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Bellinger retail operations director Oliver Dimbylow reveals how the group has expanded with Vauxhall in this special Dealer Insight sponsored by Auto Protect.
Situated adjacent to the Williams F1 racing team, the spacious surroundings of the Grove, Oxfordshire premises of Vauxhall dealer Bellinger are immediately obvious.
Securing such a large site was, according to retail operations director Oliver Dimbylow, typical of the forward thinking attitude of his late father-in-law Mike Bellinger, who in 1989 moved his third generation family business from nearby Wantage.
“If we had stayed in our cramped site in Wantage we would likely have long ago been swallowed up by a plc. But Mike had the foresight to buy this four-acre site, which was probably at the time too large, because he constantly wanted to develop the business and drive it forward.”
Dimbylow has been with Bellinger almost six years. Having met his wife when they were 15, he had been close to the business for some years but planned a career as a lawyer or accountant, until persuaded otherwise by his family. The intention was to work his way up the business through the various departments, but this process was accelerated in sad circumstances following Mike’s death in 2011 from lymphoma, aged only 59.
Dimbylow assumed his present position 18 months ago, working alongside Mike’s son Joe, who is the sales manager. The only other director is Brian Cripps who has been with Bellinger for 25 years and Vauxhall for 44 years and provides essential experience and a guiding hand.
A Vauxhall dealer since 1970, Bellinger has operated from two sites since Abingdon was added in 1996. A third one will be added in August 2015 with the addition of a new site in Didcot. This expansion comes despite the company having lost a franchise in 2014, with the demise of Chevrolet.
“We had been with the franchise since 2006 and it had always been a hard sell, until 2013. We had a very successful year on the back of new models particularly the Trax – we sold many of these at a time when there was very limited availability of Vauxhall’s Mokka.”
The changes required rapid redrawing of budgets but Dimbylow believes the company has benefited.
“I don’t think we would have achieved the Q1 numbers that we did with Vauxhall, had we been trying to market both brands. It’s a combination of Vauxhall’s growing market share and our focus – we are a generally positive business and we try to see everything as an opportunity rather than an issue.”
On the Grove site, the former Chevrolet showroom is currently being turned into a dedicated showroom for Vauxhall’s Adam city car. This move is typical of the innovative ideas coming into the business, generated not just by Dimbylow’s youth, he’s 29, but also from his non-motor trade background.
“From the start my father-in-law encouraged me to look at things in a different way – he said ‘don’t just accept that because we do things a certain way it’s the right way – if it doesn’t make sense to you, have a look at it again.’”
Marketing reflects this attitude, with an increasing use of social media and search engine optimisation to drive traffic to the website.
“Blanket advertising on Facebook doesn’t work, but if you specifically target a message to the demographic it works very well. For example we are using it to market the current Vauxhall offer of free insurance for 18-21 year olds and the Adam, which has been selling very well since we were able to offer it on a PCP.”
One of the latest ideas has been to advertise various aftersales offers on the back of till receipts in local Argos stores.
“I was sceptical but it worked well – we are trying to come up with more innovative ways such as this rather than continuing with the same old marketing methods. But we do still maintain a presence in traditional media such as local newspapers, as many of our customers still read them.”
Bellinger undoubtedly benefits from being a long established family business with a strong local name.
“We are in quite a small community and have always been an active part of that community, getting involved in local sponsorships. Because we’ve been here so long we have customers’ children buying cars just as their parents have – we had a customer the other day who was the fourth generation of his family to buy a car from Bellingers.”
Dimbylow argues, however, that while having a family business is a great selling point, if you remain just that you stand still.
“We’ve always tried to develop it, trying different things such as selling unusual cars. We have everything here from the VXR8 to the Ampera, and we also do light commercials up to Combo level.”
The family values come most to the fore in the level of service Bellinger strives to provide; “Our company philosophy is a family firm where service counts, and this is ingrained in everything that we do, from director level downwards. We know a lot of the customers, and the way we look after them filters down through our management team to the staff in general.”
Bellinger trades in a competitive area, with strong rivals in local Ford and Volkswagen dealers and curiously an increasing amount of Mercedes-Benz, the result, Dimbylow believes, of the presence of Williams, Mercedes being the team’s engine supplier.
Such competition requires constant effort to maintain business, particularly in the service department. Bellinger ensures it fully follows up the information generated by Vauxhall’s centrally-administered Retain service reminder and MoT mailings to customers, and has also made great strides with the Vauxhall Service Club aimed at slightly older cars, offering half-price MoTs and 25% off servicing.
Service plans are also a vital tool. “We introduced our own service plans three years ago, from selling 30 in that first year we will hope to sell 120 this year. They are an excellent retention tool and we have really got the sales team motivated to selling them – they link in particularly well to PCPs.”
Bellinger is set for a busy September with a strong order bank over the course of the plate-change month and beyond.
“Vehicle sales are up and aftersales have bounced back. Didcot will be our big focus going forward, we are expecting further growth and there are a few more measures to put in as we continue to drive the business forward.”
FACTFILE
MM Bellinger & Sons
Established: 1932
Brand: Vauxhall (Chevrolet/Saab servicing)
Location: Grove, Abingdon. Didcot to open 2015
Staff: 62 (28 in aftersales)
Ramps: 14 (including 2 MoT bays)
Andrew Charman
