Wofford Truck Parts was built on customer satisfaction. From its early beginnings delivering nearly inaccessible parts to customers in need to its current position operating one of the largest aftermarket warehouses in Texas, the El Paso-based distributor has earned its reputation as a distributor to rely on.
It is thanks to that reputation, and the company’s commitment to making it a reality, that has allowed Wofford Truck Parts to greatly expand its business over the last decade and this year earn its first nomination for the Truck Parts & Service Distributor of the Year award.
“We’ve always said, that’s the one thing we can do to distinguish ourselves. We can give good customer service every time,” says Owner Wesley Wofford. “We don’t ever let a single customer slip through the cracks. We always try to provide them that individual attention.”
The latter point has been a priority since before Wofford Truck Parts formally existed. Wesley’s father Paul started the business that would grow into Wofford Truck Parts as a solo parts distributor in 1984. Having previously worked in the dealer space, Wofford was aware of a large market of fleets and service locations across the Rio Grande in Mexico that struggled to ac-cess engine components to repair their U.S.-built trucks.
Wofford quickly built relationships with these customers and local truck dealers and started a business an intermediary, purchasing products in the U.S. and driving them directly to his customers across the river. By 1986, the business had grown large enough to require a warehouse in El Paso, and the following year Wofford hired his first employee to help supplement a flourishing customer base.
“Between the two of them they were able travel more and more and really build the business up in and around El Paso,” Wesley Wofford says.
That flexibility proved essential, as OEMs and component suppliers began trickling into the Mexican market a few years later. After selling almost 95 percent to Mexican customers in its early years, Wofford Truck Parts’ customer base is more than 90 percent U.S.-based today.
But that flip in market segmentation hasn’t slowed the company’s development. Thanks to its emphasis on customer satisfaction, Wofford Truck Parts continues to grow.It added two locations (Carlsbad, N.M., Pecos, Texas) earlier this decade, and Wesley Wofford says each store is geared around customer education, with useful point-of-purchase displays and product training materials throughout. Additionally, he says the company’s veteran and bilingual sales staff has decades of experience solving customers’ problems.
Then there’s the training events. Every two months Wofford Truck Parts rents out an auditorium at a local technical school and welcomes customers and the school’s students to join in a training event with an industry supplier.
Together, Wesley Wofford says these initiatives have allowed the company to earn a sizable and loyal customer base. One that he hopes will only continue to grow.
“We have been very patient and have worked to get to this point,” he says. “We hope our customers see that, and see how much we care.”
