When different dealerships throughout Canada are struggling to rebuild provides of recent automobiles, lots can be found in a small-town dealership in jap Quebec.

The web site for Boulevard Chevrolet-Buick-GMC-Cadillac in Rimouski, Que., listed new 127 automobiles in early April, a wholesome stock as chip shortages proceed to stymie the power of automakers to provide sufficient completed automobiles to fulfill demand.

Boulevard co-owner Pierre Béchard stated the availability is the payoff for a choice administration made throughout the COVID-19 pandemic to keep away from layoffs and hold promoting automobiles, whereas additionally complying with strict provincial well being restrictions that at occasions required showrooms to be closed to clients. Security measures included maintaining employees masked, increasing on-line gross sales and introducing contactless transactions.

CLOSED BUT OPEN FOR BUSINESS

In the course of the top of the pandemic, between March 2020 and December 2021, Quebec closed showrooms to the general public a number of occasions, though service departments had been allowed to remain open.

Regardless that clients couldn’t are available, employees at Boulevard got here to work and saved in contact with clients, promoting 750 new automobiles in 2021, simply 50 fewer than in 2020. It’s on observe to promote 800 new automobiles this yr, which, in keeping with Boulevard, would make it the biggest dealership by quantity in Quebec east of Quebec Metropolis.

The achievement is much more outstanding in a metropolis of 49,000 residents in a semirural space on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River.

“We paid all people, even when they weren’t working,” Béchard stated. “It paid itself again actually fast.”

The massive payoff was with Basic Motors, which allocates car provide primarily based on gross sales. As a result of the dealership saved its gross sales quantity up, GM Canada saved sending automobiles whereas it reduce provide to different dealerships, Béchard stated.

GM Canada acknowledged Boulevard by naming it to the President’s Membership listing of honourees in each 2021 and 2022 for its “distinctive year-over-year progress in retail gross sales, elements and equipment … and excellence in customer support.”

SIBLINGS IN SALES

Béchard and his sister, Marie-Ève Béchard, purchased the dealership from their father, Wilbert, when he retired in 2012. Pierre, 42, is basic gross sales supervisor and Marie-Ève, 45, government director. Minority shareholder Maxime Dionne is director of mounted operations.

The siblings had been working on the retailer since Wilbert Béchard and a number of other buyers purchased it in 1995. The siblings began at low-level jobs and labored in most departments to study the enterprise.

Wilbert’s focus was on full honesty with clients.

“Our father was a extremely good mentor,” stated Pierre Béchard. Loyalty to employees throughout arduous occasions pays dividends for dealerships, stated automotive advisor Dominic Sigouin, proprietor of Noahvik Consultants in Montreal.

“I urged all my shoppers to not cease promoting,” stated Sigouin, who doesn’t have a enterprise relationship with Boulevard.

“If you happen to cease promoting, it’s not good in your employees and never good in your pipeline.

“Each disaster will simply present extra of who you might be [as an employer]. You will notice which employers had good relations with employees.” Béchard stated he and his sister have been at odds over essential strategic selections, comparable to what number of automobiles to order. However he sees their variations as a power as a result of it retains them open to new concepts.

CONSTRUCTIVE CONFLICT

“Once we disagree, we simply shut the door till we agree,” he stated. “When the door opens, we’ve solved the issue.”

The straight-shooter gross sales strategy has helped the dealership entice about 20 per cent of its patrons from exterior its territory, Béchard stated. “Lots of people don’t like the way in which they’re being handled within the massive city, so they arrive right here.”

Workers are additionally handled with care and are paid competitively. “They want [to be treated] pretty as a result of the way in which you deal with them is the way in which they deal with clients,” Béchard stated.

Because of this, Boulevard has robust retention amongst its 50 workers. “Our receptionist simply retired after 48 years,” Béchard stated. “I wasn’t even born when she began right here.”

Though the corporate has adopted on-line gross sales, the customers of jap Quebec nonetheless choose to purchase in individual, Béchard stated. “We nonetheless reside in a small city. Folks like to come back in and have a look at the automobiles within the tons.”

There’s no massive secret to succeeding in a small market, Béchard stated. “Being sincere and treating individuals proper — I’d moderately lose a deal by being sincere moderately than win a deal by being dishonest.”