To say that Nigerians are automobile freaks that would stop at nothing to have the best cars as evident in the preponderance of highly sophisticated vehicles on our roads is stating the obvious. However, the state-of-the-art cars have thrown up the need for top grade maintenance garages with the required technical expertise to keep such vehicles in good condition. Germaine Autos, an after sales service and maintenance automobile centre located in Lekki, is taking the lead providing sophisticated service and maintenance required for today’s automobiles. Jerry Chukwueke, chairman, Germaine Group, explained that Germaine Autos has upped the ante in auto service and maintenance, delivering qualitative service and in the process, guaranteeing customer satisfaction. According to him, his company also provides free comprehensive medical check-up for drivers and operators while waiting to take delivery of their vehicles. At Germaine Autos, drivers are also taught the basic rudiments of driving under its Driver Continuous Improvement Programme. He believes that the dream of a Nigerian car and having a car assembly plant will remain an illusion due to lack of infrastructure and unfavourably government policies. Though he agrees that the banking reforms is well intended, a situation in which borrowing from banks is now viewed as a criminal activity is regrettable. In this interview with Muyiwa Lucas, assistant editor, Chukwueke, a graduate of Morgan State University, Baltimore Maryland, United States, bares his mind. Excerpts:

 

 

What is the concept  of Germaine

Autos?

Germaine Autos comprises automobile franchises; we are an accredited Toyota automobile dealer; accredited Kia Motors dealer in which case we partner with Dana Motors, the distributor of Kia Motors in Nigeria; we are also Peugeot dealers. Our business is founded on strong service and maintenance aspect of automobile. We strategically focus on customer satisfaction as a way of promoting our business in the medium and long term. If you satisfy customers, they will always come back to you and say positive things about you in the market place. When you are focusing on customer satisfaction, it also becomes an important tool in recession strategy, because in such periods, when sales decline, people would do more of servicing and maintenance of vehicles they already have. That is how we are positioned. We take customer satisfaction with all seriousness because it accounts for our continuous stay in business.

 

With how much did you start the business and what is it worth today?

The monetary value is not important, but the concept. I think what is more important is that Germaine is on a fairly strong standing in a very tough market and we are poised to be innovative and take measured risks in an effort to grow a higher and higher level of customer service satisfaction. We were number one Toyota dealer in customer service satisfaction in 2008 and I bet you we will be close to retaining that in 2009.

 

What is the turnaround time for servicing at Germaine Autos?

It depends on the type of service or maintenance you bring your car for. We are very efficient at our turnaround t

time, since we have a segmented approach to it. We have the Germaine Express Service, in which it takes 90 minutes or less for a vehicle that comes in for routine service. The key element of this service is the availability of genuine spare parts and we have the most modern tools and equipment and well-trained and certified personnel to do the job. All of these have great impact on our turnaround time. We also have the night drop service in which vehicles could be dropped overnight for maintenance and picked up by 6 the next morning; this service caters for customers that need their vehicles during the day. It is also in our own interest to have an efficient turnaround time as well since it makes for more turn over.

 

You were building a Germaine centre in Abuja. How far have you gone with it?

We are progressing on it. Abuja is an important market for us, more so from the viewpoint of service and maintenance. When you look at the automobile industry in Nigeria and the purchasing of new vehicles, in excess of 70 per cent of all new vehicles are purchased out of Lagos; so there are lots of customers outside Lagos yearning for good service and maintenance. The days of roadside mechanics are over now. Virtually every manufacturer has dedicated and specialised diagnostic equipment, which are restricted to accredited dealers; so how do you do problem solving on the roadside? So, professionalism is coming into the business. Also, we are deploying our mobile service workshop dedicated to our out-of-town corporate clients, such that when their vehicles are due for servicing, we move the mobile workshop to their location, anywhere in Nige

in Nigeria; and if it is a major service, we provide a towing vehicle to bring the car to Lagos.

 

How are you able to harness your operations given that Germaine deals in different brands with different technologies?

