Sitting in my office wishing I was out riding my Harley and trying to decide what I would write my blog about this week it struck me, that my passion was a model of customer service. It has kept me for 30 plus years, so why not tell how they have managed to keep folks like me loyal for years? So here is the abbreviated version.
As you may or may not know Harley Davidson Motorcycles was founded by 2 guys, William S. Harley and Arthur Davidson. Arthur’s brother Walter joined them a little later in the first year. They all were working fulltime when they started the company and making motorcycle parts at night in a shack behind one of the Davidson’s homes. Their intention was to build a motorcycle that was durable and would work well. Soon it caught on and the company was up and running on “two wheels”.
They ran into a problem competition wise in the 1920’s, this guy, Henry Ford, figured out how to build cars inexpensively, in fact as inexpensive as the Harley Davidson Motorcycle. So suddenly Harley Davidson was no longer the cheapest type of transportation. So to survive they had to make owning and riding a Harley Davidson a fun thing to do. Certainly makes sense to me, and looks like it makes sense to quite a lot of people, still to this day.
It helps that Harley Davidson worked their way into the federal and local governments early on in there development. In 1908 the Detroit Police department became the owners of the first motorcycle built for police duty to help keep the peace.
In World War 1 and the Second World War Harley Davidson was supplying the war efforts with their machines. They were modified to go over fields and rough roads so they had higher ground clearance. Sound familiar? Think every dirt bike made today. Also in the Africa Campaign in 1942 they built about 1000 shaft drive units for the Army, with the thinking the shaft would hold up better than a chain in the sands of Africa. The shaft drive the Japanese motorcycle manufactures promoted like the shaft drive was a new concept back years ago. It was around before Harley Davidson used it for the Army, they just knew their customer.
In 1969 the “dark ages” began for most diehard Harley Davidson fans like me, when the shareholders, maybe sensing the “Japanese invasion” in the motorcycle market, partnered up with American Machine and Foundry Company to give Harley Davidson a more stable financial footing. However, the marriage to AMF didn’t turn out as the company had hoped. In 1972 AMF, showing who was boss added the AMF in front of the Harley Davidson logo on the bike’s fuel tanks.
AMF didn’t realize the cost of building a motorcycle and they began directing cost cutting ideas that damaged the reliability which cost the customer loyalty the company had so long benefited from and put profits into a free fall mode.
In 1981, “AMF-Harley Davidson” was in a dangerous position of a potentially failing company, a group of executives offer AMF a buy-out. To everyone’s delight AMF quickly agrees and the turnaround begins.
Placing Harley Davidson back in the hands of people that understood their customer and the customer needs righted the course Harley Davidson was heading in.
It is the same in all our businesses, we have to understand our customers and our customer’s needs. If we don’t take care of our customers, someone else will before we know what is happening.
Customer loyalty starts with customer service. As in the story of Harley Davidson not every decision is going to be the correct one for your customers, and most of the time customers understand that mistakes happen. But by knowing what your customer is looking for and correcting your mistakes you turn that customer service into customer loyalty.
Harley Davidson began in a shack and has grown to a multi-million dollar international corporation. Keeping the company finger on the customer’s pulse is something they continue to excel at even in our current economically challenging times.
John Russell, former Vice President of Harley Davidson is credited with stating “The more you engage with customers, the clearer things become, and the easier it is to determine what you should be doing.”
Knowing your customers means you know what you should be doing. It really is that simple.
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