World's best tool stores: combine great tools with history, knowledge, dedication, and service, and what do you get?

Tools of the Trade, Nov-Dec, 2002 by Rick Schwolsky

You can almost measure it by looking at the changes every tool category has gone through over the same time period, going from miter boxes to compound miter saws, Yankee screwdrivers to cordless drills, hammers to pneumatic nailers, and transits to laser levels.

And so the evolution of the World's Best Tool Store has reached an interesting point, where its future meets its past. On the one hand, modern stores with spacious, brightly lit showrooms borrow from history to provide services handed down through generations, while on the other, stores long legendary for such services stock tools they'd never dreamed of and use computers to track inventory. Of course, the common denominator is service.

Personal Service

Berland's House of Tools is a perfect example of a store keen on personal customer service. From the moment you walk into this awesome Lombard, Ill.-based store you get full attention, whether you're on a scouting mission or are ready to buy. Sales reps practically jump from behind the sales counter to help you and strike the perfect balance of being there to answer questions without hovering over your every move. They'll put your need to find the right tool ahead of their need to make a sale.

That's a common trait the best stores share. For example, salespeople at Montague Tool & Supply in Montague, N.J., don't work on commission. That takes some of the pressure off the sale and puts the focus back on service, according to Tom Meyer and Susan Stark, the husband-and-wife team that owns this beautiful store.

Alaska Industrial Hardware (AIH), based in Anchorage, has a different approach to getting its sales staffs at the company's eight large locations to take care of their customers: The company is employee-owned. "Everybody in each store has a stake in our service," says AIH general manager Mike Kangas. "They're completely focused on our customers."

This kind of service starts with a strong commitment by a company's leadership to put the customers first, and faith that doing so will build customer satisfaction, loyalty, and trust. "It really boils down to building relationships and trust," says Hal Look, vice president of 45-year-old Orco Construction Supply, one of the largest full-service companies in the country. Orco operates 20 locations in California, Nevada, and Arizona. "As big as we are," Look says, "we still try to provide small-store service."

Harvey Neu of Neu's Building Center in Menomonee Falls, Wis., agrees. "We build relationships with our customers based on communication," he says, "with the emphasis on listening."

One thing that tool distributors nationwide are listening to more of these days is Spanish. So to provide better service to the growing Hispanic customer base, they're hiring bilingual service reps to work the counters and hit the jobsites. "There's been an incredible increase in Hispanics on our jobsites," says Orco's Look, "so we're gearing up. We always try to have one or two bilingual people at the counters, and we're publishing our materials in English and Spanish."