"Our company's purpose is to make the car buying and servicing experiences pleasurable ones for our customers. In doing so, and leading by example, we will bring integrity and respectability to the image of car dealers everywhere."
These words - our statement of purpose - tell us what we are doing and why we are doing it... it doesn't tell us how we are doing it. How are we actually making car buying and servicing pleasurable? Of course we offer the obvious (and much-publicized) things like not charging dealer fees, Red Hotline phones, and Tires & Batteries for Life. However, it is the routine, day-by-day customer experiences that truly make Earl Stewart Toyota different. Every decision made by every employee that affects a customer is guided by this question: If this customer was an old friend, how would I decide?
Many companies overuse the phrase "The customer is always right"; At Earl Stewart Toyota, what matters is if the customer believes she or he is right. That is an important distinction.
This philosophy is sacred to us. It is what has allowed us to thrive in extraordinarily difficult economic times when many others are struggling.
The fact that we eliminated the dealer fee is a nice, tangible benefit for our customers. However, it is meaningless absent the underlying culture that eliminated it.
We got rid of our dealer fee years ago not because of competitive pressure to do so, but because Earl Stewart felt it was the right thing to do.
Earl Stewart Toyota became the number one volume new car dealership in Palm Beach County not by giving away tires, but by operating in a way that is radically different from what has come to be expected of car dealerships.
Car buying and servicing - enjoyable experiences? That is a radical notion... and it's happening at Earl Stewart Toyota.
