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Motos Illimitées expands Quebec dealership, opens second location
Imagine an entire football field filled with powersports units, clothing and departments. Now nearly double that size and you have the new footprint of Motos Illimitées in Terrebonne, Quebec. This year marks a time of transition and growth for the dealership, having just expanded and moved into a 102,000-square-foot space and opening an additional location in Quebec City.
“Whether it’s motorcycle, ATV, side-by-sides, motocross, even snowmobile, we’ve been doing an excellent job in every one this year, so it’s been a phenomenal year,” said Lynn Landry, co-owner of Motos Illimitées, a 2014 Powersports Business Power 50 Award winner. Landry says the dealership is having a very balanced year, with equal sales across all segments and brands.
Motos Illimitées has a large presence in the community and with its OEM partners, hosting more than 20 events per year, including manufacturer demo days. Landry agrees that the participation has positively affected her dealership. “It’s a way of having a very broad outlook of businesses in our industry when you’re a part of a dealer council like Polaris or the Terrebonne Chamber of Commerce, because you’re dealing with very experienced and professional people,” Landry said.
“It’s a really good way of looking at things from a broader, larger perspective than the day-to-day business you’re doing with your staff. It’s very fun to see different markets and segments, how things are selling in their areas, not in your area,” she added.
Motos Illimitées is one of two members based in Canada on the Polaris dealer council, which allows the dealership to make American contacts and discuss best practices across North America.
The dealership is also responsible for launching its own community outreach, an all-female riding group named Femme Illimitées. “Last year 33 percent of the people that went in to get their motorcycle driver’s license in Quebec were female. We wanted to create a group for them to share experiences and ride together,” Landry said. “We’re at about 800 members right now. It’s all women from everywhere in the providence of Quebec.”
Motos Illimitées’ expansion process is about 60 percent complete, says Landry, with a goal to finish in the spring of 2016.
“We’re going to be able to have about 1,800 units ready to deliver, and we want to deliver within two hours,” Landry said. To keep the turnaround time low, Motos Illimitées will have an insurance company ready to work with customers and a special bank analyst dedicated to the dealership for quicker financing solutions.
Landry says the expanded dealership will include 16,000 square feet devoted to clothing, among other amenities such as a bistro, movie screen and gift boutique. To meet the need of a growing female riding demographic, Motos Illimitées will have a specialized department dedicated to women to promote and support that growth.
In addition to the expanding floor space, Motos Illimitées is also working to become the first fully digital store in North America with touchscreen computer technology across all departments in the dealership. “Our staff is also very happy; they are all looking forward to working in the new environment, so everyone is very motivated,” Landry said. “Every single department is going to be affected positively with this improvement.”
Indian dealership opens
In February, Motos Illimitées opened an Indian showroom in the new dealership as well as a second location in Quebec City.
“It’s an on-road store that includes Slingshot, Indian and Victory,” said Landry. The second location features both new and pre-owned units, while the marketing for both locations is handled by Motos Illimitées in Terrebonne.
Three full-time employees work in online and social media, traditional marketing (radio, newspaper, local advertising) and event coordinating. Although it has seen a large growth in online marketing, Motos Illimitées still maintains 25 percent of its marketing plan dedicated to other kinds of publicity for the portion of people who rely on traditional media.
In addition to Indian, Motos Illimitées carries Victory, Polaris, Slingshot, Kawasaki, Suzuki, Arctic Cat, Yamaha and KTM. The dealership operates with a ratio of selling two new units per every pre-owned unit sold.
“We like to respect the market share for every manufacturer,” Landry said. “We are selling 2:1. We sell over 3,000 units a year, about 2,000 new and about 1,000 are pre-owned.”
But the focus of the dealership is much more than selling; Landry explains that they want Motos Illimitées to be a destination, not a dealership.
“Selling a unit is only the beginning of the experience. The customers need to feel like they’ve had a personal experience and that we continue to give you the same service we would if we were a smaller place,” she said.
With 91 employees, Motos Illimitées has developed a customer service approach to use in every situation. If a customer buys a bike, a set of steps must be completed prior to the customer receiving his or her bike. After the sale, follow-up calls at the 3-day, 10-day and 30-day marks are a must.
“We give them business cards with the different managers if they have questions. Once they’re home we’re still there for them,” Landry said.
To continue expanding and learning, Motos Illimitées also reaches out to those who do not buy from them as well.
“If they don’t buy, we also have a customer satisfaction process. After they don’t buy … the sales manager calls that person back 24 hours later to see if there’s anything else we can do, what went wrong or how we could do more to have them as a customer,” Landry said. “That’s how we improve.”
The mission of Motos Illimitées is to not only satisfy customers, but also to rapidly adjust to changes. “We need to stay up to date and make things happen for customers because they are much more aware now. We try as a mission to adapt rapidly to all changes,” said Landry. “Our strategy all together is that we hope more and more that all manufacturers and all dealerships can work together hand-in-hand to build our industry.”