My Letter To Honda !

[bigredhead]

Some of you may have read my thread in the other forum..... But i figured some of you might like to read what i've sent to honda ATV dealership here in Moncton NewBrunswick today !!
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To Whom this may concern.

Well... i must say i am quite un-satisfied at this moment... and feel the
need to express my concern.

Being a long time Honda fanatic, i've looked forward to walking into your
dealership for years now, however it all changed today.

For the past few months, i have been keeping your service department busy
while restoring vintage ATC's, namely an 82 ATC 200. an 84 200ES big red.
and my current project an 85 250 SX..... and i'm sure many more to come.

Some parts are available, some are not, and i realize that your service
department may not be up to par with the older versions of your ATV's, but i
do expect them to have access to the resources and given the amount of money
i've spent lately to willingly help when needed.

After spending 350 $ a week ago on rear end bearings, seals, brake pads ...
i have been putting everyting together and came upon a question.

On April 11th, 2005, i placed a call in order to find out if the right side
rear wheel needed a plain dust seal or one with a metal retainer, having
received a bag full of parts with nothing but part numbers and no indication
of their specific placement. I talked to Janet who politely explained that
she was in the office and not in parts... i was connected to Steve.. who
also politely explained that according to the diagram that he had, he could
not tell.. then transfered me to Kevin whom in my opinion should be fired on
the spot for such a poor representation of your company.

Kevin made it clear to me that since i had not taken the bike to him for
service. and since i am not paying him to do the work, it was not his
responsibility to spend any amount of time researching or answering my
question..... and proceeded to give me an analogy regarding " If you were a
business owner, would you want your employees spending time on business that
does not provide revenue ? ".. to wich i answered " Yes, it it meant
potentially making a customer happy and receiving sales in the future from
the transaction ! ". and this goes on.. much to my anger..........

Long story short.. i will go out of my way to not buy any other parts from
your business on his account, and will promote my dis-content with kevin's
behavior.

I will also post this letter on a few forums.. one of wich

www.3wheelerworldforums.com

feel free to check it out !

Gaston.

[atczack]

Dang, why don't you tell them how you really feel...

[twgranger]

They probably don't care. I went through the same stuff with my yamaha dealer. I never went back!!

[bigredhead]

If i really told them how i " felt " ... they probably would have a restraining order out on me !! LOL....

seriously tho.. i tried my best to keep it proffesional, i might not have a choice at some point and have to keep partial peace.

[wheelie king]

I think you kept if very civil. Unfortunately, twgranger is right. They don't care. They care about one thing. Money. I am fairly young (27), and even I can remember when "customer service" was really CUSTOMER SERVICE. It is too bad, really. I enjoy honda's products, and will continue to patronize them, but I never anticipate an intimate consumer/corporation relationship like there could be. I had an unfortuante experience with Honda also in the line of a parts problem, and was treated kinda crappy. So, I went with a good aftermarket alternative from a local cycle shop. I got treated first class, and problem solved.

Just my $ 0.02

[Coty]

WTF is up with dealerships, there is a local honda dealer near me that is the same way..they told me that there was over 100 manufactors making exhaust for my 86 200x, well i go down there to order one and they said theres only 1 company that makes exhaust, and he was too busy to worry with an old 3wheeler.... but i have learned that arguing with people like that is just taking away my sweet breath. so i went down the road to other dealership that specializes in Yamaha, Suzuki, and Polaris,(now honda) and buy my parts.

[LonesomeTriZ]

I know what you all are going through. I drive out of my way and pass other Yamaha dealerships just to hit my favorite place in the world. The Yamaha dealer I use has been in business for a lond damn time, and you can tell. They are very helpful and always want to hear our my trike projects are coming along. Their old parts guy even takes time to research and track down hard to find parts for me. I even get a discount over the price Yamaha sets. I could not ask for more. To make it even better, Florida, for the most part is not a trike friendly state.

[bigredhead]

my bike will get a barnett clutch when the time comes..

and it's " Allballs " bearings from now on too !

There are alot of good dealerships around here.. Honda just happens to be 10 minute walk from my house !!!! kinda convenient !

but too frickin bad.

I have alot of ATV buying friends.. and they will all hear my opinion on the subject... Kawasaki will be getting more sales this year.

