8:56 am, January 27, 2021
While most of us will want to forget 2020 completely, I believe it’s time for reflection and awareness of what we achieved throughout the year and what we can achieve together in 2021!
We received such positive feedback from our dealer partners, thanking us for the continued support we provided them with throughout this pandemic – in their words, we ‘didn’t go missing for months’.
This led to us reclaiming the Car Dealer Sub-Prime Provider of the Year Award for the sixth time after a year’s hiatus – an achievement we are thoroughly proud of.
We were fortunate enough that as a business we were able to pivot, uniting as a company with an objective of assisting other departments, handling increased customer demand and also being able to utilise the downtime to work on projects, including production of help and guidance for you all.
Thankfully, this meant that as a business we didn’t have to furlough any employees.
Unfortunately, for most businesses this hasn’t been a possibility, and many of us have either had to go through furlough or redundancies, or we have witnessed this up close and personal with a friend or family member.
Alongside the above external factors, we had an awareness that the pandemic was challenging for many. This led us to focus internally on our mental and physical wellbeing.
Our leadership teams had previously taken specific mental health training and, as such, have been advocating that employees make time to get outside and exercise or take time out and do things such as yoga, etc.
It’s been great to see many employees get involved across the business and we hope to see it continue into 2021.
Normality
Get in touch if you want to know more, as it is important to look after yourself and your employees as best you can.
Although business levels slowed at the start of the pandemic, we never stopped.
We continued supporting keyworkers and then focused on our core customer base, returning to normality as quickly as possible.
This was well received, and customer feedback based on this and our handling of forbearance led to increased positive reviews.
We have continued to provide ongoing fundraising and financial support for our chosen charity SANE, whose vision is ‘to raise public awareness, excite research, and bring more effective professional treatment and compassionate care to everyone affected by mental illness’.
We were determined for this support to continue, especially during the pandemic.
2020 has not been easy but let us focus on the positives.
To all our dealer partners, we want to say thank you for your continued business relationships throughout this year and we wish you a happy and prosperous 2021.
Ben Garside is marketing manager for First Response. Call him on 07817 518739 or email [email protected]
This column first appeared in Car Dealer issue 154. For more like it, view the latest edition by clicking below. Sign up to become a Car Dealer member free of charge to get the latest issue before anyone else.
