Why Partnering With The Right Dealers Makes The Difference

FAE is currently the leading producer in the land management equipment business as well as in the road stabilization, maintenance and construction attachments sector. Despite assertive competition, FAE’s overall share of the U.S. and world markets in terms of land management equipment is the highest in its history. The company has steadily increased sales and confirmed its prime position in the USA.

FAE USA’s CEO, Giorgio Carera, is often asked about how FAE rose to such a challenge. “Several factors played a part,” said Carera. “They include the tremendous value of our brand name, the excellent quality of our products, the high resale value of our machines, the frequent and timely new product introductions, our outstanding product training and support and our continued investments to streamline distribution operations. Furthermore, we are established leaders in engineering, innovation and manufacturing.”

Certainly, one of the most critical components of FAE’s vision, strategy and wide success is the network of dealers with whom the company partners to bring its state of the art products to the hands of its consumers. Offering a premium product, FAE seeks high quality dealers that are in the position to represent its brand name with the highest standards of quality and service. “FAE is not for everyone,” says Carera. “We have very high expectations from our dealer partners and one of the main things we look into when selecting a dealer is its capability to service our equipment in an outstanding manner.”

“We believe that FAE’s biggest asset is our dealer network,” stated Carera. “They play a pivotal role in helping us build and maintain close relationships with customers and gain insight into how we can improve our products and services to better fulfill customers’ needs. This is why partnering only with dealers that are interested in building a long and mutual partnership with FAE is key.”

Much of FAE’s competitive advantage can be attributed to its highly selective criteria for choosing a dealer partner, which includes a very detailed analysis before making a final onboarding decision. “The right dealer is much more than a channel to reach customers,” said Carera. “The right dealer is a business leader that, through its commitment to excellence, is able to deliver an outstanding experience for the customer in all stages of its cycle, ultimately becoming a trusted source of knowledge, feedback, support and expertise in their local markets.”

At the local level, FAE relies on its dealer partners to learn about the customer’s needs and wants, pain points, requirements, challenges, perspective and feedback. Because our dealers reach a level of customer understanding that FAE alone could never reach, they help bridge the knowledge gap to provide the clear picture that’s needed to deliver the continuous product improvements and first-to-market technology that FAE is known for. In simpler words, our dealers play a monumental role in FAE’s product upgrades and design, making an impact that reaches far beyond their territories.

FAE dealers are outstanding relationship builders. They work tremendously hard to foster mutual trust with their customers and grow long term connections. “After a product leaves our door, our dealers completely take over. They are the ones on the front line, living with a product for its lifetime. They’re the ones seeing customers on a regular basis and working closely with them in all aspects of the FAE business, from training, to service.” stated Carera. And it goes both ways. “At the end of the day, what makes the relationship work between FAE and our dealers is mutual trust. We share the gain and we share the pain.”

Furthermore, FAE dealer partners are inherent brand ambassadors that share our vision of what it takes to provide superior customer service. With the common understanding that in-depth product knowledge is at the core of true customer support, both the company and its partners make significant investments in the form of service training, product & application training, thorough parts support and routine contact between both organizations, working together to build a distribution system that meets the unique characteristics of our industry.

Last, and perhaps most importantly, FAE dealers are customer centric and have the ability and infrastructure to deliver immediate product service. “Even the best-made, most durable machines wear out from operating in extremely tough environments and need part replacement or rebuilding. This requires an organization that can service products quickly and effectively to minimize costly downtime and get machines back running as soon as possible.” explained Carera. In this sense our dealers are the customers' partners, in whom they place their trust to run profitable and successful businesses.

A high end piece of land management equipment is a major capital asset and customers pay a premium for machines they can count on, expecting a healthy return on their investment. FAE bears the responsibility for designing and manufacturing equipment that is durable, productive, reliable, safe, easily maintained and serviced. And, we deliver on our promise, often surpassing all expectations. The fact is, without a strong and reliable distribution network of top-notch, committed and dedicated partners that custom tailor the experience to fit each local market's needs, providing outstanding sales, finance, service, support, knowledge, resources and feedback, we could not be the market leader that we are today, serving thousands of customers across the nation. We rely on our partners to do it together, working together, investing together, growing together, learning together, moving forward together and winning together, for the long run.