The leading lights in the UK’s finance and insurance sector came together at New Dock Hall in Leeds last month, for the annual industry celebration – the F&I Conference and Awards.
The judging panel was made up of the cream of the UK’s F&I industry – so bagging one of the awards was no easy feat. We caught up with the evening’s winners, to find out what winning means to them.
First up it’s Katie Newton, group sales development manager at RRG Group, a multi-franchise dealer group in the North West, who picked up the award for Franchised Dealer of the Year.
Congratulations on your F&I award Katie. First and foremost, tell us a bit about your role at RRG Group
Thank you! At work, I have responsibility for the group’s overall finance and insurance performance, as well as the associated commercial relationships. I am also acting as project lead in several key ventures exploring new business channels.
What does being recognised as Franchised Dealer of the Year mean to you, personally?
Since joining RRG I have continually focussed on our sales process, ensuring that it is innovative, compliant and personalised for every customer. Finance and insurance are an integral part of this, and we are committed to supporting our manufacturer partners. Winning this award is confirmation that RRG’s ongoing commercial activities and F&I strategy are market leading.
What does being recognised as Franchised Dealer of the Year mean to the wider RRG Group?
It was always going to be difficult to nominate just one RRG site for this award as all our centres are committed to achieving the highest standards in F&I, and regularly outperform their dealer peers. Winning as a collective group, allows us to recognise the combined efforts of all our Business Managers, Sales Managers and Sales Executives in delivering a first-class F&I customer experience.
Is there anything else you’d like to add on behalf of the RRG Group?
Our year-to date-performance as a group across all F&I categories reflects a consistent approach and strong performance, highlighting the quality and focus of our sales teams to be passionate, professional and fair in everything we do.
Organised and hosted by DealTrak and sponsored this year by Barclays Partner Finance, the not-for-profit fundraiser for the NSPCC celebrated its eighth birthday in 2018. All areas of automotive finance were represented, from lenders, dealers, brokers and product and service providers with best practice highlighted, celebrated and championed throughout.