My neighbor has a honda.. and he's selling his bike in a month or so... guess what he's buying now..IF YOU ARE READING THIS YOU D@%'S.

But like you guys said.. it's almost pointless. i know.

[bigredhead]

And i'm not pissed that he did not know the answer to my question.. but rather that he never showed any effort, or gave me any options, places to look, etc.......

At my job.. i get asked questions all day " Tech support, shipping company " and i get a few a day that i have no clue..... what do i do ?

" Well sir.. i honestly do not know, but tell you what. give me you name and number.. i will find out and have someone call you , or call you back myself.. "

is that so hard to do ?

[rustbucket]

Yeah I had the same deal tying to get parts for my trimotor yammie dealers son told me to get rid of the piece of junk and buy new. Then the owner (his old man) heard him and told me he was very sorry and that i should try another place. I stopped in the and told him what i needed and he was more than happy to get (especially since it was within reach) On a sad not I found out today that my favorite dealer the suzuki joint no longer sells "new" bikes or quads they only have boats but they will still have biike parts available it kinda sucks becuase untill a couple years ago when the built the new yammie place zukis were like the only bike around. Very good place to deal with to always found the part somehow.

[TimSr]

My first suggestion is that you take your complaints to the dealership, and NOT to Honda. The dealership is NOT Honda. It is not owned or operated BY Honda. They sell Honda products and service.
As a former owner of a computer service business, Im going to stick up for the dealer. Sure, when you pay for parts, the dealer makes money, but he makes the bulk of his money on service and installation. If you havent paid for installation, you cannot expect to pay only for the parts, and then have them do the research to train you to install it over the phone. Trust me, it would be cheaper for them to install it free, then it would be for them to install it over the phone.
This was the main reason I sold my computer business. You sell a sound card for $15 that you make about $4 on, and $35 for half hour labor to install it and set it up for the customer. They buy the card, but "will save the money and do it themselves." They take it home, pick up the phone and call me, asking how to install it it, how to setup the drivers, etc. etc. When its all said and done, Ive got an hour wrapped up on supporting a card I made $4 on because a guy didnt want to pay me to install it. I could have installed it free and lost less money.
Sorry, but In my opinion, you buy parts, you get parts. You pay for service, you get service. He has a right to expect to be paid the normal labor rate for doing research and tech support if you wish to do the labor. He is losing money at a rate that will quickly cancel out whatever profit he made on the parts. He may have SOLD $350 worth of parts, but I guarentee he did not make near that much. At a $50-$65 an hour labor rate, it doenst take long to make his profits on your parts, zero. When you are on the other side of the fence, it starts to look a little different.

[bigredhead]

the computer business and ATV business are bad examples.

I do computer work..so i know first hand !!!

30 $ for a single bearing = big margin. x 8 = alot more than 4 $.

and i simply asked what part i needed to use. not how to install it.

[bigredhead]

http://www.toysforbigboysltd.com/

and i did take it to the dealership as well !

[MTS]

I know what you all are going through. I drive out of my way and pass other Yamaha dealerships just to hit my favorite place in the world. The Yamaha dealer I use has been in business for a lond damn time, and you can tell. They are very helpful and always want to hear our my trike projects are coming along. Their old parts guy even takes time to research and track down hard to find parts for me. I even get a discount over the price Yamaha sets. I could not ask for more. To make it even better, Florida, for the most part is not a trike friendly state.

i have a yamie dealer like that too there great! sorry to hear of your bad experiance bigred my honda dealer hear is awsome....

[OldSchoolin86]

I own a well and pump company and have been dealing with customers for a long time. I believe this Kevin guy totaly screwed up. It says a lot to a customer when you can't take two seconds to try to explain something. What it says is that if you aren't going to make me money right now then I don't need to deal with you. This is a horrible way to deal with customers. Sure it may get old telling someone how do something you'd rather be charging them to do but that's just part of sales and service. When you treat someone like this it's a narrow minded, short term way of thinking. Long term thinking would be to take a second and if nothing else, politely explain that if your not there, you won't be able offer the best advice and service you can and then offer to make an appointment for them. Most of the time I will tell people how to do things and guess what, they come back again for more parts and a lot of the time they just decide to let me do the work anyway. You always have to treat your customers well becuase the day you decide to be a jerk, the person you treated will let as many people as they can that you screwed up.