Fifty-six of them name a person. None of them names you.
I searched all 43 brands and found 159 customer reviews, spread across 22 of them. 130 praise the people or the counter. 56 name a member of staff. None names Singer. None names a system, a website, or a national network. Not one.
“Manny is my go to guy for hoses and questions.”
“Russell s always a great help with all my hydraulic needs! A+++”
“10/10 service, chuck was patient and helped me get the parts I needed!”
“Gino and the guys were incredible. Fixed my screw up”
“Chris helped me with a few tricky fittings, thankful for his willingness to problem solve!”
reviews name a member of your staff. 130 praise the people or the counter. Only 16 mention price. Only 20 are really about the product, and 14 of those 20 sit inside two brands whose reviews look collected rather than left.
Only 10 of the 159 complain about anything, and they do not complain about the same thing. Seven brands carry all ten. The other fifteen have none across 105 reviews. The sharpest one is filed as five stars. A tech from one branch “left bolts loose and the unit was still leaking…” A tech from another branch of the same brand came out and fixed it. What the customer wrote was “from here on i want Daniel on my job sites moving forward.”
One brand, two branches, two different companies as far as he is concerned. He did not go and find another supplier. He picked a person.
“Manny is my go to guy” is your customer’s phrase, not mine. What he is paying for is not hose. Hose is the same everywhere. He is paying so that the next time something breaks he rings one person who already knows his kit, and he does not have to explain it from the start.
The proof is what is missing. In 159 reviews nobody mentions a system, a website or a national network. 56 name a person. The part of your company that actually works is one man at one counter, and your customers have been saying so the whole time.
Nobody can copy 43 counters full of people customers already ask for by name. That took years and a lot of money, and you have already spent both.
None of it has your name on it and none of it is protected. When Ron Weidell left, customers wrote about that shop in the past tense. The next page is what has to be decided.