Robinson Helicopter Parts Atlanta, GA +1 403-424-9105 [email protected] www.rotorcorp.com
Doing its part to keep Robinson helicopters flying.
Tucked back in a corner of Atlanta’s Fulton County Airport (KFTY), the Rotorcorp office is small and unassuming. You’d never guess that this humble operation maintains the largest in-stock inventory of Robinson Helicopter Company parts in the world.
An authorized service center for R22, R44, and R66 helicopters, Rotorcorp has just five employees. In addition to its Atlanta headquarters, the company also has maintenance facilities in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
In an industry where AOG is defined as “lost revenue,” Rotorcorp’s challenge is to process and ship orders to customers in more than 45 countries quickly and efficiently.
Robinson Helicopter President Kurt Robinson visited with Rotorcorp staff at HAI HELI-EXPO 2019. Left to right: Mechell James, comptroller; Liam Casey, shipping and receiving; Tracy Jensen, director of business development; Kurt Robinson; and Sean Casey, president. Photo by Rotorcorp Photo
“We are so honored by these awards,” says Casey. “The point is credibility and trust, which our customers appreciate. I’d like to call it innovative, but it’s not.” Tracy Jensen, Rotorcorp’s director of business development, agrees. “It’s just bringing skills and experience from outside aviation into aviation.”
“Coming from outside the industry, at first I came up with this big, elaborate marketing plan,” says Casey. “But then we realized that if we just answered the phone, we’d be ahead of 90% of our competition. If we provided friendly and knowledgeable customer service, it would be 99%.”
“We do business with integrity. We’re experts at what we do and we’re honest,” Casey says. “But the ‘what’ we do isn’t as important as ‘how.’ We will always give it to you straight and create realistic expectations. That’s how we do business.”
To meet modern expectations for convenience and service, the staff created a new online order system. Converting Robinson’s 900-page book of more than 10,000 parts into an easy-to-access electronic system was no easy task. Part numbers, product descriptions, pricing, and many other details all had to be logged electronically.
“From the beginning we knew we needed to be a global business,” says Sean Casey, president of Rotorcorp. “That meant we needed to be great at shipping, exporting, and logistics, in addition to knowing our stuff about Robinson parts. It quickly became apparent how much we needed to learn and how much we needed to improve.”
Rotorcorp has received many accolades in the business world. Most recently, Casey was named the 2018 Small Business Person of the Year by the Atlanta Business Chronicle and the Metro Atlanta Chamber, and Rotorcorp received the US Small Business Administration’s 2019 Exporter of the Year Award for the southeast region.
“It seemed like such a Herculean task at the time,” says Jensen. “But once we took that leap, it became really cool to see it all come together. Now, we have the tools in place to track historical data, sales trends, and other information that helps us more accurately predict what parts we need to have on the shelf.”
She says the online ordering system is more efficient for customers too. “People can help themselves with the ordering process, which has really been great, especially for customers in different time zones, speaking different languages, using different currencies. They can conduct and complete a transaction from anywhere.”
With HAI HELI-EXPO 2019 taking place in their city, the company decided to exhibit. “Meeting new contacts was awesome,” says Jensen. “But it shocked me how many people from all over the world who we already do business with visited our booth to say hi. Our reach is so broad and getting the opportunity to meet our customers face-to-face was amazing.”
