Six outstanding graduates celebrate achieving industry excellence

EMaC, the UK’s leading provider of Service Plan and consumer retention schemes to the automotive industry, has celebrated the outstanding graduates from its inaugural EMaC Aftersales Academy. The 6 winners include employees from Listers Group, RRG Group, Snows Motor Group and TrustFord.

The EMaC Aftersales Academy was launched earlier this year to support dealers in equipping their teams with the right tools and knowledge to drive and build on consumer retention for the ongoing success of the business.

Recognising the excellence of attendees of the free training programme, EMaC managing director John O’Donnell and Learning and Development Manager, Emma Sidley-Wiltshaw presented the winners with their awards at the Veuve Clicquot Champagne Bar at The Cube, Birmingham.

Each winner excelled in their completion of the EMaC Aftersales Academy course, which included on-site workshops and webinars, incentives and hosted events. The Overall Outstanding Contribution Award went to Richard Thomson of Listers Group with the Rising Star Award going to Garry Weddell of Trustford, celebrating all levels of industry professionals.

“I’m absolutely blown away by how well the Academy has been received and it was great to recognise the achievements of the winners at the Awards ceremony as well as all of our 2019 graduates,” said John O’Donnell. “We always aim to be a valued partner for our dealer community – opposed to being a supplier – and the launch of the Academy was a demonstration of our commitment to taking that to a new level.  The feedback and the testimonials received following the first intake of participants suggests that we’ve done a great job of achieving that.”

Emma Sidley-Wiltshaw adds, “Congratulations to all of our graduates. After the successful launch of the Academy and our first awards ceremony, I am already looking forward to getting started with the next intake of candidates in January 2020. For me, the feedback we’ve had has proved that there is a considerable demand for this kind of training from retail groups and it’s been a pleasure to help deliver that.

“There was a real desire to inject some of the soft-touch communication techniques that are applied in the car sales side into aftersales and I think we’ve done that to the benefit of all of those involved.”

The full list of winners:

Rising Star Award – Garry Weddell, Trustford

Above & Beyond Award – Sammy Innes, RRG Group

Aftersales Customer Excellence Award – Fiona Cutler, Listers Group

Big Impact Award – Lee Lomax, RRG Group

Training Excellence Award – Stephen Bates, TrustFord

Overall Outstanding Contribution Award – Richard Thomson, Listers Group