Bury St Edmunds Volkswagen Van Centre celebrates hat-trick of awards

The Volkswagen Van Centre in Bury St Edmunds has set a new mark for consistency by achieving a record third consecutive win in the Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles Awards.

The team, based in Northern Way, Bury, has picked up the manufacturer’s aftersales award for the second quarter of 2017, repeating its wins during the first quarter of this year and the final quarter of 2016.

The centre’s success has been overseen by head of business David Nichols and aftersales manager Gerald Payne.

Mr Nichols said: “We are absolutely thrilled to collect a third aftersales award and become the most consistent aftersales team in the awards’ history.

“Gerald is a huge believer in service core process – if you follow this, you get the results. However, you’ve got to do it without it being robotic. You’ve got to have fun and set it out as the culture of the business. All new staff learn it from day one, and that knowledge is cascaded.”

Mr Payne added: “It’s not just a tick-box exercise; the team have got to know why the process is important. It is now engrained in our work ethic and as people can see from our success it is bringing results.”

The van centre has also received high praise from customers, averaging a score of 11 out of 12 for its service.

“Achieving a higher service customer satisfaction score is more challenging in service than sales because a service visit is like visiting the dentist,” added Mr Nichols. “You’re not collecting a shiny new vehicle which you’re going to be excited about; it’s a distress purchase, so you have got to do a great job to leave your customers happy.”