Am I Being Unreasonable ?

At least when we had to visit a customer we had the luxury of air transportation.

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That was luxury. I'll bet you even had phones on those planes too Ron. Our poor sales rep had to endure one of those "naturally air conditionned" trains we only see in the movies.

Tom said:

That was luxury. I'll bet you even had phones on those planes too Ron. Our poor sales rep had to endure one of those "naturally air conditionned" trains we only see in the movies.

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We had reps in some pretty rough areas in the world but at least there was Air transportation.

UK-RV said:

Guys

I didn't mean to give the impression that Matt is the bad guy here.

Yes, he did lead us to believe our lazydays experience would be a good one, but it wasn't his fault he was called away at the time of our delivery. He could have done more to ensure our particular concerns were being followed thru in the weeks leading upto our purchase.

Our major problem rests with the service team.

Paul

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Paul,

The delivery/service part of the business has always been a problem. In '98 it was lack of technicians. Then it was lack of service bays. It seems the main thrust for good service is with the $300K plus rigs with their Crown Club. I've known people to be there 3 to 6 weeks on delivery. We have spent almost 3 weeks there ourselves with our previous rig. Someday the powers to be need to realize that selling the most rigs in the world is not the whole game.

There are some very dedicated delivery and service personnel at Lazy Days but they are limited in what they can accomplish due to other problems. I don't know if they'll ever be able to fix the problem. That's the main reason we always go back to the service center in Decatur, IN for any problems.

Hope your situation is resolved soon.

Someday the powers to be need to realize that selling the most rigs in the world is not the whole game.

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I'm skeptical of that. They are selling 30+ rigs/day despite mediocre delivery prep and they probably couldn't increase the sales rate much anyway.  And service IS big business at LD - they certainly aren't ignoring that source of income because it is a huge one.  Pre-delivery prep and customer walkthrus are pure sales overhead, though. The dealer is expected to cover that cost out of his profit margin. Repair of defects, on the other hand, is covered by manufacturer warranty, so the dealer gets paid for that.

In my opinion the failure is a lack of sufficient pre-delivery inspection to identify the majority of problems ahead of time (and fixing them BEFORE the customer shows up) and inadequate  scheduling of service bay hours to provide immediate attention to  problems detected on the day of delivery.  It's hardly surprising the system often breaks down if the problems aren't even identified until the customer arrives and plunks down his money. It may well be afternoon on delivery day when the first technician actually gets to work on the problem list. Anything beyond the trivial is not going to get fixed in a few hours and believe me, more than a few of these rigs have significant problems such as body damage, damaged cabinetry, and broken appliances. 

It's clear the attitude is "they can bring it back later for more reapirs", but that is a lot of crap for a customer who is laying down $100-400k or more.  The ones in the $300K+ category do get a lot of extra personal attention, but those of us who spend a mere $100-200k get told to live with the problems and come back in 3 weeks or so.  And they get away with it, so why change?

Jim, I'm sure you know LD isn't the only dealer with the same issues. Like you, I won't go anywhere but the Monaco factory service centers (Oregon or Indianna) after my dreadful dealer experiences. I have a couple of things that need fixing on our coach right now, but decided they can wait either until a rally or until our next Oregon trip.

Don't mean to imply that all dealers are like this.

Tom said:

Don't mean to imply that all dealers are like this.

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Why not??? Although we never had a problem a t Lazy Days I think in this world one would be hard pressed to find a dealer that couldn't stand major improvement.

Ron,

My comment was based on the reports of good after-sales service from some dealerships.

Like you, Tom, I can't believe LD would send a rep. off on safari with instructions to "sell what you brung" and have no way to communicate back to base camp. That's just a cop-out or p.p.p. - maybe a combination of both.

