Rental Center: A Friendly Approach
Alltool Rental wins business by being approachable and available.
By Clair Urbain
 |
| David Keller, owner, Alltool Rental. |
 |
| The staff at Alltool Rental’s West Palm Beach rental center from left to right: David Keller, Matt Hillsberry, Eddie Peraza, Garrett Bennett, Paul McCall, Robert Andrews. |
David Keller’s father, Joseph, started Alltool Rental in 1969 out of a lawnmower/small engine repair shop in Hollywood, Florida. David, the present owner of the business, joined his father in 1992, right after the Category 5 Hurricane Andrew moved through south Florida.
Today, Alltool Rental has three stores in south Florida in Hollywood, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. “Our service area is from the Florida Keys to West Palm Beach,” David says.
Keller estimates the Alltool Rental fleet size to be valued near $5 million and annual revenue nearly $2 million. “Our customer base is 75 percent contractors, most of whom are smaller contractors. We’ve found the smaller contractors are with us through thick and thin. The larger ones shut down when the economy goes soft, but the smaller contractors stay working. We also work with quite a few DIY homeowners,” he says.
Across the three locations, Alltool Rental has 22 employees, many of whom have been with the company for years. David’s father, Joe, is still involved with the business. “He is involved, but not as much as in the past. He’s a tremendous asset for our sales staff in West Palm Beach, which is the newest store for us and has the least experienced staff. It’s a great staff and Robert Andrews, my best friend since I was nine years old, is our branch manager. He was a general manager at a Publix grocery store before he came to work with us.
“Dad helps the guys to learn as much as they can about customers. In many ways, he’s old school, teaching them to shake hands, get business cards, ask about their upcoming projects. He offers great moral support and insight for our employees.”
The friendliness factor
Over the years, Alltool Rental has earned a reputation of being extremely helpful and friendly. Because of that, Keller says the company has been able to consistently achieve 15 percent growth to the bottom line the last two years.
“I think the key to our growth is that we’re approachable. Our 22 guys who’ve been with us for a long time, we’re friendly as heck. We educate our clients. We don’t just hand them the equipment; we try to educate them, always giving them the heads up on what’s new and what’s latest in this business to keep them productive.”
Silica dust control education is one area Keller and his staff have had tremendous success in winning over customers. He credits part of that success to his Hilti salesperson who has trained his staff extensively in the importance of dust control and in using the correct tools to do it. “With OSHA, dust control is a big thing now and we’ve gotten heavy into it and it is working. Our contractors know they need it but aren’t sure how to do it. We work with our customers and look at where, why and when are they needing dust control. Hilti has helped us train our customers; they even gave us slabs of concrete to use for dust control demonstrations.”
Another reason Alltool gets repeat customers is because Alltool Rental staff members are available. “We take calls at all hours of the day and night. Last holiday season, we had a contractor call us in the middle of the night with a problem of one of our aerial lifts that was creeping. He couldn’t wait until morning because he had to get Christmas lights installed in a shopping plaza. I took the call, and between talking about the problem and a cell phone video the customer sent me, we were able to solve his issue and he was able to complete his job. Not many rental firms, especially the chain stores, are interested in providing that level of support. We’ve heard it often from our customers that the chains want to just put the tool in your hand and get you out of the door. It’s transactional and we don’t operate that way,” David says.
Demolition niche
Alltool Rentals has seen substantial growth in demolition equipment rentals in the last few years. “We are especially seeing interest at the Hollywood store. Most of what we rent is small equipment because most of these neighborhoods have narrow or zero lot lines. They need to get through narrow gates,” he says. “It really is just customer service. Sure, we could rent something at bottom dollar. But when we can share how the next model up will make the job go faster or easier or save them time, it’s a win-win.”
He’s also found that price-shopping customers offer an opportunity educate them. “We had a guy who needed to drill 70 post holes to fence his yard. He wanted the two-man model, but when I shared how he could do the job so much faster and easier with a Dingo and a post-hole attachment, he quickly decided on that. These days, customers are less about pinching pennies and want to do the job the easiest and fastest way possible.”
However, that wasn’t always the case. The Great Recession proved to be a lesson in survival. “We were fortunate that we didn’t have to lay anyone off, but the employees worked together on cutting their hours. We changed our motto to share how we help support the local economy. That was a claim the big stores couldn’t make as effectively as we could. We also stayed positive when talking with customers. I told the guys to not discuss the economy with customers. We didn’t complain about the economy. We kept shaking hands and reaching out to customers and it paid off.”
The branches’ inventories are connected through Point of Rental software and Keller regularly shifts inventory between stores as demand dictates. “As one of our maintenance guys moves equipment from branch to branch, he’ll also spend a few hours there doing maintenance on equipment that might be more difficult or the staff at the store is behind on.
“We never say, ‘We can’t do it.’ For example, if a customer needs a mini excavator in West Palm Beach and we have one available in Hollywood, we’ll trailer it up there. It’s 78 miles, and I don’t want to miss that rental because we don’t have it at that store. Time and again, our customers have appreciated it,” he says.
The future
With three branches, Keller says the company isn’t finished growing. It’s taking a reasoned approach to expansion.
“We are serving Broward, Miami and Palm Beach counties right now as far as Fort Pierce and our next logical step would be farther north. But first, we must get the employees in the West Palm Beach fully trained, then we can look for opportunities farther north.
“Like everyone, we are challenged to find employees. I don’t think the problem is they don’t want to do the work, it’s that they haven’t ever been exposed to it. They are much more comfortable with a keyboard than digging into a combustion engine to fix it. But when you expose them to it, they get interested. For example, we asked our young employees if we found a way to teach them welding, would they be interested? All of them were interested in learning how to weld. The issue is there aren’t enough trade programs around. There is interest, but it’s hard to get them the skills they need,” he says.
This article appeared in the March-April 2020 issue of Pro Contractor Rentals magazine.
© 2020 Urbain Communications LLC. All rights reserved.
PRO CONTRACTOR RENTALS MAGAZINE
Pro Contractor Rentals provides information of value to rental centers who focus time, resources and attention on meeting the demands of construction contractors and other equipment rental customers.
