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Get off your arses!

Date:
By Wom Battle

I've been to two Harley-Davidson stores now, run by the same company.  One is a nice shiny new store in Sydney and the other, the local one.  We visited the shiny one last week, looked over the bikes and were interested in what accessories and bits and pieces they had there.  We were in the store for about 20 minutes and not one salesperson approached us. Granted, we could have approached someone and asked for assistance, but guys, that's not the way it's supposed to be!  Consumers call that shit service.  The shiny store also had BMW's, Ducati's and other purported premium brands neatly arranged in their areas and browsing through the other areas yielded the same result.

Locally, my wife, who bought a $450 jacket on the weekend at the store (with me), went back for gloves yesterday.  I am really pleased that she's started to kit out ready to come for a ride with me.  She went into the Harley area with my youngest daughter (5) and was uncerimoniously ignored by three staff for over 15 minutes.  She found some gloves she liked, but not in her size.  She waited for a glimmer of service and it didn't come.  So she left. You friggin idiots, the last time a good salesperson interacted with my wife over small leather accessory they sold her a $700 purse. You lot can't even sell a cashed up person a $50 pair of gloves!  I guess all the good salespeople are snapped up by people who sell important things.

It gets worse.  The gloves she saw were the ones she liked most so she got onto the phone and rang the shiny big store in Sydney.  The good thing about the phone is that someone generally has to answer it and talk to a customer.  It's clearly more difficult to ignore the phone than someone in the shop, it makes a noise.  She spoke to Paul who confirmed they had the size in stock but didn't offer to sell them over the phone and ship them up. He suggested she contact the local store and organise the sale through them. His suggestion was helpful and logical assuming that support for is was forthcoming from the other end of the transaction, the local dealer. At least Paul was trying to do the right thing. Oh well, it was worth a try.

She rang the local store (and someone had to anwer the phone because it makes a noise).  My wife explained the situation and tried to get things started.  But, at the time she called they were really busy, offered to take her number and call her back.  I wonder if they were as busy standing around ignoring people as they were when she was in the store 30 minutes earlier. She gave them my number and I'm still waiting for the call.

Norm, we go to your stores to buy stuff.  I appreciate that often people might come in for a look and waste some of your time, but you don't know who the time wasters are until you friggin ask the question. You should remember that it's possible that today's time waster might be tomorrow's spenders. It's called research.  Just because you may not recognise a customer, or they may not look like someone who wants to buy stuff, or they have a kid with them doesn't mean they aren't capable of handing over money for goods.

I've blogged earlier that your pre sales service seems good. But part of the customer experience is after sales/accessories service.  In our experience yours is generally up to shit.  If you consider your Harley's a premium brand, then you should perhaps have a think about how well the Mercedes, BMW dealerships and similar treat you when you visit them (even if you take the kids) whether or not they are the only dealership in town. If you are pitching yourself at Ssanyong level then maybe you'll be applying for receivership soon too. A pretty room with a coffee machine does not make a nice place to shop and accessories/safety gear are as an important part of the riding experience as the bike.

We'll be in Melbourne soon, we'll visit Harley Heaven down there and see what happens. In the meantime I'm trying to work out how I might get someone to sell us a pair of gloves.

Norm, our spend on stuff in your store over the last three months or so is approaching 2k, if you want more of our cash, in particular my wife's, get off your arse and sell stuff professionally. Not everybody locally is tied to your stores and genuine customers don't deserve to be ignored.

 

1 comment

Sevice at Norm's, you can't complain about thier service ... there is none. I ordered a 35K bike there over six weeks ago, they are going to ring me to let me know when they can get it for me. Six weeks gone,still no phone call. How much have you got to spend to get them interested, lucky they don't have any competition.

Posted by Oldbagger, 10/09/2010 9:29:06 pm

Disclaimer: This non commercial website and its content is not affiliated with or associated in any way with the Harley-Davidson Motor Company, Harley-Davidson Australia, the Harley-Davidson Owners Group® or any Harley-Davidson® Dealers in Australia.  The use of the terms Harley-Davidson, and Road King® are unavoidable because that's what I own and ride.  This website,  called "My Harley Davidson" , and any opinions or comments expressed herein are purely about my Harley-Davidson Road King ownership experience, a truly great experience at that. I have no intention whatsoever to infringe on any trademarks or copyright ownership of the Harley-Davidson Motor Company or anyone else.


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