Matt here again,
I am wondering if everyone would reply to my question. If you were to do business with an RV dealer, what would be the most important thing that you would expect from them? Good price, service, easy to do business with etc.
Also the same question about your salesperson. What is the most important thing you want or need from your salesperson? I ask all of my customers these question's. I do this to become a good steward for my customers. Sometimes the experience is less than perfect when purchasing an RV. You all know we do PDI on every coach we sell, and yes some things slip thru until the customer does there walk-Thru. We sell 8000 coaches annually and we try our best to make every delivery a good one. Ron himself said he had a good experience with his purchase. I am hoping our customers who have had a good experience will read this and also voice their opinions. I take pride in what I do here at Lazydays, and I plan to be here as long as they will have me. I will continue to work hard for all of my customers and I promise to take wonderful care of them. all I am asking is for everone reading this to think of all of our pleased customers and think about how hard we try to improve each and every day.

Hi Matt,

With all due respects, I won't be answering your question directly because it's really all the above. A bad experience with any aspect of a purchase is still a bad experience and a number of us here have had our share of bad experiences. If you have a spare week some time, I can tell you some of mine.

As I said in an earlier message, I have no doubt that you want to do the best job for your customer but, as you've correctly said, the things that cause a lot of pain for a customer are not under your control or influence.

Psst .... a word of advice from someone who's administered a lot of customer surveys ..... they don't help when a customer is having problems and can even make matters seem even worse. Do it when things calm down.

I have been reading this thread with interest.? I keep thinking how amazing it is that so many people in a customer contact job don?t really know what their customer thinks and feels.

Matt, this forum is a good grounding point for you if you are serious about improving your customer skills.? Just look at what Paul said after you made your first post here.

?If he (Matt) got the impression that I was not that upset when we spoke this week, then he was WAY off the mark - I was LIVID.?

This is in marked contrast to your opening message that indicated problems were minor.? Yes, I know in a later post he indicated you are a nice guy and that things were not really your fault.? I bet he is doing his best to mend fences and move on and get things straightened out.

But the forum record is very interesting and could be of benefit to you if you are open-minded and want to do better the next time.? There was such a contrast between your view of things and the customer's view of things, that you might want to take that information to heart.? The best salespeople, IMO, do not blame situations or other departments for failure in keeping a customer happy, but take full accountability themselves.

Hi Paul.

I'm sorry to hear that you are having trouble with the purchase of your new motorhome from LD. I hope you get it sorted soon; I'm guessing that you don't want to spend the year in the sevice bay  :

For my twopenneth worth. Assume selling 8000 unit a year, spending 1 hour on a PDI, working 40 hour weeks for 50 weeks would require a dedicated team of 4.  I would be surprised if LD employed such a team.  If they don't then I'm not surprised that there are a lot of people who don't have seemlous purchases.


For Matt therefore...

• Make sure that goods are delivered at the time and place agreed in a fit for purpose condition all agreed work having been carried out.
• If you make a promise;  Keep it. (The only acceptable excuse is that you died in the meantime)
• Keep the customer informed. Contact him before he contacts you.
• Be scrupulously honest at all times.
• If you cause me extra expense then re-emburse me. Don't charge me.

I visited LD last year for a quick reece. At that time I was impressed with what I saw and the level of service I received. However, reading threads like this one doesn't inspire me......

Paul, keep us informed, and good luck. 


Rgds


Cam.

 

Tom,

Oh yes, I know LD isn't the only one. One thing I like about working for a very small dealership is we don't have the large amount of rigs heading out the door on a daily basis. We, too, get behind but we have a PDI co-ordinator that is right there when we spot a problem and gets it resolved most of the time before the customer ever shows up. There are those times when it doesn't happen.

Hi Matt,

There is only one thing that I would expect from any dealership....honesty. Please don't tell me things will be done immediately when you know it might take 3 days...or more. Please don't ask me to show up at a certain hour for a meeting on my problems only to find out nobody is available. Just tell me the truth. If it's going to be a week to get all the repairs done, tell me that. I might not be happy but I will be more than livid if I'm told it'll take a day and I'm still there 5 days later. It happened to me when we purchased our first coach at Lazy Days. I can't tell you how many people we have met who were at LD for service when we were and had been told the same as we were. I truly believe honesty is the best policy.

I do PDI work  as a part time job in the summer for a small dealership. Yes, we don't catch all the problems but we get them resolved quickly or we tell the customer it can't be done immediately. We then write up the discrepancies and get a scheduled time for the repairs. Most of the stuff we don't catch is very minor and pretty easy to resolve. Not all the customers are happy when something can't be fixed but I know for sure they would be much more angry if they came back and we still couldn't do the work.

