“The copier business is a business of emergency.  When a copier is down, it needs to be fixed today,” said president and founder of ARC Services, Arcadiy “Arc” Hitterer.  If you have a Minolta copier, ARC Services has your part.  Specializing in just Minolta parts, ARC Services has the expertise and inventory to repair your copier the first time.

“By specializing in Minolta we have the parts that our customers need.  Our technicians have a full understanding of what could go wrong to eliminate call backs,” says Hitterer.  ARC Services read the book on Minolta and it shows.  Not just from the Minolta manuals lining their offices for walk-in customers or the downloadable copies you can order from the web, but it’s also in the voice of their sales dept.

“I decided,” says Hitterer of when he realized his niche in the market, “that whoever is involved in the sale of the part should come from a technical background.  The sales person should actually work in the shop as a technician so that they are very familiar with the part.  Not only with the part, but more importantly, know all the modifications of the parts Minolta makes and the service bulletins [they publish].”

Specializing in one brand has made ARC Services unique in the industry.  “The difference between us and other companies is that we know what the customer needs,” says Hitterer. “When customers call with a part number, many times we can tell them not to purchase that part, it may not resolve their problem. We can also inform them what kinds of modifications [have been] made reducing unnecessary time and money.”

Minolta dealers, ARC can provide your part cheaper than Minolta and now offers consumables.  “As an alternative, I stock everything that becomes available in the marketplace as a generic substitute.  My prices are very competitive,” states Hitterer.  Part orders made by 10:00 a.m. Pacific Standard Time can be sent next day to your customer.

Arc Hitterer to ARC Services

Working for Minolta, Hitterer noticed that sales representatives from part dealers only know about part numbers and not much about the parts themselves.  “I saw the market available and I discovered that you could buy any part but the quality of service was often bad.  This system needed to be designed better because the person selling the part was not a technician and in most cases, possessed little or no technical background.  So, the only way he could sell the part was by the part number.  I soon became familiar with Minolta and liked, so much so that I continue to work with them.”   Arc made his decision to keep Minolta once he started his own service business in ‘94.  “I called a few local companies and presented myself as a Minolta specialist, which I was at the time.  I had already started stocking and selling parts. Since I was a specialist, my customers seemed to feel a sense of convenience with my technical ability and from there on, I had almost zero recalls.”

Hitterer’s business took off from home.  “I was a one-man show.  I initially worked from my house when I started my business. Once I hired a secretary to pack and send out orders, I was able to focus most of my time to prospect and tend to service calls in order to continue to keep my business growing.”

Gradually, Hitterer went from servicing machines to simply selling parts, “It got to the point that I made more money selling parts than servicing machines.  That took me about half a year.”  During this time Hitterer moved the business out of his home and into another.  “I had rented an apartment just for the business.  Local customers would stop by to pick up their parts and even UPS would deliver and pick up product from my apartment.”

“As the business continued its growth, I decided to hire a technician.  I did not want to take on an experienced technician because I did not have enough money or the customers to justify him,” Hitterer remembers, “So I brought in a guy who had a technical background and trained him from scratch- only on Minolta copiers.  I took him on calls with me and in a few months he started going by himself with me guiding him on the phone [if necessary].” 

Later that year, Hitterer got married and moved from Tarzana, California to Van Nuys, California, seven miles away.  His wife had suggested he move into a bigger place, “When my wife came over to that place she was a bit shocked.  She said, ‘you need a bigger place!’  All my moves I can contribute to her,” he said with a chuckle.

The six hundred square feet facility was ARC Services’ home for years.  “It was a small place, very hot with a lot of noise from the airplanes and sometimes I couldn’t even hear the customers.” 

His customers were mainly technicians.  They knew their part numbers and specialized in Minolta, like Hitterer.  “They would fax us an order and we would respond with what we had in stock.”  Other customers were not as well versed in their orders, Arc continued, “Many of the customers didn’t have the part numbers.  They were describing parts which would result in us having to fax over pages from the manual in order for them to identify the part and because of this I in return was able to memorize all of the parts by heart.”

“Well my wife once again, and because I had so many copiers, I couldn’t move around it,” Hitterer laughed as he told me about his third move.  “We decided this time, we would buy it, a new and larger property in North Hollywood California, to satisfy our need for more space.” The eighteen hundred square feet facility was recently remodeled and ARC was moved in a couple of days later.

A Lesson in Business: Selection