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New Windows Version is Cost Effective New Computer Software Company Focuses on Parts and Services Departments by Don Magary
In a recent interview with RV News, Hansen explained, "The way the program works is the dealer gets a 30-day trial of the software for $49. I don't know if there's another software company that will allow you to take their software, load it into your computer, and 30 days down the road say you don't like it, send it back and ask for your money back. With our program if the dealer decides to keep the package, he pays $50 a month lease on the software. "Our concept was to introduce into the industry an affordable software package that dealers of any size could afford. Obviously, there's an investment on our part and there's an investment on the dealer's part; he's got to be willing to learn the software, he's got to have a certain amount of commitment. Our commitment to him is to support him during this trial period and let him truly evaluate it in a real-world situation. This is not a self-running demo or a limited use demo. It's a full fledged, workable program that he can use in his day-to-day environment and really put it to the test. So we both have an investment." According to Hansen, the RV Waretm program is basically designed for the parts and service area of the RV retailers business. The program handles service flow; writing repair orders -- whether the customer is paying or it's a warranty repair. It also handles sales of over the counter parts as well as parts applied to a repair order. It generates customer mailing lists; tracks vehicle history; and gives the service department reports that are necessary to run a shop. Dealers and service center owners are familiar with Hansen and his contributions to the computerization of parts and service departments. Hansen formed Hansen Systems in 1986 and began marketing his first software package. Later, he sold the system to StagParkway and the upgraded version became Data Smarttm. Over the years since then Hansen has worked with StagParkway to refine the system and help market the program to RV dealers. Recently, StagParkway sold the software package to IDS, another software provider for RV retailers. At that point, Hansen had another idea and founded RV Ware, Inc. Hansen told RV News, "What we came up with marketing-wise since I've left StagParkway is the Windows program. I feel Windows is obviously the PC platform of the future with probably Windows NT going to be the definite leader." Right now, RV Waretm works on any Windows 3.1 or greater PC based system. It will work on Windows for Workgroups, Windows 95, and Windows NT. Hansen explained, "It has online help, full help screens, and the entire user manual is all keyed in to where the user is in the program. He can click on a help button and it takes him right to the page in the manual that relates to the page where they have a question. "Also in this Windows version the user has the option of using a mouse or a touch screen. As they move the mouse cursor over an icon, the program tells them exactly what that button is for." Another feature of the RV Waretm program is it is UPC bar code capable right now. All a dealer needs to do is put in a scanner and identify that he is a bar code user. Hansen said, "Obviously, they would need to have merchandise marked in the bar code. So far not too many suppliers in the industry ship products already bar coded but that is where the industry is heading. It could get labor intensive for the retailer to have to bar code everything that came into the store. There are packages that will do UPC bar codes labels and they are very inexpensive, if the retailer would like to go in that direction and print his own bar codes for items that are not pre-bar coded." According to Hansen, the program has an entirely new look and feel. He said, "That's obviously because of the Windows platform. What can Windows do for us that DOS couldn't? I will give you one instance. In the Data Smarttm program you would write one line of 30 characters and that was the limitation of the field for that problem that the consumer brought in to the retailer. But with Windows, now that line becomes an unlimited lined window, where they can keep going back into that line of labor. Say the customer comes in and says, 'my refrigerator does not operate on gas.' At that point, the service tech does not know what the problem is. In Data Smart, they couldn't go in and insert lines and keep coming back with here's the problem; here's the cause; this is what we did; and this is what we recommend. In the new program, that whole labor line becomes tagged to different technicians and actually a user-definable general ledger account numbers for labor sales, warranty, and can even integrate into a supplier's or manufacturer's part numbers and job codes. We can import these databases from Fleetwood, Dometic, Suburban, Norcold, or any of the appliance companies and integrate them into RV Waretm. At the end of the day the service manager can generate a report, detailing cost, retail, by technician per company. The new program, for instance, allows the users to go into a report-building module that can be designed to output any report that he may need. "And our system is capable of file exportation. We could take any vendor order by manufacturer number, part number, bar code number, and send it out to a file. Because of the fantastic ability for this program, it can be tied to the Dometic warranty with Dometic parts, and produce a file that could virtually produce warranty claims and eliminate the need for anybody to have to ever hand-write a claim again. " When you look at all the features of Hansen's new program, it is remarkable that the program is being made available at such a low cost. One of the reasons why Hansen's new version is less expensive than systems his company developed in the past is that RV Waretm requires little if any on-site training. Hansen said, "Before, the dealer was paying upfront money for training in the $6,000-range package. If you back that training money out, and you back the support out, what do you have? What we start with is the basic shell. Here it is. It includes a telephone support package, has online support capability, and the basic software. That's all encompassed in that $50 month-to-month lease. If the dealer requires training or needs a little extra help, he can contract with us for one of our trainers to come out for two or three days. That way they are only paying for what they need. Why penalize them and incorporate money for training, if they don't really need it." Hansen reports that RV Waretm has just finished Beta testing and is now being shipped to customers. Over the years he has built up a loyal following of dealers and that's the basis for the large number of customers changing over to the new package. Hansen said, "Right now 50 dealers have signed up on the program. Many of these dealers were prior Data Smarttm users from the StagParkway package and were familiar with me over the years. We have done a couple of distributor open houses and have had tremendous response to the new system. The response has been phenomenal. They say, 'Gee, what a great way to market this software. I don't have to shell out $12,000, and then 90 days later say: I made a bad decision.' We've tried to eliminate the difficulty of making that decision and turn it into a $50-per-month decision." Hansen's key to his success is that he understands what problems dealers and service centers face. Prior to starting his first software company, Hansen called on dealers; first as a salesman for a supplier and then as a salesman for a major distristributor. Hansen said, "Having called on dealers for so many years it, was obvious to me that parts and service was a marriage. And service couldn't survive without parts; parts needed service for installation, and so there needed to be a program that addressed those two areas of the business and be able to track those harmoniously, separately and together. In the past they had no handle on their parts and service business." As his new company gets off and running, Hansen plans to base his business on what has worked for him in the past - providing excellent customer service. He said, "The philosophy will still be the same -- that's to continually develop the software, keeping it compatible with hardware that's being used, taking advantage of any programming utilities that might become available, and keeping abreast of not only the computer industry but the RV industry itself. "We would certainly encourage and welcome manufacturers and suppliers that would like to be online to work with us. We would like to see the industry get more automated in the form of warranty claims - even order processing. Once again, RV Waretm is not designed to work only with one supplier of parts or one aftermarket distributor, or one RV manufacturer. "The long range goal of our company is to help the industry become more automated and to have a system in a dealership that works harmoniously with various manufacturers and vendors programs. There's no dealer that lives and dies with one supplier, one manufacturer, nor does warranty for only one company. What we've tried to do is have a flexible enough system that it will work with everyone, and help bring this industry along into the year 2000. That's where we are going as a company." |
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