In September 2001, Angelle Sampey, who became the winningest female pro stock drag racer, decided that she wanted to start a dealership. This way later in life, when her racing career would end, she would have a dealership that she could continue being involved in the sport she loved. But, through many trials and tribulations and the unavailability to constantly be at the dealership day to day, she came to the point where she had to sell her dealership.
In August 2004, Harvey J Sharp III, a local business owner himself, went into Angelle’s Motorsports to purchase a Suzuki ATV. After countless meetings, Harvey then encouraged Angelle to sell him a percentage of the dealership instead of selling out completely. This way Angelle could continue racing and Harvey could begin running the day to day operations. So the agreement was made by Harvey and Angelle. Then due to some reorganization the name was changed and here begins the story of Performance Suzuki of Houma.
Creating a fresh start with a new name, a search for a new building brought on a new location in the center of town. Remodeling started to occur around August of 2005 but then Hurricane Katrina came and set us back from opening our new dealership. Harvey Sharp then called and asked American Suzuki if there was anyway that we could donate any ATV’s to help with the clean up of these communities due to the devastation around our area. American Suzuki, being so kind and giving, gave us 10 ATV’s to donate to the local parish governments around Houma to help patrol and with the clean up. This donation created a tremendous response from the communities.
We opened the doors to our new location on January 15, 2006. It has been simply amazing since we relocated. Our sales nearly tripled with the move. When we went to our first Suzuki dealer show in 2006 we were awarded with a community service award for our services in 2005. We also decided to go main stream and created a Performance Suzuki of Houma website which allowed us to win the best Suzuki Advertising Excellence website award in 2006. That inspiration made Performance Suzuki’s management and employees decide to work even harder the following year to improve and enhance our store, and to make us “Above the Rest” in customer service. Then American Suzuki created a Percentage over Goal contest in 2006 that would allow the top two dealership winners per district to win a trip to Puerto Vallarta, along with a watch. Performance Suzuki of Houma, not only won the trip, received the Daytona Rolex Watch but tripled our percentage goal.
With continued improvement and the blessing of the Lord, Performance Suzuki of Houma decided to go a step further. Our team worked so hard we won the most prestigious and honorable of awards any Suzuki dealership could win, The Super Cutting Edge Award, at our dealer show in 2007. This award is based on excellent overall customer service from our sales and service department staff. Performance Suzuki of Houma has remained in the top 5 dealers in our district since Harvey Sharp took over in 2004.
Our dealership has donated ATV’s to local organizations to help with fund raisers for children. We created a Bayou Bike Fest in 2007 that brought over 4000 people to our event and raised a total $13,000 to give to the local kid’s charities so they could have a real Christmas. This will be an annual event in order to raise money for different charities throughout the parish. We are also involved with the local bike clubs and help support fallen riders by helping the clubs with poker runs in order to raise money. The last Tuesday of every month, we put on a bike night with different activities and themes. This gives our local riders a safe place to come and hang out. This also gives the new riders an opportunity to meet new people who share the same love of riding. We organize a monthly bike ride on a Sunday and invite all makes of bikes to come and join us for a day of riding together. It is not what you ride it is that you ride.
Safety is a major concern for us at Performance Suzuki of Houma. We encourage all riders to take a riders safety course before getting on their motorcycles or ATV’s. Our dealership is on the ATV Safety Committee which also encourages safety on ATV’s. We go into local schools and teach the children the proper way to ride safely with the right equipment. We also offer the service of delivering the unit to the customer if they do not feel comfortable riding their new bike home.
Our showroom is clean, easy to navigate, and has state of the art lights that illuminate the colors of the bikes and parts in our dealership. The showroom is sectioned by the different models of bikes we have. During seasonal times we move our featured bikes in the front of the store and we decorate and accommodate those models.
Our special feature is that we are vibrant and have an eager to help friendly staff who often takes the extra step to make our customers feel comfortable. No request is too large because accommodating customers is our number one priority. Our Parts & Accessories department is towards the back of the store which is well lit and has a friendly and courteous staff. Our accessories are on the wall, so our customers can visualize and have that touch and feel aspect of the products we have to offer. Our company tries diligently to have the newest products available. We also have a knowledgeable parts staff that does everything possible to get a product into the store quickly. The special feature of our parts department is our online store which accommodates our customers who can not physically come into the dealership to purchase their parts. They can simply order online and we will ship their order to them. We constantly have sales to rotate stock for new product. Our Parts Department also gives special discounts to bike members who attend our bike nights or when we have special events.
