The matting dilemma that many building managers are faced with is whether to buy or rent their mats. Out of convenience, many building managers decide to rent their floor mats from rental distribution companies. This puts our customers at risk of losing business opportunities.
Crown Matting Technologies developed a training program for dealers and distributors to aid in educating the customer of the benefits of purchasing matting solutions over the rental process.
“The buy vs. rent program can have important implications for your finances, building cleanliness and building safety. There are many perks to buying your matting; choose from various styles and patterns, customizing to the appropriate sizes needed to fit the application, provide correct safety for the building and not to mention the cost savings,” said Lynda Chudzinski, Territory Sales Manager, Crown Matting Technologies.
This case study illustrates the impact the program had on one of our current customers.
Crown presented Dutch Hollow Supplies, out of Belleville, IL, with the Buy vs. Rent program to educate them on the value that purchasing matting over renting matting brought to customers.
Eric Cadell, from Dutch Hollow Supplies, shared this information with two separate municipalities that were both renting their matting from large-scale rental companies.
"Crown assisted us in presenting the Buy vs. Rent program to two municipalities, allowing us to move them away from rental mats, and providing them with a very nice reduction in overall cost," Eric Cadell.
After both municipalities switched from rental mats to purchasing their mats, Dutch Hollow Supplies had a great opportunity to continue service, by implementing a replacement program. This generated a reoccurring revenue stream while limiting the exponential spend of replacing all the mats at the same time. Which is a great expense for building managers.
"With this, they have smaller incremental purchases of the mats to always keep the mats fresh without having the large expense,” Eric added.
The challenge that so many matting distributors face is getting in front of these building managers because they are accustomed to the simplicity of rental companies’ offerings.
A large implication of purchasing matting for a building is the initial cost of ownership. However, the total cost of ownership is often overlooked. Owning matting over renting will provide for a higher ROI throughout the life of the mat—which you can see with the calculator tool that Crown has developed as a resource for the Buy vs. Rent program. Matting that is purchased is often more appealing and performs its function as intended.
“When you're running the numbers, consider the full costs of ownership vs double paying the rental company and your staff for such things as maintenance, storage and cleaning. The really dirty truth about rental matting, while you may think you own the mat in your building you don’t, and you never know where it was before it came to you,” said Lynda Chudzinski.
By illustrating the benefit of purchasing a matting solution to customers, the challenge is to have them make the switch becomes less of a sales pitch and more of a solutions discussion.
The results from Dutch Hollow Supplies participating in the Buy vs. Rent program were substantial to them as well as their customer.
“Both municipalities saw reductions over their three-year contracts from their previous rental contracts - reductions in cost between 30% to 40% of what their cost was,” indicted Eric.
Most rental mats look the same—purchasing matting allows the building managers to color match the mats to their décor, improving the building image.
“Premium mats that look very high-end in municipality buildings increase the overall look of what the building is,” said Eric.
Additionally, the higher-grade mats kept out more of the dirt and grime—which keeps the buildings cleaner overall, reducing the maintenance costs.
Download the case study here.
For more information on Buy vs. Rent contact your Crown Matting Technologies representative.