Lexus Insight Edition 9

INSIGHT

CONFIDENCE AND COMMITMENT DRIVE MASSIVE IMPROVEMENTS

From John Roca, Dealer Principal

At Sydney City Lexus, we’re acting with confidence and commitment to make ourselves more accessible to our guests and to make their unique experience with us even more enjoyable and rewarding.

In the last six months we’ve invested several millions of dollars to reimagine our luxury sales and service facilities at Waterloo and Glebe to make them even more guest centric.

to adopting the Japanese technique of progressively revealing the vehicles for consideration, make for a unique experience.

Its far more than simply buying a car. It’s an encounter not to be missed.

It’s a big commitment on our part. We’ve made the conscious decision to defy a trend which we think is not in the best interests of our luxury customers or for that matter society in general.

Although we use apps and online communication to make interaction easier, we still believe that our guests deserve a more exclusive, personal experience.

Lexus is a luxury lifestyle investment which should at all times provide a superb and exhilarating experience. Buying a Lexus - even considering one - should be an experience you look forward to and which you totally enjoy.

Our next generation Waterloo flagship has just been completed, joining our recently opened Glebe showroom and its leading performance service division.

In many ways they replicate the superb Lexus Intersect showrooms in Tokyo, Dubai and until recently New York which revolutionised the person-to-person contact between an exclusive world brand and its customers.

The choice of materials, from floor tiles to wall cladding, the constantly changing displays, through

The same applies to service. While many of our guests avail themselves of our collection service, there’s a lot to be said for enjoyment of dropping off at our new service lounges.

I invite and encourage you to visit us and enjoy the superb, unique Sydney City Lexus experience.

John Roca, Dealer Principal

EV IS COMING –CAUTIOUSLY

Demand for Lexus’ new range of ground-breaking vehicles has been simply electrifying. We’ve now confirmed the arrival in our showrooms next year of the all-new RZ450e SUV - our first EV built from a completely clean sheet design. It will join the upgraded UX300e which has been in high demand and will be even more so with its new features.

We’d all better get used to the new way of talking about fuel economy. Instead of litres/100kms its now kWh or kilowatt-hours.

The UX 300e’s newly designed battery increases capacity from 54.4kWh to 72.8kWh and that means a 40 percent increase in driving range.

The RZ450e defines a new way of presenting electrification with a purpose-built body that puts its lithium-ion batteries low to the ground for optimal weight distribution.

But think about this - electric vehicles are near to silent, but they still pick up road noise.

By putting the batteries between the ground and the occupants, they act as a sound barrier. Clever.

Back in 2006 Lexus was the first to imagine an electrified luxury SUV when we launched the pioneering RX400h. We’ve been very deliberate about development since then.

Every step we’ve taken has been an evolution of the Lexus Driving Signature of intuitive, smooth, and faithful driving performance. Our technology is being developed alongside public infrastructure to ensure that our guests are advantaged by such a sweeping change in the way we drive our vehicles. The evolution should be seamless.

OUR ESMOND CREATES NEW STANDARDS

Sydney City Lexus is extremely delighted to acknowledge the groundbreaking achievement of our second-year apprentice technician, Esmond Li.

Esmond represented the entire Eastern Region of the Lexus and Toyota franchise in the National Skill Contest held at the new Toyota Motor Corporation Centre of Excellence at Altona, Melbourne.

Esmond created two firsts - it was the first time the 38-year-old national contest had been opened to Lexus, and the first time it had embraced apprentices. Esmond won the right to compete in a close fought competition across all Eastern Region franchises.

Then he shaped up against young talent from four other regions and while he didn’t win outright, he was commended by all - including our Sydney City Lexus General Manager service, Con Hatzivasiliou who accompanied him.

“It was a huge competition,” Con said. “He’ll be back next year with the experience of competition behind him.”

The National Skills contest is regarded as one of the motor industry’s most important demonstrations of technical competence.

“It helps us attract the very best talent to work at Sydney City Lexus,” Con said.

MEANINGFUL AWARDS IMPROVE OUR SERVICE

Understanding our guests needs is the most important part of our service to our network of owners - and that commitment extends well beyond our maintenance department.

We’re proud to have been associated with a research program undertaken by Lexus Australia in conjunction with Intelligent Transport Systems Australia to make our driving environment safer.

The program has just won the prestigious Asia-Pacific Industry Hall of Fame Award at the ITS World Congress in Los Angeles.

Two specially equipped Lexus RX450h hybrid SUVs were used to refine a system in which vehicles communicate with each other as well as roadside infrastructure.

The system is an advanced early warning system for road hazards, able to be transmitted between vehicles to help prevent collisions.

As well as potentially reducing accidents, the system also helps ease congestion and reduce fuel consumption and emissions.

Con Hatzivasiliou, General Manager Service, says the work that’s being done in research programs points directly to functions which soon will be standard fitment in our vehicles.

“Lexus has been at the leading edge of development of intuitive safety and convenience devices which are already fitted to our current range,” Con said.

“Lexus’ long-term goal is to achieve a driving environment with zero fatalities and injuries from traffic accidents.”

J-MAC’S MOST IMPORTANT ENGAGEMENT

When you’re a champion jockey, timing is everything. And when you’re J-Mac, James McDonald, acclaimed as being one of our best jockeys ever, timing is impeccable.

