Diversity Key for Whited RV

Gary Mynahan,
Whited
Motorhome &
RV’s general
manager,
stands in front
of a Winnebago
motorhome.
Whited is one
of just a few
dealerships in
Maine to sell new
motorhomes.
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18 • RV PRO • AUGUST 2010
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PHOTOS BY JOSE LEIVA
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iversity is vital to investment portfolios, but for Whited Motorhome
& RV Center, that age-old mantra of the financial world applies
equally well to retail sales, too. As part of a family of stores that also
sell automobiles and heavy-duty trucks in Maine, the RV division has been an integral
part of the company’s strategy to thrive in a roller-coaster economy.
“We have three locations of Whited Ford and Whited Peterbilt, so having the heavyduty locations – which did OK during the RV slump – kind of saved us because standalone RV dealerships really took a hit here,” says Gary Mynahan, Whited RV’s general
manager and a 20-year finance and insurance veteran. “The years 2003 through 2005
were really good RV years and we carried the company through those times when they
were struggling. It’s been kind of a little give and take.”
Co-located on an ample site in the southwestern Maine town of Auburn next to Whited
rv-pro.com
Peterbilt, Whited RV was the latecomer to
the group, which was founded in 1986.
“The company came here in ’91 and
opened the heavy truck store. Our owner,
Bob Whited, always liked the RV business
and thought he would give it a shot. This
location started off as a light-duty truck
and car store, then they started acquiring
a few franchises for RVs and it’s grown
from that.”
Service & Parts Departments
Stay Open Late
The dealership, which sells Winnebago
and Tiffin motorhomes and Forest River,
Keystone and Cruiser RV towables, has
grown over the years due in part to its service department. Not only do the four technicians who work in Whited RV’s four bays
know their way around motorhomes and
towables, the shop stays open until midnight on weekdays, as does the parts store.
“It’s because that’s the truck mentality,
and in heavy-duty trucks, we could work
three shifts and have enough business,”
Mynahan says. “You can get parts right
rv-pro.com
Above: Whited
RV’s service staff
gathers in one of
the dealership’s
four service bays.
Pictured are (leftto-right): service
technician Bob
Akers, service
advisor Mike
Brennan, service
manager Darren
Brown, service
technician Ryan
Sullivan and service
technician Arthur
Morton.
At left: The
dealership’s service
department is
capable of doing
any type of repair.
And the fact that the
service department
stays open until
midnight on
weekdays means it
can get customers
back on the road in
no time.
AUGUST 2010 • RV PRO • 19
Sales consultants
Scott Lewis (left)
and Bill Strauss
stand next to two
travel trailers.
Whited RV carries
towables from
Cruiser RV, Forest
River and Keystone.
up to 11:30, you can come drop your camper off at
10 o’clock and get it serviced the next morning and
pick it up in the evening.”
Darren Brown, a former RV salesman turned service manager who heads both RV and heavy-duty
staff in Auburn, says his customers enjoy more than
just his convenient hours.
“We don’t turn anybody away. We work on everything, while a lot of places have the ‘service what you
sell-type mentality,’” he says. “Today, I have five or six
transient customers who are driving through and are
in need of something. They understand they might be
here all day, but we’ll get to them and we’ll fix them.”
Customers passing through the scenic region make
up a large part of Whited RV’s service business, up
to 10 a day, so Brown makes every effort to accommodate them.
“There’s a lot to be said for that because they called
and said they’ve spoken to three different dealers along
the way who are two and half weeks out. I don’t really
believe that. The industry’s not that busy,” he says.
“Even through the hard economy, we’ve just said ‘yes’
to everything.”
Another welcome practice: the dealership doesn’t
mind direct technician-customer interaction, even
though its service writers are the people most likely
to speak with customers.
“The initial policy is to not deal with a tech, unless
it comes to a point, for example, that somebody’s
going to install a hitch they’ll tow their car with,
but has never done it before,” he says. “Almost every
single time we send the technician who installed it out
with them to give them the tour and show them how
things are done. We know the customer is going to
ask questions and the service writer not always going
to have the answer.”
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20 • RV PRO • AUGUST 2010
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The result from such a policy, Brown
says, is clear.
“What you end up generating is people
calling next summer and saying, ‘Hey, last
year we were in and Cory worked on our
coach. We really liked the way he did things
and was able to explain issues to us,’” he
says. “I think you gain a little repeat business by doing that.”
Service Shop Can Do
Almost Any Job
Of course, the RV shop’s sheer capabilities – thanks to it sharing space with Whited
Peterbilt – has a lot to do with attracting
customers, too, since it’s capable of every
type of repair but paint and bodywork.
“We’re a full-service chassis dealer for
Freightliner Custom Chassis, Ford, and
we’re certified in Caterpillar, Cummins and
Detroit Diesel engines,” he says. “There
are not a whole lot of places in this area
in particular where you can come in and
have somebody change a toilet and then 20
minutes later have somebody else changing
a turbo, so that’s been very advantageous
to us.”
Shop turnover hasn’t been an issue, as
Brown has only lost a single tech since the
store opened almost 20 years ago. After
working together for so long, the job of
deciding which tech gets what tasks in the
hourly rate shop is pretty simple.
“We have four guys who are each good
in their own niche,” he says. “By doing that,
we don’t have any finger-pointers out there.