In 2008, we updated our Service Department to have a walk in, clean, and friendly environment with a warm layout. It has up-to-date programs for our customers to watch while waiting for their bikes to be serviced. Our technicians have knowledge on all makes and models of bikes and are factory trained. Our Service team members are eager to get our customers bikes fixed and back in a quick fashion. We offer our customers a great price the first time they visit our service department with the convenience of an easy transaction. Our service department has up-to-date specialty tools and young energetic individuals who have the willingness to listen to the customer.
Performance Suzuki of Houma has customer service programs we offer and have implemented in the last year.
1. Free oil change coupon for the first service after the first purchase of a bike or ATV.
2. Pre-paid maintenance program which allows the customer to pre pay and save money on the maintenance and servicing of their bikes.
3. We wash the customer’s bike after service.
4. Our sales staff happily delivers customers bikes to their house if they do not feel comfortable riding their bike home.
5. The referral of motorcycle and ATV training programs to their family and friends and giving extra reading material to our customers to enhance their safety.
6. We have a customer referral program in which when a customer refers a friend we will credit their parts and accessories account $50 to $100.00.
Community involvement initiatives we have completed in the last year are the following:
1. Bayou Bike Fest- This was a bike show that we put together that drew 4000 people from all over the state, we had a bike contest and the money we raised went to the local kid’s charities, MacDonnel United Methodist Children’s Services, and The Child Advocacy Center. We raised a total of $13,000.00 to give these children a real Christmas.
2. Our dealership donated 10 ATV’s to the local CAT 5 police team for Hurricane Gustav and Hurricane Ike. These ATV’s were used to get into the places cars could not get to since trees and powers lines had fallen everywhere. A medical call came into dispatch on a man that was reaching his head out to check out the storm. A piece of debris flew and cut his ear off, and the only way the medical team could help this man was by an ATV. A medical call also was made by a woman who was having a baby and the only way she could receive help was also by an ATV. These ATV’s helped the local task force to reduce looter activities and help citizens get out of places due to rising water.
3. Our company also donated $15,000.00 to Wind Strong and the Louisiana State Troopers to purchase cleaning products and household supplies to help with the clean up of houses that were devastated after the hurricanes of 2008.
4. We also donated a Suzuki M109 valued at $ 12,000.00 that was autographed by the New Orleans Saints Football team. This was donated to the Kenny “Jet Smith” foundation which raised money for Hurricane Katrina Victims.
5. We have donated countless gift cards to sponsor needy groups such as: Relay for Life, Habitat for Humanity, Ducks Unlimited, Thibodaux Fire Dept., American Heart Association, American Cancer Society, MacDonnel United Methodist Children Services, Child Advocacy Center, Toy’s for Tots, Food Bank, Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Office.
6. We have sponsored local kid’s sports teams such as football, basketball, and baseball leagues.
7. We also have created and sponsor a motor cross race team consisting of local kids who travel all around the states to compete in different competitions. Our team consists of 6 members and some of those are ranked in the top 10 of their class.
Performance Suzuki of Houma has had some promotional campaigns initiated during 2008 and the results achieved were:
1. Suzuki Fest- which increased sales by offering lowered interest rates on select units.
2. Suzuki ATV Fest- which offered a free winch, with the purchase of an ATV, and it increased our service department sales.
3. Monthly bike rides which gets us more into the community and allows us more participation.
Most effective/unique advertising or media campaign in 2008 and the results achieved.
1. Our Suzuki commercial which “showcased” our Sheriff Jerry Larpenter performing a front wheelie.
2. Putting different types of bikes into our local mall to advertise ideas to citizens to buy for themselves or their children.
3. Advertising in our News on Wheels magazine which covers areas other than our parish.
4. Advertising in the movie theaters which have increased our sales.
We at Performance Suzuki of Houma are continually striving for growth. We have picked up additional lines such as: Can-Am, Schwinn, C-F Moto, and Eton. We are enhancing our dealership’s departmental structure by implementing a new software system to allow our departments to better serve our customers. We are also in the process of looking into a better and bigger building, in order for our dealership to become a more substantial part of our community day in and day out. We are young and determined and are always willing to overcome any obstacles as a TEAM.