Press

Ducati dealers took a big jump in the 2014 Pied Piper Prospect Satisfaction Index, up 7 points from 2013. The 114 score helped them surpass Harley-Davidson dealerships' score (111) and lead the industry for the first time since 2009.

The change, Pied Piper president Fran O'Hagan said, was due to a shift in how Ducati uses mystery shopping as a training tool. Ducati in 2013 chose a mystery shopping method similar to what Mercedes-Benz, the top PSI-scorer on the auto side, implemented about five years ago.

Mercedes said, ‘We're going to put money on the line to make mystery shopping worth your while. But we're not putting money on the line tied to scores; we're putting money on the line tied to you using this as a tool, that's all. But you have to use it, and we're going to make you sit down with your Mercedes reps once a quarter and review your mystery shop results with them and talk to them about how you're using the results to improve the way you sell.” O'Hagan explained.

“That is exactly what Ducati did. Ducati copied that approach and started at the tail end of 2013, and it's running today, so Ducati incentivizes the dealers to use mystery shopping. Ducati doesn't particularly pay attention to the scores; what they're paying attention to is that the dealers are actually using the results to improve the way they sell, and the Ducati reps are doing the same thing. The Ducati reps are talking to the dealers about what you are doing and what can you do to improve. There has been a huge improvement,” he added.