New Top 50 Dealer Awards
My phone has been ringing off the hook of late regarding the new Top 50 Dealer Awards program RV Business recently announced that it would give in Las Vegas during RVDA’s convention. RVDA has not endorsed the evening event but it will take place at the Rio hotel during the convention.
While most of the phone calls I have been getting look at the top 50 dealer awards as another ploy of AGI, when I called around to ask other less vocal dealers of their thoughts, many were unconcerned. That said, it seems a good number of dealers are worried that this will be a repeat of the “Marcus Lemonis as Man of the Year” situation we saw in RV Business in 2007. I’ve heard many complain (justified or unjustified) that the magazine has a history of biased coverage and the awards are another opportunity for AGI self-promotion.
Some feel that the dealers who win in 2008 will be a lengthy list of FreedomRoads dealers. When I asked Marcus Lemonis about this, he said that he had asked the judging panel to only consider one FreedomRoads dealership for the award, which is within the guidelines of the published rules. Dealers eligible to win the award were selected by RV manufacturers with reportedly no input from AGI. RV Business then sent qualifying dealers a questionnaire for the panel of independent judges to choose 50 winners from. The panel is composed of Jim Sheldon of Monaco Coach, Bob Parish of (RV Group) GE Capital Solutions, Brad Sargent of Dometic, Carl Pletcher of Thetford and Larry Lebryk of Atwood Mobile products.
Others feel that in the first year, the contest will be fair and unbiased, but will be heavily slanted in subsequent years after the award has been established. Some dealers I spoke with are entirely indifferent and don’t even plan on returning the application.
Another concern of people ringing my phone is that this is merely a sneaky attempt to gather information about FreedomRoads’ dealer competitors. Others feel that this information can be obtained easily from Statistical Surveys in Michigan and that supplying the information to Affinity Group is no big deal. Some dealers have said they will send in the application but will refuse to answer certain questions.
While some dealers view the top 50 dealer awards as a great idea and a very positive thing that will promote higher quality standards, others are equally passionate about how nothing good will come of it. One caller suggested that the award program was a method for AGI to decide which dealerships they would attempt to purchase next. Another caller bluntly told me that he didn’t feel that an award from his biggest competitor, who is trying to put him out of business, had any value. He said he was adamantly boycotting the whole process.
Since there seems to be a great deal of interest surrounding this, I thought it would be nice to toss it out there for everyone to discuss. Good? Bad? Indifferent? What do you think?
July 30th, 2008 at 7:54 am
Theo they are wal-mart! have you seen all the junk they try and sell to campers! please this crap is made overseas and for cheap then the big camping world mark up. a smart shopper goes else where for ALL his camping needs and saves a lot of money. their service here in the northeast just plain sucks. people working the counter that know nothing about rv’s, the worst is the churchville ny store never go there for service or over priced hitch work. we will just have to wait and see what marcus does next.
July 28th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Freedom Roads is becoming more and more like Wal Mart, They buy up all the big dealers and sell cheaper and squeeze the small guys out. If you want to give them an award give them the Wal Mart award for squeezing the small dealers. Freedom Roads and Camping World are going to own it all sooner or later and the RV market won’t be as well represented when that happens.
July 24th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Larry S. has hit ir right on! So what is the take on the big, bad FreedomRoads network of HUGE RV stores & HUGE Inventory sitting on the lots? Do they weather the storm or start selling off stores?
July 23rd, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Personally, I read the top 50 dealer questionaire. Rather than putting the emphasis on the dealer and his/her actions, it requests more financial data, turn ratios, profit margins, and other sensitive internal dealership information. I don’t believe that the bulk of this information is needed to ascertain a dealers ranking as a “Top 50 Dealer”.
July 16th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
This is absolutely another ploy by Affinity to gather information. Perhaps this will assist them further in poaching key employees from dealers who do a better job then their current line up of incompetent pseudo professionals. We received the nomination info and promptly shredded it. Thanks but no thanks, Marcus
July 15th, 2008 at 7:54 am
AMEN to Ron t. Larry S. you both hit the nail on the head!
July 14th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
Reading the aforementioned comments, one can see a level of distrust of AGI and its affiliates by the independent dealer base. In theory, this award is a good idea; every dealer would like to be recognized as one of the country’s top 50 and more importantly the top 5, but as a dealer who received the package, the questions asked are so intrusive as to add suspicion to the nature of the questionnaire. With the impact of Freedom Roads and AGI in most areas of the RV industry, it is not a stretch to believe in a Freedom Roads conspiracy theory. Talking to RV Business, we expressed our concerns with the questionnaire; the response was to fill out what we thought was necessary. After reading some of the comments above we are not alone, which simply begs the question what will the dealers fill out? Or will dealers fill it out at all? What will be considered a completed questionnaire, and more importantly, how will it be viewed and judged. Simply stated, how does a Manufacture or other RV insider really know what a dealership goes through on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis? Such insiders are partial to dealers that pay their bills, they could really care less about how that dealer impacts a market or society or community. Particularly in these times, what makes a top dealer? Size truly may not matter; the large dealerships may not be as successful as a smaller dealer with exceptional service and repeat business for the last 50 years. It sure is a dilemma for RV Business and those judging the dealer base. In theory, the idea is sound; in reality it has become suspicious.
July 11th, 2008 at 8:45 am
Why do you think Lemonis got out of the Auto industry?
July 7th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Larry said it best. We are so far behind the automotive industry. This is good if we would learn from it. We could overcome alot if we would learn from others and not make the same mistakes. This is the problem when you own every aspect of the RV Industry. Before long people start to get weary of what you are up-to. No good is what most think! It is what it is.
July 3rd, 2008 at 10:01 am
Dana
Reading the responses so far - I’d say you hit a nerve.
I think that Larry S. said it best. This is a severely flawed award process. Manufacturers will certainly nominate their largest dealers because if they don’t those largest dealers will know simply because they were not nominated! Dealers are not going to nominate their rivals - we have not progressed to that level of civility and probably never will. Suppliers are like the manufacturers in that they will nominate their biggest consumers/retailer for the same reasons as the mfgrs.
Just the idea of “lets give ourselves an award for quality” is completely self serving and hokey - kinda like the winner of a demolition derby getting the trophy for having the least amount of damage!
Customers nominations are the only litmus test for quality /satisfaction. Second choice would be service managers, shop foremen and techs. The thing they propose is just grandstanding at best and at worst, stacking the deck of cards for an upcoming poker game .
The money that a dealer spends in his service department making repairs that: 1. a customer feels should be warranty but is not, 2. just plain old good will 3. providing warranty repairs to his customers for closed up manufacturers - is the best advertising dollers he will ever spend. Service departments create repeat sales and keep you out of court. Some dealers will never buy into that belief - award or no award.
July 3rd, 2008 at 8:56 am
When will the RV industry get it. Having RV Manufacturers, Dealers and other RV insiders picking the top performers is ridiculous. Has anybody heard of J.D. Powers? These are CUSTOMER driven surveys that tell the closer story of Dealer and Mfg’s performance and products. The customer is probably the last person the industry wants to hear from.
The Automobile industry had to learn the hard way too but both quality and product improvements came about.Many consumer products including medicines are included in these ratings.
So go ahead and pour it on.