Motorcycle

Refusing Challenges (Accepting The Routine Fix)

Garth Beyer

A lot of businesses have a routine fix method and not much else.

I recently purchased a Kawasaki ninja 250r. It’s cardinal red and when the sunlight bounces off the chrome, it will definitely catch your eye. Appealing from afar, yes, but the motorcycle wouldn’t go faster than 60 mph. This meant I couldn’t take it on the expressway to visit my family.

The dealership I bought it from said it wouldn’t be good to ride it on the expressway. Everything I read online said otherwise. After viewing four different forums, the consensus was that it should go 80-95 mph. I’m wise not to believe everything on the internet, so I brought it into another dealership which had a service department.

I spoke to six different employees there. Each one of them said that the bike should be able to do 80 without a problem; that “it might even do 100.” The head of the service department said he had no clue. I asked if he could have someone ride it and tell me if they felt anything was wrong with it. An employee did and told me that’s as fast as it would go.

I still had doubts. I brought it to one more shop.

“Wow, that’s as fast as it goes?! Let’s run some tests and see what we can find out.” Worth mentioning after the quote is that this shop owner had no clue how fast the bike was supposed to go to begin with. Guess what he did?

He looked at all the same forums I went on and realized there had to be a problem. He was ready to find out what that problem was.

It’s disappointing when I go to businesses that are there to fix things but don’t. They have a specific number of routine fixes that they make. If I tell them about a problem and it doesn’t connect with any problem they have dealt with already, they think “that’s just the way it is” instead of looking into it.

Turned out a box of fuses fell into one of the carburetors. The shop owner gave them to me with a look of complete satisfaction and accomplishment on his face. I keep them as a reminder to challenge myself and if someone comes to me with a problem, I either figure it out or show them (not tell them) that that is just how it is.

 

Stay Positive & What Happened To Customer Satisfaction?

Garth E. Beyer

Sellers Need A Lesson

Garth Beyer

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I went to purchase a motorcycle over the weekend. While I wasn’t as knowledgable as the salesman at the motorsports store, I knew as much about the specific bike that I wanted as he did. Because I researched it and knew as much as him, he couldn’t upsell it.

The flaw with knowledge equilibrium between salesperson and customer is that the only connection remaining is price. There is nothing he can say to make me purchase the product other than giving me a number I want.

The catch is that if a customers knows more, they will pay less.

Dealers of all kinds need to spend the morning before work reviewing what has been posted online. The beauty about information when it comes to selling is that if the motorcycle salesman were to know as much as me, but told me they just read something about the bike online earlier that morning, I would certainly be more interested.

At the most simple form, it just shows the salesperson cares about the product, not just about selling it to anyone without half a mind to research before making a purchase.*

 

Stay Positive & Consider Buying Privately

Garth E. Beyer

*The internet is now the salesman. While there are still people with that title, their duties are much different. They are there to make a connection, show they care (about the product and you), and be the liaison of trust.

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