High-profile marketing speaker Geoff Ramm got the team at Luscombe Motors to take part in a 120-second exercise to spark inspiration about how they could get inventive with their service to car buying customers.

The AM Awards-nominated car retailer, based in Hunslet, Leeds, welcomed Ramm – who regularly works with brands such as Emirates and Specsavers – to its annual staff meeting within its Low Road Suzuki franchise last night (January 23).

And Ramm had teams from across the business think-up an idea of how to deliver a unique ice cream product for a parlour business in a thought-provoking exercise which took just two minutes.

Teams came up with ideas which included “make your own ice cream”, flavoured cones and a high-quality dine-in experience for their prospective customers.

Ramm said: “People say to me ‘we need an away day’ to come up with new ideas for the business but time and time again this exercise proves that 120 seconds is all you need."

Commenting on the ideas thought-up by the team at Luscombe, Ramm said: “Is there anything like that available in Leeds now? No there isn’t. If you can come up with innovations like that for a business you don’t know at all what can you do for Luscombe customers?”

Ramm’s enthusiastic presentation saw him highlight examples of “celebrity service” from across various industries and ask the question “How would you treat an A-list star like George Clooney or Angelina Jolie different to any other customer?”

The one-time Springfield Motor Group marketing manager turned international keynote speaker, highlighted that compliments, personalised service and gestures such as low-cost, personalised gifts not only strike a chord with customers, but can gain marketing traction via social media channels.

Luscombes’ owner, Robin Luscombe, told AM how social media and good reviews have long been a part of the business’ marketing strategy.

In 2017 the business won the Best Use of Video Award at the AM Awards and this year Luscombe’s has been nominated for five awards at the event which will take place at the ICC, Birmingham, on February 8.

Luscombe said: “When I started out here in 2010 we were a new business with no name and no reputation in the local area. I literally started from scratch and sat at the computer and played around.

“Our work on social media and simple values of customer service have been what has driven our profile on a limited marketing budget.”

Despite the Luscombe business’ strong presence online and good reputation with customers, Luscombe said that Ramm’s presentation had given him “a kick up the backside” to pay ever closer attention to every customer touchpoint.

In his address to staff ahead of Ramm’s presentation, Luscombe confirmed the payment of a twice-yearly bonus which is the same for every member if staff, regardless of their pay grade.

The sum was down on either of 2017’s payments, however, as a result of faltering performance between April and July, he conceded.

Luscombe told AM that business “fell off a cliff” after April 2017, but recovered from October onwards and was achieving 2016 levels of sales and profitability by the end of the year, confounding market-wide indicators from the SMMT.

In the past seven months the business has achieved an average 3.5% return-on-sales.

And Luscombe told his staff: “Since October business has really picked up and I am hopeful that we can recover in the remainder of the year to such an extent that the bonus is similar to that achieved last year.

“We have a great team and a great franchise behind us, so I know we have every chance of achieving that.”