Tractor Companies That Take Care of Their Dealers and Their DEALER RELATIONSHIPS!

hi it's Mike with askitractormike.com we're going to talk today about a survey that is done every year by an equipment dealer Association the North American equipment dealer Association an association of of uh equipment dealers and likely your local guide that you deal with or lady whoever that owns a dealership is a member and every year they do a survey to find out how happy your local dealer is with the manufacturer in other words if they're a deer dealer or new a Holland dealer cabal whatever how happy are you with that that that parent company and I'm speaking today with Joe Dykes who is vice president of Industry relations for naida the North American Equipment Dealers Association and we're going to recognize some folks that have done a good job of maintaining good relations with their dealer Network in the manufacturing world and uh Joe welcome um I appreciate you being with us today I'm gonna I've got in the background here this is a dealership I used to work at and you you can tell we were a a a New Holland dealership and I used to fill out that survey and uh if if everything was going well with New Holland they got absolutely great uh ratings I remember one year I had a territory man that was telling me how I needed to do business and he was a lot younger than me and the stuff he was telling me was making me madder and matter if I hadn't thought he was going to buy lunch I probably would have jumped across my desk and choked him and that year they did not get very good ratings so uh Joe I want to talk about uh the the people at least in the last survey that maintained really good relationships with their with their dealer Network and uh first off tell us a little bit about the survey how it works okay thanks well we appreciate you Mike for having me on and and uh happy to talk about some of the things we do you know with the North American Equipment Dealers Association and just a little background we represent uh retail equipment dealers full servicing dealers throughout North America that's U.S and Canada we focus primarily on federal legislation uh State Legislative advocacy efforts on behalf of the dealers and also manufacture relations Is is probably our primary uh it is our primary focus and what dealers really want us to work on and so we've spent a lot of time building relationships with all manufacturers not only do the major manufacturers the uh sell the the big equipment and so forth but the Short Line companies and the outdoor power equipment companies and so forth we feel it's very important to have these relationships and to have open discussion with them so in a lot of cases we can head out head off issues that are that are happening or maybe coming down the pike and and try to work for a solution we all want dealers to be successful the manufacturer teachers who the dealers are representing their products want dealerships to be successful and profitable we also obviously want that as well so one of the things that uh that we do to support that effort is our dealer manufacturer relations survey that Mike had mentioned and we conduct that every year it's a it's a non-biased third-party survey that's done through a uh through a research platform that we utilize that collects the data for us and presents and we publish the data once it's done and present it to our members as a benefit and also to the manufacturers who are featured in the survey we have over 62 or so companies that are that are featured in the survey and that pretty much covers a good large portion of the dealership base out there but what the survey does it provides the dealer anonymously to and confidentially to be able to to rate the manufacturers up to seven manufacturers that they represent the manufacturer lines the company lines uh on 12th category actually 11 categories related to the business operation relationship between the comp the dealer and the manufacturer and then an overall satisfaction rating that's that's uh uh that's done on its own and uh so we get a very very large uh various very positive response to that to the survey with with uh close to 10 000 ratings and and over 2500 uh uh dealerships participating so it's pretty comprehensive and uh it gives us a good idea of what the dealers are thinking uh a snapshot in the moment of time obviously when they're taken as you mentioned you know the guy rep came in and and kind of got under your skin if you would have taken that survey that afternoon you know you it might have been a little bit different if it was two days before so things like that can happen but I think it's their dealers are pretty honest when their assessment we do this every year it's conducted in February and March and then we publish Resorts and results in May I do a lot of customized reports for the manufacturers a little bit more granular information and statistics and so forth but and then they take it and use it in-house as as a customer I really want my local dealer to have good relations with their manufacturer and because there's times you have a major tractor issue or a major equipment issue under warranty and you want to make sure you're covered and it doesn't matter what color the equipment is it can all fail and it could all have a catastrophic failure in a rare instance so I want my dealer to to have good standing with his manufacturer and everybody work together it works together better for all of us when they're working together and everybody's on the same page and I've seen times when manufacturers are on the same page with their dealers and I've seen dogs so they were light years away and I'm sure that closed well what I want to do today is for you to reveal in the last survey uh who's getting it done who which manufacturers really are well thought of by their dealers and they're all working together and I'll let you I'll let you just tell us tell us who's the winner well I I would say overall when you look at the manufacturers that are impeached in the serve they with very few exceptions they all do a pretty good job I mean they they you know the product quality ratings are always way high for every everybody makes a good product uh you know obviously product availability has been a problem the last couple years so those ratings have