RVBusiness May/June 2026
By John Spader & The NCM Associates Team
RV dealers would do well to think a little more like Marriott Vacation Club.
That may sound like an odd comparison at first. After all, the products are different, the sales environments are different, and the customer journey certainly looks different on the surface. But beneath all of that is a principle that RV dealers need to take much more seriously: a qualified prospect is an enormously valuable business asset.
Marriott Vacation Club’s parent, Marriott Vacations Worldwide, makes it clear in its latest annual reporting that it deliberately focuses on attracting qualified prospective customers, growing what it calls “high-quality tour flow,” and managing prospect productivity through metrics like VPG (Volume per Guest). It also says a significant part of its direct marketing is aimed at loyalty-program members and in-house databases of qualified prospective customers. In other words, it does not treat prospects casually. It understands that it costs real money to get the right customer into the system, and once that customer is there, stewardship matters.
RV dealers should adopt the same mindset.
Too often in our industry, prospects are treated as if they are abundant and inexpensive. They are neither.
Dealers spend significant money on websites, digital advertising, third-party lead sources, events, facilities, and staffing, all in an effort to create customer opportunities. Yet once those opportunities arrive, many dealerships become shockingly casual.
A walk-in customer may or may not be properly engaged. A digital lead may or may not make it into the CRM. A salesperson may make an individual decision that a customer is “just looking,” and the dealership never truly uncovers the client’s intentions.
That is not lead management. It is lead waste.
A quality process requires managers to become involved early. Not because we want to interfere with the salesperson, but because the dealership has too much invested in the prospect to allow stewardship to become optional. The customer should meet the right people. Their wants, concerns, timing, and hot buttons should be understood. The dealership should ensure that the prospect is being properly served, not merely casually handled.
And let’s be clear about another common mistake. Many dealers and salespeople often accept at face value that if the customer does not buy today, there is no reason to continue marketing to them and nurturing them for future business. That is a profound misunderstanding of how customers behave. Marriott Vacations Worldwide says that guests who do not buy on their initial tour are offered a return package for a future stay, and that these return guests have historically and consistently been nearly twice as likely to purchase as first-time visitors. The lesson is obvious: the first “no” is most often not the end of the process; it is simply the beginning of stewardship.
This is where CRM becomes critical. Response time is vital, of course, but CRM cannot become just another chore to satisfy management. It should be the living repository of what matters to the customer: their likes and dislikes, their family plans, their usage dreams, their concerns, and the details that make future engagement personal instead of generic. As AI becomes a more active part of lead management, this becomes even more important. AI can only personalize data when it has data to personalize.
The cultural challenge for dealers is to accept two ideas that are both true at the same time. Customers are engaging more and more online, which can make the process feel anonymous and impersonal. Yet those same customers still want genuine human interaction with people who care. They want convenience, but they also want connection. That is why the sales manager’s role is so important. The sales manager should treat the prospect for what they are: the most important and most expensive asset at the dealership. Prospects deserve full attention, disciplined process, and long-term stewardship. Much has been written and discussed in 20 Groups about lead management. But unless we affect this cultural change in our dealerships we are falling behind.
We spend a great deal of time talking about the value of inventory. Maybe it’s time we became just as serious about the value of prospects.