BALLARAT Renault in regional Victoria has upstaged its metropolitan retail counterparts by winning the French brand’s 2016 Dealer Brilliance Award.

A previous winner of the best provincial dealer award in both 2014 and 2015, Ballarat Renault was judged best-performing retailer across the entire national network last year, currently standing at 52 outlets.

This is the first time a regional dealership has won Renault Australia’s top retail award.

The 2015 winner, Essendon Renault, and runner-up Brighton Renault, both based in suburban Melbourne, finished second and third respectively this time around.

In accepting the award from Renault Australia managing director Justin Hocevar, Ballarat Renault dealer principal Carl Morandi described the achievement as “an incredible, but humbling surprise” and paid tribute to partners Ric and Emma De Ruiter and the entire team at the dealership.

“It is a team award, recognising the effort we put in to our processes and our customer service. We are a customer-focus driven business and the word-of-mouth and repeat business we get supports this,” he said.

The Ballarat dealership was also named 2016 Approved Used Vehicle Dealer of the Year for the third year in a row, while the 2016 Provincial DOTY award went to Shepparton Renault in Victoria (accepted by Aaron Brain).

Among other awards presented at a gala event this week, Cricks Highway Renault south of Brisbane (accepted by Lars Harbo) and John Davis Renault in Orange, New South Wales (accepted by Ben Davis), were named joint recipients of the 2016 Managing Director’s Award, while Essendon Renault dealer principal Don Calvert collected the 2016 Commercial DOTY award and the dealership’s third successive award for highest overall sales volume across the network.

Brisbane’s Village Renault was named 2016 New DOTY (accepted by Shane Olsen) and Rex Gorell Renault in Geelong, Victoria, backed up its 2015 Customer Service Excellence award with another win in this category (accepted by Brett Gorell).

Mr Hocevar said Ballarat Renault’s win was “heartening” and exemplified the company’s focus on expanding its reach outside the main capital cities.

“Ballarat Renault has been a passionate and fervent Renault dealer for us. Its journey has been a successful one and is testament to its team stability and strong focus on local area marketing,” he said.

“We are also very pleased to see Don Calvert’s Essendon Renault continue at the top of our performance ladder, with his strong team successful across both passenger and LCV product, typified by his creation of a standalone LCV service centre.”

By Terry Martin