If you listen to Craig Sessions, owner of West County Equipment Rentals, that’s half of his recipe for success – “Securing high visibility parking spots for our machines, so people can see them, touch them, and get really tempted to rent them!” Sounds easy enough, right? The other half, though, is a bit more difficult. “Give nothing but top notch service.” And that means?

It means a few key things. One of them is being open seven days a week. Another one, always answering the phone. (After the fourth ring, all calls go directly to Craig’s cell phone.). And the list goes on to include, for example, taking the time to really listen to people and understand what they are trying to achieve, not just rushing to close the deal by renting them whatever they think they should rent. Selling or trading anything with over 2,000 hours, and washing and greasing every piece of equipment when it’s returned is part of it, also, so, as Craig puts it, “A West County rental customer only gets shiny, new-looking machines.” Anything else? Yes. Not raising their prices unnecessarily. “We charge the same now that we used to charge in 2005,” says Craig, adding, “Why would I increase the rates if it’s working well for everyone?” Being fair on delivery charges is another big focus of West County. And last but certainly not least – at West County, top-notch service means top-notch maintenance. The company does it all, in-house. “We can handle anything, thanks to him,” states Craig firmly, pointing at his father.

Norman Sessions, Craig’s father, shrugs off the compliment, but clearly that’s a huge advantage for West County, and for their customers, too. Standing in his well equipped service area at the Shelburne Falls location, Norman shows his tools and explains how he puts to work his many years of experience and the same “outstanding service only” philosophy his son has so successfully implemented across the business. “We don’t count the hours we spend doing maintenance,” says Norman, “we just do whatever it takes.” Craig’s son, Tyler is learning the ropes and being trained to move seamlessly from one job to another, supporting his father and his grandfather, “doing whatever it takes.”

That same focus on outstanding customer service applies to delivery, of course, and according to Craig, the answer to the typical customer question, “When can you guys deliver?” is simply, “When do you need it?” The only caveat? The neighbors. “We always ask the customer about that, to make sure we don’t end up creating trouble!” laughs Craig, who says that his father has been known to drop off a machine at a customer’s site at 4:00 am “to make sure it was there with plenty of time, because he said he needed it at 6:00.”

With 85 pieces of equipment, 125 attachments and counting, and four locations – Shelburne Falls, Palmer, Hadley and North Adams – there’s a good chance that nowadays, West County has a solution for any challenge, or as Craig states – “We can pretty much meet anybody’s needs.”

Craig started his rental business in 2005 with four machines he bought from Milton CAT in Milford. What made Craig want to expand his already successful car and truck repair business of 20 years to explore equipment rentals? “I was getting a little stir crazy and claustrophobic,” are his own words. Craig was a Caterpillar hose reseller at the time and after a conversation with his hose representative who put him in contact with the Milton CAT rental manager, the rest is history.

From the start, Craig put to work his concept of using the machines as 3D billboards, making sure they were really clean and shiny and parking them in a visible spot with clear “Rent Me” decals and of course, making sure that every person who called got all the attention and the time they needed. “I do whatever it takes to get the rental,” he laughs, explaining that it may take him two hours to extract from somebody enough information to understand that what they really should be renting was not the piece of equipment they were inquiring about, but a different one.

These days, two new employees have joined the Sessions family; one will work at the Palmer location and the other one will assist with daily operations, including machine maintenance and deliveries. West County Equipment Rental’s customer list shows a 50/50 ratio of homeowners versus contractors and Craig still believes time spent with a customer prior to actually closing a deal is never wasted time. According to Craig, West County Equipment has expanded their product line to include compaction equipment, pumps, generators, concrete cutting, breaking and finishing equipment and landscape equipment. “We also offer a wide variety of contractor’s supplies such as personal safety items, traffic control products, silt and safety fence, rain gear and hand tools,” adds Craig’ s son, Tyler. 

Besides the fact that a clean piece of equipment says “rent me” in a louder voice than a shabby, dirty looking one, there’s another advantage to being fanatic about renting only like-new, shiny machines – Craig maintains that customers take much better care of a well-maintained piece of equipment. “They respect it!” he explains. So, probably, “let your equipment do the talking” is good advice – as long as it has a good story to tell. Like West County Equipment Rentals has.