Haynes, Maidstone

Haynes origins can be traced back to 1790 and they have over 100 years with Ford as Kent’s 1st distributor and 12th in the country. This a family run business that is guided by a Managing Director who is the sixth generation of the Haynes family and they have a fantastic culture with a desire to deliver an excellent customer experience and still generates a turnover in excess of £72 million.

Haynes Ford was our first regular client originally agreeing to a monthly support package for the New Car Sales Department, this has since expanded into other areas of the business since the appointment of the new Operations Director.

Whilst it was very clear that Haynes were performing at a successful level they felt it was important for them to evolve and continue to develop the customer experience. They wanted to maximise their sales opportunities without compromising the customer service levels that many of their customers have enjoyed for so long.

The support has progressed over the years with Haynes and we now support the Commercial, Truck, Accounts, Administration and Agricultural teams in all aspects of the Haynes business.

We developed two half day workshops that we ran monthly for the New Car Sales Department covering sales process, communication and enquiry management. These workshops would cover all aspects of the role and in particular the techniques for improving add on products and service plans. We spent a great deal of time looking at changes in terminology and how to strengthen the customer relationship through effective qualification and building rapport.

The continuation of the support has led to monthly coaching sessions for Assistant Managers, one to one mentoring with Accounts and Administration staff, Coaching for Service Advisors in LCV and Car as well as the ongoing sales support.

“We identified a possible weakness in some of the mandatory Ford sales training courses and felt the need to employ an outside real world trainer to supplement our training. It was clear that this was the right move from onset, our trainees have welcomed the move, with increased confidence they are developing far quicker, even some of our experienced salespeople have learnt new skills which has increased their knowledge and our sales. To build on this we have now employed Spartan to coach the rest of our customer facing staff from all areas of the company, early feedback has been very positive both from customers and staff. Haynes will continue to work with Spartan to improve customer handling standards which will enable us to exceed customer expectations”
- Neil Treserden – New Car Sales Manager

The support for Haynes has been increased following a request to extend this to both Used and Commercial Sales Departments and an additional day has been booked each month to help develop the culture in the remaining departments and bring people together.