Over the course of the last three weeks, your MRAA team has been in contact with thousands of dealerships, including hundreds of one-to-one phone conversations and hundreds more email conversations. Additionally, we’ve been keeping a pulse on dealership operations as the government imposes more and more “shelter-at-home” orders and businesses scramble for “essential” status to remain open.

MRAA has conducted two surveys to date to understand how many of our dealerships are open for business, how many are closed and how many find themselves somewhere in between. There has been a dramatic shift, as you might imagine, in the operating status of our dealerships, as shown in these two images:

 

Combined, MRAA’s survey garnered over 1,160 responses (with some still trickling in from this week’s survey) and the results are eye-opening.

Two weeks ago, more than 47 percent were open with a business as normal status, and only 8 percent were temporarily closed. This week, the results have flipped: Less than 15 percent of dealerships were still open, while nearly 30 percent had closed.

The “open for business with modifications” status, which makes up nearly 60 percent of our dealerships today, primarily represents the businesses in various “shelter at home” states that are typically allowing dealership service facilities and marinas to remain open for specific purposes. The battle over earning “essential business” status has been the No. 1 legislative effort MRAA has worked over the last three weeks. You can find insights on that topic in these Frequently Asked Questions.

Those businesses seeking answers on how to conduct business when many team members are working from home should access the resources found on Your Action Guide for Responding to the COVID-19 Crisis.