TMO Talks To Barry O’Donoghue, Head of Business
Barretts Jaguar Land Rover in Ashford, Kent, is accredited to The Motor Ombudsman’s Vehicle Sales and Service and Repair Codes. We caught up with Barry O’Donoghue who has been with Barretts for nearly 20 years, and has worked as the dealership’s Head of Business since 2020.
TMO: Please can you give us an overview of Barretts Jaguar Land Rover, and the key benefits of buying a vehicle from your business?
B’OD: Barretts is a family-owned and run business established back in 1902. We’ve held both the Jaguar and Land Rover franchises since their inceptions, and continue to be great partners today. The benefits of being a family-owned business is that our number one focus is about looking after our colleagues. We know if we do a good job with that, by supporting them and training them well, they go on to do a great job with our clients. You can see that with the longevity of our staff in Ashford. However, we continue to build on that with various apprentice programmes across the business, not just with technicians, but with client facing staff also. So I think we have a great blend, and a good level of resource, to make sure we can deliver great experiences for our clients.
TMO: What are your career highlights to date, and what drew you to work in the motor industry?
B’OD: The highlight for me was, having completed JLR’s Aspiring Head of Business Programme and being promoted to Head of Business, I was then given the opportunity to build my own management team. I’ve really enjoyed training, developing, supporting and mentoring the team we have got, and I am proud to say that all of the leadership team were internal promotions that are achieving great success.
TMO: What drew you to work in the motor industry?
B’OD: I think I was destined to enter the industry. I spent my weekends as a kid travelling up to London with my dad who worked as an accountant at a busy dealership in Highbury. I’d spend the day with the sales team, watching them with their varying clients, and loved seeing how quickly the best ones would build confidence and relationships. I was also destined to support Arsenal being that it was right next door!
TMO: Working as Head of Business during the pandemic, what are some of the key lessons that you learned during this time?
B’OD: Having been appointed to the role in the January, the thought of sending all of our staff home in March was almost ridiculous. However, we actually achieved great things as we were able to totally reset a lot of departments and processes. While sitting at home on Teams calls, we reviewed everything we did, and looked at how we could do it better.
As we re-opened, we built the teams back up slowly, and each time re-established all our expectations with everyone, and we came out of the blocks running. We had always been a good “digital” retailer, so we were able to take “remote selling” in our stride, and almost stole a march on others. But our aftersales business definitely benefitted by stopping completely and starting again. An invaluable experience for our business, and one we’ll (hopefully) never be able to do again.
I think the biggest lesson in that time was to over-communicate, and it’s something I have to remind myself today – the team member that’s quiet, and making no noise, doesn’t mean they are ok and are happy with everything. Everyone needs someone to check in on them. The management team did that through lockdown, and we’ve carried that on today.
TMO: As Head of Business, what does a typical day look like for you?
B’OD: Organised chaos in some people’s eyes! Every day is different, which I love! You can have your day totally planned out only to receive a WhatsApp message at 7.30am when we open, alerting me to the day’s next challenge! But it’s great. I tell the team all the time that they are the experts in their particular department. I’m the soundboard that will listen to their ideas and problems, but I’m also the guy that’s going to constantly ask questions i.e. why do we do this? how do we do that? I’m just looking to optimise everything we do for the benefit of our colleagues and clients.
I think the big difference in this role is that you look ahead a lot further – what’s happening next month, quarter, half year, next year…? That’s probably why the time flies!
TMO: What is your outlook for the vehicle sales sector for the remainder of 2023?
B’OD: I’m always looking ahead, using the data we have from enquiries, conversions, order banks, and lead times to plan what’s coming next. We are still impacted by the problems with semiconductors and various components which can hamper production. The cost of living is a genuine concern for every consumer, even in our market. But ultimately, the demand is still there. I think our clients have begun to understand that new car orders take time, and that you have to plan ahead, and we are encouraging our colleagues to proactively have those conversations.
TMO: Are you seeing more clients who are interested in electric vehicles?
B’OD: Absolutely! JLR are very proactive in their plans to electrify our collection of cars, so inevitably we are receiving those enquiries, and conversations are happening. There is still a lack of understanding and unknowns about EVs, so we encourage our teams to be specialists in the subject, to be able to comfortably and confidently talking about the pros and cons. Ultimately, we don’t want someone buying a BEV because they think they should, only to find it doesn’t work for them. We take a real consultative approach.
TMO: Where is your main client base?
B’OD: Having been in Ashford for 25 years, and Barretts having been established back in 1902 just 15 miles away in Canterbury, we do have a very loyal client base, which we work hard to keep engaged with. We do a lot of activity in the local area to keep the Barretts name in people’s minds, and digitally we have a great strategy for engaging with our clients via the various social media platforms. But we do also attract clients from all over the country. We provide a great range of brilliantly-prepared Approved Used vehicles, and we treat a client enquiring from the other end of the country in the same warm and welcoming way, albeit using phone, video and email.
TMO: Are there any changes or new innovations that we can expect to see from your business this year?
B’OD: We are innovating and changing all of the time, but the major focus, especially as the industry transitions to the agency model, is on our levels of service, client experience and reputation. Its always a focus of ours, but we’re all committed to taking it even further. It’s the only true differentiating factor from our business to the next, and we want to be known as the best!
TMO: What were the main reasons for Barretts Jaguar Land Rover Ashford becoming accredited to The Motor Ombudsman’s Motor Industry Codes of Practice for Vehicle Sales and Service and Repair?
B’OD: We have worked with The Motor Ombudsman for a number of years, and I think it gives us and our clients confidence that we are doing things right. As I said right at the start, for us, it’s about supporting our colleagues to deliver great experiences for our clients, and we work hard to prepare our cars really well and make the sales and post-sale experience easy and enjoyable. We provide excellent manufacturing training for all of our technicians at all levels of skill and experience. Our management team is supported to always deliver the best outcomes, and I think working with The Motor Ombudsman enables us to confidently do just that.
TMO: Thank you for your time Barry, and it has been very interesting to learn more about Barretts Jaguar Land Rover Ashford.
Interview conducted in May 2023
