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What I’ve noticed lately is sales people, door to door and by the phone. I’m naturally nice and don’t want to just hang up/slam the door, but some of them truly refuse to take no for an answer. They make you get to the point of getting nasty for them to give it up.
Super bizarre.
Couple things, if I may - after Covid, the restaurant experience was not near as pleasant; the service, the food and the prices lessened the enjoyment. These days, When I wave someone into traffic from the Burger King onto the main road, I’m not getting the previously mandated “Thanks Wave”, back from the driver….When I flash my lights to let the trucker know he can return into the slow lane, I’m not receiving the “thanks flash back” on his rear lights. So yeah, the world has gone to shit, thank God I still have my rocknroll, my old cars and motorcycles, otherwise I might have joined a bowling league whatevs…..
Bon Scott , Z28's , and shovel heads make modern life better.
Amazon failed again.
I needed more of those huge thick 55 gallon trash bags that I put my lawn mower grass into and Tuesday I ordered them from amazon and they were supposed to be here the next day (yesterday) and I just looked at the tracking and it now says they wont be here until Sunday 4 days late. Canceled and off to Walmart or Lowes to get them.
Maybe it would help if we were dealing with our local dealers face to face more???
The Shop
DeCal Works Huge Plastic Inventory of UFO and Polisport kits.
Luxon 4-Post Bar Mounts
$189.95 - $239.95
Yes they can.
Why would I send this guy back to another dealer? The guy worked at another dealership where they tell you a price of $4995 for a KX450 and then once you are there it is now $9000. Why does that matter? He loved doing it. I don't like that shit. He doesn't work at the dealership anymore but he has bought multiple machines and not one time called us for a price. He drove 4 1/2 hours to buy them. He breaks the door panel and thinks he is doing us a favor letting us warranty it when after it is all said and done we would have lost money doing this warranty. And what's even better, he tells my service writer that if we need the unit there that I can just pick it up(since I live by him) and bring it in for him. Customers like him are very common. I could bend over backwards to help him out and do a bunch of free shit for him and then when he wants another new unit he will drive 4 1/2 hours to buy again. And since he didn't accept the answer that it was not a warranty issue we did send all of his photos to the manufacture and spent the time to start a claim only to be told by the manufacture no way.
Had a young kid have an issue with his Husky last weekend. I told him to get it to the shop. One of the techs spent an hour and a half chasing down a corrosion issue(tough find) and got him together quick enough to make a ride that night. We didn't charge him anything. Great kid and family and they do business with us. Not the shop 4 hours away.
Some people need to be told to fuck off but unfortunately we can't do that anymore. I got rid of my worst employee but I didn't do it soon enough because he was a really sharp guy and reliable employee. His attitude just sucked.
The above customer also orders online SXS tires and wheels and then brings them in to have them mounted. People believe that I should be thrilled to death to get that labor money but I pay a big chunk of that labor to the techs. The service department also needs to sell parts to help the cost of the department. Work comp and liability insurance costs are by far the highest in that department. And warranty work tends to be the least profitable part of service.
My dad started this place in 1965 and back in the day he was able to politely tell a customer that there are other shops in town and it would maybe be best if they did business elsewhere. If you carried in your own tire he wouldn't mount it. I can't do that anymore, cost of doing business has gone up way too much and the internet has changed the way we do business. Gotta take every dollar that we can, unless it's just bad enough that we need to tell the guy to fuck off.
You guys nailed it. The money vampires actually run actuaries on cost/benefit of "customer service". They know at what level of customer service they provide generates the most profit. Pride in company/quality, integrity, etc. has nothing to do with it. Losing 10% of your customers costs less than the overhead and personnel to retain them. And this mindset is pervasive and works its way through the whole business model. Nothing wrong with wanting to improve profit margin, it's just too bad the actual value of reputation, customer experience, product quality, etc., have all been shit canned by most companies in the name of "profit".