If we look at the market segment, and for the purpose of this interview, we can categorise the Toyota brand as a fairly high-end product; and the Kia brand a middle-of-the-line lower-end product. This is not necessarily based on the quality because Kia brand is very strong. So if you look at these brands in a recession, where customers are not able to find credit, because banks are not lending, a lot of customers are opting for what they can afford and that is where the Kia brand has been very effective, not only in Nigeria, but worldwide. The sales aspect is not really difficult to manage; we have a lot of loyal Toyota customers, but at the same time we are now building another family of satisfied Kia owners, because we are equipped to cater for them. But the key to this is that as I speak to you, Germaine Autos has service and maintenance capacity in excess of 200 service bays, meaning we can service 200 vehicles simultaneously; this obviously makes us the largest service and maintenance company in Nigeria. We have very modern equipment, and satisfied and highly motivated staff, because customer satisfaction is very vital to the success of our business and its continuous growth.

 

Are your technicians trained specifically on an automobile brand or are they a one-fit all technicians?

Every technician or engineer we have is specialised on a brand. When we complete th

the upgrading work we are doing on this building, it would be dedicated to the Toyota brand; we already have the Kia Centre. The training and equipment are all specialised in line with the prospective brand. For instance, our staff get training from not only Toyota Nigeria Limited, TNL, but also from within here and in some cases, they get training abroad; same for the Kia brand technicians and engineers.

 

Toyota, Kia and Peugeot are competing brands; how do you manage the issue of brand loyalty?

Yes, to a good extent, they are competing, but you also have to look at the market you are dealing with. The least expensive Toyota product, say the basic Corolla 1.33 XLI, is just slightly under N3 million; while the least expensive Kia product is the Picanto and sells for about N1.3 million; so it is not quite the same market. We find our brands complementing one another. One of the challenges we face in the Toyota brand is the exchange range situation; the Yen is quite expensive, and this is making our Toyota products more expensive than they should be quite frankly, but that is not the situation with Kia Motors. So, I am saying that yes, they are in competition, but at the same time they are not if you look at the market segment. There are some customers of ours who would stick to the Toyota brand notwithstanding the cost. Globally, there are dealers who trade in several brands, but the key thing is to respect the brand; so we have dedicated facilities for each brand and it gives you respect, not necessarily competition.

 

Recently, you established the Kia Centre as part of the Germaine Group. What informed

that decision?

We took a survey of what we call the Lekki area of dominate interest, ADI, comprising Lekki corridor, Victoria Island and Ikoyi, and what we found was that in the last two years, over 7, 500 Kia products have been registered in this ADI alone, yet the number keeps growing. Given this figure, we recognised that part of the challenge was how these customers were going to be looked after, so we saw it as an important opportunity and we have been proven right because our Kia business has been growing in both sales and services.

 

How would you describe the relationship between Dana Motors and Germaine Autos in view of the fact that you both deal in the same product, and services?

We are a Kia dealer, Dana is a distributor, so we have a strong relationship with Dana, it is a distributor / dealer relationship and that is quite clear. What we have actually done in our trade in the Kia model, is to promote the Kia brand in a strong way because a lot of the Kia customers in the Lekki ADI were being challenged in getting quality service and having to go all the way to the mainland for service, especially giving the hectic traffic situation. So, our having the best Kia facility in the entire West Africa has been an added value to the Kia brand; I think Dana is happy with it. So, it is has been a mutually benefiting relationship and we are quite proud of that.

 

Apart from the Kia, Toyota, and Peugeot brands, do you have provision for other automobile brands?

Oh, yes. We service Mercedez Benz cars; we have a dedicated team for this. What we are

we are trying to do in the future is to focus more on our key brand.

 

The recent recall of some Toyota and Honda products is a source of concern for car users. Would you agree that these Toyota models affected are not in Nigeria?

TNL has made several public statements explaining the situation, and it is their responsibility to continue to make that clarification. We know as Toyota dealers, that Toyota products remain the strongest in the world. Having being a Ford and Chrysler automotive dealer in America for many years, I can tell you that recalls are not anything new.

