted a decrease in service sales in 2004, 2005 or 2006. Respondents did, however, report a labor shortage, with an average of 3.7 current openings for technicians.
Equipment buyers were asked in a recent AED survey how they rated the importance of parts availability. According to AED, 78.5 percent of respondents said parts availability was ‘extremely important’ and 18 percent said is was ‘very important.’
Respondents were also asked to rate several factors that impacted their decision to choose a particular channel for purchasing equipment. ‘Parts availability’ ranked highest, followed by ‘Service and product support.’
Overall, close to 97 percent rated parts availability as extremely important or very important and more than 94 percent ranked service and product support as extremely important or very important.
For more information or to order a copy of AED’s Construction Equipment Marketplace visit http://www.aednet.org/products/productitem.cfm?recordID=312.
