When I bought a new tractor and a pile of stuff to go with it a couple years ago, (pre-COVID) the primary dealers I had to choose from in my area were JD, Kubota, New Holland, and Mahindra. Although I hadn’t owned a tractor before I had used my Dad’s 1940’s and 1950’s tractors since I was a kid and my business dealings required intermittent interaction with the local dealers so I had some familiarity with all of them. We used to have several independent JD dealers but over the years they were all aggregated into one big corporate owner for every dealer within 2 hours of me. Their original single dealership was a pleasure to deal with. As they expanded customer service suffered. Had mixed results with them over the years. The New Holland dealer used to be great, but changed ownership and all their older guys left, apparently taking competence and customer service with them.
Stopped by the JD dealer early in the process, partly to research what they had that would be a good fit for our property. They made it clear very quickly if I looked around and found something they’d sell it to me if I insisted but they had no time to talk about anything then or later. If I was buying a big quad track maybe they could carve out a few minutes but not for a 50hp CUT.
Left there and went to the Kubota dealer. They were slammed busy but after waiting a few minutes a rather harried salesman asked what I needed help with. Told him I needed a basic tractor in the 40 to 50hp range. He said if I could take a look around for about 15 minutes he’d finish what he was doing and take all the time I needed. I had to wait a little but I respected that answer. I looked around a little, he came out to the yard and we talked about what I needed it to do. Drove one around a little and checked out the features and specs on a couple of contenders. He spent about an hour including paperwork and made a $35k sale. Dealer added a third function and the tractor arrived the next afternoon. Have been back for parts and supplies a few times. I just call, tell them what I need to make sure it’s in stock, and by the time I arrive it’s waiting on the parts counter for me. Don’t recall ever having to give them a part number. Back for service once to add rear remotes, top and tail. Same service: dropped it off one afternoon and picked up the next afternoon. Their employees are all friendly even when busy and most have been there many years. I do buy parts and supplies from them so long as they’re competitive and so far they have been every time.
I kind of figure the same manager is over the whole operation so if sales sucks, the rest of the dealership probably does, too.
Not tractor related but that’s also why my camper isn’t an Airstream. That was our first choice until we went to look at them to upgrade from our 20 year old unit. There’s a dealer 10 miles from my house. First time we stopped they were too busy to talk to us. Second time they were getting ready for a RV show and told us to come back later. Third time, they wouldn’t even pull one out of its very tight parking space to let us look at it. Salesman said if you want it, buy it. If you don’t, don’t; but I’m not pulling it out even though you can’t get in the door. He was fixated on my little Frontier we were in wasn’t big enough to pull what we were looking at even though I told him twice we were going to buy a new truck based on whatever camper we bought. Sales wouldn’t spend 10 minutes pulling out a $110,000 camper so we could look it over before buying even though they knew we were paying cash. Maybe we weren’t dressed right or should have bought a dually to impress the salesman before we looked at campers. Wife and I agreed if that was sales, parts and service were probably just as bad. So now I have a Winnebago from another dealer that isn’t perfect but doesn’t totally suck either. It’s also too big for the Frontier but not too big for the truck that replaced it.
Dealer is a big component in an equipment purchase, at least to me. And it isn’t all JD dealers. My brother has a JD and a good relationship with a very helpful dealer (not owned by the same people as the ones around me).
Business I’m in, we have customers. So long as they’re not screaming profanities at us we’re nice to them and as helpful as possible. Without customers, we don’t have a business. Seems pretty straightforward, but apparently not to some.
