For many of those customers, the plan Felosky boasts about is summed up in a program dubbed MT Advantage. The MT Advantage launched a systematized focus on better pricing, higher quality, and more choices.
Angelo Affronti, Affronti Excavating and Trucking, Macedon, NY is one customer who has experienced the benefits of Felosky’s plan. Working with Tom Rizzo, MT’s Henrietta branch product support rep, Affronti found the primary benefit to his company in the purchase of Baldwin filters for his fleet of equipment. Affronti’s company operates an assortment of some two dozen excavators, backhoes, skid steers, rollers, loaders, and more in operations all over New York state.
“Monroe Tractor set up a rack in our shop with the filters we use,” said Affronti. “Every week Tom comes out, inventories our supply, and restocks with the filters we need so I don’t have to worry about one of my guys reaching for a filter and coming up empty handed.”
Actually, the program is a little more involved than it might look. Kevin Tyler, the MT Syracuse branch product support rep., points out what goes into a customer’s filter program. “We take the time,” he says, “to profile our customer’s needs. We list all the equipment they have in place and then maintain an inventory to match the equipment. We’re able to show them what their true cost of filters really is and then show them how the MT Advantage program saves them both time and money. When the customers see the advantage in black and white they will normally agree to use Monroe Tractor for all their filter needs.”
Another product that has become an important mainstay of the MT Advantage program is oil, according to Tyler. He points to what his company refers to as “totes” to emphasize how valuable he’s seen the program be to customers like Joe Feocco, general manager at Pic ‘n Pull in Auburn, NY.
Totes are 275-gallon plastic oil storage containers, encased in steel cages for safety purposes. “We set up our customers with totes,” said Tyler, “and Noco Oil delivers the oil in bulk quantities as low as 200 gallons. The totes are free to our customer and even the delivery is free as long as the minimum of 200 gallons is delivered.” Tyler notes that minimum can be achieved in a combination of products (100 gallons of engine oil and 100 gallons of Mobil 424 hydraulic fluid for example) being delivered at the same time.
“Of course we don’t want to give short shrift to the customer with smaller needs,” says Felosky. That’s why we continue to make oil available in smaller quantities and customers can still look to us for their single filter or battery needs. For example, Case, Mobil, and Exxon oil is always available in quarts, gallons, five-gallon pails, or 55-gallon drums.
The MT Advantage program also offers batteries, according to Tyler, headlined by the newly branded MT Batteries. “These are top quality batteries manufactured by Johnson Controls. Johnson manufactures 67 percent of all batteries sold in the world, according to MT literature on the program. “Through the MT Advantage program customers are able to stock batteries at more than a 30 percent savings, says Tyler.
Monroe Tractor has seen the evidence that the MT Advantage program is appreciated in the marketplace, with nearly two dozen new customers taking “advantage” of the program in the short four months its been offered.
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