James, 30, ended this year’s Spring Carnival on a Saturday. He rode one of the world’s greatest sprinters Nature Strip to a close finish in the Darley Champions Sprint at Flemington. Then he caught a plane back to Sydney.

On Sunday he and partner Kate Mallyon’s first child, Evie Belle, was born. Talk about a close finish.

We had the actual Melbourne Cup at Sydney City Lexus, Glebe, only weeks before.

At that function, James, one of our ambassadors, and Kate were tight-lipped about what would happen if little Evie arrived during the Spring Carnival. It was a question neither wanted to address. As it turned out Evie Belle gave her dad room to ride eight GP1 winners, including the mighty four- year- old stallion Anamoe, in the Cox Plate. And then she obliged by arriving before he jetted out to riding commitments in Hong Kong. Perfect. Our congratulations to all three. And we’ve packaged up a baby onesie for Evie Belle. Her first colors.

Watch our Melbourne Cup Tour video here

NO LIMIT FOR ROSE BROTHERS

George Rose is one of those people who is simply inspirational to meet.

A proud Gamilaraay man from the Western Plains of NSW, he’s merged a career as an elite athlete with that of a business professional and as a guide and mentor to young people.

Sports fans remember George for his 151 first grade Rugby League starts with four teams. Fewer know him as a leading light of First Nation mentoring programs helping young people with the basics of schooling and providing them with greater access to future opportunities.

“It’s not something we say much about,” George says. “We do it for the outcomes, not the publicity.”

‘We’ is George and his brothers Matthew and Trent who together run a company called No Limits which in a few short years has become the country’s most successful professional boxing promoter.

In January they’ll take youngster Tim Tszyu to his first world championship bout.

“It’ll be hard to fight back the tears when that happens,” he says; not something you expect to hear from a 188cm, 136kg first grade prop who built his reputation on toughness and resilience.

We first met George and his family three years ago via friends who suggested we might find common ground.

George and Matthew both now drive Lexus IS300s, and George’s wife Chloe has an RX450.

“In our business we value honesty and visibilitywe deliver on what we say we’ll do,” George says. “That’s what I found at Sydney City Lexus. “You go in and they’ll always offer you a coffee and have a yarn and they’ll always ask about our family. “That’s what we do in our business too - we run it on family values.”

George doesn’t deny the risks of hard contact sports like boxing and Rugby League, and his company works hard to mitigate them by imposing rigid safety procedures.

But he’s also realistic: “People like watching gladiatorial contests. I’m a physical person and I’ve played contact sport all my life. I’m capable of handling ‘interactions’.”

The most important of which right now is finishing his master’s degree in commerce.

“No Limits has no limits,” George says and it’s important to him that he has the tertiary qualifications to guide it to its next phase.

“We’ve done well in creating a path for some of Australia’s most talented young athletes,” he says. “The next step is to take them to the world.”

TIM’S TERRIFIC JOURNEY

Tim Chen, our new Lexus Sales Manager at our Glebe branch, has such infectious enthusiasm that he just carries people along in his path.

Tim had been Sales Manager, and before that a salesperson, at Sydney City Toyota Glebe.

When he accepted his new challenge to join Lexus, he let everyone of the guests in his contact book know.

Now he’s converting many of them to Lexus, and they - Tim and his guests - are loving every minute of the new journey.

Tim loves journeys.

This year he’s taken his wife Michelle and daughters Cara, 9, and Elaine, 4, on two of them - to the far reaches of Australia.

“First, we crossed the Simpson Desert,” he says as if it was nothing more than a drive to the shops.

“And two months later we went to the tip of Cape York.”

He’s honestly a bit affronted when colleagues point out the enormity of the task and the inherent dangers.

“We hired a satellite phone, let people know where we were going and didn’t get too close to the crocs,” he grins.

Both journeys were the fulfillment of a long-held dream. He arrived in Australia from Shanghai to study computer science when he was 18 and soon took off on a 45 day round Australia adventure with Michelle, driving a rusty old station wagon all the way to Darwin via the Red Centre.

“We couldn’t go too far off road in that old car, so this time we wanted to do it right and to show the girls,” he said.

Tim took a course with a 4x4 Club and recommends to all his 4x4 guests that they do the same before venturing too far off the bitumen.

“I can’t wait to do it again in a Lexus LX,” he said.

“The whole Lexus brand is next level.”

EMPATHY IS THE KEY TO SUCCESS

Selling a quality Lexus new or pre-owned vehicle to one of our guests has never been about salesmanship.

The most successful salespeople act in the best interests of both parties - the service provider and the guest.

That’s always been our philosophy and it’s why we’ve been so successful in maintaining relationships with our guests well beyond their first contact with us.

Customer retention is an often-used phrase, but to

mean anything it must work in favour of both parties.

Our Dealer Principal, John Roca has recently been recognised by one of Australia’s most appreciated business mentors Mark Bouris. has recently been recognised by one of Australia’s most appreciated business mentors Mark Bouris. In fact, Mark has a blog named, The Mentor, and he features only those people who’ve advanced the cause of customer relationships on it.

He quizzed John hard on the concept of ‘empathy’. Have a listen.