Arnold Clark has been a used car powerhouse for many years and winning this category, which is new for 2020, cements its approach to how it manages its sizeable stock of 25,000 vehicles across its franchised and Motorstore used car dealerships.

Not only have used car volumes consistently grown over the past three years, with a 9.4% increase last year, but customers are clearly happy with their experience at the group’s dealerships, with 94% recommending Arnold Clark and 95% saying they would return to buy another vehicle.

Maintaining that level of service is seriously impressive when considering the volume of used vehicles going through the group.

Having its own rival to WeBuyAnyCar.com, Sell Your Car, remains a core component of its used car sourcing strategy and has demonstrated its sustainability after a 155% year-on-year increase in people who use arnoldclark.com to schedule a car valuation appointment.

This method of stock acquisition is just one way Arnold Clark navigates the complex used market, leveraging its own car rental business, alongside business and personal contract hire, 27 manufacturer franchised partners, Motability and internal defleet.

The judges were impressed with the level of discipline and structure in place to aid success, with a strict, self-imposed set of standards.

This includes response time benchmarks of within two minutes during operating hours, a best deal guarantee that offers to beat any competitor’s pricing, but also to give back double the difference and satisfaction surveys for each used vehicle customer to help maintain the Arnold Clark experience.

The judges were impressed by the group’s sophisticated and granular digital advertising strategy, too. Customers that have visited one of Arnold Clark’s Motorstore branches are geographically targeted with teams able to react in real time to browsing behaviours that can signal changes in model or feature preferences.

The insights gained from this level of analysis are then used to inform a tactical approach to purchasing and pre-registering stock, allocating resources and minimising value depreciation across its used car stock.

Highly commended: Citygate Automotive

Finalists: Arnold Clark Automobiles, Cartime, Citygate Automotive

Award sponsored by: Autoclenz