Luke Laurence from the Crown Suzuki dealership in Hendon, North London, has change into the primary particular person to win The Motor Ombudsman’s Nationwide Storage Star Award – the highest prize within the trade watchdog’s annual Star Awards competitors.

The trophy was formally introduced for the primary time in-person at a ceremony on the Homes of Parliament.

Launched in 2020 amidst the pandemic, the annual Star Awards recognise Motor Ombudsman-accredited companies and employees members working for these organisations, who’ve gone the additional mile to assist clients when shopping for a automotive, having it maintained, or on the time of creating a purchase order or a declare on a guaranty.

For the 2023 Star Awards, 3,186 on-line nominations have been acquired from clients up and down the UK – a brand new document for the competitors, and greater than double the quantity seen final 12 months. A shortlist of three finalists was drawn up by The Motor Ombudsman for every of this 12 months’s eight regional Storage Star Awards. The shortlist of 24 contenders was then handed to a four-strong judging panel.

In what was a closely-fought contest, 4 particular person workforce members working at separate dealerships, two automotive showrooms, and two unbiased garages, emerged victorious together with Luke Laurence from the southern area, who was chosen for going above and past in the course of the buy of a automobile by a buyer who had lately moved from one other nation, and the place English was not their native language.

From the ‘class of 2023’, it was the nomination for Luke Laurence that unanimously caught the eye of the panel, that means the North London gross sales government was bestowed the title of Nationwide Storage Star, receiving £1,000 in excessive road vouchers in recognition of his distinctive achievement.

Receiving the trophies, Luke stated: “I’m delighted to have gained each a regional trophy and the best accolade on this 12 months’s Star Awards out of the hundreds of nominations submitted by clients in the course of the previous few months. I all the time make a degree of doing no matter I can to make sure the best stage of customer support and satisfaction, and I’m very honoured to have been publicly recognised for my onerous work and dedication to my function. As well as, to have acquired the awards on the Homes of Parliament at such a prestigious ceremony, makes this a really memorable and particular achievement.”

Invoice Fennell, chief ombudsman and managing director of The Motor Ombudsman, stated: “Luke’s relentless pursuit of going the additional mile and willpower to suppose exterior the field to search out the very best resolution for the buyer, made him a really worthy recipient of our Nationwide Storage Star Award and the regional Storage Star Award for the South.”

For this 12 months’s Buyer Service Star Awards, which recognise Motor Ombudsman-accredited automobile producers and automobile guarantee suppliers which have gone the additional mile for his or her clients, the judging panel named Genesis Motor UK and The Motoring Organisation, because the respective winners.