General Parts Group’s Review of 2022

A Year of Challenges, Growth and Success in Food Equipment Repair

By Ed Eisen – Director of Field Service Operations

Another year has almost gone by, and what a whirlwind it was! Last year (2021) was a challenging year for everyone, and more than once it was said “Hopefully 2022 will be much better”…… was it?

Better yes, but not necessarily what we hoped for.

There was hope that the pandemic would be in our rearview mirror, and we would be looking at a brighter year in 2022, but the Covid hangover continued. The foodservice industry continued to be challenged with labor shortages, supply chain issues, delayed deliveries, etc. Just as well we enjoy a challenge!

Exceeding Our Customer Expectations

We have always taken pride in providing service to exceed our customers’ expectations. We designed new ways to deliver great service. Improvements made in 2022 include our manufacturer specific technician program where we stock the most common parts for our largest manufacturers on our technicians’ trucks; greatly increasing the opportunity to repair equipment on the first visit. Another improvement comes from General Parts being part of a larger network of service companies. If we don’t have the part in stock, we can tap into their inventories to possibly find parts that are not available through our normal resources. If a customer chooses to purchase equipment, we can help. Lastly, General Parts partners with an entire network of equipment dealers. Our customers can source their equipment needs through us and we will exhaust all our resources to find them the best equipment option, at the best price, with the timeliest availability.

In 2023 we need to keep the momentum going. Whether we have the same obstacles to overcome or something different, whatever it might be, we will be ready. We are going to focus on being an industry leader in innovation and automation to streamline our processes. Technology is every changing, and we will use it to drive our business forward. We are a relationship driven business and we want to make it easier for our customers to do business with us. We are stepping up our efforts in recruiting technicians into our industry but along with recruitment comes training. At General Parts, we have six fully operational test kitchen/training centers (Denver, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Phoenix, and Portland) that we partner with various manufacturers to offer ongoing training for our technicians. Our technicians are some of the most up-to-date trained techs in our industry. Another goal in 2023 is to be able to reach as many customers in our markets as we can. We plan on expanding our presence even further in our markets to offer service to customers in those outlying areas.

Food Equipment Service/Repair Excellence

We have always prided ourselves on being a strong partner with our customers and industry partners. We will focus on providing food equipment service/repair excellence to our customers while always looking for ways to exceed their expectations. We have a lot of work to do in 2023 and I for one cannot wait to get started. I am very thankful to have such a talented group of people to work with every day. So, let’s close the chapter on 2022, roll up our sleeves and get to work!

Ed