Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Spring at a Harley-Davidson Dealer: The Classic No-Win Scenario



OK, we were trying to take the high road here and hoping that this rather touchy subject would cool off by itself, but it doesn’t look like it will.  So, we’ve decided we might as well tackle it head-on.
For those who don’t know, here’s a quote from a review left on our Facebook page:
“Be careful where you go! This dealer quoted me a price last month to replace the broken final drive belt on my 1993 Heritage last month. Then when I just called to drop it off I was informed that they only work on models less then ten years old in the spring and summer! It may have been a good idea to mention that LAST MONTH when i got the quote! I buy all my aftermarket parts and supplies from them! Customer loyalty means nothing there I guess! Its OK tho, I'm sure the dealer that does fix it will have no problems taking my money for the new Trike my wife is going to buy!”
Now, we did respond to that with a short explanation of the reasoning behind our policy, hoping that an honest explanation would at least partly resolve the problem.  Unfortunately, this being the internet and all, it did not.  And we understand that there are probably quite a few of you out there thinking, yeah, that policy sucks!  That’s ridiculous!  But, for every one of you who doesn’t like that policy, there are probably 5 of you who don’t even realize you benefit from it.  How?  Well, read on.
This situation is a classic no-win for us as a dealership.  You have to believe that we don’t enjoy turning business away – it’s simply not something we’d choose to do under normal circumstances.  And in the winter, during non-peak season, we don’t.  As he says, he called during the non-peak season and was given a quote.  But he didn’t bring it in then.
Every winter, it’s the same thing here.  We offer incentives to bring your work in early.  We beg and plead, even offering free pick-up and delivery in some instances, to try to get your work in in early.  And every year, we go from being almost same-day turnaround to being 3 weeks out, instantly, on the first day the weather goes above 50 degrees.
Right now, for basic service work, we are more than 3 weeks out.  We are confined by the linear nature of time and space to the fact that there are a finite number of hours in a day, and of days in a week.  That dictates how many hours we can book, and how many customers we can service.
That being said, on a bike that is 20+ years old, our experience has been that the original customer concern can be the tip of the iceberg as to what’s going on with the bike.  The OP on this topic has never had his bike to our shop, so we have no experience with HIS bike.  (If, in fact, we had some service history with the bike, we’d know what kind of shape it’s in, and the conversation might have been different.) But our experience with other 20+ year old bikes goes something like this:
The bike comes in for something that seems simple.  We schedule it for 2 hours.  The tech gets it open and finds something rusted/seized/missing/broken/etc.  This leads to a bunch of other problems, and now this 2 hour job is a 10 hour job, sitting on a lift, waiting for parts that aren’t normally stocked (because the bike is 2 years away from QQ plates.)  When we do finally get the parts in, and get the bike rolling, a good portion of the time, the owner is still upset with us because it took so much longer than he was originally quoted, and we STILL have an unhappy customer at the end.
When this happens in the winter, it’s no biggie.  When this happens in the spring, it can tie up a lift and impact the scheduling of 5 or 6 other people, each of whom have waited 3+ weeks for their appointment.  NOW, we have 6 or so angry customers, all saying how much we suck.
This has led to our current policy, the one that the OP is so annoyed with.  And we understand his frustration – even share it – because as I said, it’s not our goal to create unhappy customers, and to turn away business.  But during peak season, we need to get as many people on the road as possible, and taking in a bike that may very well become a project bike during the spring is something we decided we weren’t willing to take the risk on anymore.  Does only taking in bikes less than 10 years old guarantee that the above situation doesn’t occur?  Absolutely not.  It’s a numbers game; it’s an attempt to improve our odds.
So go ahead and flame away if you must.  But at least now you hopefully understand that this policy is not an arbitrary thing we do to be mean – it’s an imperfect solution to an imperfect situation.  (And if anyone knows any technicians looking for a job, we are hiring!  Please send him or her our way!)

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