Guest on a quest
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In the space of three years, Iveco dealer Guest Trucks has grown from four sites to 14, stretching from the Irish Sea to the North Sea, and from South Yorkshire to Cambridge. Now the challenge is to bring it all together
Words: Kevin Swallow
Through acquisition, organic growth and new opportunities, Midlands-based Iveco dealer Guest Trucks has seen its presence on the ground grow by 350%.
In 2009 Guest Trucks acquired TC Harrison and three sites, opened a depot in Leicester and then announced a deal at the beginning of 2011 to take over fellow Iveco dealer Sherwoods, with four sites in Alfreton, Nottingham, Sheffield, and Stoke-on-Trent.
Then last summer, manufacturer Iveco Truck & Van confirmed that Guest Trucks would fill the gap left by the departure of Iceni Truck & Van in Norfolk and Suffolk. Guest Trucks first opened a dealership in Norwich, followed in the autumn by a new site in Ipswich.
Guest Trucks’ divisional MD Robert Spittle needs few reminders of the pressure such expansion brings. “The Norwich site at Wyndham is rented from Peter Colby [the group behind Iceni] – it’s a purpose-built truck dealership with five workshops. There are eight employees, including four technicians, covering sales, parts and service.
“Norwich and the surrounding area is a sensible truck market; agriculture, frozen food, poultry, construction and supermarkets. There is a fair bit of servicing work, and service is paramount,” he says.
Making deals
Guest Trucks struck a deal with independent dealer Trucks ’R’ Us in Ipswich to operate out of a two-acre workshop with seven bays just off the A14, and Graham Wardley, formerly of Iveco Truck & Van and MAN, has been brought in as the business development manager.
There are three technicians at the moment, but Spittle is advertising for another.
“Ipswich is a huge truck market, it accounts for 10% of the heavy truck market across our territory. Container work out of Felixstowe is driving that business. With Cambridge and Ipswich we have a large business parc to go at,” he says. Spittle has employed a regional director and regional parts supervisor for Ipswich and Norwich, and is adamant that both sites have to stand on their own two feet to deliver a service that customers need and are willing to use.
“Going that far away from the Midlands is a bit of a leap of faith for us. The aim is to deliver a homogeneous service; we saw it as an opportunity to really strengthen the eastern part of the country. We were already in Cambridge, so Ipswich wasn’t so far away and I think for a customer dealing with us, or the Iveco product, one of the biggest selling factors is the group, the operator is buying into consistency,” he says.
Learning from experience
Although the number of sites has grown dramatically through acquisition, before Guest Trucks opened Ipswich and Norwich it had only opened one site from scratch in Leicester, and Spittle says the company learned a great deal from that experience.
“We apply the same principals to Ipswich and Norwich that we did to Leicester, and that is to organically grow the business.
“Not every customer came to us at Leicester straight away. If you provide good service, naturally people will in the end feel they are getting value for money. Initially we have got people out of trouble, then they have come to us,” he says.
Things started well in Norwich, but slowed at Christmas. Now Spittle is keen to push it on again. “In Ipswich, service and parts are starting to show growth and we have to keep that gradual growth going,” he says.
First impressions are key, and for a lot of operators in the eastern counties the first time they see Guest Trucks will be when they have a problem.
“When the operator is sitting on the side of the road, that is the first time we will deal with them, and it’s got to be right.
“Everything is a priority; but our main concern has got to be service – if a customer has a problem we sort it out as soon as we can,” he says. ■