It’s always a pleasing day when we can reveal the dealers who are in the running for a Dealer of the Year award.

It’s my privilege to be part of the panel who have the task of considering all the nominated dealerships and as such I am privy to all the customer comments which have been pouring in, praising independent dealers up and down the UK.

And to be fair, ‘pouring’ doesn’t do justice to the sheer scale of comments we have received this year. Deluge is probably better – although what’s bigger than a deluge? Because that wouldn’t be out of place either. It was genuinely quite amazing.

Which must go to show that companies out there are doing something right. Something which is resonating with customers.

So without further ado, we are very pleased today to be able to announce those dealers who are nominated across our core categories of Garden, Professional Turfcare, Farm Machinery, Forestry Equipment, and ATV/Quad.

The team here at Service Dealer would like to offer hearty congratulations and best of luck to the all the nominated dealers who are listed below, purely alphabetically, across all categories -

ARK ATV
Arwel's Agri Services Ltd
Buxtons Limited
Celtic Mowers
Chelford Farm Supplies
Cutting Edge Machinery Ltd
DA Forgie
Double A Trading Company Ltd
F R Jones & Son Ltd
F.G Adamson & Son
Farols
Forest & Arb
Garlick Garden Machinery
Gayways Ltd
Gibson Garden Machinery
Hayes Machinery
Hughie Willett Machinery Ltd
Invicta Groundcare Equipment LTD
Laird Grass Machinery Ltd
Lister Wilder Ltd
Martin Pears Engineering
MKM Agriculture Ltd
Phoenix Hire & Sales
Radmore & Tucker Ltd
Ravenhill
RES Tractors
Revill Mowers
Ripon Farm Services
Robson and Cowan
Sharrocks Ltd
Skyland Equipment
Tallis Amos Group
Turney Groundforce
Winchester Garden Machinery Ltd

The Service Dealer Conference & Awards takes place on Thursday November 21st at the DoubleTree by Hilton Oxford Belfry. It’s there following the daytime Conference with its theme of Turning A Profit, that the Dealer Of The Year Awards will be handed out during the evening ceremony.

Following the same successful format as last year, the nominations for the dealerships in the running for an award, have come from both suppliers putting their most valued dealers forward, as well as dealers entering their own businesses.

The assessment process has principally been achieved via feedback from the most important people to a dealer's business - their customers. As previously stated, this year the response from customers has been incredible. And not just in terms of the numbers received, but far more importantly, in the consistently high level of praise which these messages convey.

Going by what we’ve been told by the people who buy your goods and services, expert customer service is in no way going out of fashion in this industry! It’s being appreciated, it’s being noticed and hopefully the word is being spread locally.

This incredible feedback is all taken into very serious consideration by the judging panel, who will also take on board comments from manufacturers and suppliers. Any other awards which may have been bestowed on the dealers during this past year are also thrown into the mix.

Interacting with customers in the online space is also massively important of course, so great care is taken to give due consideration to websites and social media profiles. Customer testimonials acquired from other sources such as Google Reviews, Trustpilot and Yelp, as well as those included on dealers’ own sites, are also all involved in the judging process.

The nominated dealers listed above will be whittled down to a shortlist of three or four finalists per-category with the winner being announced 'Oscars-style' on the evening of the Awards ceremony on November 21st. One of the category winners will also be crowned Overall Dealer Of The Year.

Being announced on the night also, will be awards for individual dealership team members - The Star of the Dealership and The Apprentice of the Year. Service Dealer will also be presenting an Outstanding Contribution Award.

I have to say, it’s all very exciting and extremely heartening to see just what level of esteem dealers around the country are held in by their own customers. I’m sure sometimes it’s very easy to lose sight of this and forget how what you do day-in, day-out, goes down with people entering your place of business.

I can assure you, from what I’ve been reading, your work ethic means an awful lot to your customers.