TruckEast Celebrate Double Success

Their Northampton Dealer Point was also separately awarded the prestigious Depot of the Year award for 2010, beating 86 other Scania franchised or wholly-owned depots to the top spot.

The aim of Scania's Dealer Development Agreement and Depot of the Year bonus scheme is to incentivise and reward Dealers and Repairers for the achievement of targets, implementation of development actions and for exceeding standards.

The DDA measurements include technical training, sales of repair and maintenance or service only contracts, use of the CRM system in Sales & Aftersales, and marketing data quality. The company’s performances in the Depot of the Year programme are also taken into consideration, so all of the company’s 12 dealer points have had to perform. Importantly, the dealers are also evaluated by their customers in a Customer Service Index survey, conducted twice a year by an independent company.

John Biggin, Managing Director of TruckEast is extremely pleased at this year’s results. “It reflects a lot of hard work put in by all members of staff. The business has been under new management since April 2007, and these results reflect the strength and commitment of the management team we now have in place. It gives the business a great boost of confidence going into 2011.”

TruckEast Northampton’s success as Depot of the Year, has seen them achieve maximum points against a range of specific measures. These include quality of service sheets and invoices, time taken to arrive at breakdowns, MOT first time pass rate, speed of turnaround of vehicle recalls, and achievement of Dealer Operating Standards relating to the comfort and ease-of-use of the premises for visiting customers. Feedback from a Customer Service Index survey is also used at depot level to contribute to the overall score. Depot Manager, Gary Trainor attributed their success to the quality of the people in his team. “Everyone knows what they are doing, and they consistently achieve high quality standards. The feedback from customers about our levels of service is extremely positive.”

Despite 2010 being another challenging year for the industry, TruckEast has seen steady growth. Sales of new and used vehicles were up slightly on 2009, and Aftersales turnover has increased by almost 6% thanks to a focus on service standards across all of the depots. Investment in the company has continued, and they were the first dealer to open VOSA ATF lanes under the new contracts, firstly at their Wellingborough dealer point, followed by one at their Stowmarket Head Office. Further investment has gone into the Northampton branch where a new Tacho Centre was opened at the end of last year. The recycled parts centre, based in Stowmarket, has also had another record year, providing genuine used Scania parts at up to 70% savings compared to new parts.

John Biggin is keen to build on this success. “The key to our ongoing success is to continue to improve our levels of customer service. Our Crick dealer point is a good example of how improving service levels can impact the business. Having been loss-making in 2009, it has been transformed into a very profitable branch. We must all strive to improve our customer offering and become the very best at what we do.”