Scholfield Auto Plaza: Raising the Bar on the Luxury Experience
How does Scholfield Auto Plaza define their award-winning leadership? "We are 100% focused on one goal: surprising and delighting our customers," says Scholfield Auto Plaza General Manager Bobby Cuillo. "From executive management down to every associate, we live, eat, sleep and breathe the Scholfield Luxury Experience."
In the past two years, Scholfield Auto Plaza has taken their luxury experience to a level that cannot be matched by other dealerships. "We have transparency, that is, we offer many complimentary services--not gimmicks that a customer actually pays for elsewhere in the dealership," Cuillo says. "One of the reasons I was brought here was to avail these dealerships of the many resources I have had available to me over the years. The bottom line is that with us, you get a risk-free relationship versus a risky relationship. And our clientele has spoken. They want to be catered to and looked after--much the same way that you would at a 5-star hotel."
Scholfield Auto Plaza has earned many customer satisfaction accolades over the years. How is this achieved? Cuillo says it's all about doing business the right way. "We give customers more than they ever expected," he says. "A great example is our loaner cars. When a customer comes in for service, they get a loaner car at no charge, and the loaner car is the same brand as the car coming in for service. We never charge for gas, it's truly with our compliments. With our airport service, we'll pick the customer up, drop them off, store and wash their car, all for no charge. We accommodate the customer by picking them up or dropping them off any time, 24/7. And we've done it! Nearly 400 airport runs in the first year! Also our customers love our complimentary car washes any time and as often as they want, six days a week, and pickup and delivery for any service."
Cuillo stresses that, while the dealership does sell some vehicles to other parts of the country, in the past two years, Scholfield Auto Plaza has concentrated on Wichita. "A good example is hard-to-find inventory and special, limited-production editions," he says. "Customers have told me many times that in the past, there was a trend of shipping many of those vehicles out-of-state. Now, we keep a list of our customers' special wants and needs, so when we do get a very rare vehicle, we know who to contact locally to see if they have interest, and we offer them first opportunity to buy the vehicle. As we've recently forged wonderful relationships with our
manufacturers, we have been rewarded with more than our fair share of hard-to-find models and special-edition products that our company was never able to get in the past."
How has Scholfield Auto Plaza achieved this level of success-despite the economic downturn? "While just about every business has been cutting back on the customer perks, we've actually increased ours," Cuillo says. "We're doing more than ever for customers. We've made the total cost of ownership of our vehicles the most competitive in this market. We've also made a concentrated effort to bring first-time luxury buyers into the market with very aggressive
offers. In the past two years, we've shattered every possible record for these dealerships' performance, despite the worst automotive climate in more than 30 years. Our total dealership sales are even with last year, which was the best year in the history of our company. We've also preserved our staff, that is, no layoffs. We even have a number of positions that we are
looking to fill at present."
Looking ahead, what is in store for Scholfield Auto Plaza? The dealership has plans in place for a new, state-of-the-art showroom for the best-selling luxury brand in Wichita--Lexus.
"We will also be upgrading all of our facilities and bringing the Scholfield luxury experience to the west side of town when we open the Scholfield Select Pre-Owned Center," Cuillo says. "For the first time ever on the west side, customers will be able to enjoy all the benefits of the Scholfield luxury experience when they purchase a pre-owned vehicle-not only Mercedes-Benz, Lexus, Acura, Jaguar and Porsche, but also BMW, Cadillac and Infiniti. We'll have it all, plus car washes any time a customer wants for no charge, loaner cars with any service, and airport service. As much as we've already raised the bar for luxury franchises, our new facilities will bring the automotive experience to levels simply unheard of! The features, amenities and services that we plan to unveil will be unprecedented in Wichita."