NIRVC Lewisville...How to schedule service?

[Brett Davis]

Thanks @Brett Davis. I am sure it's fun owning a service company that is so busy new business has trouble getting thru the door!

I look forward to working with your Lewisville team.

LOL!!! One would think so, but it’s actually like having one foot in a bucket of ice, and your other foot in a pot of boiling water. On average, you’re warm, it’s just unbearably uncomfortable.

However, after two years of attacking this problem, I’m starting to see glimpses of light way out there, signifying there really is an end to this tunnel. I will start my aforementioned thread on this when I get some time. Maybe this evening in my hotel room, or on my flight home tomorrow.

Onward,
Brett Davis

 

[J&JD]

Wish there was a NIRVC up here in the Pacific Northwest…(hint).

And in Northern California!

 

[Neal]

Owning the ugly baby. If only others appreciated the value of the concept.

I resemble that remark!

 

[TJ&LadyDi]

And in Northern California!

Maybe we’d both settle for one in between, like…ohhhh, say…the middle of Oregon! Junction City, perhaps? Or, Eugene?

TJ

 

[Texas Clodhopper]

Sounds like another build it and they will come scenario.

 

[MapNerd]

Sounds like we’re going to get the premium automotive sales and service experience in the RV industry long before we ever get automotive build quality that we all want. Imagine if someone like with that kind of consumer sentiment actually built the RVs in the first place.

 

[redbaron]

Sounds like we’re going to get the premium automotive sales and service experience in the RV industry long before we ever get automotive build quality that we all want. Imagine if someone like with that kind of consumer sentiment actually built the RVs in the first place.

Foretravel needs an owner like this
Sadly they got MHSRVs son...

 

[MemoriesByTheMile]

Imagine if someone like with that kind of consumer sentiment actually built the RVs in the first place.

X2
We need the equivalent of what Toyota did to the auto industry to happen in the RV industry - with that focus on consistency and quality. This would be a complete game changer to the industry.

 

["EZ"]

Amazing...10 minutes and I have a quote.

It shouldn't be that hard to get a quote for service should it? There are a lot of businesses that have this issue. I don't know how they stay in business.

 

[redbaron]

It shouldn't be that hard to get a quote for service should it? There are a lot of businesses that have this issue. I don't know how they stay in business.

The flip side is businesses are so busy they can't take in new work. The rv industry is exploding and you can't train employees overnight or expand capacity overnight.

Can you imagine how busy the shops are that the employees feel like they don't want new business? I am not saying that is how NIRVC feels, but many rv service facilities feel that way, and will plainly tell you that.

This is not new. 2014 I was being quoted 8 weeks out for my evans air, and that was after newmar helped cut thru the red tape of getting service at a non selling dealer. The dealer I purchased from had terrible service and didn't want to try to fix it.

There has always been a complaint about the long waits, and lack of service from dealers that didn't sell you the RV.

NIRVC is an industry changer. They service no matter where you purchased.

No wonder they are so busy!

 

[Neal]

I would love to see @NIRVC open a dedicated tire center which specializes in tires and retroband installs. Separate it from the other NIRVC shops so tire services don't take (bays) from other services needed. I could see a scenario where there are 200 NIRVC service centers around the US

 

[redbaron]

I would love to see @NIRVC open a dedicated tire center which specializes in tires and retroband installs. Separate it from the other NIRVC shops so tire services don't take (bays) from other services needed. I could see a scenario where there are 200 NIRVC service centers around the US

sure--spend their money on real estate and inventory

 

[GlampDaddy]

I could see a scenario where there are 200 NIRVC service centers around the US

Neal, I'm guessing that Brett has already made plans for his tire centers, or is pulling his hair out just thinking about it.

 

[redbaron]

I don't see the need for 200 tire centers.

One in every NFL city and a few more should be enough. Tires are a 4-6 year event for the average motorhome. Unless you open it up to to Travel Trailers, but that wouldn't make sense as those are readily available at every major tire center.

 

[Neal]

sure--spend their money on real estate and inventory

One of my strong points

 

[Neal]

I don't see the need for 200 tire centers.

200 NIRVC centers (some RV sales/service, some tire), not just tire centers. Okay, let's scale it to one per state to be more realistic, I'm getting too excited to see a NIRVC at every T/A stop

 

[redbaron]

UPDATE:

I started this thread with an inquiry of how to arrange service. I have now completed my service work with @NIRVC Lewisville, and wanted to give a report.

