We have a very demanding customer and a great customer for Group who only had one window of opportunity to have a demo on a Sunday when we are closed. Ellie then did the 200 mile drive to drop a car off to the customer on the Sunday. Customer all happy and then proceeded to order the car. The car arrived at the dealership one day before the customer was due to collect with a manufacturing fault and a mark on the interior trim that needed a replacement trim to be fitted.

Ellie took all this in her stride and still made the customer’s handover memorable, organised the order of the replacement trim which takes 6 weeks to arrive and arranged to collect the customer’s car for its 1000 mile check and replace the damaged trim at the same time. This customer would have normally hit the roof and probably cancelled his order and I think the real reason for him not reacting this way is the fact Ellie went out of her way outside of working hours to satisfy his demanding schedule. He has also requested Ellie to sort out a deal on a Bentayga.

So what could have been a disaster, shows that if handled in the right way can still be a memorable occasion and not damage any future orders or relationships.

We had a call from Bentley Motors to request someone from the dealership to attend at the factory in Crewe to assist with some technical work. This was at extremely short notice and would involve possibly up to three days work. Having asked Gary, he immediately responded positively although, once at Crewe, the job was not as straight forward as was originally thought. Gary embraced the challenges and worked over at the factory to ensure that the job was completed as requested in the quickest possible time. This involved 3 and 4 hours of additional overtime.

Gary has shown great attitude towards going the ‘Extra Mile’ to enhance the manufacturer relationship and juggling his own family commitments to embrace the challenge that he was given.

This demonstrates just one instance of where Gary has put himself and his family second to ensure that he delivers great service to the customers within the business, regardless as to whether they are retail, internal or manufacturer.

Excellent service, well done.

Lisa’s role is primarily a back of house role within the service environment, mainly to input all warranty claims to both Lamborghini and Bentley. She has worked within the team for 20 years, starting at Willenhall and relocating to our current site in 2006, and is integral to the smooth running of the department.

Lisa overheard one of the service team say that a customer was coming to collect their car as it was their birthday and they needed the car so they could go out that evening. Upon hearing this comment, Lisa suggested that we should have a selection of birthday/greeting cards available to give to any of our customers when they visit the dealership, she then sourced a selection of cards which are now in the office should we wish to give out a card when customers visit.

Lisa demonstrated that even though she does not have direct involvement with our customers she still wants to make their experiences’ with us special.

Well done!

Alan spoke with Mr Finney on a new parts enquiry, this was his first visit to the dealership with his Bentley Arnage. During the conversation, Alan discussed the advantages and benefits of bringing his car to the dealership rather than a specialist that the car was originally booked in with.

Not only had Alan sold parts to the customer, he had brought in a new customer to the service department which resulted in a bill totalling £3,500. Mr Finney was very happy with the work done, and has since been back for additional work the following month. If it wasn’t for Alan’s good nature and positive attitude to working as One Team, I am sure the customer would have stuck to his first plan and booked in with the independent.

Well done Alan!

It was a cold autumn Friday evening and the service team had been trying to contact a customer for authority to have some work completed. They eventually called back at 5.30pm saying that they needed the car back that evening, both Cameron and Tom should have finished work that evening at 5pm.

Without any hesitation, they both spent 45 minutes valeting the car to ensure that it could then be delivered to the customer that evening as required. Despite both Tom and Cameron looking forward to their weekend off, they both showed exceptional customer service by staying late and getting the car back to the customer for the weekend.

Well Done!

Chris had a customer who had ordered and customised his new Lamborghini SV Roadster and wanted to collect the car from the factory – at this moment Lamborghini do not offer a factory collection option but Chris managed to convince them to have the car ready and collected from the Ad Personam suite at the factory. All was ready for the Friday collection however, the customer now had a very important business meeting on the Friday afternoon in the UK and required the car earlier. Chris rearranged all flights, transfers and hotel and, because of his relationship with the factory, was able to move things to a Thursday morning collection, allowing the customer to return to the UK when he needed to.

Chris was at the factory helping to complete everything in time with the team there and everything happened smoothly and even managed to arrange for Federico Foschini (Commercial Director of Lamborghini) to be there for this special delivery.

I wanted to just drop you an email to thank you for the great efforts you went to organising the collection of my Lamborghini SV roadster. From ordering the car, specification to collection the whole experience has not only been seamless but also fantastic. The trip to the factory was better than I expected and meeting Mr Foschini as well as moving the delivery date made this event even more special. Your hospitality, organising the hotel, dinner and drinks was very much appreciated and rounded the trip off perfectly.

We have a very demanding customer with problems on her current car. The customer was in our demonstration vehicle and because her car was in longer than expected, we required that car back as it was booked for another customer. When the customer was in the showroom days before, even though it wasn’t Ellie’s customer, she picked up a vibe that the perfect car would be a Bentayga, our only demo was currently in London! Ellie, who is new to Bentley Birmingham, took the initiative and caught the train down to London, swapped all cars around and left her with our Bentayga Demo. The customer was thrilled and amazed with this level of service and how well the car performed. She subsequently purchased a brand new Bentayga.

This just highlights that Ellie is a real One Team player with a ‘Making it Special’ focus and we are very fortunate that Ellie is now part of our team at Bentley Birmingham.

After taking delivery of an Aventador Roadster, the customer spoke with Adam late afternoon and explained that he was experiencing starting difficulties. Adam and Cameron drove to Kent straight away, arriving around 7pm but, frustratingly they couldn’t resolve the fault so they pushed and repositioned the car for recovery and returned home around midnight.

The following day Adam was on a course, throughout the day he spoke with Lance trying different options. When the course finished he returned and supported Lance and they eventually traced the source to a faulty instrument cluster, resulting in another late night. The following day they were informed by Lamborghini that the part was on back order, by now the customer wanted his money refunded.

Lance decided the only option was to rewire from the fuel pump to the dashboard. The Roadster was returned early Saturday morning by truck, the customer was delighted and completely oblivious to the man hours and commitment given behind the scenes from Adam and Lance.

As part of our marketing strategy for 2016 it was agreed that the Aftersales department would get more involved with the sales team at events during the year. With the annual Game Fair looming the Aftersales team were asked for volunteers to assist with the show and Ross volunteered from the workshop. Ross attended the Game Fair on all three days (giving up his weekend to attend the show) and received some fantastic feedback from the other team members.

Ross, out of his normal comfort zone, was happy interacting and taking enquiries from both prospects and current Bentley owners. In fact, Ross took the initiative to introduce current owners to a range of new styling upgrade packs which have just been introduced by Bentley. He helped the team bring back over 50 qualified leads from the event and over the next few weeks the team hope to convert these leads into both car sales and aftersales customers. This was a great effort from Ross and deserves recognition of both a commitment to providing customers and potential customers with great service and also a true One Team approach.

Well Done!

During June, Sarah received a call from Mrs Green a Bentley owner, who was very stressed as she was sat in her car in a flood situation. Sarah spoke with Mrs Green and arranged for Bentley Assistance to attend, over the following hour and after several phone calls Sarah had ensured Mrs Green had got to safety, Mrs Green had sort refuge in the local Iceland store. Sensing Mrs Green’s trauma, Sarah called her and said she had finished work for the day and would go straight to where she was and take Mrs Green home, wrapped in a dry blanket.

Sarah would then liaise with the recovery team to give them the keys so the car could be recovered, her GTC could now be written off due to the extent of the water ingress .

Through Sarah’s actions after the end of her working day and using her own vehicle the customer was safely returned home and the recovery of her car was successfully completed. This action was appreciated so much by Mrs Green that when Sarah was at work the following day a large bouquet of flowers was delivered with a message thanking Sarah for her actions.

Well done Sarah!

A clear case of ‘Getting it Right’ and ‘Making it special’.