Toyota Motor Europe (TME) announced that Tony Burke Motors Galway is one of 45 winners of the 2014 ‘Ichiban’ European Customer Satisfaction Award during an event held in Madrid, Spain.

Customer First philosophy has always been a focus of Toyota and is part of the company’s DNA. With this principle in mind a total of 45 awards were presented to Dealers from 34 markets, in recognition of their exceptional performance in Customer Satisfaction both in Sales and After Sales areas.

Speaking to Autobiz about the award Tony Burke, Managing Director from Tony Burke Motors said: "We are delighted to have won such a prestigious International customer satisfaction award. Our customers are so important to us and all the team here at Tony Burke Motors work very hard to ensure they provide a very high level of customer service in everything they do. I would like to take this opportunity to thank our customers for their support and look forward to providing them with a continued top level of service in both our sales and aftersales"

‘Ichiban’ is the Japanese word borrowed from ‘Okyakusama Ichiban’ which means ‘Customer First’, with ‘Ichiban’ meaning ‘first’ or ‘number one’. Since the beginning of the TME’s annual Ichiban Awards in 2007, Customer Satisfaction performance of the Toyota retailers has improved by some 52.4% in Sales and 47.4% in After Sales, according to an internal Toyota customer satisfaction survey performed in Europe.

Approximately 2,300 European retailers were evaluated on their performance to create exceptional customer satisfaction.

Speaking at the awards ceremony, Dr. van Zyl, President and CEO of TME said: ‘We are in the people business.  We need to understand our customers, have the right systems and tools in place, but most importantly have the right mindset throughout the organization. Competitors can copy the product, they can copy processes but they cannot copy the Customer 1st mindset so easily.’

Steve Tormey, Chief Executive of Toyota Ireland added, "I wish to add my own congratulations to Tony Burke and all his employees on winning the Ichiban award. Tony Burke Motors is renowned for putting the customer at the heart of everything they do in both sales and aftersales and winning the Ichiban award is recognition of this”