Automotive News Canada - November 2020 - 24

* N O V E M B E R 2 020

Special delivery
An Ontario dealer
had spare time on his
hands and hundreds
of spare pickups,
so he got involved
in a massive food drive

Paul Mugford, director of internet sales at Steele Hyundai, takes walkaround
videos highlighting new products and their features as well as the store's
health and safety protocols. P H O T O : S T E E L E H Y U N D A I

Dealers 'living in a
real-life twilight zone'
Almost overnight, staff
were delivering cars
and producing video
content for customers

feed off the excitement by everyone
involved. "

BE TRANSPARENT

Vehicle pickup and delivery services have become a
mainstay throughout COVID19, as has extensive use of
By STEPHANIE WALLCRAFT
AUTOMOTIVE NEWS CANADA
video technology to communicate remotely with current
or potential clients.
Nova Scotia's Steele Auto
THE NEED TO MAINTAIN
Group uses a lead- and cliphysical distancing during COVID-19
ent-tracking app that was
has led dealerships such as Porsche
developed in-house and
Prestige in Montreal to literally go
allows sales and service staff to comthat extra mile to serve customers.
municate with customers directly from
When the first round of shutdowns
their mobile phones. When a
began in Quebec, the dealership
potential client is interested in a
had an order on the books for a
vehicle, the salesperson records
2020 Porsche 911 Cabriolet, the
a walkaround video with their
third Porsche vehicle for a cusphone and sends it to the contomer who had been a client
tact instantly through the app.
since 2013. The car, which cost
A photo text messaging system
about $160,000 before taxes and
is also integrated for use by the
fees, was scheduled for delivery
group's service departments to
on April 30. However, financial
tell customers how work is prouncertainty and concerns about Moutran:
gressing and any issues that
Staff was
visiting the dealership in perespecially
arise, said Mike Currie, general
son led the customer to express
empathetic
manager of Steele Hyundai and
doubt about the purchase.
toward
Genesis in Halifax.
Porsche Prestige's Sales
" [This] adds to our mission
Manager Olivier Moutran chose customers
of offering a transparent expeto offer the customer the option during the
pandemic's
rience to both sales and serto back out of the sale entireharrowing
vice customers, " he said.
ly with no penalty and told
first few
Steele Hyundai also has a
him he could take all the time
weeks.
director of internet sales, Paul
he needed to make a decision.
PHOTO VIA
Mugford, responsible for creOnce the customer confirmed
OLIVIER
ating tutorial videos on dealerhe wanted to proceed, a memMOUTRAN
ship processes such as contactber of Moutran's team made the
less service drop-off, online shopping
340-kilometre round trip to Sherbrooke
and health and safety protocols, said
to deliver the car, assist with the regCurrie.
istration and plating process, and take
The videos are posted on social
his trade-in to the dealership.
media, including Facebook, YouTube,
" We were living in a real-life
and LinkedIn.
twilight zone at the end of April, "
Kot Auto Group, with eight dealerMoutran told Automotive News
ships in British Columbia, has impleCanada via email. " The empathy
mented a policy whereby customers
showed towards [the customer] was
with vehicles in for service must be
reflective of the way I would like
contacted at least once, using their
to be treated should the roles have
preferred time of day and method,
been reversed. Once [the customsuch as email or text messages. As
er] felt comfortable making the deciwell, updates must include photos,
sion to pick up the 911, it was easy to
said Jessica Vallee, director of internal operations.
The group has also added to its
websites walkaround videos of new
vehicles, showing how to use new features.
" Virtual window shopping is
becoming the way of consumers, "
Porsche Prestige in Montreal
said Vallee. " Each video is presented
delivered this 2020 Porsche 911 to a
by one of our sales staff, allowing the
customer in Sherbrooke, about 170
customer to get familiar with not only
kilometres away.
the vehicle but the team. " - ANC
PHOTO: PORSCHE PRESTIGE

By GLORIA GALLOWAY

AUTOMOTIVE NEWS CANADA

WHEN A FRIEND CALLED ADAM
Lally in the early days of the pandemic
to ask whether he wanted to be part of
a " miracle, " the southwestern Ontario
Lally's dealership showroom in
auto dealer assumed he would be asked
Tilbury, Ont., was so full of food,
to donate money.
there was barely room to walk.
But the friend wanted Lally's time
P H O T O : L A L LY A U T O G R O U P
and his trucks, both of which he had
asked to leave food on their front porch
plenty of during the government-manon May 16 for the volunteers to collect.
dated closures in the spring.
Over four hours, more than 300,000
The result was the collection of hunkilograms of food was donated.
dreds of thousands of kilograms of food
A dealership showroom in Tilbury,
to fill the shelves of local food banks,
Ont., which was the dropwhich were suddenly copoff point, was so full,
ing with a surge
there was no place to
in clients hard
walk. The event became
hit by the ecoknown as the " May 16th
nomic fallout of
miracle. "
COVID-19.
" We were blown
" It's one of
away, " Lally said. " It was
the most powkind of like everybody
erful things I've
was trying to figure out'
ever been a part
'OK, how can we help?' "
of, " said Lally,
The drive would have
general managbroken the Guinness
er of the Lally
world record of 559,558
Auto Group of eight dealpounds (254,345 kiloerships in Chatham-Kent
grams) of food collectand Essex County, east of
ed in North Carolina in
Windsor, Ont.
2011. To have made it
" The need was huge.
official, Guinness would
And we knew our comhave had to have been
munity, small-town rural
involved months earlier.
areas where everybody
And breaking the record
knows everybody, we
was never the motivaknew they'd come togethtion, Lally said.
er. "
When he and othLally was quick to
ers replicated the effort
point out that communiADAM LALLY
in nearby Windsor and
ty members, not the dealGeneral manager,
Essex County at the end
erships, sponsored the
Lally Auto Group
of June, about one milevents.
lion kilograms of food
But Lally and his staff,
were gathered in one day.
many of whom were left with time
" The food was coming in so fast,
on their hands during the shutdown,
there were trucks lined up in our parkplayed leadership roles and voluning lot, " Lally said. It took weeks for
teered in large numbers.
his staff to sort and box the donations
And when the food-drive organizers
after the event, which is now known as
said they needed 200 trucks?
the " June 27th miracle. "
" I said: 'Well, you know, I got more
" It was pretty cool especially
than that. And they are sitting there
because it was pretty tough times, "
not doing anything right now. So why
Lally said.
not?' "
" But it made it fun to come to work.
MULTIPLE 'MIRACLES'
We all kind of rallied around this
thing, and everyone was proud to be
Through social media and word-ofpart of it. " - ANC
mouth, people in Chatham-Kent were

We knew our
community, small-town
rural areas where
everybody knows
everybody, we knew
they'd come together.

Adam Lally had a couple of hundred trucks sitting on his dealerships' lots
during the government-mandated shutdowns, so he used them to help the
surrounding community collect hundreds of thousands of kilograms of food
and deliver it to food banks. P H O T O : L A L LY A U T O G R O U P

Automotive News Canada - November 2020

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