For those that don't want to read details, I am going to start off with a score card. When doing this scoring, I am comparing the experience to that of Newmar customer service and the newmar service center, as well as the rest of the industries typical dealers.

	Typical Dealer	Newmar Service	NIRVC
Communication	F	B	A
Cleanliness	B	A	A
Accuracy	C	B	A
Ease of Access	F	D	A
My Effort/Time	D	C	A
Value	F	B	A

A typical dealer for me has been MHSRV (alvarado), ProSales RV (Lewisville), Ancira (Alvarado--no longer there), and Holiday World Houston.

There are exceptions to the typical dealer, such as Steinbring, Midway, and Coachlight.

The work that I had performed was:

* Windshield Replace - covered by insurance
* Freightliner Recalls

I had also requested that the Cummins Recalls be done, but that is not possible to be done anywhere but the cummins location. NIRVC did offer to shuttle the RV back and forth, but that was not required.

The process was very straight forward. I started with my insurance company and got a claim thru safelight. I then had safelight list NIRVC as the repair facility. Once I had the claim number, I emailed Ally, Joshua's assistant, with the claim and a request for my service items. Ally originally set my expectations at 2-3 weeks. This was on Friday 8/13/2021.
On 8/16 I was informed that the windshield installation was scheduled for 8/25, and the Freightliner recalls could be done the day before.

I dropped the coach off on Monday this week (8/24), which was a 10 minute process. Took longer to unhook my toad than it did to do anything else.

Yesterday (8/25) I was notified that all the freightliner recalls where completed and the windshield was done. I arranged to pickup first thing today so that I could take it to cummins. I received a phone call early this morning from Joshua, letting me know he had the coach up front and it was waiting on me.

When I arrived, it took no longer than 15 minutes to get the payment settled and paperwork delivered with keys. VERY VERY EFFICIENT operation. I was even told when I arrived that Joshua was in a meeting, and Ally was out, but the process was still very smooth. This is only possible with strong procedures in place that everyone executes to.

My total time involvment in the process was 8 hours. This included 2 round trips of 3 hours each, plus a handful of emails, phone calls, insurance, etc.

Compared to the 14 hour 1 way trip to Newmar---this is clearly a huge time saver.

Communication was better than anything I have ever experienced.

And the best part of all of this is -- @NIRVC is still working on improving the experience!

 

[MemoriesByTheMile]

Awesome to hear about great service experiences!

 

[redbaron]

@Neal sent me a mesasage encouraging me to explain why I gave NIRVC an A on communciation when this thread started out with an obvious lack of communication.

Here is my explanation. Back in 2013 I was having a major problem with my 2013 Newmar Dutchstar. It ruined our trip, and was a real wake up for me. During that time I was actively blogging on "the other place" and detailing many of my issues. I was having Dash Air issues, FWS issues, and Kitchen slide issues. I published an article "RV Industry Wake Up" that was edited by DEEK and @FLSteve (NHSO's) to remove some of the "rant" and then sent copies of this to Matt Miller and his team. It was a complaint about the dealer service network and specifically Newmar's handling of it.

I know Matt read it. I know his team spent lots of time reviewing the specific issues. The response came in the form of Newmar sending parts to a new company "National Indoor RV Centers" in lewisville, and flying their lead tech out to Dallas to train and repair my coach. When it left, my problem was solved.

What was not solved was communication. Changes where made to the dealer network, including canceling my original dealer.

Since that letter went out, I have seen 100's of posts on this forum, facebook, "the other place", and personal emails talking about the lack of response from newmar. How many posts have you seen where an owner of a brand new Dutch Star cannot get the "window guy" to call back at all. How many say you should always call, only to never get a followup response?

That is the norm with newmar. When I need to have factory service done, it takes multiple emails, phone calls, etc just to ensure the items of concern are properly documented, only to find out on day 1 at 6:00am that most of my items are not on the list.

So with that in mind, I reviewed this thread. I had a problem scheduling service. I posted that on August 10. Within hours, I was having a conversation with the main person of the company, and he was telling me what he had already done to solve my problem. He cleared a path.

The path he cleared worked perfectly for me from that point forward. I consider that an A.

It wasn't an A+...because I am leaving room for improvement

 

[redbaron]

One more thing--lets not forgot what this thread uncovered: I was reaching out to service thru a system that was on their website that no one in the company knew about.

After the posting of this thread, the entire team was trained to utilize that feature. So the communication was cleared for all *future* consumers as well, not just for the guy that posted on a public forum