CLAAS Dalby a winner
CLAAS Harvest Centre, Dalby, has been recognised as one of the best farm machinery dealerships in Australia, being placed third in the prestigious Dealership of the Year Award at the second Strive Annual Excellence Awards presented in Melbourne recently.
The awards recognise the best performing dealerships, teams and individuals across Landpower and CLAAS Harvest Centre, the largest privately owned farm machinery distribution network in Australasia.
The network represents some of the world’s leading farm machinery brands, including CLAAS, AMAZONE and Seed Hawk, via 31 owned and franchised CLAAS Harvest Centres throughout New Zealand and Australia.
Dalby was recognised for its excellence across a number of key operating and financial criteria, including workshop, parts, staff and customer engagement, health and safety procedures and its utilisation of IT systems.
The branch was also recognised as having the best-performing workshop across the network.
Landpower general manager – general operations Paul Barry said the CLAAS Harvest Centre network employed more than 240 service technicians and 60 parts specialists across 31 locations in New Zealand and Australia.
“We pride ourselves on providing responsive service and the ready availability of genuine parts,” he said.
“Our customers rely on us to live up to that commitment.
“Our workshop and parts teams are very much the face of our business.”
CLAAS Harvest Centre Dalby branch manager Rick Spies said he was extremely
proud of his team’s efforts.
“This win is a big tick for all the hard work we have undertaken and the trust that our customers have placed in us,” he said.
“We’re competing against businesses that have been going for 30 or 40 years, while we are still a relatively small and young team.
“We have done a lot of work to improve our processes and
making sure the right people are in the right jobs and, more importantly, that we are working as a team for our customers.”
Mr Spies joined CLAAS Harvest Centre in 2012 as a sales representative after spending 10 years in parts, sales and operations management with another local farm machinery dealership.
“I was looking for a change and I was excited by the opportunity of joining a totally new dealership,” he said.
“It has proven to be the right move.”
The team included sales representatives Anthony Eugarde and Dylan Mott, service foreman Chris Cass, service technicians Jake Edwards, Dean Spies and Johan Van Schalkwyk,
apprentice mechanics Tim Murphy and William Fry, parts interpreter Desmond Cuzner, service administrator Kathleen Pain and administration manager Donna Rasmussen.
More than 120 guests from New Zealand, Australia, Germany and the UK attended the gala dinner and presentation ceremony held at Cargo Hall on South Wharf.