Driving off with the biggest prize

Watts Truck and Van are delighted to have been awarded the much coveted headline of ‘DAF UK Dealer of the Year’ after amassing the most points in DAF Trucks’ dealer target programme.

The road to get this accolade has not been an easy one. It required meticulous standards across the business and they faced incredibly stiff competition. Even though Watts Truck and Van are actually one of the smaller dealer groups in the UK DAF network, they still outperformed the other 34 dealerships who entered, some of whom were bigger groups and who had more resources and national accounts.

A 12 month analysis of performance was carried out across a range of parameters including Sales, Service and Parts and it goes to show that the investments that the company has made over the last year have clearly paid off.

The award itself was presented at the DAF Trucks International Conference in Malaga, Spain by Robin Easton, Managing Director of DAF Trucks and Simon Griffin accepted the award on behalf of Watts Truck and Van.

“This is such a great achievement for us and one that shows that the years of hard work, discipline and dedication of all of the team here at Watts have paid off.” said Simon Griffin, Principal Dealer. “It was an honour to collect the award on behalf of everyone that works here.”

As if all this wasn’t enough, every year for the past three years the 3 sites in Swansea, Newport and Cardiff have achieved category A status, which is the best there is, when competing against 140 other dealerships.

Outstanding performance throughout

So many parts of the business contributed to this achievement…

• Watts achieved market leadership of South Wales again with a share of 30% and 330 new orders in the year. When you realise that the annual total national sales are around 600 – 800 new trucks…that’s an impressive
• Under the exceptional leadership of Gareth Rees, the sales team achieved 230% of the annual target. Truck sales not only made a record-breaking contribution but was also the top performing DAF sales team in the UK.
  
• The team at Rogerstone Truck and Van Newport continues to impress looking after existing customers and attracting new business.
• Chris Roberts and his team at Watts Swansea Service have consistently achieved DAF Trucks category A status with high scores in several key areas, including MOT First Time Pass rate, DAFaid roadside assistance, DAFcheck workshop quality checks and apprentice development.
  
• Martin Heaven and the Swansea Parts Team had another outstanding year providing excellent customer service through telesales, van deliveries and key account management.
• A group whose contribution is often not praised enough is the Finance Department. Without their expertise and professionalism Watts Truck and Vans’ success would not have been possible.

Congratulations to everyone for their magnificent accomplishment. It goes to prove, if you have the right people, you can achieve great things.