New lawn tractor

pmgnut said:

I would think if anything needed a replacement under warranty, any authorized JD dealer would work no matter where it was purchased.

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Put yourself in the dealer's position. You have customers who bought their mower from you and need work done. You also have mowers from people who bought their mowers elsewhere and they need work done, too.

When you prioritize your shop work, which units will you work on first?

cpurvis said:

Put yourself in the dealer's position. You have customers who bought their mower from you and need work done. You also have mowers from people who bought their mowers elsewhere and they need work done, too.

When you prioritize your shop work, which units will you work on first?

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I agree with you in this statement, but it shouldn't be the acceptable way of running a business. Of course each customer has a "value" to them. If you consider the commercial contractor who purchases 20 new Exmarks every 2-4 years, of course they will get some preferential treatment when need service. Why? Because it is in our nature to reciprocate whenever someone does something beneficial for us. Also, a business exists to make money of which the commercial account brings more of. Like I said, this is not acceptable, but it's just the way it is. All we can hope for is that a business is "built" on principals to which all customers are treated equally. An honest business can operate this way so long as expectations are set in the beginning and policies are enforced.

Please do not place all dealerships in the same category as you described. There are good dealerships in all parts of the country, even the world. Yes, there are those that do meet your description, but I feel that there are more good than bad. The dealership I work at has been around for more the 65 years, so I doubt that we would be in the bad category. Yes there are times when we will put our dedicated customers ahead, but that will depend on the situation. The biggest complaint we have is that some customers who purchase a brand we do not sell from the Big Box stores, come to us for service, then expect to get one week service when we are two weeks out. “MY GRASS IS GROWING AND I CAN’T BE WITHOUT MY MOWER THAT LONG”. At this time of the year we have a waiting list of residential customers for about 3 weeks out. 99% understand and have no complaints. Four mechanics, working 45-50 hours a week, means we must be doing something right. Our commercial customers plan ahead, right now we don’t see many emergencies from them. Many times for them it means OT for us. Do what you have to do. This is the reason I’m always saying when you purchase, look to see who will help you out in the future if a problem comes up.