Before we get started, let’s address this “Part 1” situation. There are actually two reasons for breaking this blog up into two separate stories: first, as I type this article our Thor Outlaw motorhome is still in the shop with Camping World of Strafford, MO. Since I won’t have a solid conclusion on this “Does Camping World suck?” thing until we pick up the rig, we’ll instead focus today on the ins and outs of Camping World (and Gander RV’s) overwhelmingly poor reputation. And that brings me to the second reason we’ll need two blogs to cover this; there’s a LOT to unpack when it comes to Camping World’s reputation. If you prefer to hear me talk versus reading my typing, check out the related YouTube video here. The birth of a conglomerate For many decades the RV dealer landscape looked a lot like the restaurant industry did “pre-McDonald’s” - a bunch of mom & pop family-owned joints specializing in certain dishes or ethnicities of cuisine. There were no drive-thrus, no fast food. You walked in, sat down, took your time and chose from a limited menu. Buying an RV just ten or fifteen years ago was quite similar - you first decided if you wanted a travel trailer, 5th wheel or motorhome then visited the family-owned dealer specializing in the RV type you’re looking for. While these family-owned dealerships are still plentiful in the industry, over the past several years a superstore has risen to power and consequently disrupted the market in many ways. The superstore chain in question is of course Camping World. With CEO Marcus Lemonis largely at the helm since the early 2000’s, Camping World’s goal of nationwide RV sales and service domination is well underway. Mergers and acquisitions have been the name of the game and In terms of volume and plain ol’ numbers they are absolutely dominating: 180+ stores in 46 states make Camping World/Gander RV the largest chain by a long shot (by contrast, the largest family-owned RV dealer chain I’m aware of in the US is Campers Inn RV with 30 stores in 12 states). Numbers, as we all know, only tell part of the story. Quantity over quality It doesn’t take someone with a PhD in business to figure out that the larger the chain and greater the sales volume, the harder it is to establish a culture which puts the customer first and focuses on long-term sales through networking and relationship building. My experience during my 20 years in the automotive industry translates pretty well to RV sales and service: the bigger (and more corporate-structured) the dealer group, the less personal contact employees (and in some cases managers) have with those at the top of the corporate ladder. When the leader doesn’t have a true voice everything below them becomes a rat race. Managers get fixated on the numbers and employees are pressed to hit those numbers via homerun transactions in which they make huge margins on a single sale. It becomes a case of “skinning the sheep” rather than “shearing the sheep”. You can shear a sheep for it’s lifetime but when you skin a sheep, it’s gone. And make no mistake: people are leaving Camping World. If this is the case, how does this company continue to put up big numbers? Simply put, the allure of Camping World lies in convenience and name recognition. Let’s jump back to that restaurant analogy. If you’re a new customer who has never bought an RV from a dealer, Camping World is likely the first name that comes to mind. Thanks to partnerships with NASCAR and other professional sports leagues, billboards, a massive online advertising budget and more, they’ve become a household name. Beyond the name recognition aspect we have convenience. There is a Camping World location almost anywhere you go and they have a plethora of RV models and types ranging from tiny travel trailers to massive fifth wheels and Class A motorhomes. Need supplies? Every location has a well-stocked parts and accessories area with almost anything you’d ever need right there in the store. You can get in and get out without a lot of fuss. This is akin to the McDonald’s fast food chain disrupting mom & pop restaurants with fast food at low prices back in the 1950’s and 60’s. Golden arches began popping up on every corner and suddenly families across the country were quelling their hunger on the most convenient and readily-available food in front of them rather than sitting down at the local diner. Social media vs. Camping World If there’s one thing Camping World has taught us about huge conglomerates operating in a space which demands excellent customer service, it’s that you can only get away with slacking for so long. Social media has given everyone a voice. Disgruntled customers tend to have loud voices and they sure do make themselves heard! A quick search of Facebook will reveal a number of anti-Camping World groups and hundreds (thousands?) of negative posts. A Google search of Camping World experiences uncovers more of the same: not only are people saying negative things, they are going so far as to create entire websites dedicated to slandering Camping World. Class action lawsuits have been organized by bitter consumers. Some go so far as to hurl physical threats against CEO Marcus Lemonis. Speaking of Mr. Lemonis, he really does seem to be at the center of the vitriol. You may have seen him on his TV show The Profit, in which he visits floundering businesses and offers insight and (in most cases) an injection of capital to help the business get back on its feet. You have the typical reality TV sob stories, occasional feuding siblings, several angry northeasterners and Mr. Lemonis front and center playing to the cameras. Think of it as Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares without the disgusting food and british accent. Naturally Mr. Lemonis is not handing checks to these people out of the kindness of his heart - he’s looking to be an investor and ultimately collect a profit from the business in question. That is, after all, the title of the show. As a small business owner I find The Profit to be an entertaining show. I’ve watched enough episodes of the show to have my own opinion of Mr. Lemonis, and while I won’t go so far as to say that I don’t like him I do feel there is something slightly off-putting about his demeanor and the way he does business. For example, at the start of each dramatic episode of The Profit, Mr. Lemonis says he does what he does because (in part) he cares about people. While I’m sure Marcus has a heart and he does care about people (in the way most humans wouldn’t let another human die in a burning car), the emotional interactions with his potential business partners can feel forced and at times downright awkward. Alas, we’re not here to judge Mr. Lemonis’ character. Indeed he is a businessman first and that