Suzuki Helderberg takes the crown

• 21 Dealers make the Platinum Award list
• 6 Dealers receive the Elite Award
• IPOP Group the top-selling dealer group

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 59 seconds.

Suzuki Helderberg in Cape Town is the 2021 Suzuki Dealer of the Year.

The Helderberg team won the coveted award at an event in Durban, which followed the dealer conference and the launch of the much-anticipated new Suzuki Baleno to media, dealers and the public.

The Dealer of the Year Gala was hosted under the title of “Market of Excellence”. Using this theme, dealers and the team at Suzuki Auto South Africa discussed ways in which they could further improve on Suzuki’s high levels of customer service and sales support, which helped make it South Africa’s top-selling passenger vehicle brand in May this year.

“When we break an overall sales record or hit a big milestone like the one in May this year, people often look at the brand first. But in reality, these achievements are made up of thousands of individual interactions between a dealer, a salesperson, a service adviser and a customer.

“That is why we put so much effort into our Dealer of the Year Awards as it gives recognition to the daily hard work of our 81 dealers in South and Southern Africa,” says Brendon Carpenter, Brand Marketing Manager of Suzuki Auto South Africa.

Before announcing the top award, Suzuki Auto South Africa identified its best-performing dealers and the exceptional individuals who outperformed their peers, even at the high average standards set by all dealers.

Platinum and Elite Dealers

The first group of dealers to be singled out is Suzuki’s Platinum Award winners. These dealers have a high average score across all criteria, including customer service, parts support, new car sales support and a supportive finance and insurance team.

“This year, we have the longest ever list of Platinum Award winners. We applaud every dealer that has made the effort to set and maintain these high levels of support and customer service,” says Henno Havenga, Manager of Auto Dealer Sales at Suzuki Auto.

The following dealers are Platinum Award winners: Suzuki Alberton, Suzuki Bassonia, Suzuki Boksburg, Suzuki Centurion, Suzuki Constantiaberg. Suzuki Durban, Suzuki Durban South, Suzuki Hatfield, Suzuki Kenilworth, Suzuki Klerksdorp, Suzuki Mokopane, Suzuki Nelspruit, Suzuki Northcliff, Suzuki Pinetown, Suzuki Polokwane, Suzuki Port Elizabeth, Suzuki Queenstown, Suzuki Rustenburg, Suzuki Stellenbosch, Suzuki Tygervalley and Suzuki Vredenburg,

“It is worth noting that the dealers on this coveted list are spread across South Africa in large cities and smaller towns. This again proves that our high level of customer service isn’t just limited to a select few dealers or even to large cities,” says Havenga.

While the Platinum Dealers are a cut above the rest, there is a special group of dealers that have set an even higher standard. Called the “Green Berets” of the Suzuki network, these dealers are the Elite Award winners with the highest performance in all service and sales categories.

The list of Elite Dealers includes Suzuki Bramley, Suzuki Bryanston, Suzuki Cape Town, Suzuki Helderberg, Suzuki Kyalami and Suzuki West Rand.

Top performing individuals

Suzuki has a special group of awards for the individuals, who performed the best across the various service categories.

This year Arno Bester of Suzuki Queenstown was the Top Technician, Grant Saunders of Suzuki Cape Town was the Top Parts Manager, Wian Greyling of Suzuki Alberton took home the silverware as the Top Sales Manager and Odette Allers of Suzuki Queenstown won the award as the Service Manager of the Year.

Highest sales

Before announcing the Dealers of the Year, SASA identified the groups and individual dealers with the highest sales.

The top three dealers with the highest sales volume during this period were Suzuki Boksburg (3^rd), Suzuki Menlyn (2^nd) and Suzuki Bassonia (1^st), which also holds the record for the highest sales of any dealer in a single month.

Of the various dealer groups, the IPOP Group – which includes top performers such as Suzuki Bassonia and Suzuki West Rand – was the best-selling group.

Dealers of the Year

Moving to the overall awards, Suzuki Auto South Africa announced the top performing dealer in each category.

Suzuki Vredenburg on the West Coast of the Western Cape was the Rural Dealer of the Year.

Suzuki Cape Town was recognised as the Small Dealer of the Year.

Suzuki Helderberg was announced as the Medium category Dealer of the Year.

Suzuki Bramley took home the award as the Large Dealer of the Year.

And finally, after much apprehension, Suzuki Helderberg in Cape Town was called back to stage to take the top honours of the overall Suzuki 2021 Dealer of the Year.

“It is a great honour to be able to recognise so many dealers in our awards ceremony. We applaud their hard work and determination, especially after a year of many disruptions and uncertainty. We are proud of our dealer network and look forward to welcoming new groups and individual entrepreneurs to our network as we grow further,” says Havenga.