When the time came for Alan O’Neill and his partner to name their drain cleaning and plumbing company in Houston, Texas, in 2003, they were at a loss for words. So O’Neill reached for a dictionary.
“I was looking for an alphabet-friendly name, which is still an advantage in many ways,” says O’Neill, now sole owner. “The word ‘abacus’ was the first I came to that made any sense. And right away, the slogan came to me, too: You can count on us.”
The name and slogan for Abacus Plumbing Co. were serendipitous, but the comprehensive marketing campaign they spawned, centered on sleek Isuzu NPR trucks with fiberglass cube bodies from Morgan Corp. USA, is entirely calculated.
The eight trucks (2003 to 2006 models) demonstrate the power of branding. First, there’s the Abacus logo, the name in bright yellow, and yellow abacus beads on a wire below it. The yellow in the name is reflective, so it stands out, especially at night.
“The colors are so different and the name is so unusual that people remember seeing them,” O’Neill says. “We track calls to see where the business comes from, so we know the trucks generate about $10,000 a month.”
The trucks’ eye-catching appearance also makes it seem as though Abacus has more trucks than it actually does. “If people recall seeing the trucks three or four times a day, they think we must have a lot of trucks,” O’Neill says. “It’s an advantage if people think you’re a bigger company, because they’ll call you, figuring they’ll get faster service from a company with a lot of trucks on the road.”
Abacus advertises on radio, TV and the Internet, as well as by direct mail. And the trucks play an important role. “On our television ads, for instance, we show one of our trucks pulling up to a house,” O’Neill says. “We like to push that image.”
Abacus chose fiberglass bodies because they’re seamless, with no extrusions — a perfect canvas for the company logo. “We’re very fussy about the trucks’ appearance,” O’Neill says. “We want them to look as nice as possible. Our technicians are required to wash their trucks a couple of times a week.”
The trucks also serve as warehouses on wheels for the company’s mainly residential drain cleaning and plumbing services. Each truck carries about $6,000 worth of plumbing repair parts, reducing back-and-forth trips to a supply warehouse. Parts are organized in a custom storage system with small, medium and large bins.
Each truck is set up identically. “That way, if we have to flip-flop technicians because, say, a truck is in for repairs, any technician can go and find everything in the same spot,” O’Neill says.
Each truck carries Model 1065 and Model 100 drain-cleaning machines from Spartan Tool LLC and a RIDGID K-39 handheld drain cleaner. The company also owns three Spartan video-inspection systems that rotate among the trucks as needed.
“Our technicians love the trucks,” O’Neill says. “The cube body gives them enough headroom to walk through the box while standing up straight. And a slide-out ramp allows them to easily wheel the drain machines in and out.” The trucks require minimal maintenance while racking up about 30,000 miles a year.
Convenience, productivity and powerful branding — it all adds up for Abacus.