means he’s here for the dollar first. While I do respect that, I also genuinely think his played-up “I’m here for the people” approach is part of the reason for Camping World’s woes. When you enter any Camping World store you’ll see Marcus Lemonis’ smiling face plastered all over the doors. They read [paraphrasing]: “If you’re not happy, I’m not happy. Here’s my direct phone line.” Unfortunately, lots of people are leaving these stores unhappy and guess what? They’re calling Marcus. But Marcus isn’t answering. He is also not responding to messages. I can personally attest to this, as I both left a voicemail with and sent a heartfelt email to Mr. Lemonis following a concerning visit at the Wichita, Kansas location. In that email I constructively outlined what I was seeing on the ground level and went so far as to offer my own experience in the automotive industry paired with knowledge of RVs and activity within the RVer community to help his team right the ship. No response. So, speaking from experience, when you have a bad experience and reach out to the guy who says “If you’re not happy contact me directly”, yet he blows you off… you end up more frustrated than you were in the first place. And this really is the core of the problem. Culture starts at the top. When Mr. Lemonis failed to respond to my email, I sent a similar message to the General Manager of the store. No response. My aggravation elevated, I now went directly to the Service Manager. No response. It was at this point I began to realize why there are so many people bashing Marcus Lemonis personally. Frankly, when you consider that he is almost non-responsive to customers who are already upset, he’s sort of making the bed in which he lies. He’s essentially breaking a promise made every time he fails to respond to an upset customer. Breaking promises to customers might be offense #1 in the Book of Bad Business. To summarize, Mr. Lemonis sits at the top of an organization with a widely-perceived culture of “numbers first, people second” while at the same time proclaiming a genuine care for the people and failing to deliver. This empty promise of customer service appears to be filtering down to some of the store management. Maybe he does deserve some of the personal criticism. But I digress. Marcus Lemonis and Wichita branch aside… is Camping World all bad? My personal experiences Aside from our experience with the Wichita location (which is worthy of it’s own blog) we’ve had dozens of interactions with Camping World locations across the country. Honestly almost all of them have been highly positive! I buy almost all of our parts and accessories from Camping World based simply on - you guessed it - convenience. I know they’ll likely have the item I need, and I know if I have an issue with that item in another state there is a Camping World location right off the highway somewhere to get me taken care of. When I visit a Camping World I can expect a clean, well kept store and in almost every instance I am greeted by a smiling face. The only negative experiences I have had were (again) the Wichita store’s Service Department and a potential purchase at the Oklahoma City location. That experience at the OKC store was particularly odd, as we were very actively looking to purchase a motorhome that day yet no one could be bothered to take our money. While typical negative purchase experiences tend to revolve around an overly-aggressive sales team, our salesperson seemed to want us out of the store. Surprisingly, when we spoke to a Sales Manager he gave us the same impression. We left the store with two business cards and confused faces. I felt like we were pre-judged as tire kickers. One week later we were on a plane headed to Ft. Meyers, Florida to pick up our new motorhome from Palm RV (an experience which was absolutely awesome by the way)! Despite getting the cold shoulder from the sales team, we returned to the OKC location to have our new-to-us rig serviced a few months later. That was a VERY good interaction complete with excellent communication and service from our Service Advisor, Christina and Parts Associate, Brent. We even got a complimentary wash and propane fill! My overall takeaway from all of these visits? Clearly the experience varies based on the associate with which you are working. There are outliers on the extreme ends of the spectrum, good and bad, from store to store and employee to employee. Just as there are terrible and excellent stores within the organization, there can be caring employees working in the same store as those who clock in to simply collect a check. Camping World may be mismanaged at the highest levels but it isn’t all bad. With 180 stores and over 12,000 employees, it can’t be. Making myself a guinea pig
Having both criticised and defended Camping World on social media I can tell you some of the people who hate (and I mean hate!) CW will straight up come at you for saying anything nice about them. I’ve been called a plant, a mole, accused of being a Camping World employee, even labeled an undercover agent sent directly by the Dark Overlord himself, Darth Lemonis. All this simply for saying “Hey, I’ve had mostly good experiences with Camping World”! The haters’ cries for lawsuits and government intervention and physical violence against Mr. Lemonis and his Camping World employees fueled me to take a leap. At some point last year I decided to make myself a guinea pig and jump on a grenade for the greater good. I decided to take our motorhome to Camping World for the next major repair visit and document the entire process. So here we are. As I type this, our Outlaw is hundreds of miles away with a Camping World in another state having a litany of repairs done including one very major item: an entirely new roof membrane. Is Camping World really so bad?? We’re about to have a very good indicator. I’ll dive further into the visit and overall experience in Part 2 of this blog series but you can go to our YouTube channel now and watch the video in which we document the drop off process and initial communication with the service personnel. Please consider subscribing to the channel while you’re there and click the bell icon so you can be notified when Part 2 drops! Keep your fingers crossed for us… the rig should be finished very soon and we’re anxious to get it back hopefully in better shape than ever! I’m pretty optimistic at this point. What’s the worst that could happen, right?
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AuthorsRobert & Tosha Lackey are full-time RVers, business owners and parents focused on providing a unique, well-rounded educational experience for their children through real-life learning on the road. Archives
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