Dealer satisfaction with Harley-Davidson has plummeted, according to the latest quarterly National Motorcycle Dealers Association survey, with concern emerging that the American manufacturer is not listening to its dealers, making it harder for them to run their businesses.
The American manufacturer has slipped from its pre-eminent position at the top of the “valued franchise” table, writes Paul Smith. It would actually have fallen further if BDN had not taken the decision to ignore the survey results for Ducati, KTM and BMW, which all failed to attain a 15% response rate (only two, three and five dealers completed the surveys respectively, amounting to a response rate of 7%, 10% and 14% of their quoted dealer network sizes of 30, 31 and 37). The only manufacturers to improve their scores when it came to rating the value of their franchises were Triumph, Honda and Yamaha.
Elsewhere in the survey it is clear from totalling each manufacturer’s scores that Triumph and Honda are in the ascendance (by 4.7% and 13% respectively), while the rest of the manufacturers received lower scores, most notably Kawasaki (-16%), which still managed to make third place, and Piaggio (-25%), which props up the league with a score of just 66.7.
Honda showed steady improvements in most areas, most notably in the profit return from the franchise, but was marked down in the question addressing whether dealers views and opinions were taken into account. Strangely, in the question in relation to effectiveness of their dealer council and forums, Honda’s score rose from 3.3 to 3.4 (out of five).
Other points of interest include an improvement in brand image and product image for Honda and a minor improvement for Suzuki in the frequency of the introduction of new motorcycle models – Honda being the only other manufacturer to record an increase.
Stephen Latham, head of the National Motorcycle Dealers Association, said the survey showed that the all-dealer average when asked about the overall value of the franchise remained static at 6.2 (out of 10) since the last survey in autumn 2018.
The results of the survey and our analysis will appear in the June issue of BDN, along with the responses of the manufacturers which responded to our invitation for reaction.