RVBusiness, March/April 2019

ExploreUSA Opens San Antonio Area Dealership Equipped for Indoor Service to Avoid Texas Heat ExploreUSAs new San Antonio area dealership replaces its previous Boerne Texas location and is the nine store networks first to include an indoor service department ExploreUSA RV Supercenter President Brian Booker and CEO Scott Chaney completed work last June on a unique new Texas store to replace its existing retail outlet in Boerne although news of the 70000 square foot stores opening almost got lost in the shuffle last summer when Plano Texas based ExploreUSA announced that it was being acquired by RV Retailer LLC an ambitious new Florida firm Lest there be any doubt Booker and Chaney as ongoing equity partners in nine store ExploreUSA are still running the show at the 18 year old 350 employee towable only dealer network one of the Lone Star States largest dealers including its newest Boerne pronounced Born ee facility near San Antonio the dealerships first featuring an indoor service department Chaney considers it their best store to date Opened in June it houses four covered service bays and 10 open air bays in which the supercenters staff of 35 can work on 26 recreational vehicles at once With more than half of the Boerne store air conditioned including covered drop off and pick up lanes its designed to insulate both employees and customers from scorching seasonal heat in the Lone Star State where temperatures at times spike up to 110 degrees The new store at the same time is designed to exude a retail friendly atmosphere and a positive customer experience for ExploreUSA which likes to think of its customers as family members whom if treated well will return to ExploreUSA as repeat buyers for the rest of their RV lives stated Chaney We were in another location in Boerne that was too small and there was no sense in building anything on it because it couldnt support what we wanted to do said Chaney So we shopped around and finally found about 13 acres that we could live with and designed a store that we felt would be for lack of a better term state of the art We wanted everything We wanted the customer experience to be the best ever including a fantastic lobby an indoor sales showroom and for the first time ever we built an indoor service center The dealership houses four covered and 10 open air service bays The customer experience has to be as strong and as close to perfect as much as I dislike that word because nothings really perfect as we can get it he added The minute the customer drives in all the signage and everything is directional so he knows where to go Theres 13 acres of concrete outside so hes not pulling in on gravel and it doesnt matter if its raining or whatever whether its super hot or cold outside were ready to go because of the indoor space Theres a huge beautiful customer lobby with coffee a big screen TV and so forth And theres tons of great inventory You can shop till you drop so to speak with probably 250 towable RVs on the premises and plenty of different brands and floorplans You can take your time and shop indoors In fact weve had a couple of weekends lately that the weather was really bad and we still sold a bunch of units because of our indoor showroom Scott Chaney and Brian Booker The new Boerne dealership was purpose built on 13 acres 88 RVBusiness M A R C H A P R I L 2 0 1 9