From: glenn@rightbrain.com (Glenn Reid)
Newsgroups: ba.motorcycles
Subject: Re: Harley Dealers ?
Date: 10 Jan 93 01:04:57 GMT
Reply-To: glenn@rightbrain.com


Thorick Chow writes

> I'm soliciting advice (positive and negative) about bay area
> Harley Dealers as I'll be investigating the possibility of
> getting an 883 sporty soon...

When I went to buy my Sportster 1200 a couple of years ago, I first
tried the dealer in San Francisco on Page Street near Van Ness,
since they're supposed to be the oldest dealer still in operation in
the country or something like that.  The sales dude was a total turnoff.
He might as well have been selling washing machines.  He evidently
didn't want my money, because he was a real pain in the ass to deal with,
and probably thought I didn't measure up to his standards of what a
proper customer should look like (I have no tattoos).  Whatever the
reason, I left and went to the San Mateo dealer, whom I would highly
recommend.  They were really nice and knowledgeable and took a lot of
time with me both before and after the sale.  And they have a truly
awesome mechanic in their shop named Critter.

As long as I mentioned Critter, I've been wanting to tell this story
for a long time, so here goes.

I was riding my year-old Harley near Crystal Springs reservoir one
beautiful day when it sputtered and died (luckily about 100 feet from
the only pay phone for miles).  I couldn't start it again for the life
of me.  I was pretty sure it was a fuel problem of some kind, since the
electrical system was all working fine.  I thought maybe I'd put some
bad gas in with some rust or something and it had clogged the fuel line.
Anyway, I called my friend to bring my trailer to rescue me.  After
searching for the problem for a while, I finally called San Mateo
Harley-Davidson to arrange to bring it in.  They put Service on the
phone, which turned out to be Critter.  Here is pretty much exactly
how our conversation went:

Me: "I was riding along and my bike just sputtered and died, and I can't
     start it."
Him: "What kind of bike do you have?"
Me:  "1990 Sportster 1200"
Him: "Take the seat off, and you'll find a bunch of wires.  One of them
      is white.  That wire is probably broken or loose.  If you repair
      it, it should start fine."
Me:  "No way.  I'm pretty sure it's a fuel problem.  Blah blah blah."

After a bit of back-and-forth, I arranged to bring the bike in for service.
By the time I got home from dropping it off, there was a message from
Critter on my answering machine:  "You're bike's ready.  It was the white
wire under the seat."

Now I've been a programmer long enough to know good debugging when I see
it, and this one amazes me still.  Granted he had some product knowledge
and knew that that particular year of Sportsters had a problem where the
vibration of something under the seat would cause this particular wire to
break sometimes, but all I ever said was that the bike died and I couldn't
start it.  I didn't even begin with my theories or anything else.  He just
called it right there, over the phone, from the year and model of my bike
and a very vague description of what had happened.  I simply didn't believe
him, and brought the bike in.  He was right, and I was pretty embarrassed.

I think about this story when I think about what good Technical Support is.
Every time I've ever dealt with San Mateo Harley-Davidson I've gotten
great support like this.

--
 Glenn Reid        		NeXTmail: glenn@rightbrain.com
 RightBrain Software		415-326-2974 (NeXTfax 326-2977)
 Palo Alto, California		Electronic Frontier Foundation, member #054

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