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To be among just three UK dealers named among a franchise’s best outlets in Europe for customer service is an achievement. To win this accolade two years in succession is remarkable but in fact Burrows Toyota in Barnsley has been the recipient of the Toyota Ichiban award for customer service for three of the past four years.
The name comes from the Japanese okyakusama ichiban, which means “customer first”.
The Barnsley centre is among nine dealerships across South Yorkshire established since Burrows Motor Company was formed in 1999 by Steven Burrows with a single Toyota outlet. Now the group also represents Hyundai, Kia, Mazda, Fiat and Abarth brands.
Motor Trader spoke to Steve Davidson, general manager at Barnsley since 2009. Before that he was general manager at Stratstone Honda in Leeds and Bradford for over three years.
How have you won three Toyota Ichiban awards?I get the glory of going to collect the award but achieving it is due entirely to the people who work here. It is by understanding the expectations of the customer. We always say deliver the best service but it must be tailored to each individual customer. If something goes wrong, which it does because we are not infallible, that moment is the first opportunity to put it right and all the team are empowered to make a decision, to say yes to the customer, and I will trust that decision.
We also know our customers. We talk to them, spend time with them. We have fantastic hosts in our showroom. We call customers the day before a service appointment to ask what they need from the visit, and then we make sure we exceed those needs. We genuinely have a customer-first culture that comes directly from Steven Burrows at the very top. The first item on the agenda of every meeting in every week is what are our customers telling us? For example customers can choose to see any of our technicians. And we also adhere to old-school basic principles such as the six-foot rule: if you walk past someone in the car park you say hello.
How do you go about recruiting staff? Recruitment is the hardest thing in the industry at present. We recognised some years ago that this was an issue, not just in terms of numbers of candidates but their quality. So we began work on apprenticeship schemes and we now bring apprentices into all departments.
We run an event, called Search for a Star, engaging with local schools. We start by presenting to the school, showing what is available in the retail motor industry, including the varied roles on offer. We then invite the parents to the showroom for an evening, show them the roles available and get them talking with current apprentices and team members. We follow this up with a day’s training and they then give a presentation to an interview panel on why they should be selected as an apprentice.
At each stage it is narrowed down and we end with a week’s work experience from which each
of our departments take at least one apprentice. We’ve pioneered this across our Toyota outlets, engaged with the Toyota Academy, and we are expanding it across the network.
How up to speed are schools with motor retailing? When we began our programme we initially found liaising with schools very difficult and after our first presentation the teachers admitted they had no idea that the industry needed such aspects as IT or social media skills. They thought we only wanted mechanics and they also had an outdated view of what that involved. This particularly shows up when we try to promote female candidates – the response is “Why would girls want to get their hands mucky?” My son was keen to become an apprentice technician when he left school but was actively discouraged from doing so by his careers teacher.
How are new recruits taught the Burrows culture? They start with a thorough two-day induction, including a full day with me, and they learn the four key elements to our culture. These are firstly customers; as they are the basis of everything we do. Then it is our people; as without them we can’t look after the customers. We need a genuine partnership with our manufacturers and finally we like to make some money along the way. New recruits spend a week in each department, no matter what role they are going to work in, to fully understand how the whole business works. They then shadow a team member, and we get them involved in everything including talking to customers. They are introduced
as someone learning the business, and this extends
to involving them in sorting customer issues.
What is the biggest challenge in car retailing? After recruitment, it’s competition and market share. We are in a prime spot here but surrounded by other dealers. It is becoming increasingly about how we respond to internet leads. This is the growing area in the market as footfall in dealers declines. The speed and quality of online response is crucial. We have a 21-year-old whose role is to be constantly on his iPad answering internet leads and turning them into genuine appointments. After that it is about having the right product, cars that customers want.
How are your used car sales? We are down a little so far this year, but a good new performance will always impact the used market. We are now seeing used growing but our biggest issue remains sourcing quality stock. We have very good PCP penetration and retention and as a result we generate good two-to-three year-old part-exchanges, but we struggle in the four-to-five year-old area.
How are you performing generally in 2017? Financially quarter one was an outstanding success, followed by a difficult April, while in May we saw a difficult first two weeks but then it started to recover. The coming year will be challenging, but I think we will, with the right processes and effort, have a good result. I don’t think the perceived political uncertainty amongst customers has that much effect on the market – Brexit has impacted us but to nowhere the extent we thought it might. The biggest issue I believe we are facing is in diesel, where uncertainty and concern is growing. The media coverage of so-called dirty diesels, when in fact modern diesel engines are not affected like the older versions are, has left the public very confused. We are lucky, however, to be in a franchise with hybrid, and this is the time for that to pay dividends.