Many of us have experienced EDT and not known it!
Mix that with better, cheaper, faster… a common corporate mantra these days, and you have a catchphrase that leaves out a significant element. Better, cheaper and faster for whom? Long term business success means the “whom” must ultimately be your customers yet isn’t it odd how often the existing customers are forgotten in the rush of daily business. Sales and marketing are about bringing potential new customers into the dealers. Operations are working to be efficient and fill orders. Service is busy putting out fires. Meanwhile existing customers are walking unnoticed and uncared for out the side door. Customer retention at H-D exceeds the motorcycle industry average, but people will stop patronizing when they feel like their business doesn’t matter to the company.
And that’s my point. Repeat-purchase loyalty or the erosion (the proportionate fall in repeat-purchase loyalty) at the local dealership.
Even if the Harley dealer does everything right – transforms into a lifestyle destination, offers up camaraderie beyond the parking lot, mixing with customers, first-name greetings, pancakes and music on the weekends, working hard at providing a friendly, at-home atmosphere, low-pressure sales – is there any doubt that a key determining factor for a repeat customer at that dealer during this economic environment be anything other than price, Price, PRICE? How much more are you willing to pay for the dealer experience? I would suggest none. Personal relationships do matter, but over paying to maintain that business relationship is obsolete.
For example below is a repeat-purchase story from a riding buddy (edited for space and used with permission) who just put a new 2010 Street Glide in his garage:
“This purchase was one of the simplest things I’ve done. I called the Sales Manager (Moshonda) at Albany Harley-Davidson (AMC) and asked her for a price. I was really expecting to hear MSRP or maybe $500 discount on a $20.5K price. When she told me $18,519, I said “I’ll take it”. We did some of the transaction over the phone and I went down a couple days later and picked it up. I put down 2/3 cash and financed a third. They made that easy with a good interest rate. They didn’t even try hard to up-sell me on the extended warranty. Simply asked, I said no and we signed.
Went down yesterday and rode it home. Weather cooperated and it was nice having cruise control and 6th gear. The radio is awesome! Candidly I did struggle on not talking to Paradise H-D where I’ve previously purchased. Bottom line, I sincerely doubt they could or would have even tried to get down to the AMC price. Granted I didn’t give them the chance, but I’d bet Paradise H-D was $1500 over MSRP to start off and now we’re talking about a $4k difference to spend time haggling over. Ultimately I felt that if I challenged Paradise H-D to get down to this price and if we couldn’t and I had to walk there would always be this friction when I went into the dealer. Frankly I don’t need the stress. It’s unreal that I paid almost the same amount for my Road King 10 years ago as I did on this new Street Glide. Clearly it’s a good time to deal!
AMC is definitely a small town laid back feel. No pressure. I’m fairly certain the knowledge base at Paradise H-D is better. AMC sales didn’t strike me as deep experts. Remember these are the folks who didn’t think the Oregon bikes had catalytic converters. Yet, it’s a good store and I liked how they promote themselves to “the working man”. As you’ve said on your blog, Harley may be pricing themselves out of the market with those CVO’s. When you can draw a price correlation between a motorcycle and a Lexus, well then the issue speaks for itself. At the end of the day, it is just a motorcycle.
The other advantage at AMC for me is they seem to have perpetual sales on accessories. I don’t think it will cost me an arm and a leg to do the customization I want. I had a little sticker shock on the quote for Vance & Hines pipes, which looks to be all you can get for the 2010 right now at $1475. Too high, but it included a number of items (fuel tuning/dyno etc.) in addition to the pipes themselves.
Looking forward to summer!”
I’m not advocating one dealer vs. another. But, the economy is changing the way riders interact with dealerships.
Photo courtesy of H-D.
I whole heartedly agree Mac. The experience my GF’s father Don had at Salem Harley is the same. Cliff is and was so great to work with. He sold him an brand new 09 Road King this summer for what Latus was charging for a Softail. The ease and laidback nature was stunning when compared to the experience we had in Portland. Latus tends to ignore you and talk circles which was really disappointing.
When Don purchased the bike he added upgrades, pipes etc and after picking up the bike and riding to Roseburg, sprung a leak. After returning to Salem, the checked out the issue, fixed it and off they went the next day. Her folks live in Winnemucca Nevada and so they took off the next morning, but by the time they made it to Bend she was leaking again. Back to Salem they went and Cliff put them up in the Red Lion and gave him a new bike, switching out all the add-ons, no charge. If that was the end of the story it would stand on its own pretty well.
However its not 🙂
This was in July and Don returned to Salem in September while on his first big trip. We called up the guys at Salem HD and inquired about renting a bike etc. They told us they did not rent out bikes but to come on down and they would see what they could do. Low and behold they take me outback into the used inventory and tell me to ride whatever bike I want, from the little 1990 Sportster to a 2009 CVO Softail with 100 miles on it, whatever I wanted. I pulled out a 2008 XLN and we cruised around Silver Falls and the like. Bringing it back the next day Cliff asks how it went and we said great, but wanted to know if I could ride something bigger. So we pulled out an 01 Heritage and away we go.
One of the best weekends of my life and guess what, not a charge to ride them. The only cost to me was fueling both bikes up. How’s that for service?! If only HD would figure that out and price these bikes where us average people could truly afford them.
Love the blog Mac, it’s always a joy.
Cheers,
Scott
@Scott — appreciate the comments and a recap of your experience. Thanks for stopping by. -mac
I have read your letters about pricing and treatment you and your friends/families have recieved from dealerships in oregon and find them to be very honest and none biased.im interested in this as im a H-D rider and a employee at one of our local dealers and value the input and definitely will pass it on to the powers that be. im looking forward to summer as well .please ride safe!
@Brian – thanks for the feedback/comments and appreciate you passing along the info. -mac