Volvo Cars NB is Redefining Premium Service
FREDERICTON – Next week will mark the grand opening of Volvo Cars NB, an award-winning luxury dealership bought and revitalized by Dave O’Leary a little over a year ago.
O’Leary now owns Volvo Cars NB as well as Fredericton Mitsubishi on the adjacent property. He says after growing up and working in the car business for nearly 20 years, he’s now aiming with both dealerships to deliver a level of service that’s unprecedented in Atlantic Canada.
“It’s kind of all I’ve ever known,” he says. “It’s been a real blessing that I grew up in the dealership and was able to work every single job. I worked in parts, I worked in service, I sold cars for a number of years. I was a business manager, a general manager. I’ve got a really good education around the business.”
O’Leary says after a brief stint away from the car business, he decided to get back in with full force and founded Fredericton Mitsubishi, then Volvo Cars NB.
“There was no Mitsubishi dealership here [before] and then we bought the Volvo dealership that was massively underperforming and made it a stand-alone dealership,” he says.
O’Leary says he essentially started from the ground up on the Volvo dealership with a seven-figure renovation of what he says was a “tired, dirty, ugly dealership” and the implementation of a level of service people would expect from a premium or luxury dealership.
“We saw a real vacuum in New Brunswick, Atlantic Canada really, but especially New Brunswick for a premium dealership,” he says. “A lot of it is about the experience not just of buying the car but after they’ve got it.”
Volvo Cars NB now has a courtesy car program and concierge service that few dealers in the region offer. If a customer has bought a new or used vehicle from the dealership and needs it serviced, an employee will come to wherever they are in New Brunswick, leave them with a courtesy car, take their car to be serviced and then bring it back to them.
O’Leary says this service is offered free of charge besides the cost of gas and that they’re trying to build a foundation that’s not seen at other dealerships in the area. He wants his customers not to dread getting their cars serviced.
“A lot of dealers look at that with a defeatist type of attitude like ‘we do the best we can and if we lose customers, it is what it is.’ We’re as a group saying “hold on, we’ve got a massive opportunity. There’s no reason we can’t get outside the box and make this experience as pleasant as possible and even a good one.’”
O’Leary says this level of service is allowing them to not only keep existing customers but acquire new business through word of mouth. He says outstanding service is often talked about and can lead to new business.
“Volvo is such a unique, niche brand that newspaper advertising or radio advertising for us doesn’t do a whole lot,” he says. “If you’re a current Volvo owner and you go home today absolutely a raving fan of the service you got from me, I’m pretty confident you’re going to tell some people and that’s the best thing we can do.”
O’Leary says being a province-wide dealership rather than being limited to a single city allows them to get creative with offsite popup events to get their vehicles in front of people. He says the future of Volvo Cars NB will entail a consistent focus on premium service and supporting their customers and products while contributing to the local economy.
“There’s so much doom and gloom in Atlantic Canada and New Brunswick specifically now,” he says. “If you watch the news for very long, you’re going to get pretty down on unemployment and no jobs and all this. We’ve created 60 real, long-term, sustainable, good paying jobs here in Fredericton.”
“We enjoy the business. We enjoy when someone comes in, that feeling and that excitement they have when they’re getting a new vehicle and honestly I must have something wrong with me but I love the car business, I really enjoy it.”