Growing Together with Cart Mart
They say that the only constant is change, and to some that can be a daunting proposition. But people with a vision, a plan, and ways to stay organized look at change as opportunities to grow. The golf car industry—or as they’re often called, “low speed vehicles” (LSVs)—has grown and changed a lot in recent decades, and one of the leaders in the industry is Cart Mart.
As they’ve grown as a business—while still maintaining an honest, family-run customer experience—they’ve relied on Lightspeed DMS to grow and evolve with them. We talked to CEO Brian Rott and COO Leatha King about how they’ve grown with Lightspeed.
From One Store to Many
Brian’s grandfather started Cart Mart in 1959 as one store in El Paso, TX, moving to San Diego in 1970. It stayed that way until 2013, when they opened their second store. Since then, they’ve opened seven more stores, making it nine stores across the United States and Mexico. They represent a wide range of brands, large and small, and have a rental arm of their business.
Challenges and Goals
In finding a dealer management system partner, Brian has a vision in mind of what they’re looking for: “Our challenge has always been to find the right operating system that can take everything that we do, and be able to integrate in different locations, because we have a centralized system of phones. We pick up a phone call in Idaho and take a service call or a parts call for Nashville, Tennessee, and vice versa. And so, we needed a system that we could grow into. I moved to Lightspeed in 2011 with the hope that I could grow my business with Lightspeed.”
The key to Lightspeed is the ability to support a centralized system, especially when it comes to inventory. Leatha adds, “Being a multi-store operation, it’s imperative that we know what inventory we have at all times in all store locations, and Lightspeed really allows us that visibility.”
Brian admits there are a lot of moving parts: “It’s a very complicated business.”
How Lightspeed Helps
Leatha shared her perspective as COO, the leader of the daily operations of the business: “Our focus is to drive growth and profitability and really lead a team of employees to ensure that all operations are running smoothly and efficiently. Lightspeed is an essential function of our organization. We use it for every module applicable to our business: accounting, service, sales, and parts or inventory management. We wouldn’t be able to get through the day without using Lightspeed.”
Zooming in to specific tasks like inventory management, Leatha speaks to the importance of accuracy: “We currently have 39,000 different part SKUs, and it’s essential that we have accurate inventory. So, one aspect of Lightspeed that has helped us manage our inventory is the barcode scanning option. Just by scanning all the parts in our daily cycle, it removes discrepancies that were related to human error. We have reduced our shrinkage by 20% this year, simply by being more accurate with the bar code scanning.”
Strengthening the Customer Experience and Company Culture
With any fundamental operation of your business, especially in a service-based industry, it should influence all that you do. And the two most important pieces are the customer experience and the company culture. Both Leatha and Brian have said that Lightspeed has positively impacted their business.
“The system enables dealerships like ours to communicate effectively with customers,” Leatha says. “By providing updates with repair orders, statuses that the customers are looking for, sending automated reminders for maintenance appointments, it really helps us.”
Brian adds, “We wouldn’t be the largest dealer in the country if we didn’t utilize technology and processes and systems behind the scenes that you, as a client or customer, would never know. Hopefully, we’re surprising you that we were so efficient that when you came in and you had this personalized attention, and we made you feel like a million bucks. And then, next thing you know, you start receiving these calls, texts, emails, stating that your golf car is on a truck, and you can track it and communicate along the way. We utilize technology to improve the customer experience.”
Above all else, Brian says, culture and reputation are the most important: “We tell you we’re going to do this and we’re going to make it happen. We’re going to live by what we say. That’s really important in our culture.”
Brian summarizes it well when reflecting on the customer experience: “If you could choose to work with any dealer, why not choose the one that you feel is going to be there for you, and care more than the other one? I feel we’re pretty good at sharing that experience in all our locations.”
Growing Together
From growing as a business to growing in knowledge, Lightspeed has provided valuable resources and Cart Mart continues to push forward.
“When it comes to parts, we’ve been able to copy over the parts inventory that we had at one store location into our other store locations,” Leatha explains. “This made the startup process of opening a new store location very easy when there were so many other tasks to do.”
Brian and Leatha both agree that the continued training has been valuable for their team: “The Lightspeed Customer Portal and ongoing webinars have been great for a lot of our people,” says Leatha. “The access to Lightspeed Learning courses have helped my team advance personally and professionally.”
There’s no doubt that as Lightspeed is expanding into the LSV and golf car industry, they’re helping businesses like Cart Mart achieve their daily and business goals. Lightspeed is continuing to add new price books, integrations, and other functionality that these dealers can take advantage of.
Cart Mart’s remarkable growth from a single store to a multi-location leader in the golf car industry has been powered by their partnership with Lightspeed DMS. By leveraging Lightspeed’s comprehensive and centralized system, Cart Mart has seamlessly expanded operations, streamlined inventory management, and enhanced customer experiences across all locations. Lightspeed’s ongoing support, training, and innovative features have empowered Cart Mart to thrive in a rapidly evolving industry.
Meet the Authors
Brian Rott
