“Service and customer support are far more important than price in driving vehicles sales” – Combined Motor Holdings

Customer service the primary driver of vehicle sales
CMH now able to share best practices through CMH Connect
Company celebrating 18 months of continued growth

Service and customer support are far more important than price in driving vehicles sales, says Steve Atkinson, Franchise Director of Combined Motor Holdings (CMH).

Atkinson is actively involved in training staff across the many CMH Group dealerships, with the aim of further improving customer service.

“One would think that price is the most important consideration when buying a new car, especially in today’;s difficult economic climate,” says Atkinson, pointing at the wide array of advertisements promoting cash back discounts and better repayment rates.

“Our experience is different. Price is an important consideration and ensures that a customer makes the first contact, but after that sales support and service become the key purchase drivers.”

Atkinson speaks from more than 2 decades of experience, having being part of the CMH team that re-established Volvo in South Africa in 1994. Today he manages a wide range of vehicle brands for the CMH Group and has a bird’;s eye view of the best practices amongst various dealers.

“The old adage holds true, people buy from people,” says Atkinson. “The relationship and level of service received from a sales consultant or specific dealer are much better indicators of sales success and return business than the sales price.”

Having identified the key drivers of vehicle sales, Atkinson champions the training initiatives in the CMH Group and is entrusted with sharing best practices across the 59 dealerships that CMH operates across brands as diverse as BMW, Toyota, Volkswagen, MG and Volvo through the company’;s unique CMH Connect platform.

Steve Atkinson

“We have the powerful advantage of being able to study sales support and customer reaction across all types of brands. At the same time our technical staff has many years of institutional memory on servicing and maintaining passenger and commercial vehicles. We are now creating a platform on which they can share this to ultimately serve our customers better,” says Atkinson.

CMH is a South African listed company that specialises in the automotive industry. Apart from its franchise operations it has divisions in a wide range of other sectors, including finance, insurance, lifestyle, marine and vehicle rental through First Car Rental.

“Thanks to this culture of sharing best practices and improving skills we have shown 18 months of continued growth, says Jebb McIntosh, CEO of the CMH Group. “This, alongside several dealer awards from brands such as Land Rover, Jaguar and Volvo is proof enough of the value of good customer service.”

Also view:

Vehicle Finance, Car Insurance and Road Safety

Buying and Selling a Vehicle – Informed decisions and the Vehicle Retailer

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“Service and customer support are far more important than price in driving vehicles sales” – Combined Motor Holdings

Pothole Fever: Much more Americans Support Higher Gas Taxes With no Understanding What They’re Genuinely Paying For

Half of American drivers want to pay greater federal gas taxes although assuming the government will use all of that further income to repair the country’s neglected roads and bridges.

In a new poll by AAA that interviewed more than 2000 drivers final month, 52 % said they were prepared to spend much more per month for “better roads, bridges, and mass-transit systems.” More than 2-thirds of drivers mentioned the federal government needed to spend much more money on transportation, and 21 % stated they’d have no issue shelling out one more $ 10 or much more each and every month to help. (To illustrate the wide swing in final results, in a Gallup poll last year asking similar concerns on raising state gas taxes, 2-thirds of Americans were against the concept.)

At concern is the Highway Trust Fund, established in 1956 to preserve our then-revolutionary interstate highway method founded by President Eisenhower. The fund is completely paid for by fuel excise taxes that haven’t been raised since 1993. They’re at present set at 18.4 cents per gallon for gasoline and 24.4 cents for diesel, and due to the increasing fuel efficiency of new vehicles, inflation, and ever a lot more miles traveled, the fund is in trouble. By late August, the Division of Transportation estimates that the roughly $ 77 billion balance will drop to zero unless Congress bails it out when a lot more, which is what usually takes place. AAA is lobbying Congress to assistance a gas-tax hike, which is what Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon) has been trying to get passed because December. By 2016, Blumenauer desires to set gasoline taxes at 33.3 cents and diesel taxes at 39.3 cents. The bill is sitting in a committee.

But regardless of whether out of naiveté or ignorance to what the Highway Trust Fund actually funds, absolutely everyone hoping for all of a sudden improved roads and freshly painted bridges from a big cash infusion is mistaken. Considering that 1970, the fund has been split in 2 to pay for mass-transit programs and has because been ransacked for unrelated projects that haven’t and will not do something to fix federal highways and bridges. Beyond money for subways, bus depots, and bike lanes, the Highway Trust Fund is a one-stop shop for government billboard PSAs and media buys, all-critical $ 1 million studies on why headlight glare bothers our eyes, and racial-profile instruction for police officers that alone cost $ 7.5 million per year from 2005 to 2009.

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That’s not counting the $ 566.5 million guaranteed to the DOT this year for motorcycle safety campaigns, driver’s ed applications, and the National Driver Register that lets police track your infractions anyplace in the nation. Then there’s bonus cash passed to states for seat-belt and youngster-seat usage, plus far more cash for ferries, fuel-cell-powered buses, public transport on Indian reservations, and so forth. Whilst all these applications almost certainly help in some way, they don’t directly maintain or increase the physical condition of our federal highways and bridges—the really core argument of these in favor of greater gas taxes.

Does the Highway Trust Fund want much more funds? Positive, it does—and frankly, so do we. AAA says larger gas taxes will “prevent extreme upkeep delays” if they’re “spent wisely.” But with hundreds if not thousands of non-highway projects siphoning off the account, that promise is not an innocent assumption, it’s misleading.

Pothole Fever: Much more Americans Support Higher Gas Taxes With no Understanding What They’re Genuinely Paying For