During a time when the automotive world has been in turmoil, Heritage Toyota and White River Toyota have each earned a much-deserved Toyota President’s Award for 2008. The award process measures customer service index (CSI) scores for the parts, service and sales departments, as well as yearly sales growth in each department, and customer relations scores.The dealerships were among 22 stores of the Boston region’s 72 dealerships that achieved President’s Award status.

“We want to thank everyone for their efforts, as it’s not easy to attain an award like this,” says Dave Machavern, Heritage Automotive Group president. “We’re very proud of what we’ve accomplished and it couldn’t have been done without everyone’s participation.” Especially important to Dave are the dealerships’ high customer relations scores, which show that employees are taking good care of customers. He sees this as constructing a long-term foundation through attentive customer care, which is key to building stability and growth in the business. Company CFO David Bergeron echoes the importance of customer care, citing the customer-friendly processes developed during the Toyota Signature program as playing an important role in the dealerships developing a culture of customer care. “It’s been fun to see the changes that started with identifying Signature processes, implementing those processes and following procedures,” he adds. “I’m very proud of all the hard work and effort that employees have put into their jobs, and am thrilled to see that hard work paying off for them with this award.” Heritage Toyota just missed earning the President’s Award for 2007, so it was especially sweet to achieve the distinction for 2008, says Bruce Donnelly, Heritage Toyota general sales manager. “It’s quite an accomplishment and definitely a group effort. Our success this year was based on attitude, a desire to do the job and do it correctly, and additional effort by everybody involved.” He also claims that cooperation between the parts, service, BDC and sales departments has played a key role, noting that his team appreciates the support it gets both before and after a vehicle sale. It is this group effort on behalf of the entire company that has delivered success, he adds, demonstrated by people’s drive to meet and complete the award certification process ahead of time.

Each year, Toyota Motor Sales recognizes its stellar dealerships with the prestigious President's Award. It's a very high honor a dealership can receive from Toyota, and is only awarded to those dealerships who have demonstrated a commitment to maintaining Toyota's high standards for customer satisfaction. One of Toyota's primary goals is to emphasize the entire ownership experience. We want to help ensure that our customers are satisfied not only at the time of purchase, but as long as they own their vehicle. Offering top quality cars and trucks is, of course, the first step - but only the beginning.

Toyota dealerships strive to match the quality of our products with the finest service in the industry. In order to qualify as a President's Award winner, dealerships must excel in each of a series of categories, including Customer Sales Satisfaction and Customer Service Satisfaction. Dealerships which meet the requirements in all categories receive name badge recognition at all dealer events, national recognition in an Automotive News advertisement and, of course, the beautiful President's Award Tiffany crystal trophy. To be considered for the Board of Governors award, a dealership must be among the top 60 dealers in non-fleet vehicle sales volume and must have been in operation for more than a year.