Canberra dealer wins Audi DOTY

AUDI Centre Canberra has taken top honours at the German luxury brand’s annual ‘Audi Mark of Excellence Awards’, winning the 2009 Metropolitan Dealer of the Year award after taking out the provincial section in 2007 and 2008.

Under the leadership of dealer principal Richard Rolfe, the Canberra dealership was designated as a fully-fledged metropolitan operation last year, and demonstrated that it was well up to the task of maintaining its strong retail performance.

It won from Audi Centre Sydney and, in third place, Audi Centre Doncaster.

The win for the Canberra dealership also followed an award it received in November last year in the Master Builders’ 2009 National Excellence in Building and Construction Awards.

It won the under $5 million category in the national commercial/industrial construction section for its Canberra Terminal, and to be eligible it had to first be named best commercial building in the ACT.

Audi Centre Townsville took at the Mark of Excellence Provincial DOTY award after opening a brand-new $2 million showroom in March 2009. It won from Audi Central Coast and Audi Alessi Albury.

Left: Audi’s Uwe Hagen (far right) and Andrew Doyle (far left) with Audi Centre Canberra’s Richard and Debbie Rolfe.

Speaking at a gala awards dinner earlier this month, Audi Australia’s new managing director Uwe Hagen said: “The annual Audi Mark of Excellence Awards are our way of recognising top performance within our network.

“Our dealerships are our front line to the customer, and therefore as a premium brand, it is essential that we are all striving to offer the best customer experience possible.

“The entire Audi network prides itself on its culture of high performance, and clearly our sales success in Australia supports this focus.”

Audi Australia general manager of sales Andrew Doyle said the awards were not focused on the highest-profile dealers or the retail outlet with the highest sales.

“They are designed to recognise and reward the dealership that performs the best in relation to targets across the board in the areas of sales, aftersales, customer satisfaction and, as Audi continues to grow in Australia, dealership facilities are also a focus as they need to reflect excellence within the industry,” he said.