Dealer Spotlight: Yancey Bus Sales and Service
Interviewee: Shooter Roberts
Title: Sales Manager
Q. What has made you successful with alternative fuels?
A. We are upfront about the cost savings with propane. We provide in-depth financial analysis that supports the significant savings that the customers will see with propane buses in operation.
Word of mouth is also key. We encourage our customers to talk with one another and refer us to other potential customers. Those types of referrals are huge! We find that because the buses perform so well, customers are excited to talk about their experience and promote what they’re doing. And that type of excitement is contagious.
We also get our propane demo bus out there. School districts are often skeptical until they actually get on a propane bus and drive it. They need to experience the differences, not just hear about them. It’s also the perfect opportunity to show customers how propane buses need a lot less equipment and aftermarket parts compared to diesel.
We also reach out to ROUSH CleanTech and Blue Bird’s alt fuels teams to help us sell because of their extensive product knowledge. This really shows our customers that we are the propane experts.
Q. How do you introduce propane-fueled buses to prospective customers?
We have an alt fuels discussion with every customer every year — even if they only buy diesel. We talk propane at every opportunity. The potential savings with purchasing propane-fueled buses are so great that we’d be doing the customer a disservice by not talking alt fuels with them. If you’re not sure how to bring up propane to a diesel customer, wait until they bring up maintenance. That’s an ideal time to talk about the reduced maintenance time and costs associated with propane.
