TwoLander obviously if someone were broken down and from out of town that would be an exception we would always lend a helping hand to a visitor ....as for Harley paying the dealer for warranty work that is true however the customer who bought his bike from us not only got a great bike but he also got our great service ...after all out of ONLY 25 dealers in the entire country that won the Gold Bar and Shield we were one .... so our service is part of our bike sale and our customers always come first...we will do our best to take care of others but we are just as loyal to our cutomers as they are to us !
Dude
Certainly understand the logic involved in doing that sort of economic triage. And, to a certain extent, don't even disagree with it. Depends on how egregious is the level of preference given.
Generally speaking the guy that calls for service on Tuesday should get on the schedule on stay on the schedule before the guy that calls in on Wednesday; even if the guy that calls on Wednesday bought the bike there. Anything else just smacks of privilege; and that's not really what this whole gig is supposed to be about. It also seems potentially a somewhat petty type of retaliation against the guy who maybe just got a better deal elsewhere or just happened to walk in to a dealership somewhere and see a bike he happened to fall in love with.
To consider the full scenario does your sales department discourage non-locals from buying bikes at your dealership because that buyer's home shop might not treat them as preferentially as if they had bought at home? If not then the service prefernce practice is at least a bit hypocritical.
Understand KYdude, I'm not saying it's a great evil; it's not even beyond the logic of the marketplace. It is just one of those things that is a little worrisome to me as part of the buying public. Whether others would find it worrisome to any particular degree would depend on whether their goal is preference and privilege for one or simply a fair and good job for them and the rest of their riding brethren. Different buyers could quite understandably come down on either side of this question.