Build Your Business:
Blazing the road to success
Achieving profitability in a challenging rental market
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| Father and son team Tom and Josh Nickell of Nickell Rental in Newnan, Georgia, serves small- to mid-sized contractors and do-it-yourselfers. |
For every rental center, the apex of success lies at the intersection of profitability and customer satisfaction. To have both amidst an ever-changing market, from rising equipment costs to the challenge of maintaining high ROI, requires a passion for customer needs, and that passion must come from rental center owners and manufacturers alike.
Here’s how one rental center is bringing success to customers in a niche market and continues to be profitable doing it.
Passion, profitability
Nickell Rental is an independent rental center based in Newnan, Georgia. Since 1998, the company has been serving small- to mid-sized contractors and do-it-yourselfers in the state — a customer base that felt the sting of a market shift from independent rental centers to larger national chains during the ’90s. While those companies provided the equipment smaller contractors needed, customers faced higher rental rates and less support.
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Since Nickell Rental opened in 1998, it’s been serving a niche market of smaller contractors and DIYers in the Georgia area. The rental center’s solutions approach has brought success to it and its customers. |
That’s when Tom Nickell decided there’s a better solution for this market, and opened Nickell Rental. Since then, the rental center has focused on providing smaller contractors and DIYers with cost-effective solutions to their projects, which Nickell says requires a holistic approach.
“I’ve been working with Nickell Rental since they opened,” said Paul Bradbury, Strack Inc. superintendent. “Their dedication to the industry, from equipment support to training, has been extremely important to the success of our business.”
Strack Inc., in Fairburn, Georgia, specializes in boring and tunneling, railroad construction and municipal infrastructure projects. It often relies on Nickell Rental for equipment, including skid steers, soil rollers and backhoes.
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Adding hydraulic-powered equipment to your rental fleet adds cost-effective alternatives to Tier 4 Final equipment. Hydraulic equipment can also help boost customer satisfaction. |
See the big picture
“We are consultants,” says Josh Nickell, who owns Nickell Rental with his father, Tom Nickell. “Our customers come to us because they have a job to do and they want it done in the easiest, most cost-effective way.”
This approach gives Nickell Rental healthy repeat business. In fact, the majority of its contractor customers, like Strack, visit the center several times a week while DIYers visit at least once a year. Nickell’s business model is also what has likely contributed to the company’s 77 percent three-year sales growth and a ranking as one of Inc. 5000’s Fastest Growing Companies in the U.S. for the past two years.
Nickell added that having sales and equipment training from vendors helps his team stay up to date on the latest product changes, which affects everything from maintenance to customer satisfaction.
Training important
Knowing how to properly operate and maintain equipment with new features or components, such as Tier 4 Final-compliant components, helps technicians provide quick equipment turnaround. It also helps the Nickell sales team demonstrate operating and onsite troubleshooting techniques that they walk through with every customer as part of the rental process.
This assures contractors can use the equipment with minimal risk of issues. If an issue occurs, customers are typically better prepared and can handle it quickly. For rental centers, that means more satisfied customers, fewer repairs and better ROI.
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David Castanien, Nickell Rental service mechanic, uses service kits to complete preventive maintenance tasks. The kits help boost Castanien’s efficiency. |
Manufacturers’ sales and equipment training sessions and their attentive support helps the Nickell team find the best solution for customers.
“It’s not uncommon for me to call Justin McKenzey, for example, our Atlas Copco sales rep, with a particular issue and get his suggestion on the best approach to solving a customer issue,” Josh says. “Our vendors have a wide breadth of experience and knowledge to help us solve customers’ challenges.”
Equipment selection
Setting up for rental success also starts long before equipment is rented; it starts with the equipment itself. Nickell appreciates the approach some manufacturers take to develop equipment solutions that help overcome market challenges.
For example, the economic impact Tier 4 Final requirements have had on equipment prices must trickle down to rental customers. While there is no way around the Tier 4 Final expenses on large diesel-driven equipment, Atlas Copco developed a 110-cfm compressor that gives Nickell Rental customers an affordable alternative to the larger 185-cfm units.
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Rental brands Sullair |
The unit meets Tier 4 Final emission standards without requiring exhaust aftertreatment components or filters. That means it costs less to purchase and rent, which helps Nickell Rental and its customers be more profitable. The fewer components also optimize uptime between service intervals so customers can depend on Nickell to have the equipment available when they need it.
“We’re also looking at supplementing our line with more hydraulic tools, which will help us reduce rental rates as an alternative to air-powered tools,” Josh adds. “Many of the air-powered tools are also available as hydraulic models for use with a hydraulic power pack.”
Because the units use hydraulic fluid rather than compressed air, the diesel-powered air compressor is eliminated, reducing the overall price of the solution without affecting efficiency. This translates to more economical rental rates for customers and a more profitable rental ROI.
Meeting the needs of rental customers starts with having high-quality and dependable equipment. High-quality equipment performs better and is more reliable because it’s built to withstand tough jobsites and heavy use. This saves rental centers time by reducing repairs and allows equipment to be out on rent rather than in the shop. Customers will also see less downtime from equipment that is typically easier to use and offers optimal operator comfort.
Preventive maintenance
Even the best-built equipment needs maintenance and parts replaced at some point, so it’s good to be prepared.
“It’s common for us to call a vendor and wait on hold a long time or for parts to be shipped,” Josh says. “That can be very frustrating, but we appreciate partners like Atlas Copco where we get through very quickly and they often get parts to us the next day. That kind of speed is valuable to us and our customers.”
Customer responsiveness is a key to Nickell Rental’s success. When customers can keep running instead of waiting on parts and repairs, their jobs stay on schedule and budget.
Josh says it can be challenging to efficiently coordinate preventive maintenance for a large fleet of equipment. From hundreds of filters with unique SKUs to thousands of pieces of equipment with varying maintenance intervals, preventive maintenance can be complex and can have a huge impact on technicians’ efficiency.
“Filter packs and kits from vendors have become invaluable to us” Josh says. “They come with all the parts technicians need and are in one place and with just one SKU.”
Nickell Rental’s efficient preventive maintenance program helps it get equipment out on rental faster, which improves profitability. Having the right equipment serviced and on hand also boosts customer satisfaction.
New opportunities
Nickell Rental’s solutions-focused approach and strong vendor support has the rental center poised for even more growth as new opportunities arise. Fiber-cable installation is presently a new field they are exploring. Projects underway by Google and AT&T will improve Internet speeds as much as 100 times more than what is presently available. The process involves using portable air compressors to bore holes and blow in fiber cables — an application that until a year ago wasn’t even on Nickell’s radar.
“We’ve never targeted this market,” Josh says. “Having a reputation as a dependable and knowledgeable rental center in the area has allowed us to get involved with new opportunities.”
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