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Award-winning Macklin Motors Edinburgh East has built a culture of transparency and consistency, earning it recognition from Hyundai global for customer service excellence
Macklin Motors, the Scottish arm of Vertu Motors, recently achieved a first for the Hyundai brand in the UK. In February, Macklin Motors Edinburgh East became the only UK dealership to receive an award from Hyundai, recognising its commitment to excellent customer service.
Hyundai Motor Company ran its annual Hyundai CX competition, which saw more than 1,800 video submissions, demonstrating the best examples in Customer Experience, across both sales and aftersales departments around the world. Hyundai offered four prizes in the category of ‘Participation & Video Quality’, with the Macklin Motors Edinburgh East Hyundai aftersales team the only UK dealership to secure one.
On the back of this achievement, Paul Walton, Hyundai franchise director at Macklin Motors and Mark Littlejohn, general manager at Macklin Motors Edinburgh East Hyundai, spoke to Motor Trader on its approach to customer service at both the dealership and group level.
On the Hyundai competition, Littlejohn simply aimed to convey what it was like to be a customer at his site. He said: “We wanted to show what we offer when a customer comes into our aftersales department in terms of the customer service and the customer journey. We conveyed through a video a snapshot of how we work with every customer.”
Video has become part of the expected service at dealerships, with the COVID-19 pandemic accelerating its use and making it a common request from customers. On this, Littlewood said: “When a customer gets in touch from a sales perspective, they get a personalised video, whether it be of who you’re coming to visit today and an introduction with a sales exec, or a unique video of the cars that they are looking at. But from an aftersales perspective, using video for the competition was new.
“We now have a more blended experience for the customers. We can negotiate completely on video link, which was brought through from the lockdown period, and we were very successful at it. So, we can do a personalised video and we can do a full negotiation with a customer remotely. Some like it, some didn’t. I think the buying process is changing and people are looking for a different experience.”
Dealership “ethos”
Littlewood’s approach to customer service is a simple, but effective one; “Treat every customer as we would like to be treated ourselves.”
He said: “That is the ethos of the dealership. I think that came across in the competition video as a snapshot of what happens at our dealership. We just ensure that our customers are treated well every single time they visit, whether that be for sales, service or parts. It is always at the forefront of our minds that customer service is key.
Walton added: “Our group mission statement is to deliver an outstanding customer motoring experience through honesty and trust. We are a values driven group and Mark must take recognition for the job that he and his team have delivered at Macklin, they have completely transformed the business from where it was a couple of years ago.
“He has done that by embedding the values of the business and himself into his management team and all his colleagues. He has been able to develop a very stable team. And as we all know, with stability we can create consistency and that consistency has led to the outstanding customer service that the dealership delivers. It is cultural within the business.”
A believer in growing successful colleagues from within the business, Littlejohn looks to keep staff by making them feel valued and motivated. He said: “At the dealership we have fantastic stability in all departments. I’m a firm believer of succession planning from within the dealership. And we’ve grown some fantastic managers in both sales and service. It is about keeping people motivated, and as a dealership and a group we are fantastic at giving people a good work life balance, which makes a big difference.
“We have got a good bunch of people working here who feel valued. They want to stay, and the customers need to see the same faces when they come in. Consistency, that is what customers get from us.
“It was important to us, during lockdowns, to keep in touch with our colleagues, whether it be by text, or creating a WhatsApp group so we could all communicate with each other. Our CEO Robert Forester did regular vlogs and kept the whole group updated with what was going on, which made people feel valued. And, within the dealership, we’re a close-knit bunch of people so we always kept in contact. So, they came back motivated.”
Constant development
Big on training, Macklin employees complete 20 minutes of training each day, with several extra learning resources made available to its staff. Walton said: “Most of our training has been online, so as an example, every single colleague in the business has access to Dale Carnegie online training, which they are encouraged to do. Prior to that, we had, and still do, access to Dave Anderson training. We have an internal system called Litmos where colleagues can access anything from communication skills to time management training and various podcasts.
“Hyundai also has all sorts of online training, such as training around the brand, where the brand has come from to where it is to today, and where it aspires to be in the future. Our staff can do full product training online for all the different models in the range. And that’s something that we encourage them to do.”
Littlewood added the dealership perspective. He said: “At my dealership we do 20 minutes of learning a day. Line managers oversee that. We keep an eye out for anything that we need to focus on in particular; maybe the video systems need brushing up on for example. The managers then fill me in every day, and we discuss performance. There is constant development at the group and dealership level.”
One key area of training is EVs, with Hyundai currently offering three all electric models: Kona Electric, IONIQ 5 and IONIQ Electric. On this, Littlewood said: “Last year every Hyundai sales exec was trained on EV. That was all done remotely from the dealership. In service, we have one high voltage technician trained and we will have another trained by the middle of the year.
“EVs are a conversation that our sales execs are having more and more with customers, and their level of knowledge has been fantastic.”
Changing with the market
Hyundai found itself in a fortunate position in 2021, not suffering as badly as other manufacturers with supply. Although supply constraints are now more in line with the rest of the industry, Walton remains positive. He said: “In 2021, for Hyundai, stock availability was a lot more advantageous than it was for the competition. I think it’s fair to say that between the manufacturer and the network, we absolutely maximised the opportunity that was in front of us, which ended with Hyundai achieving its largest ever UK market share by the end of 2021. January continued to be very strong.
“Supply constraints are now more in line with other manufacturers, we haven’t got the same tailwinds that we had. But we are still seeing stock coming through quicker.
“In terms of strategy, it has been a mindset change for the executive managers because we were used to selling a vehicle and delivering relatively quickly, and clearly now it’s all about order take. It has always been about order take because you had to have it to deliver cars. What we mean now is order take in the pipeline. So, we have had to change the conversation and contact strategy between order and collection with the customer. It needs to more robust. So, what we’re seeing is fulfilling orders for months ahead as opposed to days and weeks ahead.”
Littlewood added that despite the longer wait for a new car, customers are accepting the new timescale. He added: “At the dealership level I think customers are expecting to wait. What we need to do as a management team is ensure that we are keeping our customers updated all through the process. As time goes on, I’m sure we will continue to improve. But we are upfront and honest with our customers, and that is our philosophy as a business.
“We have positive order books for new cars, used cars is softening slightly but it’s still a strong market. Aftersales is a little bit quieter but picking back up again. It is all positive.”
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