Down equipment and missed windows of good weather are a farmer’s nemesis. In the Beaver Dam store, Vanderloop Equipment’s (VE) parts department staff works hard year-round to make sure it is ready to respond when a call comes in.
Nichole Bales is in her third year behind the counter at the newest of VE’s 3 dealerships. The Beaver Dam store is only 7 years old, but boasts many more years in the wealth of expertise and experience staff members can offer.
She says the entire dealership has seen rapid growth in recent years, and believes the strength and strategy of the parts department is a major contributor to that. Two things have turned the tide in parts’ sales during her time at Beaver Dam: maintaining strong inventory and maximizing the customer experience.
Nichole Bales
Years with Organization: 3
Role: “I do all the inventory management, shipping and receiving. I do all of the parts look-ups, customer service, all of it. All around, I do whatever they need me to do.”
Quotable: “If I have the part, I’m successful. If I’m able to get somebody going out the door, absolutely that’s a success. We don’t have metrics or any measurements at this building —it’s just making sure that we are able to keep going.”
With inventory doubling under her guidance, she says VE is on the right path to serving a clientele that can’t afford equipment downtime and looks to VE to provide next-level support for their tough days.
“These guys spend a substantial amount of money, and they need to feel welcome,” she explains. “We need to have empathy and show we care.”
Roles & Responsibilities
Bales plays a pivotal role in ensuring the smooth running of the parts department. Starting her day early — often as the first one in the building — she manages all aspects of inventory, shipping, receiving and customer service. A large part of her day is spent looking up parts for customers, which can be time-consuming, especially when customers aren’t sure what they need.
She says a strong attention to detail is necessary to checking for specific parts, assigning parts and staff to jobs, and then managing pickup or delivery times. Each day brings a new logistical puzzle to solve.
However, her day-to-day responsibilities extend far beyond basic inventory management. She relies heavily on historical parts usage data to predict future needs, especially during critical times like planting and harvest. She and two other parts’ staff rotate on-call hours every 3 weeks, each responding to after-hour requests for a full week before another steps in.
She describes harvest season, particularly the corn silage period in late August through September, as a hectic and intense time, where machines endure significant wear and tear, often breaking down due to tough conditions. “Corn is the hardest crop to put through the machines,” Bales says, explaining how the heat generated from the feed and grain can cause the wear plates in the machinery to distort.
Despite the stress and the constant demands of her job, Bales thrives in the fast-paced environment. She says sticky notes and spreadsheets are her best friends to help her stay organized in the whirlwind of activity. While the quieter post-harvest season offers some downtime, it’s the busier days that she enjoys most, even when she’s juggling many projects at once.
“I like to be the support for these guys, but I’m not contending with anybody,” she says. “I come in, I do my job and I don’t have anybody breathing down my neck all day. I like that.”
The Value of Strong Relationships
At the busy Beaver Dam location, excellent service stems from building trust and reliability with their customers.
“You need to greet people with a smile and make sure that every need is met, from physical to emotional,” she says.
This focus on relationships ensures customers, whether long-term clients or first-time visitors, know VE is ready to go the extra mile to meet their needs. Responding to emergency parts requests and working tirelessly to keep operations running, she explains, builds loyalty and keeps farmers calling for help year after year.
It’s no secret that the challenges faced by farmers, especially those such as unexpected equipment damage or weather issues, can be frustrating. Sometimes even the team at VE is surprised at what situation a farmer finds himself in.
“We’ve seen thick steel knives bend completely over because of a rock,” she says. “How does this happen? That’s an immense amount of power.”
Still, despite the severity of any head-scratching damage, Bales says her team is determined to solve any issue. It may require tracking down hard-to-find parts or working late nights, but they understand these on-call situations are seasonal and essential for long-term company success.
VE has a corporate pilot and two planes to help fill in gaps on a tight deadline (see p. 68). (Claas is located in nearby Columbus, Ind., and the plane has been useful for these parts).
Yet, she feels awful when a machine is broken down and she simply doesn’t have the parts at Vanderloop.
“I hate that: when farmers come in, broken down in the middle of the field and need an obscure part no one’s ever heard of before,” Bales says. “It happens, but we figure it out. Our team are next-level geniuses when it comes to that stuff.”
