Attn. Owner / General Manager
Ardell Brown RV Center / Camping World
13153 South Minuteman Drive
Draper, UT 84020
April 06, 2010
To Whom It May Concern:
I was very disappointed by my first visit to the Ardell Brown service center and thought that you would like to know about my experience. I know, as a business owner myself, I would want to know if a customer had a bad experience with my company.
Let me try to explain. I recently purchased my first RV - a 19’ trailer, nothing special. I wanted to get it checked out before we went on a camping trip over spring break and needed to get a turn signal fixed. I did a web search for RV Service locations in Utah. I found abrv.com which says “Ardell Brown RV & Camping World” on the home page. I live in Highland and that looked like it would be close enough to become my new service center. I printed a coupon that was emailed to me for 10% off service. The coupon says, “Save 10% off any Service or Repair from Camping World”. I had a $1,031.38 service ticket and presented my coupon to the cashier. He said he wasn’t sure if he could take it. I was confused. Then he came back and said, “No indeed he couldn’t accept it.” The 10% coupon was the whole reason I brought my trailer in to be serviced at Ardell Brown / Camping World. So I asked to speak to a manager. The manager also told me that they could not accept the coupon because Camping World was separate from Ardell Brown. I asked him if Ardell Brown and Camping World were the same company. He admitted that they were – but again said they had their own service center – which was not obvious. I asked them what the company website was. They said abrv.com. I pointed out right on my iPhone that on abrv.com it says “Camping World” on the website. Yet, they stood their ground. Your store even has signs that say Camping World.
Let me just say this. Even if I had a competitor’s coupon, at this point, the right thing to do would have been to give me the 10% discount. But it wasn’t even a competitor’s coupon. It was Camping World, which from everything I can see, from the website, from your showroom, to your employees, I was indeed at Ardell Brown / Camping World – owned by the same company. Your website even says “Part of the Camping World RV Sales Network” and “Copyright 2010 Camping World.”
As a business owner I would have looked at the cost of that $87 (10% off of labor) on a $1,031.38 ticket and saw an opportunity to make a lifetime customer, even if the customer was dead wrong – which I still claim I was not wrong based on your website and everything else mentioned. But, the lost opportunity lies here. I’m 39 years old with my first RV experiencing my first visit to an RV service center. I have 30-40 more years of upgrading RVs and servicing them. We camp with other families all with nice RVs. You have now lost all future business from me. I will tell others that we camp with of my bad experience and they will likely go elsewhere. All over $87… That’s a lesson I’d teach your staff.
