For the second year in a row, Harley-Davidson dealerships made their customers more happy than any other brand of motorcycle dealer, beating out other trusted brands including BMW, Victory, and Ducati.

Pied Piper Management Company, LLC, based out of Pacific Grove, CA, published these findings today. The company, which is a marketing consulting firm that specifically caters to the motorcycle industry, ran a study of motorcycle shoppers at 830 dealerships nationwide.

Here's their "Satisfaction Index" for all brands they studied...



The numbers in (negative and positive) reflect their change from last year.

Harley-Davidson still led all motorcycle brands in more than 40% of the sales process factors evaluated by the study. Examples of sales process factors dominated by Harley-Davidson salespeople include asking for contact information, mentioning the availability of financing, asking for the sale, and giving compelling reasons to buy now. Victory salespeople led all brands for mentioning features unique from the competition and for focusing attention on three to five memorable product features. Ducati salespeople ranked first for addressing features and benefits relevant to the prospect and for offering a test ride.

The company went on to say that while motorcycle sales have been on the decline recently, a small number of dealers have been able to boost their sales by measuring and benchmarking their sales process, and making necessary tweaks. And that's basically what Pied Piper does, help dealers figure out where to make the tweaks.

Their study concludes by saying that overall, motorcycle salespeople fail to make basic communication points with their customers, such asking for contact information only 38% of the time, encouraging shoppers to return on 44% of the time, asking for the sale only 45% of the time, and providing compelling reasons to buy only 34% of the time.

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Pied Piper Satisfaction Index

Labels: Harley Davidson, Motorcycle Dealerships, Motorcycle Sales

First came the shopping mall, then came the auto mall, and now someone wants to build the first "motorcycle mall", in Elk Grove, California, just outside of Sacramento.

A partnership associated with Fite Development Co., one of Greater Sacramento's largest general building contractors, is seeking Elk Grove's permission to develop a 10-acre project of up to 165,000 square feet -- mostly for motorcycle sales, but also for stores, restaurants or financial services.

Labels: Motorcycle Dealerships, Motorcycle Malls