We are pleased to announce that we recently won two awards at the British Independent Garage of The Year Awards. The first award we won was for Training & Development and the second award was for Consumer Choice. We also managed to achieve highly commended in the Business Improvement category. As a result of these achievements, we are so proud and it just goes to prove that hard work pays off. This is considering the fact that we won the Consumer Choice award based on customers voting for us.
The Process
The awards all started with the initial appliacation process. Once we had applied to enter the awards, we had Dave Garrett, an auditor from the Independent Garage Association come along for a visit in order to submit evidence to the judges. Our Marketing Manager Dani took Dave for a guided tour of both our Tarring Road branch and our German Car Specialists site. During this guided tour, we explained everything from how we achieve maxiumum efficiency through our online booking and management software, to the plans for the future of Cedar Garage.
Once we had completed the tour, Dave submitted all of our achievements and information. A short while after, we received the good news that we had been shortlisted for five categories. These were:
- Consumer Choice
- Customer Service
- Communication
- Business Improvement
- Training & Development
The British Independent Garage of The Year Awards Ceremony
12 of our team members, including our Directors Matt and Kev, attended the awards ceremony at the Farnborough International Centre. This was a wonderful evening with a delicious 3-course meal, alongside special guest Hugh Dennis.
To summarise these achievements, our Director Kev, made the following statement:
“It’s great to be recognised for all the hard work that the team put in so we can constantly improve. As a business we always strive to have the capabilities that allow us to undertake all types of repairs on customers’ vehicles. Even when the manufacturers look to simply replace components, we will try and repair the component as it is more beneficial for the customer. Presumably, this is one of the reasons why we won the Consumer Choice award. Sometimes thinking sightly differently is all it takes. The team we have are fantastic and they enjoy learning as much as we all enjoy solving our customers’ problems.“
