Just had a good chat to Steve Couri, Frasers Newcastle Sales Manager, and he tells me a lot of things have changed very much for the better at the local Newcastle store. I pretty well gave him the "heard it all before" line, but he assures me that this time it really is different - and it appears he is right!
There is an absolute determination within Frasers to get the Newcastle store really cracking along, and it seems they have made a lot of progress in that area - at least as far as sales are concerned as a lot of new Ducatis have been walking out the door. He asks that anyone that has perhaps had a bad experience in the past give them another go - and expect to be impressed! He also said that Warren Fraser regards Newcastle as "his baby", he visits the store all the time, really likes it up here and won't let anyone lay a finger on Newcastle - except in a good way of course!
Whilst it is all very well for Warren to feel emotionally attached to the store, he also sees where they have gone wrong in the past and was determined to fix it. With their new team and fresh approach to the store he sees they have now almost got there, and they have certainly come a long way.
One thing that particularly comes out of this is that Frasers would like to reestablish a proper, albeit informal, relationship with the local Ducati club. So Steve is suggesting they will put a bit of a club BBQ on at the shop and supply meat & drinks for the club to encourage Ducati owners to rock on down for a look. Probably a Saturday arvo would work well. Any input to the idea is welcome, or we can just schedule one and see what happens!
The following article appeared in the current Cycle Torque and fills in a bit more info about what has been going on locally: