The Service Dealer Conference took place at a packed Oxford Belfry Hotel yesterday, with dealers representing businesses large and small from across the country coming together to share ideas on customer satisfaction. 


The Question Time panel - see the foot of this article for a selection of quick snaps from the event, with the official pictures appearing in the next edition of Service Dealer magazine.

The day kicked off with a superb Keynote from maverick retailer John Timpson, chairman of Timpsons, the family owned, fiercely independent high street retailer. John talked with great insight and humour about leadership, achieving and sustaining service excellence and how to create a level of employee engagement which has made Timpsons officially one of the best companies to work for again and again. His talk set the tone for the day and had the conference buzzing.

He said a key element to Timpson's success was employing the right people and then giving them the authority to do the job the way they felt it should be done. He said, "We only recruit people with personality. The right people can be taught the skills. A grumpy skilled specialist who applies for a job, is still going to be grumpy."

There then followed a panel debate, moderated by Service Dealer founder & consultant editor, Chris Biddle, which tackled the main theme of the day - that of 'The Customer is King - And Always Will Be'.  Lending their expertise and experience to the panel were David Ayres (Arun Mowers), Tim Lane (T H White Group), Ian Nutt (Lister Wilder), Ben Turner (Ben Burgess Ltd) and Simon Batty (Maple Associates).

Each panel member gave an overview of how the concept of customer service applied to their own business, which was followed up by questions from Chris Biddle and the floor. Ian Nutt described business a 'journey'. He said, "Sometimes we need to pull into a lay-by and have a think about how we are running our businesses. We need to make sure we are understanding our customers' business to fully satisfy their needs."

Following a networking lunch, an innovation for this year was three Breakout Sessions which gave delegates the opportunity to choose to attend which ever subject they felt they would gain the most benefit from. The three sessions were all concerned with methods of communicating with customers. The first dealt with in-store merchandising and P.O.S, the second with Websites and Digital Marketing and the third with the increasingly important subject of the use of Social Media.

The dealer panellists who contributed across these sessions were Lewis Anderson of Rochfords Garden Machinery; James Hayes of Hayes Garden Machinery; Tim Lane of T H WHITE; Bryan Hynds of Bryan Hynds Garden Machinery; David Ayres of Arun Mowers; Joanne Balmer-Smith of Balmers GM Ltd; Robert Gusthart of Gustharts; Emyr Jenkins of Jenkins Garden Machinery; and Ben Turner of Ben Burgess & Co.

In order so the whole conference got a sense of what each Breakout Session covered, once the conference reconvened in the main hall the leader of each group summarised the main points which had been raised.

Consultant David Ashcroft said that the merchandising panel were keen to stress that dealerships should be steadfast in their independence - not to let the franchises held take precedence over a dealer's own brand. Libby Langley who led the Digital Marketing session stressed that before a dealer sets up a website they need to fully aware of what their objectives and what their potential audience is wanting to hear. Finally Julio Romo, the social media expert, pointed that that despite the new methods of reaching customers available currently, it should not be forgotten that is still just people who are receiving these messages.

There then followed an interactive Plenary session, led by dealer development expert Simon Batty, on Sales, Aftersales and Dealership Performance. This fast-moving session included 30 minutes of introduction and case studies from Simon followed by 20 minutes of round-table participation amongst the delegates. The tables were tasked with coming up with examples of how their dealerships had grown sales in a competitive market, how they'd improved aftersales profitability and cash flow and how they'd could become a stronger competitor in their marketplace.

Some great ideas were raised from the floor including how dealerships had found advantage in improving their group buying, how the sending of service reminders to customers prompts workshop bookings, improving cashflow through everyday invoicing, and the resisting of discounting pressures.

Finally, the day concluded with a Question Time style Q&A session, chaired by Chris Biddle. The panel consisted of panellists and speakers who'd contributed during the day including Lewis Anderson, David Ashcroft, Julio Romo, James Hayes and Simon Batty,

Subjects tackled included what maufacturers could do to further help dealers, how to deal with online criticism and what the panel felt they had learnt from the day's sessions.

The day concluded with Service Dealer owner Duncan Murray-Clarke saying, "Today is an important industry event just for dealers. We hope everyone can leave here with some valuable insights and some practical advice to take back to your work places."

Service Dealer thanks all the sponsors of this year's Conference: