ONE of Western Australia’s most successful dealers, now running three dealerships in two states, is adamant the customer is paramount and that creating a customer experience remains the key to repeat business.

David Jeary, who is a director of the private Perth business Prime West Group that owns three Lexus dealerships along with a group of allied automotive businesses, started the WA agency 20 years ago with the (then) almost unknown Lexus brand.

David Jeary

Lexus of Perth is now celebrating 18 years from its location in the northern light-industrial Perth suburb of Osborne Park, while Lexus of Hobart is four years old and Lexus of Perth Melville opened seven months ago.

Lexus of Hobart is situated in the heart of the city in the Rox heritage building.

To reflect the Lexus attitude to customers, Mr Jeary included a restaurant in the building and says it is now ranked so highly that it’s difficult to book a seat.

Lexus, Hobart

Significantly, the restaurant – an intimate 10-seat Kaiseki-style design – is called Omotenashi which translates from Japanese as ‘to wholeheartedly look after guests’.

“The Lexus experience is to give customers a good experience,” he said.

“They keep coming back. We (Perth) have customers going back to when we first opened the doors as a Lexus dealership 20 years ago.

Lexus, Hobart

“We have a Lexus owner who has bought 15 cars off us. He loves the cars and he loves coming into the showroom and talking to us.”

Much of the attraction is the detail in the architecture of the dealership, the furnishings, colours, surroundings and the visitor’s first impression on entering the showroom.

Lexus, Hobart

“Corporate identity (CI) should be constantly evolving, rather than just a static concept,” he said.

“So in the Lexus showroom in Melville, there are six individual sections for the sales staff. Each section has a glass panel – each etched with a different pattern such as dots, lines, and so on – that is obscure to give privacy.

“Outside, we have opted for landscaping as a focal point. There were discussions about reducing the garden area to make room for five more car bays, but I didn’t want the forecourt to look like any other car yard.

“So I went for some beautiful landscaping. I wanted people to be welcomed by the landscaping and invited into the showroom. And that’s what is happening. People feel welcome.”

The Melville dealership was previously an RAC branch, with administration at the front and the service centre at the back. Before the RAC moved it was a newspaper distribution centre, then a wine distribution business.

Mr Jeary said the building’s history ensured there was always an administration area at the front and a warehouse or service area at the back. That design, he said, was perfect for a dealership.

Lexus of Perth complements its Osborne Park premises north of the river, with Melville in the south. 

Lexus, Perth, Melville

Mr Jeary said the recent completion of the Melville centre was in response to Perth’s expanding population – now more than 2.5 million residents – and the subsequent longer travel time for southern customers to visit Osborne Park for service, parts or sales.

“The opening of Melville was purely for customer convenience,” he said.

“Perth is getting bigger and it’s taking longer to get around, so south-of-the-river Lexus customers don’t have to make that journey to Osborne Park.”

Lexus isn’t alone in opening a second dealership. Audi Centre Perth, also in Osborne Park, has also opened a second sales and service outlet south of the river. 

BMW Auto Classic, based in Victoria Park south of the river, has a second sales centre north in Wangara and has a temporary south-of-river sales and service centre in Melville. It will open a permanent dealership next year in the same suburb.

“One thing I have noticed is that since we opened Melville, the requirement for a valet drop off and pick up and loan car, has reduced,” Mr Jeary said.

“Fewer customers need that (loan car) service now because most live quite close to the new service centre.”

The second reason for the move was to retain a personal relationship with customers.

Lexus, Perth, Osborne Park

“We were selling a lot more cars and so the client list was growing to a point that I felt our boutique luxury experience was starting to diminish,” he said.

“When you get too busy, you don’t have that feeling of being relaxed that is at the core of a luxury experience.

“I saw that, with the increase in trade, we were seeing an erosion of the time we spend with customers.

“Opening the second Lexus dealership – so that the two dealerships would share sales – meant that it was important to return that special feeling to the customer.”

Mr Jeary operates the three Lexus dealerships along with other entities under the business umbrella.

One of those is LOP Wholesale Direct – a low-volume, wholesale used-car business dealing in luxury cars – and the other is Limousines Australia, a company he bought two years ago and which has expanded through to most Australian capital cities.

“We have a lot of Lexus cars on the fleet but some of our regular clients have different requirements in vehicles,” he said.

“We started in Perth and now have corporate clients around Australia and the full-time staff is up to three.

“It’s turned into a really good story. We’ve really been able to grow Limousines Australia to deal with major companies wanting a high-end service.”

Lexus, Perth, Melville

He said that the business doesn’t own all the cars because “it’s not our model”.

“We own some but we also have people who contract solely to us and have their own cars.”

In a recent move out of the showroom, Mr Jeary is now based in Limousines Australia offices, in the same complex as the parts warehouse that supplies his three Lexus dealerships.

He has given up his office to the recent employment of a general manager for the Lexus dealership.

“When we started, the parts department operated out of a small office at the back of Lexus of Perth in Osborne Park,” he said.

“But that soon got too small. We now supply Hobart and the Perth operations, so basically we’re supplying the whole of Tasmania and the whole of Western Australia.

He may be physically out of the showroom but he’s hardly out of the game. 

“I still go to Melville all the time. I still walk across the road (to Lexus of Perth in Osborne Park) all the time. And I still go to Tassie five times a year.

“But having a general manager to look after the car business gives me a bit more time to be removed from the sales process and the day-to-day of managing staff. But even as I say that, I am still engaged with the staff. I was with them at 7am this morning.”

Lexus, Hobart

The luxury car wholesale business, which is kept deliberately small, was a product of the increase in business.

“We realised that we had some great trades and a lot more are coming, both Lexus models from the dealerships but also non-Lexus brands,” he said.

“Previously we were just wholesaling them. I thought we needed to open this yard to retail and that we would lose trade to Melville. That hasn’t happened.”

Concerns that service trade would be divided between Melville and Osborne Park, producing lower service work, also proved unfounded.

“The crazy thing is, both workshops at Osborne Park and Melville have never been busier,” he said. 

“So if we hadn’t done Melville, I don’t know what we’d be doing, because both dealerships are now at absolute capacity.

“Service has been a real success story.

“It has also led to us having two of the most successful selling years.”