As it has been for centuries, honesty IS the best policy.

I have to agree Jim. If I look back on my worst dealer experience, it was being lied to every day for 3 weeks. I'd been told that everything was waiting for this at the paint shop and that at the paint shop, ad inifinitum. When I finally drove to the dealership and refused to move until the coach was ready I got to talk to the paint guys. They told me the paint shop had been closed for two weeks while they physically moved it and they couldn't work on any coaches in that time. Had I been told the truth all along I would have been much more tolerant of the situation.

Of course, that's not the only issue I had with that dealership, but I was not very happy to hear a different story every day and even less happy to find out I'd been lied to. I've never lied to a customer although I've had to be the bearer of some bad news many times. The customer always appreciated knowing the truth, even if it wasn't what they wanted to hear.

I had the pleasure of meeting Paul and his wife this morning, they stopped by my office to say hello.  I certainly hope everything works out fine. 

I have been here in sales just over 4 months, some of my deliveries went perfect, 3 have not.  In the 3 that didn't our teams have done their utmost to take care of the concerns of my customer.  In one case, the customer left, and the alternator died on a used coach.  It was fine here, but died the first day out.  I had him come back (on a Sat night), and our guys stayed and got them a new alternator installed and checked out.  They got back here at about 6:30, we close at 5 on Sat, and I was here till about 8 making sure they were fine. 

We do things as right as we can, but at times there is only so much that can be done.  Important to communicate this, but there are times when even that is tricky.  We do our best and attempt to learn from concerns, and issues. 

Bill,

I've had times when everything I touched turned to stone 

And service IS big business at LD - they certainly aren't ignoring that source of income because it is a huge one.? ?Pre-delivery prep and customer walkthrus are pure sales overhead, though. The dealer is expected to cover that cost out of his profit margin. Repair of defects, on the other hand, is covered by manufacturer warranty, so the dealer gets paid for that.


Gary,

I think you have EXACTLY stated the problem with Lazydays (and Im sure a good few others too).

Although the Fleetwood Manual CLEARLY states the dealer has an agreement to do a thorough inspection and correct any issues prior to delivery, there is nothing in it for the dealer (I've had several people tell me of terrible service issues with their new Lazydays coach, only to say they purchased their next coach from Lazydays).

I believe Lazydays are happy to sell at a lower price to gain the business, in the knowledge they can recoup far more by doing warranty work on pre-existing problems.

Why would Lazydays want to correct the things damaged by thousands of "browsers" walking thru the coaches on their sales lot.

It is in their interest to charge for these warranty "faults" at a later date.

I wonder whether Fleetwood think there is something strange in the Floridian air that makes coaches in this State more prone to warranty faults ?? ;D

Just my opinion.

Paul


We experienced another Lazydays linked problem today - I think we are now just cursed and need to leave this State soon...

We purchased some tickets from the Concierge at Lazydays, to visit Busch Gardens, with a complimentary return shuttle service.

Imagine our pleasure when we got to Busch Gardens to find the shuttle was to cost us $10 each.

We paid the $20 and then rang Matt (sorry Matt) to ask him to speak to the Concierge desk (we didnt have their number).

Concierge insist the shuttle is free, but Busch Gardens were still insisting on the $20.

We finally got Busch Gardens to provide a "goodwill refund" of the $20.

We are going back to Busch Gardens tomorrow and now have to ask Concierge to ring Busch Gardens to confirm the free shuttle and to get a contact name for us to speak with in the event of any problems.

does anyone else suffer this kind of repeated bad luck or is it just me ?? :'(

After reading this thread,

I have decided when we purchase our next coach ,I will do the walk thru, BEFORE ?I sign any paperwork,and if repairs are needed,I'll reschedule another walk thru ,again before any money changes hands. If after the second trip, my expectations are not met,then I will happily take my $200K to the next dealer.

That seems to be the only way to keep the advantage, on my side of the equation.

My question is, why does this type of situation keep happening ? ???? I thought only people buying boats got this treatment