Spader Business Management

Amazing company full of wonderful people that treat you like family. Guarantee RV has been doing business with Spader for over 20 years and plans to for another 20.
Mar 28th, 2023

Feb 7th, 2022

Jan 9th, 2022

Sep 22nd, 2021

In my personal experience with the Spader company, I would have to say their program was almost entirely responsible for nearly destroying the service department of BCs premier boat dealership, so much so that after their systems and policies were implemented, service revenues plummeted, customers never returned, and the company suffered a 160% staff turnover in 3 months. This is a matter of record, and not just opinion. Employees who had been there 20+ years left. People they hired to replace these people also quit within a few weeks. Their current roster of talent is a far cry from where they were at their height, and in many cases they simply dont have the talent required to work on todays high tech, computer-centric equipment. Even their sales department has suffered, since without the ability to service what they sold, people found other brands and dealerships which did have this capability. I am well familiar with Mr. Greg Schneider and his methods, having attended one of his seminars in Ohio. When he personally came up to British Columbia to put his misguided methodology into practice, his recommendations essentially paralyzed the entire shop. If you want techs to spend more time typing and less time actually working on equipment, this is the way to do it. The current service department is a shadow of its former self, generates a fraction of the revenue, is far from profitable, and judging by the terrible reviews from customers on Google and Yelp, things have very seriously deteriorated. Again, these are the objective and easily verifiable facts. Sad, considering the dealership and its service department were once one of the most highly rated in North America by the industrys own ranking system. Greg Schneider is like a horse with blinders, and only sees things through the lens of his own narrow and limited perspective, and has serious problems opening up his thinking to different approaches and other paradigms. There is more than one way of doing things, but not in his myopic little world. My advice to any owner of a marine service department which is already historically running reasonably well is to leave good enough alone, and keep a loose grip on the helm. Trying to get that extra 1% may well destroy the most important asset any service oriented company has, which is their staff, and end up costing you far, far more than the elusive 1%, which is a pittance. Make only minor tweaks, and treat your long-suffering employees with a bit of compassion and empathy. The everyday trials and tribulations of dealing with customers who transfer their frustrations with faulty equipment or painfully obvious operator errors is no place to implement trite managerial voodoo and micromanagement techniques which are nothing more than (ineptly) repackaged Taylorism at best, or Charles Bedauxism at worst. The fact of the matter is that people who are doing a very difficult job under very trying conditions will resent facile character assumptions and juvenile and simplistic approaches to management. But if what you are after is to get out of the service business altogether, then this may be the ideal way of doing it, and Greg Schneider is your man. Finally, I seriously question any management company that does not have perfect reviews in glassdoor.com. Where do they get off advising anyone if they cant even treat their own employees properly?
Aug 4th, 2021