Western Canada has a harsh climate. Winters especially. With temperatures capable of reaching as low as -40°C, truckers traversing Canada’s Great Plains require equipment tough enough to match the environment.
Randy Cozart knew that when he started working at his family’s Freightliner dealership in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, early in his career, and it continued to be true as he moved into a leadership role. Far too often, Cozart remembers, customers in his area would seek help from his business after their trailers suffered damage during tough Canadian winters.
Cozart would always help them, and the work motivated him to look for a trailer line that could do everything his customers needed. Equipment that was built to withstand the environment Canada’s truck owners faced each day.
That’s what brought him to Doepker.
Headquartered in nearby Annaheim, Doepker is one of Canada’s most recognized trailer brands. The company has a diverse product line to support many industries and, thanks to its location, is designed specifically to thrive in the Canadian marketplace.
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Cozart and his dealership signed on with Doepker in 2002, and to this day remains one of the brand’s most valued dealers. Cozart even hired Gerard Doepker out of his family’s manufacturing business to lead his trailer sales team. It’s been a perfect partnership for Cozart’s dealership (which rebranded as Frontline Truck & Trailer in 2005) and has helped it to be named a finalist for the second annual Trailblazer Award, powered by Successful Dealer.
“I think a lot of [our success] comes from the way we do things,” Cozart says. Frontline is the only single-location Freightliner dealer in Canada, and while position as a standalone store limits its capabilities against national dealer groups, it is advantageous when creating and fostering customer relationships.
When a customer buys equipment from Frontline, the whole dealership team is truly on the front line to support them.
“I think the relationships we have with customers are really unique,” Cozart says. “We spend a lot of time with them. We want to know them, how they use their equipment.”
He adds, “We’re very hands on. If a customer has an issue with anything, they know they can call us because they know us. They are comfortable to make that call.”
Ethan Cozart agrees. Randy’s son leads the company’s truck sales team but says at Frontline, every customer-facing associate knows how to respond to customer needs. How? Because they’re out in the field seeing what makes their customers’ businesses tick.
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“Our salespeople are out there, they go to customer locations to meet with them and see what they need,” he says. “We know they can’t always come here, so we try to connect with them. We want them to know who to call when they need help” and how Frontline can support them.
In the trailer business, strong support from Doepker is vital. The Cozarts say the OEM does a great job making model and component training available, which Frontline then uses to train its staff and take into the marketplace. Ethan says on-site training events are especially useful as they offer Frontline the opportunity to show, not just tell, customers how improvements to Doepker’s products can improve their ROI and profitability.
“When you can get out there and show things off, it makes it a lot easier for customers to understand,” he says.
Frontline’s separate commitment to its truck and trailer business also offers it a unique leg up in the marketplace. Randy says that’s most evident in the company’s service business. Frontline has a dedicated trailer shop with trailer-exclusive technicians, who better enable the company to win trailer business and increase trailer service throughput.
“A lot of truck technicians are schooled on how to work a truck. That’s what they know. Even if you put them on a simple trailer job, they think of it as a different beast” says Andrew Mueller, shop foreman. “I don’t want to say they’re scared but they can be unsure of themselves.
“But our guys are dedicated, that’s what they do. They can do anything [on a trailer] because they’ve done it over and over.”
That helps when selling the equipment too, Gerard Doepker says.
“We know the product,” he says. “The customer knows we can do everything they need.”
Frontline has little turnover. In a lot of ways, the company is really one big extended family, Randy says, citing not just his own but several families with multiple members employed by the business.
Additionally, whenever a position does open up, Frontline leverages its relationships with local tech schools, high school vocational programs and other industries (such as welding, which a vital tool for trailer repair) to attract new talent.
“When we get someone we have a tendency to keep them,” Cozart says.
The Trailblazer Award was created last year recognize and honor North America’s trailer dealer community for their essential support of the transportation industry. The Trailblazer Award is graciously sponsored by Hendrickson and Procede Software. To learn more about the program, go the award page.