Everybody knows what they’re good at, so
that’s how we dispatch the work to them and
there’s no confrontation in the RV shop.”
Brown believes his team has stayed
22 • RV PRO • AUGUST 2010
around for so long for a couple of reasons.
“The key role for us is to just treat them
like human beings. We don’t pressure them,
but let them learn from their mistakes. So
often, people are so ready to pull the trigger
on somebody and let him go for a simple
mistake. We have a more family atmosphere
than that,” he says.
The other reason for the staff’s longevity
is during the winter slowdown, especially
distinct in snowy New England states, RV
techs get reassigned to the heavy truck side,
according to Brown, which negates the
need for temporary layoffs.
Much of the work his techs perform
is troubleshooting, he says, which isn’t
surprising considering today’s electronicsheavy RVs, and ranges from generators to
slides.
“The stuff we’re getting is all that diagnostic work that they can’t do at home,”
he says. “There’s not many people calling
in or off the street saying, ‘Can you put
this awing on,’ unless you’re dealing with
damage from Mother Nature and things
like that.”
Whited RV First Choice
for Parts, Accessories
Still, there’s enough aftermarket customization to keep the parts department
humming, says Jeff Carson, parts manager
and another Whited vet who came from
RV sales.
“As far as what’s on display, it’s mostly
the accessories. There’s a fair amount of
chemicals, but there’s a lot of the every
day stuff that people break like thermostats
and heater controls and light bulbs, hoses
and LP parts,” he says of the store, which
rv-pro.com
At left: Whited RV’s management team includes (left-toright): Mynahan; Sue McAvoy, I/T manager and Web designer;
Brown; and Jeff Carson, parts department manager.
shares shelf space with heavy truck parts.
Even with a nearby Wal-Mart and a
Camping World less than two hours away,
the big-box store intrusion hasn’t affected
Whited’s sales, says Carson, who doesn’t
mind a little competition.
“It seems that people come to us first, I
think because they want the expertise and
some kind of advice on which chemicals
to use on their awnings, for example. They
usually don’t price shop it,” he says. “If
we don’t have it, they say, ‘Well, I’ll go try
Wal-Mart.’ You often hear that.”
A monthly parts and service flyer is sent
via e-mail to past customers to help keep
stock moving out the door. It’s been a success for Whited; Carson says parts sales
have greatly increased this year.
“We sell a lot of MaxxAir covers, weight
and sway tow systems and a lot of brake
controllers. As far as everyday items people
use, I’m going to say it’s like replacement
lights,” he says. “We get a lot of people in
for lights and light bulbs, but we also sell a
lot of chemical additives for the toilet and
toilet paper. We stock a fair amount of stuff
for faucet repair and replacement. Those
things don’t last very long in a camper, so
we sell a fair amount of that stuff.”
Not surprisingly, parts are only, well,
part of the story. Carson gives a lot of
credit to Tony Howard, Whited’s RV
parts salesman.
“You see there’s an awful lot of interaction between Tony and the customers,” he
says. “They’ll come in and they’ll ask for
screen rooms, for instance. They’re not
just left on their own. He’ll go through
the whole book and show them the different styles and types and explain why
one has a different price than another and
what the advantages are. He really does
an awful lot of hands on with customers
on products and I think they like that
more so than them just picking it out of
a book and saying, ‘I want to order this.’
He’ll tell them, ‘Well, this one doesn’t
have inside flaps for rain. If you camp in
bad weather, you might want to consider
ordering this model.’”
Due to glut of product information
available on the Internet, today’s consumer
poses a genuine concern for staffers who
rv-pro.com
aren’t prepared, but Carson says his team
has it covered.
“They do a lot of research on the
Internet and in that case, they’ll come
in and ask for a specific model. If it’s not
something we sell, a lot of times the guys
are knowledgeable enough to tell them why
ours is the same or may be better,” he says.
“Sometimes you pay a lot extra for a little
flash you don’t really need.”
The same database that provides Whited
RV with customer e-mail addresses also
contains specific information about their
units, Carson says.
“The shop will give Tony all the model
serial numbers, when possible, of their
refrigerators, radios, TVs and hot water
heaters, and he puts that in the database
with their name,” he says. “When they
come in and need an element for their hot
water heater, they’re in our database and
he knows what they have. They love that.”
Internet Moves Parts
During Slow Season
Whited RV also has fully embraced
eBay, the phenomenally popular online
auction and store, to sell parts.
“That was actually something we came
up with to help fill in the winter sales
when it’s slow. We put items on there and
we’re quite busy in the wintertime with
customers from the warmer parts of the
country,” he says. “We get tons of calls from
people in Arizona and Tennessee when it’s
cold up here when they see that we have
thermostats on sale to run their furnace.
We may not make a lot of money, but we
push a bunch of them out and it keeps
Tony busy in the wintertime.”
As for unit inventory, Mynahan says he
hopes to move more units in 2010 than the
150 sold last year.
“We’ve managed our inventory so that
we’re in really good shape,” he says. “We
ordered this year for a mild recovery so
we didn’t overload our inventory, but
we’ve done very well getting rid of it.
Next year, we’re planning on probably
getting half as much again in inventory.
We’re banking on a small return. We’re
under no illusions it’s going to return to
2004-2005 levels.”
AUGUST 2010 • RV PRO • 23