Swansway Garages found room for improvement in its aftersales operation and drove a group-wide model to deliver excellent customer service, according to the judges.

The Crewe-based dealer group identified a need to focus the entrepreneurial skills evident in its 20 retail sites in the right areas to improve processes.

One judge said the new, cross-brand, group-wide perspective on aftersales had driven “fundamental improvements”.

Swansway’s awards entry said: “We recognised that the aftersales function of the group had many areas which needed strengthening, where the introduction of group resources allied to new and robust processes could vastly improve both customer experience and profitability.”

It empowered its retailer support team, immersing members in the brands and introducing customer-focused targets. The group created an aftersales team, which met service managers, parts managers, retailers and the retailer support managers and their teams, to establish areas of focus.

Their aims became: to always achieve retail service targets; achieve above the manufacturer’s average customer satisfaction score; and have data quality above 80%.

Existing customer data was cleansed against the DVLA and Census databases. The change, along with employees’ renewed efforts to gather high-quality data, helped to create more service bookings.

Fleet PDIs were moved to a central location to liberate extra time in dealership workshops.

Enhanced customer lounges offer free Wi-Fi, satellite TV, quiet areas, hot and cold drinks and complimentary breakfasts and lunches.

A car park ‘meeter and greeter’ welcomes customers by name and guides them through their aftersales experience.

Together, the changes have resulted in a £1.1 million rise in labour gross profit and £680,000 in parts retained gross profit year-on-year.

 

Highly commended

Peter Vardy BMW & Mini Edinburgh

 

Shortlisted

Sandown Group

TMS Kia

 

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