A New Generation of Challenges
Working in the parts department of a dealership like VE comes with its own unique set of challenges, and Bales knows this firsthand.
“There’s 50 steps to everything in parts. It’s easy to miss a step,” she says.
Even a small oversight can lead to problems down the line, like sending the wrong parts to a customer.
“I accidentally sent some parts to a customer that were supposed to be sent here to the store” Bales says. “It was easily remedied, but still, it was a phone call they shouldn’t have had to make.”
“There’s 50 steps to everything in parts — it’s easy to miss a step…”
She says the biggest challenge overall is making sure parts are in stock, but also that they arrive in a timely fashion. How does she stay ahead of it? By understanding and monitoring what was sold the year prior, what machines are popular at the time, which ones are wearing out regularly, and others that have fast-replacing parts.
The pressure grows with the unpredictability of weather and equipment breakdowns, making short-term planning essential.
“It’s turn and burn,” she says. “We want to know what parts are going in and out real quick.”
While stocking commonly used parts like knives is straightforward, there’s always the “unexpected.”
“I don’t know if somebody’s going to take out an accelerator,” Bales says. “I stocked a couple of them, but you never know.”
And it goes without saying that in farming, even minor delays in parts availability can have major consequences, especially during critical seasons.
Technological shifts have also changed the way Bales interacts with customers. Just take the massive increase in text message orders, for example. Farmers now rely on instant communications.
She recalls a recent transaction where a customer dropped $1,000 after a simple text exchange. Despite these changes, one thing remains constant: farmers trust VE to stock what they need, when they need it.
“I try to keep a chopper’s worth or a tractor’s worth of parts on hand,” she says. “That way, if something breaks down mid-season, I can feel confident saying, ‘Hey, here are your parts. Go fix it.’”
Growth & Development
Since Bales joined VE, the parts department’s inventory has nearly doubled. Her increased focus on stocking parts, something that was not prioritized in the past, has played a crucial role in meeting customer needs. This is a direct response to the fast pace of farming and also other services the dealership is focusing on, particularly an increased demand for pre- and post-harvest services and parts.
Bales explains the number of choppers serviced each year has increased significantly, from 21 a few years ago to 40 just last year. This surge in demand is largely driven by expanding farms that require high-tech machinery like Claas choppers, Fendt tractors and other specialized harvest equipment. As farmers invest more in these machines, the dealership has had to adapt quickly, growing its inventory and service capabilities to keep up with the rising workload.
Post harvest, the on-site team will do a detailed review of equipment, finding anything wrong with it and making sure it is ready to head out next time. The tech walks through the findings with a customer, who approves any repairs.
Bringing the proactive mindset to their customers has been essential for maintaining growth in the business. It helps the parts team be better prepared and ahead of the game, but also instills confidence in the modern-day farmer.
“Some people believe that farmers are a dying breed,” she says. “But it’s not dying, it’s just changing. There’s fewer farms, but they’re bigger, and their needs are bigger.”
VE services customers from small farms to large co-ops, and has developed the ability to pivot to meet them all where they’re at. Overall, she’s seeing the rewards of that hard work coming full circle — not only through strong customer retention but also a high percentage of new buyers walking through the doors for the first time.
Bales embraces the challenges and opportunities that come with serving an industry as essential and ever-changing as farming. Her ability to take every day as it comes ensures the parts department at VE in Beaver Dam is in good hands and fully stocked.
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Dealership Minds: Sales Manager & Co-Owner: Guiding Sales, Finding New Markets
Dealership Minds: Technology Sales & Co-Owner: Learning from the Past to Move Forward
Dealership Minds: Lena Store Lead: The Power of Personalization
Dealership Minds: Parts Department Lead: Customer Communication Key to Success in Parts
Dealership Minds: Beaver Dam Sales: Techs are ‘Game-Changer’ in New Wholegoods Sales
Dealership Minds: Service Department Manager: A True Passion for Customer Service
Dealership Minds: Service Department Lead: Service: Beyond Just Repairs
Dealership Minds: Parts Lead: Parts Department Brings New Challenges Every Day
Dealership Minds: Brillion Sales Reps: Building Relationships Beyond the Sale
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