Retail is wild these days. I like buying stuff in person because I'm old and don't like waiting three days. Went into Best Buy for a pretty common cable and noticed a lot of the inventory is gone. Asked an employee who walked over and stared at a very limited cable section and said "you should probably just buy it online." Can't be long until this store shuts its doors. I guess they gave up.
Fry's tried this model (stocking everything) and failed. sadly. micro center is close to failing. amazon killed them. best buy came back from the brink and figured out they had to maximize the revenue their floorspace will generate. so now they stock bobble heads and legos lol.
Racetech has great service. Just used them and they were very helpful and fast.
Fry's was the best store, ever. Sad day when the Burbank location closed.
I don't know if customer service is worse or not. I think some of it is rose colored glasses about the 'old days', and a lot of getting grumpier in our old age. If there has been a drop in good customer service, I'd say that it is at least matched by inflated sense of customer entitlement.
As an example, I spent 20 years in Retail Management. My last position was in management for a large home improvement company. Our corporate guidelines were incredibly customer friendly when it came to being able to solve problems without having to call for management, etc. We refunded things that didn't actually come from our store just to not have to tell a customer "No".
I once got called to the Customer Service desk, which was pretty rare as we had a Front End Asst Mgr on duty that day. But this woman would only speak to "The Manager" and it was urgent. When I got there and asked her how I could help her, she went into a literal tirade of how her shopping experience was completely ruined because the women's bathroom had 4 water faucets, and none of them were exactly the same. Yes, that was her beef. I explained to her that we sometimes used display units or faucets that were returned because a customer didn't like the way it looked once they installed it at home, and she got even more upset. The kicker was when she, while recording the exchange, declared that she had over 2K followers on her social media accounts and her blog and that if we weren't going to 'take pride' and make sure that all of the bathroom faucets matched perfectly, she would unleash her army of followers and the effect would be us losing over half of our business and we'd have to shut down the store.
Not kidding. It was surreal.
One thing I do think has sunk some of the customer service levels when shopping is the 'Walmart Effect'. Back when downtowns had locally owned businesses and paid their employees decent wages, retail jobs were a decent way to make a living. When Walmart moved in and effectively closed down those businesses and their relatively better paying jobs, the folks who were more likely to offer decent customer service were no longer the people who were helping you or checking out your orders. Which is ironic because when Walmart first started, one of their hallmarks was their service level. But once you have to fill those millions of low paid jobs, you take what you can get and you don't really have the ability to only hire the folks who provide good service.
Was it a door panel that came on the machine originally or was it ordered and installed after the fact? If it was an original piece, I could see being upset at an authorized dealer not providing warranty assistance. If it was an accessory that was ordered later or from the aftermarket, not so much.
Powersports biz has gotten much harder. I sold my Yamaha dealership in 2001 and I don't miss it one bit. Give em' hell brother.
I had to do a research paper related to this and part of the background was simply asking employees at various businesses "what do you think about working here?". The answers were truly enlightening but overwhelming many employees feel under appreciated and that whatever job they're in is simply a dead end. These are your front facing employees, not the grumpy guy/gal in the back office but the folks directly interfacing with the customers.
I've been burned by a couple places. Anchor Tape is one of them. Ordered the grip tape, was sent a piece for the KTM vented airbox cover and was missing the non-vented cover. I don't have the vented cover nor would I use it for off road. Tagged them in Instagram story asking what the vented piece was for and was surprised they replied and offered to ship the missing piece out asap. I was stoked. Weeks went by. Messaged them and was told sorry, we'll get it out to you asap. Another week went by, messaged them and they made some bs excuse about being busy with Anaheim 1. Another week went by and I told them if they hadn't shipped by then, don't bother. Never heard back again. Fuck that company. It's literally 3M safety walk anyway. As a business owner myself obviously some customers are higher priority than others. But you don't ever tell the customer that.
