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If you listen to the doom merchants, you’d think that no-one’s buying cars and the dealers are sat around twiddling their thumbs watching the tumbleweed roll by. John Boyce of Bassetts Honda in Bridgend claims it’s quite the opposite.
HONDA HAPPINESS
How is business?
Actually quite good. Yes, the sales enquiries have dropped off slightly but the ones we’re getting are of better quality. Previously, we would have people pop in and look around with no real intention to buy. We are now finding that the people coming in are generally serious buyers looking to either trade up or buy a new Honda, so, in a way, it is a positive change.
Also, the service side of the business is brisk - we have a very loyal customer base. Honda owners tend to look after their vehicles, supported by the Honda Happiness fixed price servicing programme, ensuring that the cars are regularly serviced which helps to maintain their high resale value.
How about used car sales?
Extremely well. In fact, February 2009 was the best month we have had for used car sales over the past seven years. We are selling cars quite far afield too. We’ve had buyers from London and the South-East in recently as well as the Midlands and the North of England. We’re certainly not twiddling our thumbs and here’s an example of how bouyant things are: recently we had a lovely, one owner, low mileage Jazz for sale. We had three interested parties on the car, the first two potential buyers went away to think about it with the third offering us the full asking price immediately he saw the car. The two other parties came back the following day and were very disappointed to have missed the opportunity to buy the car. We are now trying to supply them both with a comparable Jazz.
What’s selling well at the moment?
It’s steady across the whole range but Civics are still very popular and the Jazz is a great all rounder making it a good buy.
Any exciting developments?
The new Insight is causing a real stir at the moment. Honda’s goal with the Insight is to offer an affordable, practical hybrid that everyone can drive. They’ve kept the price of the base model as low as possible to ensure customers have affordable access to hybrid technology. We do offer different trim levels, though, so that you can choose what’s most important to you. It’s packed full of interesting features. For example, there’s a Guidance function that provides real time, fuel efficient driving. Brake or accelerate aggressively and the speedometer display will change colour from green to blue to let you know how fuel efficient your driving is.
The Scoring function provides feedback on how you’re driving. At the end of each journey you are given an ECO score which is then added to your lifetime score. The better your score, the more money you’ve saved on fuel and the less harmful you’ve been to the environment.
There’s even an Econ Mode Button which adjusts the car to make the most of every last drop of fuel, by controlling the air conditioning unit, extending the idle stop time and increasing regenerative recharging when you brake – it’s all very exciting.
The development team at Honda have considered everything on the Insight, right through to the transmission. For example, the Insight comes with continuously variable transmission (CVT). Unlike a traditional transmission, the Insight’s CVT flows seamlessly between an infinite number of effective gear ratios. This means that the driver can take advantage of a highly responsive acceleration and deceleration in seamless, step-less increments. It’s technological advances like this that put Honda right at the cutting edge of vehicle development.
Not only does this reduce noise and jerkiness, but it also helps reduce fuel consumption and emissions. Basically, this means Honda can offer an efficient transmission with the fun-to-drive quality that customers have come to expect. The Insight really is a fun car, bristling with features and its striking styling is already causing quite a stir. Green is good. In fact, with Insight, I’d say green is great!
So, is green motoring a priority for Honda?
Absolutely, part of the reason Honda has been so successful is it listens to customers – it gives them the kind of vehicles they want to drive. It’s the same philosophy here at Bassetts. We talk to customers, listen to them, invest in them – many have become good friends – what they think matters. We’re always looking for feedback.
Are your customers mostly local?
The vast majority, yes. Although, as I mentioned earlier, we do get enquiries from around the UK.
We’re a local business. Our customers are locals. Supporting local business is something I’m very passionate about. If we all spent our hard earned money locally and supported the good businesses, it would greatly help the local economy - it’s that simple, but then, like the Insight, the best ideas often are.
What are you doing that’s different?
Well, we are investing more in training to ensure that we are focused on our customers’ needs. In many ways the so-called credit crunch has given us a fresh look at the business and encouraged us to pull together as a team within the Company.
We have great people here and they all understand how important they are to the success of this family owned business. They are all rising to the challenges - I’m very proud of them and the service that we provide to the local community.
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