Chery South Africa is moving fast to keep up with its ever-increasing sales volume in South Africa.
The company this week inaugurated a new parts warehouse in Parkhaven, Boksburg in Gauteng, a mere 14 months after opening the doors to its previous facility. The new facility represents a doubling of storage space and available parts in this short time.
To put it in perspective, the new facility will hold stock of R70 million at all times and it can hold as much as R100 million in stock if required. This represents over 4 500 different part lines and a significant investment by Chery South Africa.
“In 2022, Chery’s first full year of sales, the company welcomed 13 142 new customers to the brand. This is a new record for any new entrant in the South African market and it makes Chery the seventh most popular brand in the country. We hope to further improve on this ranking in 2023,” says Tony Liu, Executive Deputy General Manager of Chery South Africa.
To ensure that Chery maintains its high levels of after sales support, the brand moved quickly to find a new warehouse that could support its sales growth and to prepare it for further expansion to other countries in Southern Africa.
“Our choice of the warehouse in Boksburg gives us easy access to all main arteries in and out of Gauteng. It will allow us to dispatch parts to every dealership every day and to receive parts and components for storage throughout the day and night,” says Liu.
The new warehouse not only represents a major increase in size, but also in complexity. The new facility uses state of the art electronic identification systems to easily find, pick and dispatch stock.
“We are aiming for an industry leading fill rate of 98%, which will ensure that customers do not wait longer than normal to have their vehicles serviced or repaired,” says Floris du Toit Head of Aftersales Services at Chery South Africa. It is worth noting that Chery is already at a fill rate of 97,95%.
Du Toit notes that the fill rate also applies to repair parts for vehicles damaged in an accident. Chery South Africa already holds more than adequate body panels and other vehicle replacement parts that can be ordered by any of its 117 nationally approved panel shops in South Africa.
A class leading fill rate will support Chery’s best-in-class mechanical warranty of 1 million kilometres or 10 years. It means that customers can trust their Chery dealer to keep their vehicle in tip top shape with no delay or unnecessary time in the workshop.
According to Liu, the warranty support also applies to Chery’s ever-growing range of accessories.
Chery has steadily expanded its range of lifestyle and functional accessories, including electrically retractable side steps on the Tiggo 8, a range of tow bars for all vehicles and additional cargo and styling solutions for the Tiggo range.
These accessories will be stocked at the new warehouse and delivered, with a comprehensive warranty, to all dealers in the Chery network.
“We hope to instil the same level of confidence in our range of Chery accessories as we do in our products. As such, we encourage our customers to buy and fit their accessories directly from their nearest dealer to make sure that it remains within warranty,” says Liu.
These benefits will also apply to customers of Chery’s new fleet-sales division.
“Chery has seen a significant increase in sales to large fleet operators. Many of these fleet companies have strict requirements for the amount of time that a vehicle is allowed to be booked in for services or repairs. Our new warehouse will ensure that we not only meet, but exceed these strict requirements,” says Du Toit
Aside from offering significantly more warehouse space and easy access for delivery vehicles, the new warehouse also has space available for future expansion. Chery is also investigating smaller regional distribution centres that would further improve parts distribution by placing the high volume service parts closest to customers.
Chery South Africa is currently planning the creation of a dealer and staff training facility at the warehouse. This facility will focus on training dealer sales and service staff to support the new range of Chery and OMODA vehicles and offer the best customer service.
“Good customer service is at the heart of our future success,” says Liu.
“To ensure sustained sales growth and repeat sales from current customers, we need to offer only the best possible after-sales service and continuously grow our customer support standards. This is why we created Chery Care and why we have invested in this new warehouse and increased stockholding. We will make sure we earn the continued support of our Chery family and address any concerns that future clients might have about Chery’s parts availability and service support.”
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