Plenty of positive dealer stories in today's Update.

We have dealers being presented with awards for their exemplary service by their suppliers (here and here) and dealers expanding, taking on new brands. We even have stories of suppliers picking up prizes and making acquisitions to expand their product offerings through their network.

These upbeat stories come off the back of a month that saw two well attended and upbeat trade shows for both the agricultural and turfcare sectors. LAMMA and BTME each saw increased crowds and atmospheres that implied the sectors are looking to get on with business this year.

So whilst national stories of inflation, costs and strikes can make for pretty gloomy reading, if we're trying to use our glass-half-full goggles, perhaps we can find a few reasons to be cheerful? Or if like me your goggles can be pretty misty at times, more accurately we can find a few reasons to be a bit less downbeat than the past couple of Februarys?!

Speaking of which, it would be great to receive some feedback from our dealer readers today, on a subject we've quizzed you about around now for the past couple of years. We'd like to hear how your winter servicing has been going. 

If you cast your minds back to this time two years ago when we asked about this subject, we were in the midst of another strict lockdown which brought with it a myriad of hardships for dealers - not least all the hoops needed to be jumped through to collect, service and return customers' machinery.

Moving on to last year when we asked, winter servicing levels seemed to have bounced back from those direct effects of Covid, but it was struggles to recruit staff to cope with the increased workshop demands that many of you told us about. 

We heard comments like:

• "There is a very limited number of engineers out there and it is almost impossible to find decent staff."
• "We are having to cope with massive volumes of work without increased staffing," and
• "Too many jobs, not enough staff and hours in the day."

I suspect many will be expressing similar feelings to these this year, but please, let us know.

Speaking to dealers recently, we're hearing that supply of spare parts, whilst not exactly ideal last year, might have now overtaken supply of wholegoods as the biggest bugbear that the dealership is facing. Does this sound familiar to your business?

One dealer who we've talked to for a feature in our upcoming magazine told us, "Waiting for spares has slowed us down in the workshop . . meaning we are keeping machines for longer than we need."

Another dealer we've heard from for the mag says, "Spare parts are still challenging and causing delays for our workshop in getting machines out of the door."

Two completely separate dealers there, with different suppliers, in different areas of the country, both essentially telling us the same tale. And they won't be alone.

So how is your workshop faring this winter? Is business up, and if so, are you coping with the workload? If circumstances around recruitment and supply went more in your favour, would you have capacity to take on more work and increase profits?

Please take our short survey today and let us know. As ever we'll publish the results in the next issue of Service Dealer magazine - alongside a selection of your comments.

Thanks in advance for your help.

TAKE THE SURVEY.