The McCoy Group, owner of Stoops Trailers, has grown to 26 locations across the Midwest. But they’re not stopping there.
“We don’t rest on our laurels,” says Mark Hall, general manager of Stoops Trailers. “We continue to try to find new ways to bring a different experience to our customer base.”
Three Stoops locations focus exclusively on trailers — Lafayette, Ind.; Indianapolis; and Wayne, Mich. — but its trailer team sells equipment out of all 26 McCoy Group locations. Stoops represents Wabash, Extreme, Landoll and Autocar yard trucks. It also offers financing and has a small lease fleet of trailers and yard trucks.
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“We try to be the circle of life when you look at the products and services we offer,” Hall says, bringing value to any customer that walks through the doors, including independents and small- to medium-sized fleets.
Steve Young, Stoops’ fixed operations manager, says the dealer’s unwavering commitment to excellence in business, customer service and community involvement shows in its second nomination for the Trailblazer Award sponsored by Successful Dealer in just three years.
“From start to finish, it’s all about the customer experience,” Young says. “We want them to come in and be a repeat customer.”
And they do. Nicole Barrett, office manager for trailers, says customers know to expect the best when they walk into a Stoops shop, no matter where it is.
“Our teams work really hard at putting together processes to make sure we are all unified in all the things we do and that we’re all on the same page,” she says. The company has change management teams and a continuous improvement manager that evaluate strengths and weaknesses. Every quarter, each location puts together a project on an area for improvement. They present those projects to the entire group.
“We feed off each other,” Hall says. “We take things that worked at other dealerships and implement them in our dealership.”
Those unified practices have helped Stoops build a strong company culture that serves to retain the best and brightest talent, from sales to technicians. Then, the company puts in work to develop the talent into leaders in the industry.
“We want our employees to be experts in their field,” Young says. The company runs the Stoops Training Academy out of its Indianapolis location and also offers vendor training. Those practices result in a strong employer brand, attracting talent from across the industry. When coupled with an onboarding process geared toward welcoming new employees into a family, it reinforces the company’s values.
“It’s all driven to provide a career for our employees and not just a job,” Hall says.
Young agrees. “It’s a family-owned business,” he says. “We believe in family first.”
That goes for customers too. Stoops has a cookout trailer that goes to businesses and cooks for the entire staff. Hall says the cookouts enable them to touch staff all the way down the corporate ladder, which is a way to give back to their partners and include them in the services Stoops can provide.
“We want to have as many people touch our customer, bringing value to them every day so it’s hard for them to say, ‘Stoops is not the right solution for us,’” Hall says.
And Stoops works hard to offer mobile service, educational services and other things to keep the customer happy even after the sale.
“We live off the after-sales support,” Young says. “We want that customer for a lifetime.”
[RELATED: Stoops, Truck Country earn ASE accreditation to support tech training]
Where Stoops sees its customers and employees as part of the McCoy family, it also sees itself as part of a larger, transportation industry family. Stoops employees are members of several industry organizations, such as NTDA and state trucking associations.
“We’re involved in that because we can gain information we can share with our customers and bring value to Stoops for that customer,” Hall says. “We fully believe in these industry associations, that they’re going to lead to use prospering as a business.”
Then there’s the community at large. Barrett says the company sees itself as “a light” for others, and its happy to show it’s care for not only employees’ and leadership’s own passions, but those of their customers as well.
Brian Cross, new trailer sales manager, says the nomination — and a potential win — would just be confirmation of his own feeling that Stoops is doing things the right way.
“It underpins that we are doing things the correct way,” he says. “People appreciate that. It would be great to be recognized.”
The Trailblazer Award was created in 2023 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.
