Recent Press - dealership responsiveness

In 2005, more than 275,000 dirt bikes were sold in the U.S., but over the next six years dirt bike retails plummeted 75 percent – more of a drop than any other motorcycle category. Most of those dirt bike customers are still around, but do they still ride? Are they riding, but just not replacing their bikes as often? Is it possible to coax these dirt riders out of “new-bike-purchase-hibernation” to get them interested in buying a new dirt bike again?

Hollister Hills is a 4,000-plus acre off road riding state park in Northern California. According to the park's director, Jeff Gaffney, visitor attendance grew steadily from about 150,000 annually in 2000 to about 200,000 visitors annually in 2006, which also happened to coincide with the peak of U.S. motorcycle sales. We know what happened to motorcycle retails after 2006, but what happened to dirt rider attendance at Hollister Hills between 2006 and today? Did the dirt bikers who stopped buying also stop riding?

Can your dealership sell more motorcycles and accessories simply by improving your showroom lighting? Some dealerships make no change to the standard fluorescent fixtures that came with the building, while others install bright ambient lighting as well as spotlights on motorcycles and on accessory displays. All that specialized lighting costs money to install and the ongoing electric bill may be higher too, so where are the facts proving that specialized lighting is worth the expense?

We dealership folks may be experts when it comes to motor vehicles, but other industries have been paying very close attention to lighting for many years, and we may be able to learn from their experience. Visit any mall and look at the lighting used by jewelry stores, clothing stores and for that matter, nearly any major retailer.

The reason you see such consistency, with plenty of bright but neutral ambient light as well as spotlighting, is that retail stores must achieve retail sales per square foot targets. These retailers learned years ago that the only way to hit their targets was to pay close attention to lighting.

How about some facts? Ten years ago General Nutrition Center (GNC) and its lighting supplier had an argument. GNC and the lighting supplier agreed that the prototype of a new GNC store design looked great, but GNC noticed that they could save a lot of money by cutting the display lighting from the design. The lighting supplier was not happy with that idea, but neither side had facts to back up their conviction, so they agreed to research it...

Back in 1985, I scraped together every last cent to buy a Kawasaki Ninja 600R from a dealer in Pennsylvania, Bill Peacock. I still remember Bill's business card to this day because below his name he had chosen for a title, “Owner, Janitor.” His point was that his dealership was a small, friendly, hands-on family business.

One of the sales process steps our company measures today is whether a sales customer is introduced to dealership management before leaving the store. For the motorcycle industry, this step is uncommon; happening less than 10 percent of the time when motorcycle sales customers visit dealerships nationwide.

Wandering around this year's Long Beach motorcycle show, I was struck by how dramatically the U.S. motorcycle market has changed — and is still changing. Remember when the four Japanese brands and Harley-Davidson seemed responsible for 95 percent of what was happening, and niche brands like BMW, Ducati, Victory and Triumph were really just curiosities? Today the four Japanese brands and Harley-Davidson are still heavy-hitters, but the brands that used to be curiosities have come on strong with no end in sight for their growth.

Maybe it goes back to that word, “brand.” I've personally been a very good retail motorcycle customer over the years, and I can remember buying sport bikes because of their horsepower, their weight and their handling prowess. I didn't buy those bikes because of the manufacturer who happened to sell them. The danger of course — for that manufacturer or the dealer — is that being the best commodity is a title that is fleeting. If the purchase is strictly based upon the physical product, what happens when the next “best” product is sold by someone else?

Earlier this year, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie signed a bill into law allowing Sunday motorcycle sales. While pushing for the change in law, New Jersey motorcycle dealerships observed that many of their customers had been crossing over the state line into Delaware to shop on Sundays. How many motorcycle dealerships nationwide are open on Sundays? For that matter, how many have extended hours on Saturdays, instead of closing early to allow dealership employees to head-off early to enjoy the weekend?

Too many hard-working motorcycle dealerships today are holding on for survival, trying to grind out a living relying on the same number of customer “ups” in a week that they used to see on any given day. First of all, yes, you are in good company; there are plenty of other dealerships in exactly the same predicament; and yes, most would agree that you and your team didn't cause the downturn. On the other hand, you and your team are the ones who can change behaviors to drive success at your dealership right now.

Let's focus on sustainable ways to drive more floor traffic. Note that I said, “sustainable,” since a one-time, budget-busting advertising blitz is probably not the long-term answer. Here are three free or inexpensive solutions that are sustainable:

Mystery shoppers gauge things that are important to making a sale, but not necessarily of interest to customers at the particular time.

“A customer in a dealership is thinking about price and trade value, not whether the salesperson addressed specific features, asked for the sale or followed the sales steps,” said Fran O'Hagan, President & CEO of Pied Piper Management Company LLC. “Those are not what the customer focuses on, but they are what sells cars.”

Consumers who later fill out customer satisfaction surveys give feedback on their dealership experience. But there is a difference between asking buyers how they feel after the sale “and sending people into a dealership to find out what is happening during the sale,“ O'Hagan says.

Customers often aren't keyed into how to run a business, he says. “It's like Henry Ford said: “If I had asked my customers what they had wanted, they'd have said a faster horse.”

Probably not. We know that asking for the sale is an obvious key to selling motorcycles, but we also know that on average, U.S. motorcycle salespeople ask for the sale less than half the time (48 percent to be exact). Given that asking for the sale directly sells more motorcycles, why do so many salespeople resist?

Two reasons: First of all because we humans dislike rejection as much as we dislike anything. Salespeople must understand and overcome the natural tendency to avoid asking for the sale just because they believe the answer will be “no.” Ask anyway. The math says that a salesperson will have to ask for the sale to six or seven customers before one will buy. Also, only by asking for the sale will a salesperson discover — and be able to overcome — a customer's objections or obstacles to purchase. Secondly, your salespeople may be worried about coming off as too pushy. Encourage them to worry less. We know that on average. motorcycle salespeople “over-sell” less than 5 percent of the time; compared to “under-selling” 25 percent of the time.

Mercedes-Benz dealerships ranked highest in a study by Pied Piper Management Company to measure how effectively dealerships sell cars. Jaguar and Lexus tied for second.

When it comes to the car buying process, the car pretty much does all the work, pulling in buyers with its impressive MPGs, like the Chevrolet Cruze or Ford Fiesta, or making them drool with offerings of the turbo inline 6 in the BMW 1M. Even completely new and fresh designs like the Kia Soul and completely redesigned models like the Hyundai Elantra are enough to entice buyers— all that's left is to seal the deal. But which dealerships leave customers the most satisfied?