It was a door panel that came on the machine. He takes them off to do some modification to the door. Once he was putting it back on it was broke. The manufacture told us that if we wanted to help the guy out that we could use some of our "good will" funds to pay for a panel. We had blown through our good will funds helping another questionable warranty that happened to be a great customer.
People are wild! WTF cares about 2k followers? No one should be buying from Walmart either. Support small businesses! The Walton family owns the Denver Broncos now too. Between them and Sean Payton I may never root for them again.
Warranty work you almost always lose money and the factories don't give a shit.
And about bringing your own parts to the dealer I had a guy from a another dealer say "Do you take your own eggs to the diner?'' haha
Everyone is getting squeezed for money right now. It just makes people unhappy in general.
Pit Row
Relationships go a long way. I used to drive 30 miles and past 3 other dealerships to go to the guy that I knew would take care of me, that actually stocked parts, if they didn’t have a part they would take one off a vehicle on the floor just so we could race that weekend. That guy earned all my business.
I have to imagine he wanted to just tell me to FO more than once.
To clarify, it's the people on both sides of the counter that are getting squeezed
Our local 'corporate-owned music store' sends their customers to me when they have problems with RF (wireless mics, IEMs, etc.).
Shame on their employer for not providing adequate training. No one knows everything, but we have Youtube and AI now. I guess it's just easier to send it off to someone else, so you can get back to staring at Tik-Tok on your phone.
I don't badmouth anyone or suggest they return what they were sold (if it's otherwise appropriate). I simply help them out, educate them as best I can and invite them to buy things in the future from people that can actually help them. I've brought in a lot of new customers this way.
Not that my opinion means much... but I've been lucky enough to work in the moto industry for 30 years. I've always said there is a kid in Indiana that would give his left nut to do what I have done. So I never have taken for granted what a killer life I live.
It's in my blood to make sure I always make the customer feels special. Let's face it, without each of you out there riding and racing dirt bikes, we don't have jobs or a business. So I've never understood (like so many of you) how customer service could be so bad in an industry that is supposed to be so passionate.
It's a cultural/ generational thing. Old people can be dumb, narrow minded, etc. like any person of any age. One thing some can possibly gain with years only is a broad perspective. Wisdom only comes with that perspective. I can tell you between 30ish and 40ish I started recognizing changes in culture. Things we learned and were taught started becoming too difficult for the following generation. Unacceptable behavior became acceptable. Its at the point now where many think its a privilege to an employer if the employee even shows up for work much less do their work well. Bad news for those that are conscientious, honest, loyal, have integrity, concerned for the resources we have been blessed with, etc... it will never get better. That is the sadness of humanity. Circle your wagons, take care of your family, find peace, seek out beauty that still exists in the world and always try to do the right and decent thing. I will step down from the box now.
I quit supporting anchortape too, they won’t take accountability on anything. I spent thousands with them and had a similar experience so I took all my business to another company. Also imo it’s overpriced crap anyways.
Customer service plummeted when the customer quit being right and the timeout generation became old enough to have to work.
Being a self employed construction worker who actually gives a damn about delivering a quality product is absolutely maddening these days. Materials arriving damaged with boxes or wrapping that is in perfect shape means the company is knowingly sending out damaged goods in hopes that you will either not care or not notice their shit product. What really keeps me up at night is what does it look like in another 5/10 years from now?
Goods and Services are not getting more expensive; the value of the dollar is crap. The media will tell to blame this side or the other so you can focus the anger how they want but, in the last two decades they printed way too much fake money. End rant...
Race tech, and Bud racing. This text from RT still cracks me up, as if someone would tell them to take a hammer to a shock for no reason. Lol
I agree, the oem's are hammering the dealers lately. frt. surcharges , overstocking units on the floor and back ordering parts. Not a lot of fun.
You stated the sad truth pretty well. It's almost like my wife and I are doing our kids a disservice by having them look people in the eye, say please and thank you to everyone. Weird time to be alive.
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