The Northern Ireland Motor Industry Awards recognises and celebrates the industry’s leading motoring businesses and professionals. The prestigious awards event recognises the outstanding contribution made by retailers and industry professionals across the province.
This year local dealership Fusco Vehicle Sales have won Used Vehicle Dealer of The Year. At a packed event on 7th November the Bangor company were delighted to pick up the award, pipping last year’s winner Charles Hurst to the title. Johnathan Fusco of The Fusco Group commented: “It’s fantastic to be recognised amongst the best garages and dealers in the country. We have come such a long way over the last number of years and this award is a credit to all of our team’s efforts.” The criteria for this award included the following in-depth benchmarks, with Fuscos addressing each one in a highly impressive manner which set them apart from the rest of the province:
Sales
We hired Manager Colin Gaw, who has an extensive 20-year proven track record in used vehicles. This year we’ve averaged 80-100 sales per month. Colin and team are establishing new channels to continue to acquire the sought-after stock profile of vehicles with which we have been successful.
Operations
We implemented new products, services and technology distinguishing ourselves from competitors and started supporting other businesses operations locally. Software such as garage management technology, which manages quotes, assigns workloads for efficiency, tracks courtesy vehicles and customer jobs. And a software which allows us to monitor vehicles in stock, pricing and depreciation on a detailed performance dashboard. Brought in a Guard X booth to offer protection services to our customers ( and indeed for use by our competitors !). We hired 2 highly skilled painters, and allowed them to support other local dealers. In After Sales we recruited award winning James Thompson, who overhauled our communication strategy and introduced a detailed process through job history sheets, effective management handovers, scheduled calls, automated text and emails to maintain positive working relationships and an overall great after care service by monitoring issues and positive feedback.
Marketing
We implemented a multichannel marketing strategy based on data and avoided the pitfalls of becoming centric to vanity metrics such as Facebook ‘likes’. We studied the market in detail along with our internal resource, and made our actions and channels as impactful as possible, including the use of tools such as Google Analytics to monitor our third-party partners including Auto Trader and Used Cars NI. We generated brand awareness and promoted Fusco Vehicle Sales in a way that resulted in increased engagement and visibility, and our use of SEO has driven more people to our website.
Community Engagement Families on their 4th and 5th vehicle purchase are our bread and butter. To that end we sponsor a variety of groups including BRFC, BCC, BHC, Bangor Bowls Club, Bangor GC and Castle Football Club. We rely upon a relationship that works both ways as a very community focused employer. Castle Juniors has 600 youth, female weekly disability players. This inclusivity and equality made our long-term relationship with the club an easy instant decision. Our partnership allows the club to buy football kits for players for youth players from different backgrounds affordable for families and accessible for enthusiastic children as it should be & we are immensely proud of this.
Capital Investment
Over the last year we have invested significantly in infrastructure, technology and development for the benefit of the business and anticipated growth over the next 12 months including additional amps, specifically to help with more heavy work, hiring Jordan Gilliland to drive this. Advanced Diagnostics We have offered all of our current techs this course and 4 out of 5 individuals accepted our offer. We have paid both wages and for the course and offered a slightly increased wage following completion of the course to encourage internal development of our team.
Staff Retention
We provided training courses to enrich team careers, in alignment with this we implemented competitive bonus structures to attract and retain team members. We have put on social days including a Summer BBQ and a counselling service to better the mental health and wellbeing of our team on site, and as such are in the process of implementing Westfield Healthcare, allowing our team members and their families to avail of private care for a variety of health-related issues in times of need. In turn, this focus on staff has helped us minimise sickness / absence and improved the wellbeing of our team. Which of course in turn helps to provide a consistent and positive service for all of our customers.
Sustainability
We introduced digital process /clear desk policy. This had an enormous impact through simple examples e.g., digital focussed invoicing utilising email for communication allowing us to reduce the number of bins in our offices across the building. And we have a strict recycling policy regarding metal, oil, tyres and batteries, disposing of waste items in the most sustainable manner possible. We committed to increasing the number of eco- friendly small hybrid vehicles in our courtesy fleet and have started to purchase more sustainable vehicles in our stock profile for sale including Tesla and Toyota hybrids etc. Customer Satisfaction We focused on continuous improvement utilising Click Dealer’s automated emails to encourage customers to leave honest feedback. We have over 100 4+ star Google reviews over the last 12months, actioning after any criticism or issues to improve our processes and customer service. As Johnathan explained , “ clearly such an in-depth approach to improving our business was central to winning the award, and whilst lots of the aspects which are explained here are quite technical, we are immensely proud of our efforts, and happy to be able to outline our business approach in a warts and all way”.
