The Trials,
Tribulations and Joys of Owning an RV
Editors Note: The following is a
continuing case study from one owner's standpoint on his experience of buying and owning
an RV in this case a luxury motorhome. If John Ballard's experience is typical, this
industry has a long way to go in fulfilling its goal toward customer service. Every RV
manufacturer, dealer and every dealer employee should read this case study to see how the
consumer looks at us . If we are going to ask consumers to spend up to a half million
dollars on an RV, we should be willing to make the experience a pleasant one and treat the
consumer professionally and with respect. This material was excerpted in part and edited
from the RV America web site, Owner's Review section. The complete text can be found on
the Internet at:
http://rvboards.rvamerica.com/www/evaluations/luxury.htm
In November 1998 John and Kathleen Ballard,
Roanoke, TX, bought a new motorhome. John Ballard said, "I feel compelled to tell you
that in March1998 I was in San Diego to help celebrate my older brother's birthday. He has
been a full-timer for 25 years, and he asked me when I was going to buy an RV and join the
club. I assured him that I had absolutely no interest in RVs and didn't think I would be
buying one.
"By November I had bought a new Country
Coach Allure -- things do change."
In the intervening eight months Ballard
changed his mind and started a quest to buy an RV. In the process he shopped a dozen or so
RV dealerships before making his buying decision, and his experiences can tell us a lot
about our industry and what areas we need to address to make the buying experience more
rewarding for consumers. This case study begins with his first visit to an RV dealer.
The RV Buying Experience
Ballard said, "We drove down south and
visited the McClain lot at Alvarado, TX. We were met there by a young man named Jim
Haddock. Jim was knowledgeable, courteous and very helpful. I hope that if you are ever by
the McClain facility in Alvarado you will tell Jim that we send our best regards.
". . . we
encountered the largest collection of incompetent, ignorant jerks that I have ever found
in one spot."
"Let me jump out of sequence for a
moment and share our next McClain experience with you. A week or two later we drove up to
the McClain store on I-35, north of Dallas in Lewisville. There we encountered the largest
collection of incompetent, ignorant jerks that I have ever found in one spot. I was amazed
that in following weeks, every RV owner that I know, without prompting, expressed total
dislike for the McClain Lewisville facility.
"But back to our first day. Our second
stop was the Airstream dealer in Alvarado. I think they have since gone out of business.
We were not impressed by the product or the service. Our third stop was Ancira's off exit
27 in Alvarado. We would go back to Ancira many times over the next few months. I don't
know who we talked to that first day, but when we got serious we were working with a young
man named Mike Stinson.
"Mike is one of the good guys. He was
next to the last stop on our search that morning. It is unfortunate that Mike was not able
to get us a 'best-and-final price' until the next day. I doubt that it would have changed
the results, but it just took him out of the game early.
After that first day the sequence gets
fuzzy, so let's just go north. I stopped in United RV Center, on Airport Freeway, twice.
The first time I could not get any salesperson to even acknowledge my presence on this
planet -- that was the good visit. The second time I finally cornered a salesperson who
was perfectly willing to argue with everything I said, but would not take his feet off his
desk or move his fat butt out of his chair to show us the motorhomes they had is stock. I
didn't see anything in the Gulf Stream literature that made me believe that I needed to
put up with that crap - so there was no third visit.
"A few hundred meters up the road is
Vogt RV. Here we met Tony. We found Tony, as well as everyone else that we talked to at
Vogt, to be very helpful and knowledgeable.
"I guess next would be Professional RV
Sales, in Colleyville. This is a family operation, Dad and two sons. I think it is a good
operation, and I plan to use their storage facilities from time-to-time, but they do seem
to be a little pricey.
"Then I guess we would jump to Denton
and RV World of Texas. Mark Washburn was the salesperson, or as his card says, 'Sales
Consultant' that assisted us. We found Mark very helpful, unfortunately the service
facilities and the service technicians that we talked with scared the very hell out of us.
But, in the end, we just decided that maybe the Beaver line wasn't what we wanted.
"Then there was the trip to Tampa.
Lazydays was fine. I was with a friend that had been to Lazydays a couple of times before,
so we were not strangers. They were helpful, but it didn't take long to feel that they
were tired of messing with us - and besides, their inventory of Country Coach was very
low, but then whose isn't. So we went up the road to Buddy Gregg's Tampa store.
This was the only place where we got the
"used car" sales approach, "you better buy this today before the price goes
up." I would not go back to the Buddy Gregg Tampa store.
"On the way back to Tampa we stopped at
Bates RV. There we met a young man, who's name I can't seem to come up with, he was very
helpful and knowledgeable. We appreciated his help and service. But the Bates operation
left us with the feeling that we wouldn't want to buy a used car from these folks much
less a $200,000 motorhome.
"I stopped by Foretravel the next
morning. They didn't seem to have what I wanted and they had no interest in
"selling" me on their product - oh well, to each his own.
"Then there is cyberspace. I exchanged
e-mail with both Celia Bachman at Earnhardt RV Center and Efrem Statter at K&C RV,
Inc. Both provided very helpful information. Had we chosen to buy a product that they
offer, I would have certainly continued to work with them.
"And, then there is special thanks to
our friend from way up north Damon Rapozo of Shorewood RV. I found Damon on the RV America
web site and he was the one who pushed me to go find an Allure after I had dropped it due
to lack of any available coaches to examine.
"The end of the trail came at Buddy
Gregg's Lewisville store. We met Fred Green several months before. Then on a later visit,
when Fred was out of town we met Cindy, his wife. Both are the ultimate professionals. If
I am half as happy with the Country Coach as I have been with the buying experience, and
Fred and Cindy Green - I will love it.
"Fred and Cindy are real, and if you
are in the market for a product they offer I think you will find them great to work with.
I'll let you know if the rest of the Buddy Gregg organization can live up to Fred and
Cindy's high standards." continued