 

This brings us to the issue of grey cars imported into the country. Does Germaine Autos have the capacity to fix a grey Toyota car affected by the recall?

I will say that we stand by TNL’s position of continually looking after the interest of all our customers. The issues about recall have to do with cold climate environment, which is why it is prevalent in Europe, America, and part of China.

 

What is your assessment of the automobile industry in Nigeria?

It suffered a major decline last year. For instance, all the major Toyota dealers in 2008 recorded a combined sales of 30,000 units, but in 2009, we were down to about 18,000 units, representing a 45 per cent reduction. Its been a very tough time for the industry. The major reasons being the liquidity crunch, unavailability of credit to individuals and companies, even banks and finances houses are unable to buy cars because they don’t have liquidity. The banking reforms clearly, are well intended, but was

it handled the wrong or right way? What is important now is that government must be decisive in ensuring that there is a major pump of liquidity into the market place so as to revamp the economy. There is no economy that can function without credit and that is why a lot of businesses have shut their door, because we’ve got people to pay, we got to sustain the economy. It is the small and medium-scale firms that create jobs. So, with regard to reforms, we have to focus on liquidity. In Europe and America, governments have stepped in to put money into their system to revamp the economy and grow it out of the recession. That should not necessarily be different in our economy.

 

Why do you think it has been difficult having a Nigerian car; and despite the fact that big franchises like Kia and Toyota record huge sales here, why can’t we have automobile plants in Nigeria?

It has a lot to do with infrastructure and government policies. Some years ago, when Toyota was looking at the African market to set up a plant, it settled for South Africa, and today, the HiLux is produced there and sold to other parts of the world. One of its major considerations for this place was power supply. You can’t run an assembly plant on generator; this generator economy is a killer. In 2008, Germaine Group spent in excess of N55 million on diesel alone; last year, our diesel cost was in excess of N4.5 million monthly. So how do you run a business on generators and diesel, it doesn’t make sense at all. How do you run a plant in such situation? You can’t fault Nigeria when it comes to having quality human workforce; we have o

one of the best in the world. But when you look at a major consideration like building a plant, and you consider power supply situation, roads, logistics, then you have to think twice. In Germaine Logistics, take dry cargo movement for instance, 30 to 40 per cent of the price of goods we move for our clients is due to logistical costs. Diesel cost, service and maintenance on our trucks because of the bad roads, is in excess of 60 per cent of the cost we charge to move dry cargo and all that cost is clearly being reflected in the price the consumer has to pay. If we had an effective railway system, I can assure you that the cost of freighting would have been 30 or 40 per cent lower than it is at the moment. The issue of political stability is also a source of worry for investors. Who wants to invest money in an economy that is politically unstable?

 

What is the major challenge in this business?

It is the downturn; the lack of liquidity and credit. That is the biggest challenge we face now. Government should pump some liquidity into the economy as is being down in other parts of the world; this economy needs it badly. The slump in the sales figure I mentioned earlier is because customers were not able to find credit. We can’t really talk about liquidity when credit lines for Nigerian companies are being withdrawn. Even the business of repatriation of money has been affected.  Look at the record in 2007 and 2008; Nigeria was getting remittances in excess of $4 billion from Nigerians abroad. That kind of money was a major lifeline for several families particularly in the rural areas and it helped provide some good liquidity

level. No businesses survive without credit. Nigeria should avoid seeing borrowing as a criminal activity, because there is nothing wrong in borrowing; it is just to have a proper plan to pay back that is important and when issues come up that interfere with that plans then you communicate with your bankers and then work out ways of continuing to make the repayment. We all need credit, there is nothing wrong with borrowing money; in fact you can’t have an economy without credit.

 

Five years from now, where do you hope to see Germaine Autos?

By the grace of God, I am confident that we would have grown a bit more, especially in the area of taking the Germaine experience to our customers nationwide. Also I hope that the Germaine Auto express centre would have been strategically located across the country in addition to the Abuja branch.