Victorian dealers shine in Mazda retail awards

JUST as Victorian dealers dominated Holden’s 2014 retail network recognition program, dealerships from the southern state were the standout performers in Mazda’s similar scheme.

Six Victorian dealerships from a total of 15 across Australia received a 2014 Mazda Master Dealer award recently.

Running along similar lines to the Holden ‘Grand Master’ program, Mazda’s Master Dealer scheme is divided into groups based on sales volume and business targets – in this case, Metro 1, 2, 3 and Provincial and Rural – across the national retail network, which at last count was at 128 outlets.

The Victorian winners were Max Kirwan Mazda, Ringwood Mazda, Graeme Powell Mazda, Ballarat City Mazda, Bendigo Mazda and Echuca Mazda.

There were three winners from Queensland – Grand Prix Mazda, Wippells Autos and Key Motors – and three from South Australia – Australian Motors Mazda, City Mazda (Hindmarsh) and Paradise Motors Mazda, leaving just two from New South Wales (West End Mazda and Goulburn Mazda) and one from Western Australia (Parkland Mazda).

For Grand Prix and Wippells, these two outstanding dealerships secured ‘Master Dealer’ status for the 21st consecutive year in the program that has been running since 1994.

The award criteria covers key performance index (KPI) data across all aspects of the business – including customer satisfaction, business performance, facilities and “compliance with Mazda Australia business standards” – with assessment conducted both on-site at the dealership and at Mazda Australia headquarters.

Max Kirwan, whose Preston-based dealership was ranked the top performer in the largest sales volume category (Metro 1), told GoAuto that the award – its eighth consecutive Master Dealer gong – was especially pleasing for the team “as we have significantly more customer/dealer interface touch points than others, being the largest sales-volume single-site Mazda dealer in Australia”.

According to Mr Kirwan, the dealership last year retailed 2858 new vehicles, 585 used vehicles and carried out almost 5000 retail services on customer vehicles.

“As customer service is a significant brand pillar of Mazda Australia and our network, it takes an exceptionally strong customer service culture within our dealership front-of-house team in order to consistently deliver best practice service to such high volumes of customers,” he said.

“To therefore attain CSI scores that rank amongst the best in the country for Mazda Australia against a backdrop of such a high volume of transactions is affirmation that we are heading in the right direction.”

This emphasis on CSI is reflected in Mazda’s strong performance in the independent JD Power Customer Service Index Study, ranking at the top of the industry last year for its second successive number-one ranking and its third top placing overall since the inaugural survey was conducted in 2010.

Mazda also retained its position as Australia’s leading full-import brand, last year selling more than 100,000 new vehicles for the third consecutive year (100,704) to just edge out Hyundai on 100,011 units.

As GoAuto has reported, 18 of the 32 winning dealerships in Holden’s 2014 ‘Grand Master’ program were from Victoria, leaving only six in Queensland, five in South Australia, just two in New South Wales and one in Western Australia.