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Powersports Finance
Can-Am tops UTV dealer survey
September 2019
Can-Am was ranked as the top UTV brand based on how salespeople interact with consumers, according to a UTV dealer survey from Pied Piper Management.
The study measures the treatment of UTV shoppers who visit franchise dealerships and ranks OEMs based on interaction with potential buyers. For example, the study tracks whether a salesperson offered a test drive or showed off the service department.
Of the 22 OEMs rated in the survey, Can-Am was ranked highest with an average score of 109. The highest possible score was 150.
Can-Am dealers were ranked among the highest in several categories that measure specific sales behaviors. On average, more than 60% of the time a dealer encouraged customers to sit inside the vehicle. Additionally, dealers asked for customer contact information more than 51% of the time.
“If you look at the individual dealer scores, it’s not uncommon to find dealers who nailed the sales process every single time a customer came in,” Fran O’Hagan, Pied Piper president and chief executive, told Powersports Finance. “They do it because they have a process that everybody follows religiously. The boss tells them, ‘Hey, when a customer is willing to spend time with us, we’re always going to do these three or four things that are important to us as a dealership.’”
Honda and Kawasaki were ranked second and third, respectively, while Mahindra and Polaris were tied for fourth. Polaris experienced the biggest year-over-year growth in the ranking, climbing eight points to 103. The increase is an example of an OEM finding areas in which dealers can improve and teaching them better sales behavior, O’Hagan added.
“A lot of times for the powersports industry, the value is just focusing the general manager or owner’s attention on the fact that their sales team doesn’t sell consistently,” O’Hagan said. “The salesperson does well one time, and the next time they don’t. It’s not that they’re doing something bad. It’s just far more common that they skip steps, either because they’re not aware that there are steps they should be following or they disqualify the customer [based on judgments].”
