Hino Australia wins top global awards

HINO Motors Limited in Japan has named its Australian subsidiary as the 2014 Parts Department of the Year and 2014 Service Department of the Year, marking the fourth consecutive year it has won a global ‘double victory’ award.

According to Hino Truck and Bus Australia, the awards are presented “in recognition of worldwide distributor performance in parts and service for the Japanese financial year ending March 2015”.

They are judged in Japan by senior management, who assess each distributor’s performance on a range of criteria in service and parts sales. For Australia, the retail network covers 43 dealer sites and 22 service and parts outlets.

“We’re very pleased with this result, as the awards are a reflection of how well Hino franchises around the globe are meeting a number of criteria,” said Hino Australia chairman and CEO Steve Lotter.

“These include vehicle throughput, retention and growth, customer management information and an evaluation of our workshops for service, as well as growth and supply rates for parts.”Mr Lotter said customer service was an integral part of the Toyota truck division’s success in the awards program.

“Understanding the different types of customers and their parts and service needs – from fleet managers to single operators – and putting the right systems in place to meet those needs is the key to success in this business,” he said.

“We’ve increased our field staff, we conduct regular surveys with customers and we follow up on their feedback to make things better.

“For Australia to achieve ‘double victory’ awards four years running shows that our effort is translating into a more effective parts and service network which is well and truly meeting our customers’ needs,” he said.

Earlier this year, Hino Australia named CMI Adelaide its 2014 Metropolitan Dealer of the Year and Newcastle Hino its 2014 Regional DOTY.

At the awards ceremony, where various other dealerships were recognised across areas such as sales and service excellence, sales volume, parts excellence and financial services, Hino Motor Sales Asia and Oceania sales and marketing officer Takeo Saito highlighted that Australia was an important cog in the Japanese brand’s global operations.

“Global sales of Hino trucks increased in 2014, reaching a total of over 168,000 units,” Mr Saito said. “Australia has played an important role in achieving this, and it ranks eighth in the more than 80 countries where the brand is sold.”Hino managed just over 4000 sales in Australia last year, down 2.5 per cent on 2013 as the heavy commercial industry overall fell 1.2 per cent.

In the first half of 2015, Hino sales are up 14.7 per cent, outstripping the commercial sector’s 3.9 per cent growth YTD.