It's a fair point and a fair criticism. For what it's worth, closing the dealership was not our idea or decision and it certainly wasn't a strategy for absconding with customer money.
When Mindy got sick and the economy started to collapse, the floorplan company revoked our credit line, the bank immediately froze all our accounts, and they commenced to hauling off and selling off all the company assets. We worked very hard to advocate for customers and tried to ensure that everybody got their service units back, that customers received their prepaid special ordered parts, etc. Unfortunately we weren't in control of that process and there were a few instances like warranties and promotions that the creditors were just unwililng to fix. Their only goal was maximizing their position and customer satisfaction was not a major priority. As anybody who saw that process unfold knows, we certainly did not benefit from the demise of Xtreme Performance. In fact, it basically cost us all the equity we had theoretically accumulated after 15 years of having the dealership and everything we had was invested in the stores.
The fact that we're still in the powersports business at all is really because folks kept calling to get their stuff fixed. My intention was to go do something completely different but our customers convinced us there was still a place and a need for what we do. However, this business is really a completely different paradigm. We now have one employee versus about 50 at Xtreme Performance. For me, I really am enjoying it because I'm actually back talking and helping customers instead of just trying to manage the whole disaster and hoping our employees were taking care of our customers. It's also quite different as Mindy is just not up to the kind of hours that she used to work and she was really the one doing a lot of that managing anyway.
Having said all that, I understand that there are folks that didn't like Xtreme Performance while it was open or as it closed. With that many employees, banks, floorplan companies, and manufacturers involved, some of those unpopular decisions were not ours to make. With RMX, the business is much simpler. We may occassionally not see eye to eye with the clothing companies on a warranty issue, but that's very minor compared to the previous politics. For better or worse, if someone doesn't like something we do these days, it's my fault. We're not perfect but I can say with certainty that we work very hard to not have unhappy customers. If whatever happened at Xtreme makes some people unwilling to do business with us, I respect that. Thankfully, our current customer base is keeping us busy and we're working hard to take care of them as best we can.
Thanks,
Donavon
i hear where your coming from but thats how business works these days
not right but thats how it is.
but when I sold the sled the guy who bought it couldn't verify the warranty. I called Donovan and he checked it out. Something got screwy on the Polaris side and they didn't set it up right. But it all came out right (with some patience). I had the same problem with my Pro and it got taken care of as well. I can't imagine Donovan would "run" from your warranty issue but closing shop and running away. The lose of his two dealerships, employees and the battle Mindy faced far out way your warranty issue. However, I bet he would try to help you out to this day. Your approach to the problem sucks.
