Dealer Week, the annual conference and expo of the Marine Retailers Association of the Americas, held Dec. 8-11, 2019 in Tampa, Fla., finalized its post-event attendee survey campaign to find that dealer attendees rated the event with world-class net promoter scores.
“To reinvent our annual conference, we collaborated with the dealer community, leading manufacturers and suppliers, the industry’s expert trainers and educators, trade associations across North America, and several other stakeholders in marine retail success,” says Liz Walz, MRAA Vice President. “It’s rewarding to discover that what we built together was so well received by those we built it for – the dealers and their employees.”
Dealer Week earned a collective 77.06 net promoter score. Net promoter scores are calculated by asking dealers, “On a scale of 0-10, what is the likelihood you would refer others to Dealer Week?” Then, the percent of Detractors (those who rate the event between 0-6), of which there were only 3.36%, are subtracted from the percent of Promoters (those who score the event a 9 or 10), of which there were 80.43%. Companies that garner world-class loyalty receive net promoter scores of 75 to 80 percent.
In addition to the high scores, MRAA Partner Member, Customer Service Intelligence, Inc., a third-party provider that administers the follow-up and post-event recording, reports that Dealer Week earned twice as many “WOW” reports, or stand-out positive comments on experiences at the show, when compared to the previous year’s annual conference.
“I came away with a handful of things that I think we can actually implement,” says Monica Hurst of Spend-A- Day Marina. “I have a goal, action plan and results that I want to see. Any time you come away with that … then it is a success!”
Some of the features offered for the first time at the 2019 MRAA annual conference and expo were the Field Trip, 10 x 10 industry thought leader presentations, Education Hosts and the Float Plan. The purpose behind many of the new features was to arm attendees to return to their dealership, armed to take action capable of driving meaningful performance improvement in every department.
“I have to admit I was skeptical … thinking it would be sales based since I work in service, but all of the information was great no matter what part of the dealership you work in,” says Dean Hoffman of River Valley Power and Sport.
Now, the MRAA team has turned its focus to helping dealers carry out the plans they built in late 2019 and using their feedback to craft a bigger, better 2020 Dealer Week, Dec. 8-11 in Austin, Texas.
“With our goal of building a brighter future for marine retailing, MRAA designed the education, exhibits and networking at the event to not only provide an engaging, memorable experience during Dealer Week, but also to prepare dealers for success putting what they learn into place under their dealership roof,” comments Walz. “That’s what drove a lot of the new features of the event. That’s what is now driving the post-event resources we’re offering dealers. And that’s what will drive the improvements we’ll make for the 2020 event.”
About the Marine Retailers Association of the Americas
At the Marine Retailers Association of the Americas, we believe that for the marine industry to thrive, the retail organizations that interact with the boaters in their community must thrive. With that in mind, MRAA works to create a strong and healthy boating industry by uniting those retailers, providing them with opportunities for improvement and growth, and representing them with a powerful voice. For more information, contact us at 763-315-8043.
