Four UK winners at European Toyota awards

Four UK Toyota Centres were winners at the 2007 Toyota Ichiban European Customer Satisfaction Awards at a ceremony in Venice, Italy.

The winning centres were, Border Toyota of St Boswells, Minories Toyota from Wearside, and two Ron Brooks Toyota Centres from Ilkeston and Mansfield.

"Our goal is to achieve complete customer satisfaction with a number one ranking in every European market by 2010," said Andrea Formica, senior vice-president for sales, marketing and after sales, Toyota Motor Europe.

The centres were judged on the results of a complete customer satisfaction survey which Toyota introduced in 10 participating European countries* in 2006.

The UK centres performed strongly in key satisfaction drivers for both sales and after sales.

Customers were, for instance, highly satisfied with their welcome to the showroom, test drives, the purchasing process and the hand-over of the car. Regarding after sales, customers valued the handling of appointments, the accuracy and punctuality of service delivery as well as follow-up and customer care.

This is the first time Toyota has introduced Toyota Ichiban European Customer Satisfaction Award for centres.

Tadashi Arashima, president and CEO Toyota Motor Europe, and Thierry Dombreval, executive vice-president of Toyota Motor Europe, handed over the awards.

Ichiban is taken from the Toyota customer satisfaction slogan “Okyakusama Ichiban” which means ‘customer first’ in Japanese. Ichiban means ‘first’ or ‘number one’.

(*France , Germany , Spain , UK , Czech Republic , Estonia , Greece , Ireland , Slovakia , Ukraine)

Archie Maclean, centre principal at Border Toyota (holding award) receives his award from (left to right) Miguel Fonseca managing director of Toyota GB, Thierry Dombreval, executive vice-president Toyota Motor Europe and Tadashi Arashima, president and CEO Toyota Motor Europe.