dropped are dramatically and and they're they're starting to pick up now for obvious reasons the supply chain is a built up and and so forth but you know some are still frustrated you know and so that shows and there's still work to be done we break the survey down into four categories uh the full line category would be your full line manufacturers that carry the primary lines of equipment for for Farming operations that would be your John Deere Case IH New Holland et cetera Adco uh Kubota Etc uh Shortline companies those are also broke down and those would be mainly your Implement manufacturers we also do tractor manufacturers and those will be your attractive companies that primarily are making your smaller horsepower uh uh tractors and and so forth uh but are widely sold they're a broad dealer Network and then also outdoor power equipment your lawn and garden and Commercial uh mowing equipment and so forth residential and Commercial so we break it out into those four categories and within each of those categories we identify uh the the the the one company that that uh stood out on top and then also those that that were pretty close that did a pretty exceptional job and the full line category uh the Kubota Canada uh out of the Canadian operation uh were on top for the full line Kubota runs two separate uh operations in North America and the U.S and in Canada so we separate those out uh and for the tractor manufacturers Branson Tractor was recently over the last year was purchased and emerged with tym so that's uh that's going to be a change there but uh since this was looking at the last year when they were still operating separately Branson had come on top and we had three gold level companies that that uh that that well maybe when we're not at the top we're pretty darn close and within Striking Distance I guess and those were Yanmar tractors uh LS tractor and coyote so you're probably familiar with those uh those companies if you're dealing with those smaller compact uh tractors on the Short Line side uh Shortline manufacturers uh uh they're they tend to a lot of them do pretty well uh or very well but on top this year was Meyer manufacturing as the gold level and then our as the Dealer's Choice rather uh Meyer manufacturing and then for gold level we had Vermeer uh hay equipment company out of Iowa Borgo which is a Canadian creating a short line company Elmer's manufacturing also Canadian Great Plains manufacturing out of Kansas I'm preferred manufacturing and degelman Manufacturing so those are your Short Line uh gold level winners and then in the outdoor power skag mowers out of Wisconsin was your dealer's Choice they've consistently been either the Dealer's Choice recipient or close to it every year goal level uh Grasshopper mowers out of Kansas Exmark out of Nebraska bad boy out of Arkansas shindawa which is a handheld manufacturers and then right manufacturing a mower company on the East Coast so those were our manufacturers that we recognized it would be great if if they were all to be recognized but we try to just separate them out and give those a little bit more kudos for the effort that they put forth what's your experience uh the the manufacturers that are at the bottom and and you don't want to reveal who they are and I I get that I I wouldn't either if I'd have done the survey you'd have somebody mad at you but do they take the survey and and try to turn around and get better at that or do they just languish her at the bottom and say we're doing business the way we're going to do it and the dealers can take it or leave it I would hope so I would hope that they use the results and I know some do and most do because I talked to them about it uh I I guess I'll answer by saying we're the messenger uh we don't try to intercede and say you need to do this you need to do that we just present them with the information they make their own assessments and decide if it's something that they need to address uh seriously if not I and I would venture to say based upon my experience that majority of them take it seriously it's really interesting to me that the some of the major tractor manufacturers that we all know are not on the list and uh it's it's a you know you can still do business and sell a lot of stuff if you if you're not necessarily the best of friends with your your dealer network but it sure works better when everybody's pulling together yeah and uh Joe I I want to just thank you for taking the time to go over this survey is kind of eye-opening to me I didn't know what the results were going to be before you revealed them so it's it's uh it's very interesting and uh I'm gonna holler back at you in a year or so we'll do this again see if any of these have changed and and get these guys that are getting the job done with their dealer network uh uh some uh some love so yeah it's okay with you I'll be back in touch in a year we'll see if this has changed it you know hopefully some of these guys will come up a little bit in the survey yeah well I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you and look forward to in the future and and again uh you know uh I think that dealers the the manufacturers are you know are trying uh we encourage all dealers to to you know participate in this type of survey and this type of effort so that they can uh you know we can communicate back and and try to identify shortcomings and assist with whenever requested to make things better for everybody that's what we want we want successful dealers we want successful manufacturers we want successful customers so that's how we look at it all right Joe thanks for taking time to talk with us my pleasure Mike thank you thank you

Channel: Tractor Mike

Views: 6,541

Keywords: dealers favorite tractors, dealers favorite tractor manufacturers, dealers favorite tractors, what to know before buying a tractor, top most popular tractor brands, top tractor brands, best tractors, farm tractors, which tractor brand is best, kubota of canada, branson tractor, yanmar tractors, ls tractors, kioti, meyer manufacturing, vermeer, bourgault, elmers, great plains, unverferth, dengelman, scag, grasshopper, exmark, shindaiwa, wright standard, naeda, dealer manufacturer survey

Id: WVX6H3HxMnI

Length: 12min 23sec (743 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 03 2023