If I had a customer call me and for example: I need a stator for my XXXX H-D and I didn't have one, I would not only supply him with the part number but do a dealer search and find him one. Again......saving him time.
But just some customer call and say what is the part number for a battery for his Sportster, I would say "Sir we have plenty in stock and the price is XX.XX"
Most of the calls we recieve are people that have no intention on buying something from us, it's either for cross referencing or e-bay.
Sorry, but we also are in the buisness to make money, I have kids to feed too.

 

i like how everyone who's in the business uses the "i have kids to feed too" line ...LOL

 

Whatever dude........

 

Every time I read one of these threads I am thankful that I have Dillon Brothers in Omaha, Ne. I have had nothing but good experiences with their sales, service, & parts folks.

 

my local HD shop(Shenandoah HD)was great for quite a few years. I used to walk in and know the guy behind the parts counter by name, the salespeople by name and they all knew mine. about two years ago they moved to a much larger location and went "high class" I would say that they are one of the largest dealerships in the centeral east coast region. I purchased my latest bike there in Jan of 06 but since then I think the owner got greedy or was feeling those payments on the new massive building. Most of the staff has turned over. Only 1 parts guy and 1 sales guy are still there. I was sad to see the old atmosphere go. I could not get over the rude employees that have taken the place of the old staff. I went in to check out a streetglide the other day for a third bike and I was shunned by the new sales guys and I left in a huff. I talked later to the old sales guy later and he said that they were down in sales except for him...... I wonder why. its not like they were there to sell a bike or anything.

Long story short I no longer deal with their service dept ( I had a Mirror fall off at pickup once) and I found a great local shop. Greenville chopper works has got it right. the owner does most of the service himself and knows most all of his customers by name! I can call him up and ask about a part and now he will go ahead and order it without a deposit and it will be there when I stop by. and all by buisness goes there because of service service service.

 

Dealers are just people.....some really good, some incompetent, some bad. Just like everywhere else. If you want to get even just call up on Saturday morning about 11:00am when there is a crowd in the showroom and get a salesman on the phone and tell him you saw this guy on a new Harley and it was black with lots of chrome and real loud mufflers and want to know how much that model costs. When he asks what model tell him you don't know but it was real shiny. Do this 10 times in 3 hours.

 

With all due respect I disagree!

It is the philosophy of each Individual Dealer That makes you want to shop there.
They can be tight, cheap, stingy and greedy on all aspects of there business I.E. Parts, Sales, service andinventory, or easy going keeping in mind THE CUSTOMER is the reason they are in the business of selling, servicing supporting and standing behindtheir product. There is a difference between the few dealerships I visit. Some want to treat you like a lump of Sh*t. As far as I am concerned thats called managed expectations. I refuse to spend a penny there.

I see this within the Airline industry... The company becomes so large that everyone loses focus on the real reason they are their and who is the reason they take homea paycheck. the customer.

 

I have to agree with Dynaflyer. I talked to the service guy at my local stealership about adding the "FXD Tachometer Addition Kit" to my SuperGlide. He quoted me a price (time)on the labor that I thought was very reasonable. Now, I specifically asked him what if it took less timethan what hequoted me to install it. He said it didn't matter... If it took MORE or LESS time I paid the same. That way they could quote an accurate price to the customers.

I ordered the kit and, when it came in, I popped down there to have it installed. The service guy that quoted me that price was off that day, but he did have it ona work order. At 1:30 they rolled my scoot into the back to start working on it. At 3:00 they called me to the service desk to tell me that it would take longer to install, and they wanted TWICE AS MUCH MONEY to install it. The tech took me back and showed me how it was much harder than he thought it would be (all he had done in that hour and a half was remove the seat and pull out the wiring harness).-- Then he told me if it was him, he wouldn't spend that much to have it installed. I was pissed... I told him to put it back together and I was outta there. At 4:30 he finally rolled my bike back out. He said he had to take the rear tire off to get the wiring harness back where it goes. So I sat down there for 4 hours and never did get the tach installed.

The only up side to it is they took the tach back with no charge. Nice guys, huh?

 

now this is what being a good dealer is about.... they'd better get on board and get hip to the damn internet and sites like this....seems this dealer might know the value of it all:

https://www.hdforums.com/m_2816176/tm.htm

...scroll down to post 32....if you haven't seen it already