Dick Scott Automotive Group 2008 Recap

by Tim Joseph

I moved from our Nissan store to the Dodge store at the end of April. My first blog article was written on May 7th to announce the Refuel America Program. Gas was close to $4 per gallon and sales were down. Chrysler offered customers the chance to lock in to $2.99 per gallon for three years. That wasn't the only big announcement in May. We also announce the "Dick Scott Difference." This is a list of reasons why we're better. Things like our rewards program for example. May was also the month Field Elementary School's PTA President, Ann Marie Rockov and Principal, Pete Kudlak stopped by to pick up their $880 check for participating in our PTA program. The Motor City Viper Owners had their annual Spring Tech Day as well. I had so much fun that month.

In June we went Green when little recycle boxes showed up on all of our desks. Now we were to recycle all of our paper. We were also collecting cell phones for recycling. Proceeds would benefit the Plymouth YMCA. This year I plan to run in their Father's day 5k. With summer in full swing, gas prices topped $4/gallon and people were nearly in a panic. That is when I wrote my Fuel Economy Series (part 1, 2, 3, 3 1/2, 4). The posts were extremely popular. That is also the month we gave away four Detroit Tiger tickets to Shigeo Kato for signing up for Service Scheduling on our website.

Yes there were a lot of high points but some points were not so high. In July Chrysler announced they would be ending their leasing program the following week. Sure, we leased a ton of cars that week but the following week was not that great. Since then things have bounced back to normal. August was a month of vacations for some of us. The blog wasn't as active but Nissan showed off their electric vehicle for a small audience in Japan! Then in September Chrysler 1 upped them by unveiling THREE electric cars!

One of the highlights of Mr. Scott's year was playing a round of golf with PGA pro Ken Duke. The two hit it off so well that Ken added Dick Scott Automotive Group to his golf bag! Since then Ken has started wearing a shirt with our logo on it.

It's hard to believe but it was way back in October that we announce the coming of Indian Motorcycle Detroit. That is the post that sparked the most response. I have Indian Motorcycle owners emailing me almost daily in anticipation of the coming bike shop. My favorite blog post to date came soon after titled A Brief History of Indian Motorcycle Part 1. Indian Motorcycle riders finally have a place in Detroit to hang their.. uh... Chaps? October was also a fun month because of Halloween. Dick Scott Dodge hosted a pumpkin carving contest and the winner received a $500 gas card. The winner, Derek Baer, was in Japan for three weeks and him and his wife, Sara, didn't come in to pick up his prize until November.

Finally in December we hosted a Toys For Tots toy drive. It was amazing to see the community come together to donate so many toys. We filled four pickup trucks and one mini van full of toys. Thank you again to everyone who donated, customers, employees and people who had never been in our stores before! We ended the year with our double rewards points promotion. Very simple. Buy a car, get twice as many rewards points.

As you can see, we are very busy here at Dick Scott Automotive group. This is just a short recap and I haven't even mentioned all the Best Shot Deals, Employee Spotlights, Service Specials and, of course my favorite, Tim's Travel Tips.

Thank you for making 2008 a great year for us and we look forward to seeing you in 2009!