Sydney City Toyota
CITY EXTRA
Fifth anniversary celebrates new era A message from John Roca, Dealer Principal Sydney City Toyota is five years young. That may come as a surprise to people who’ve been dealing with us for more than quarter of a century. But on March 27, 2015 SCT evolved from being a factory owned organisation to becoming a family business and I was privileged to become a partner/director and appointed as dealer principal. We’re now part of one of the most successful Toyota Dealer Groups in the country (based in NSW, QLD & WA) both in company fleet, and as important, in private transactions. In 2019 sales of motor vehicles across Australia stalled in line with economic uncertainty, down 7.8 percent, but new vehicle deliveries out of Sydney City Toyota increased and our relationship with our customers, who we call guests, strengthened. The experts cited a lot of reasons for the national slowing down - among them a tightening of lending rules (see our story in this issue) and a slowing of wages growth. But I run a hands-on business and see things a bit differently. Dealing with someone you can trust is a desire we all feel in our daily lives, and customer relations are thought by many to be at the heart of a strong business. I agree, but you can’t meet that desire unless you have a strong team of people delivering on the promise. So, at Sydney City Toyota we pay as much attention to employee satisfaction as we do to that of our guests. You don’t want to be met at the door by someone who is grumpy and whose body language tells you they don’t want to be there. We’ve set out to establish a culture of consistency and reliability. Minimising turnover and maximising commitment are the keys to keeping our team members, and their guests, satisfied.
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Sydney City Toyota can claim to be one of Australia’s oldest Toyota dealerships. It developed from York Toyota, formed in 1964 to distribute Toyota passenger cars in NSW. ‘Yorks’ became Sydney City Toyota shortly after the formation of Toyota Motor Corporation Australia in 1987. Sydney City Toyota has 260 individuals across its three sites at Waterloo, Glebe and Banksmeadow. Last year we delivered 3,650 new Toyotas and that made our business the third largest in Australia in volume and proudly the leader in retail, or private, sales. A lot of our success has occurred because we like to keep things simple and our customers and staff needs at the core of everything we do. Another main reason for our success is due to the fact that we embrace new technologies and ways of communicating with our guests, particularly on-line. Many people prefer to communicate with us digitally, and we’re happy to do that as long as we have the means of retaining a personal relationship. This year will be a telling one. The changeover cycle for privately owned Toyotas is around five years so guests who were with us at our inception should be looking to change their vehicles over once again. People ask me if I’ll do much differently in 2020 and I say, not much, but I’ll improve on what has been succesful. We’ve developed a really good play book, so now we’ve just got to play it better. John Roca DEALER PRINCIPAL