Colonial Airstream Earns Airstream’s Five Rivet Recognition – RVBusiness – Breaking RV Industry News
Nearly 100 years after its founding, Airstream continues to grace dealer lots and turn heads on the highway. While the travel trailer icon may lean on its nostalgic good looks and historic craftsmanship, industry professionals say providing a superior customer experience is paramount to the company’s ongoing success.
“A positive customer experience is a lasting result that goes far beyond the point of sale,” said Tim Maxwell, regional director of sales at Airstream. “In today’s environment, ensuring customer satisfaction is essential for maintaining sales retention.”
Airstream reinforces its commitment to consistently high standards through its Five Rivet Dealer Program, an elite customer satisfaction initiative that borrows its namesake from the average 350 hours and 3,000 rivets required to build an iconic silver bullet.
The program analyzes dealership performance in the brand’s five key customer service touchpoints, otherwise known as “rivets.” Dealerships are scored based on authentic brand representation, superior shopping experience, seamless delivery service, quality service experience and trusted long-term loyalty. Each year, Airstream recognizes several dealerships for having achieved Five Rivet status.
Maxwell pointed to Colonial Airstream, located in Millstone Township, NJ, as an exemplary model of the Five Rivet Dealer Program. To date, the dealership has achieved the distinguished status every quarter since inception. Maxwell commended the Colonial Airstream team for its exceptional service to all customers – before, during and after the sale.
“Receiving this prestigious recognition is no easy feat and underscores our unwavering commitment to providing outstanding customer service and maintaining the highest standards in the RV industry,” said Nick Lenzo, chief operating officer at Colonial Airstream.
Among the numerous requirements to achieve Five Rivet status, dealers like Colonial Airstream must have a dedicated Airstream website. Lenzo stressed the manpower required to not only properly maintain the site, but also magnify online efforts through specially-tailored social media initiatives, professional sales training videos and customer events.
In addition, dealerships must prominently display brand signage and inventory selection. At Colonial Airstream, the silver-bullet units are positioned front and center in designated areas across the 50,000-square-foot dealership, including its expansive indoor showroom.
Other Five Rivet criteria include employing certified Airstream sales specialists, technicians and delivery personnel. At Colonial Airstream, all qualified leads are responded to within 24 hours and managed by highly-skilled staff from start to finish. Lenzo highlighted the company’s three master salesmen, along with 11 technicians and a dedicated delivery specialist – all of whom are factory trained and certified.
“At Colonial Airstream, we have the number one and number two salesmen in the world – and our third master salesman is not far off from the same achievement,” Lenzo said.
The dealership’s dedicated service center boasts 20 service bays, 17 certified technicians in total, ample stocking parts and state-of-the-art equipment, including machinery investments specific to Airstream models.
“We service all, whether they purchased from us or not,” Lenzo said, noting how frequently frustrating it can be for RV customers to remedy their units on the road. “We service anyone and everyone because it’s an opportunity to create a long-lasting relationship. Maybe a relationship that started in the waiting room [for service] turns into us selling them the next unit.”
According to Lenzo, many of the Five Rivet metrics are common best-practice standards the dealership “proudly had in place” long before the official program launch. As a result, Maxwell said Colonial Airstream not only consistently meets the program standards, but also exceeds customer survey scores to qualify.
While Airstream establishes the benchmarks and evaluates customer satisfaction through surveys, Maxwell emphasized it is their collective customers who ultimately decide whether dealers attain Five Rivet status based on sales and service surveys.
“We regularly evaluate the qualifications for the Five Rivet Dealer Program on a quarterly basis. In the eastern region, around 30-40% of dealers fulfill the criteria for the Five Rivet program in any given quarter. Colonial Airstream stands out as the only dealership in the east that has achieved the Five Rivet status since the program’s inception,” Maxwell said. “Nationally, only two dealers have consistently maintained the Five Rivet status every quarter since the program’s initiation – and Colonial Airstream is one of them.”
The strategic decision to staff Colonial Airstream with specialists instead of generalists is paying dividends. Acute attention to detail, textbook product knowledge and meticulous customer attention continue to set the dealership apart and contribute to its ongoing success as a Five Rivet achiever.
“At Colonial Airstream, the Five Rivet experience begins before a customer even enters the showroom and continues all the way through the years of ownership,” Maxwell said.
