As GoAuto reported in February, just four dealerships from the Japanese brand’s 107-strong Australian retail network received a Dealer Excellence Award this year for their performance in 2015 – Prestige Honda in Perth (WA), Southside Honda in Woolloongabba (Qld), Northway Honda in Bundoora (Vic) and New World Honda in Narre Warren (Vic).

The awards ceremony was attended by Honda Australia’s senior management team including managing director and CEO Noriyuki Takakura, directors Sherif Ziada and Stephen Collins, company secretary and general manager of business services Carolyn McMahon and general manager of dealer business Robert Thorp.

Accepting the awards were New World Honda’s John Spizzirri, Northway Honda’s Jon Booth, Prestige Honda’s Sean Allen and Southside Honda’s Marco Kim.

Mr Thorp highlighted the fact that New World Honda has reached the ‘Excellence’ mark five times, that Southside and Prestige Honda have collected three each, while Northway Honda has now received the award twice.

“Northway Honda is this year’s number-one-ranking dealership and has also displayed an outstanding sales increase of 42 per cent over 2014,” he said.

Mr Thorp described New World Honda’s fifth award as “a truly outstanding achievement” and said Southside Honda, which has been with the brand since 1981, was “continually dedicated to its surrounding community and building strong, lasting relationships with its customers”.

Acknowledging the performance of Prestige Honda, Mr Thorp said: “As a partner of ours for the past 18 years, Prestige Honda’s dedication to hard work and a true passion for customer service has certainly achieved outstanding results.

“This year marks third time that Prestige Honda has been recognised as a Honda Dealer Excellence Award winner. It received a number-one ranking for parts and service.”

The Dealer Excellence program replaced the previous state-based DOTY awards in 2010 and recognises only those dealerships who meet the qualifying criteria – covering areas such as sales, service, parts and customer satisfaction – and which finished in the top five of their respect group (one of four, based on sales targets).

This has been a bone of contention for some dealerships, such as Larke Hoskins Honda in Sydney, which has missed out on a gong despite being the brand’s top-selling dealer nationwide in recent years.

In response, Mr Collins told GoAuto earlier this year that the Dealer Excellence program was designed to recognise “outstanding performance across all areas of a dealer’s business” – not sales alone.

“Sales volume is one measurement but others include customer satisfaction and aftersales performance,” he said.

By Terry Martin

Honda’s best: Award winners (from left) John Spizzirri (New World Honda), Jon Booth (Northway Honda), Sean Allen (Prestige Honda) and Marco Kim (Southside Honda), with Honda Australia general manager of dealer business Robert Thorp.