The team at Lismore Nissan are the All Blacks of Nissan as they collected their 11th consecutive Elite Dealer Excellence Award for 2023 at a ceremony in Melbourne on the weekend.

Ok, the All Blacks have won 21 consecutive Bledisloe Cups but you can understand the analogy.

Dealer Principal of Lismore Nissan Paul O'Neil told the Lismore App the award is a measure across Customer Satisfaction for Sales and Service.

"They do it for every dealer in the country and they measure us all on our KPIs basically so service, parts, workshop, sales, every aspect of the business and we're lucky enough to win it for 11 years."

It is a pretty big deal when you think there is 190 dealerships throughout Australia and Lismore Nisssan wins one of 20 for the entire country.

While Paul was the man accepting the award on the weekend, he was quick to acknowledge this was a team effort.

"It's obviously just not me, I'm a real small part of the pie. It's the sales guys, it's the workshop, the front office staff, finance, everybody's accountable for it and they do a fantastic job. They will have ownership of it and they all earn it."

"It's basically about looking after your customers, which we're pretty proud of."

"It's the only thing we can do different is look after your customers. We don't sell them just one car, we sell them four or five. That's the truth."

"If we don't look after our customers, we just won't survive."

Paul explained that Nissan sent out a report each month that let's them know where they rank among all the Nissan dealers. Each dealer is awarded points each month which adds up to an annual total. Lismore Nissan currently sits number 12 but Paul is confident his team can get to number 4 or 5 by the end of the year.

Paul acknowledged Bailey Flanagan who is one of the mechanics servicing your car. He managed to be the number 5 service mechanic across the Nissan dealerships in Australia.

CAR MARKET UPDATE

The car market has been extremely tight since COVID put a major dent in supply. The waitlist for new cars can be up to five months depending on the type of car you are after.

"We had a customer come in today, he would have bought 50 cars of us. I really wanted to sell him a car today, something in stock but I just couldn't get him one," Paul explained, "That'll be four or five months I reckon. But something might come in when a deal falls over, like if you've had one ordered and you can't wait any longer. We give the deposit back say see you later and we will sell that to him."

The more specific or different your order is the longer you will have to wait.

"We are trying to get someone a top of the range GT which is white with a black roof. That's was ordered on February 8 and it is still probably two to three months away."

As for second hand cars, the market is softening according to Paul, coming off unrealistic high prices.

"They're just a little bit all over the place. They've come back a bit, they were higher. As we get stock, they'll come back. They're hugely over inflated."

Lismore Nissan is 76-80 Ballina Road just before the tennis and netball courts as you head to Goonellabah.