Greatest Dealerships

[Corsair]

What is it that makes a dealership a GREAT dealership? What's most important to you? What do you like/don't like about your dealer?

[bethtrittipo]

Barry over at the SF Scooter Centre is the best! He even sent one of his guys out with me so I could practice riding my new Buddy. As a novice, this was crucial.

[ericalm]

1. Knowledge. You want a dealer who sells scooters, is into scooters, and knows about scooters and scootering. I have walked into a couple motorcycle dealerships where scooters are also sold and the scoots were pushed away in a corner, the sales people were uninterested in them and didn't know anything about comparable products. That's crap. (There are many places that sell MCs & scoots which are just fine, I'm sure!)

Dealers who are scooterists themselves and who interact with the local scootering community through rides, rallys, etc. are also more likely to be able to give you good and accurate information about what your buying and provide reasonable and fair comparisons.

2. Rapport. Good dealers seem to know that you do have choices and will do their best to build friendly, positive relationships with customers. The dealers who are active on forums ike this one get a gold star, too, for customer interaction.

When GatsbyGirl got her first Buddy, Jen at NoHo Scooters took a half hour or so to give her an excellent riding lesson—much better than I would have done!

It's also great to have your dealer remember your name. That's because they make a lot of money on...

3. Service. Experienced technicians/mechs. Short turnaround time for most normal maintenance. Able to acquire parts. Some dealers even offer free pickup and delivery, rides home, etc. That's somewhat rare, though.

Etc: It's also nice when the dealers stock a fair amount of accessories and gear, rider apparel, and so on. I tried on every model of Corazzo jacket at NoHo Scooters last week and will probably be getting one under the Xmas tree!

[sunshinen]

positives

• respectful
  knowledgeable
  honest
  friendly
  small enough to remember you
  respond to calls and emails
  demonstrate that they are more interested in the long term relationship than a one time profit (discount on new scooter, meeting misquote on service even though they quoted for the 50 and you have the 125, etc.)

negatives

• ignoring females
  ignoring anyone
  too busy to talk or answer questions
  won't let you test drive

i usually do a ton of research before i buy, so i always know a lot about what i want and am ready to take it home before i get to the dealership, whether it is a specific used car or a new scooter. with my first car purchase, i took my boyfriend along for the drive. they said, "hello sir," and simply nodded at me, when i was the one who had reserved a slot to do the test drive. that time i bought the car because it was exactly what i wanted and no one else had anything similar in the same price range. so i thought it wouldn't matter what the salespeople were like. i will never ignore such a sign again.

with my scooter, i drove three hours to get to a different dealership because i twice went to the local store, sat there waiting to buy one, and was not greeted.

because i do the research, i usually already know pretty much everything i want to know, but i ask questions to see how they will respond, to see if they will answer honestly and respectfully, or if they will sidestep, makeup an answer, or talk down to me.

[gt1000]

Ericalm and sunshinen pretty well covered everything, but I'd like to emphasize a couple of points they've already touched on.

Honesty is very important to me. I frequent two different dealerships, both very close to where I live. One for my Buddy, and one for my Duc. Both dealerships have earned my trust because they've been straight with me and both dealerships are obviously run by enthusiasts.

Ignoring women. Hard to believe it still happens, but it does. You hear about it a lot at motorcycle dealerships. Scooter shops would die a quick death if they did this. I know for a fact it still happens at car dealerships too because I tagged along with my daughter when she recently went car shopping. While all the sales-people seemed to converge on me first, once they knew my daughter was the buyer, almost all of them treated her with the respect she deserved. The one place that didn't never saw her again.

[lobsterman]

Don't know what makes a great dealership other than you know when you've got one, and you know when you don't.

Seth at Metro Scooters has done a great job of making sure I think Metro is a great dealer. He answered all my questions before the sale, he took me out to a nearby parking lot to give me a riding lesson. When I finally paid for the the Buddy he put it on a pickup truck and drove it to my house. Yesterday he did the first maintenance while I waited.

Metro also had the helmet and gloves I needed, as well as an antifog replacement shield for my helmet.

So, I'd say you can tell at the start if they pay respectful attention to you or not, and if they don't look elsewhere. If possible, find out how other people have done when doing business with a particular dealer before you even set foot in the door.