Return Rate, Sentiment and Efficiency at a Glance.
Three numbers that tell you whether your customers are coming back, how they feel about it, and how efficiently you’re serving them when 2. they do.
1. Customer Retention Rate
Measures the percentage of your existing customers who continue doing business with you over a defined period — typically year over year. It is one of the most important and least-tracked numbers in the heavy equipment dealership world.
Example
You started the year with 400 active customers. You acquired 60 new customers. You ended with 380.
CRR = ((380 − 60) ÷ 400) × 100 = 80%
That means 80 accounts (one in five) did not return. Whether you noticed or not.
Benchmarks
- Below 70% — net detractors; urgent action needed
- 70–84% — room for serious improvement
- 85–89% — healthy range
- 90%+ — best in class
New customer acquisition is tracked separately by design. New customers should never mask retention problems; they are a different metric measuring a different thing.
2. Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS)
Measures how likely your employees are to recommend your dealership as a place to work. A leading indicator of people stability and directly connected to customer experience. Disengaged employees do not deliver exceptional customer experiences. The two are inseparable.
The fundamental question is as follows:
“On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend working here to a friend or colleague?”
eNPS = % Promoters (score 9–10) − % Detractors (score 0–6)
Passives (7–8) are excluded from the calculation.
Results range from −100 to +100.
Score ranges
- Below 0 — Net detractors; urgent action needed
- 0–20 — Room for meaningful improvement
- 20–40 — Healthy range
- 40+ — Strong employee advocacy
Why it matters in the context of CX and uptime: when eNPS is low, something is already breaking in your people systems, role clarity, leadership consistency, workload balance, or trust. And when your people don’t trust the organization, your customers eventually feel it. Strong eNPS consistently precedes strong customer experience.
For more information on eNPS, check out our previous blog post here: A Leading Indicator of Dealership Health – Sheppard & Company
3. Service Billing Cycle (SBC)
Measures the elapsed time between a technician’s last labor punch on a job and the moment the customer receives their invoice. One of the most overlooked metrics in dealership operations and in our opinion, one of the most (if not the most) important KPIs in the dealership.
Example:
A technician completes a repair at 2:00 PM on Monday. The customer receives their invoice on Thursday morning. That’s an SBC of approximately 65 hours, or just under 3 days.
Benchmarks:
- Automotive industry standard: measured in minutes to hours
- Heavy equipment best practice: 3–5 business days
- Heavy equipment average: often 7–14 days or longer
Every day between job completion and invoice is a day your cash is sitting uncollected. It’s also a day when the customer’s last impression of the service experience is an open loop. The job is done, but the transaction isn’t closed. Proactive, fast invoicing is itself a customer experience signal. It communicates that your operation is organized, professional, and respects the customer’s time and cash flow.
About the Author
Luke Sheppard is Principal of Sheppard & Company, a strategic consultancy located in Ottawa, Canada, which focuses on management consulting and business advisory services for the heavy equipment industry. Luke’s unique ability to focus on what’s most important by filtering through the noise, solving business problems using engineering methods and driving results with practical tools and solutions differentiates him as a leader in the industry. His work reflects the premise that diverse and engaged teams drive exceptional results and helps entrepreneurs and managers build and lead high-performing teams.
