Help with my homework please

[Spud]

Hi all,

I was wondering if you could give me a hand - when I am not being a monsterist, I am an Automotive Sales Training Consultant - basically I develop and deliver sales training, and in dealer consultancy for car & motorbike manufacturers and dealers.

With this in mind, I would be grateful if you could let me know what you want from your bike dealer / repairer. The threads are full of stories of great service, and frankly appalling service - but what do you expect? And critically what would you need to become loyal to a dealer for both sales and service. This should not be restricted to what you expect for your ducati, but also any other makes you ride

When you reply, could you identify yourself under one of the following headings

Main dealer only (by choice or warranty necessity)
Independant dealer
DIY unless it is too complicated

[Pugi]

Didi you read this poll/post?:

http://www.ukmonster.co.uk/monster/showthread.php?t=14098

I'm the DIY btw. Mostly to save money but also because I like to muck about.

[MotoNik]

I mostly DIY too - too poor/tight to pay for main dealer servicing, and besides, most of it is simple enough that I'd rather trust myself to f**k it up than pay someone else to.... :D

Having said that, I've just booked my SS in to Snells to have the valve clearances done. They've quoted me three hours labour to do it, which at that price isn't worth the aggro of doing it myself. We'll see how they do....

To answer your questions though, I want a dealer to treat me like a human being, give me respect and treat me like a customer, not another walking wallet...

I hate the attitude of some Ducati places - I sometimes feel like I'm looked down upon because I don't ride the most expensive flashy race bike, and other places treat you a bit disdainfully because you don't walk in and just get the bike booked in for somethng, as if you wouldn't give it a moment's thought, and money's no object. I think some Ducati places are guilty of this because they have a large and wealthy customer base, so get complacent, and used to having a ready and willing band of customers willing to chuck large wedges of cash about the place.

I suppose I'll be judging Snells on:

(a) whether it costs what they said (I hate it when the bill mysteriously grows to more than what I was quoted)
(b) how nice they are to me (sounds silly but you want to be treated well when you spend lots of money with a shop)
(c) whether I think they've done a good job.

As an example Emily recently had her 206 serviced by a Peugeot main dealer. The customer service was appaling - they gave her a list of jobs as long as her arm and basically expected her to book the car in then and there to have them all done, and were almost surprised that she didn't. When I questioned them about the validity of some of these jobs they treated me like a prize pillock for asking such technical questions (I'm a qualified mechanical engineer). Needless to say we won't be going there again (it's the main dealer in Farlington by the way - don't use them, they're crap!).

cheers,

Nik