Airstream Zeroes In on Customer Service at Dealer Meeting – RVBusiness – Breaking RV Industry News

COLUMBUS, Ohio – With industry-leading customer service as the overarching theme, the annual Airstream Dealer Meeting concluded last night with its awards ceremony – during which, by the way, Blue Compass RV wore a path to the podium.

In fact, after three days of activity – including tours of the Airstream campus in nearby Jackson Center, Ohio, where dealer personnel were able to review 2024 model year product – Airstream President & CEO Bob Wheeler said the OEM, in concert with its dealer partners, is singularly focused on providing not only the best customer service in the RV industry, but in any industry.

“Airstream has always taken the position – since the company was founded, frankly – that we have a responsibility and an ability to lead the industry in certain areas,” Wheeler told RVBusiness. “One of the major roll-outs this year is a service requirement for our Five Rivet Standard dealers that they have to provide a certain amount of service – that’s service bays and trained technicians – that reflects the size of the market in which they’re serving, the market they’ve been given and their dealer area.

“If someone’s registering their Airstream in a market, we have to assume they’re using it. If it’s being used, it’s going to need service. So, we’re using that as a proxy for how many bays and how many techs. This is a big step,” Wheeler said.

“The first five or six emails we got when we rolled this program out from our dealers, were total thumbs up. ‘We get it, we’re behind it.’ Many of our dealers are already there,” he continued. “The ones who aren’t, they understand the need and that, as a brand, our customers expect to be treated by us like they do when they go to a car dealership. We have to do everything we can to help encourage and support our dealers to get to the point where they can provide that kind of service.

“So, it’s a big stake in the ground. It’s a big ‘ask’ of our dealers. We provide lots of support to help them make that happen, but we, as a brand, have a responsibility to push our distribution network in that direction and, luckily, we’ve had a very positive response so far,” he said.

As far as the awards ceremony, Blue Compass RV earned the following top honors:

• Overall Dealer Group for Sales
• Overall Dealer for Sales in Airstream of Tampa (4th consecutive year)
• Dealer for Touring Coach Sales in Airstream of Tampa
• Dealer for Travel Trailers Sales in Airstream of Tampa
• East Region Dealer for Touring Coach Sales in Airstream of Tampa
• East Region Dealer for Travel Trailers Sales in Airstream of Tampa
• Central Region Dealer for Travel Trailers Sales in Airstream of Austin (5th consecutive year)

Prior to the awards ceremony, the final day of the Dealer Meetings included presentations by Wheeler, Vice President of Sales Justin Humphreys and Chief Marketing Officer Mollie Hansen as well as THOR Industries RV Group Manager Matt Zimmerman, RV Dealers Association (RVDA) President Phil Ingrassia, Airstream International Club President Eric McHenry and Curt Hemmeler, who is the executive director of the RV Technical Institute (RVTI) and a senior vice president for the RV Industry Association (RVIA).

Hansen provided an overview of Airstream’s marketing efforts while also laying out the company’s PR plans for its 2024 model year introduction to the public in mid-September.

Humphreys highlighted how the manufacturer has partnered with and supported its dealer base, and explained how together – Airstream and its dealer partners – the two must continue to lead the industry with regard to customer service. This is indeed a challenge, he noted, as Airstream’s growth over the last few years has been a “galactic wave.”

“We’re a victim of our own success,” Humphreys noted. “While it’s a good problem to have, it’s still a problem.”

While touching on industry-wide market conditions – which, he suggested, weren’t nearly as dire as some might choose to believe – Zimmerman also touched on number of initiatives from the corporate perspective, including an employee satisfaction drive called People At The Heart (PATH).

Zimmerman also singled out Airstream’s focus on customer service by referencing the company’s Net Promotor Scores (NPS), a tool that measures customer satisfaction with a particular brand that is widely used across all industries. Noting that a score between 30-70 is considered “great,” Airstream’s NPS is 62.7% and, in carving out its towable operations, the score jumps to 70%. For comparison, Harley Davidson is 52%, Apple’s NPS is 47% and BMW is 40%.

Ingrassia covered a lot of ground in his presentation, the bulk of which was an update on RVDA’s efforts at effecting federal policy changes. In addition, Ingrassia noted that while the retail market for new RVs may have softened, the service demand has not. A recent dealer survey indicated that only 16% of dealers are seeing a year-over-year decrease in their service operations. Lastly, he said it appears as if dealers have been mostly successful in selling excess inventory.

“The good news is dealer inventories are getting back to normal, and that is going to set us up for a better 2024,” Ingrassia said.

Hemmeler celebrated several RVTI accomplishments, such as more than 15,000 technicians having undergone RVTI training, as well as updated the dealer audience on a few initiatives, including the imminent launch of curriculum for Level III certification. Level III builds on Level II, he noted, in that it focuses the training in five areas: appliances, chassis, electronics, electrical and slideouts.

For his part, McHenry invited dealers to become better acquainted with the Airstream Club International, as the group can assist dealers in helping new RVers learn the ropes.

Source: https://rvbusiness.com/airstream-zeroes-in-on-customer-service-at-dealer-meeting/