In 1924, Nish Atamian traded a horse and trailer for a new Dodge. That launched a century of success in the Tewksbury, Massachusetts, area, with the familyowned business selling a variety of automotive brands over the years. In 1976, Bob Atamian opened Atamian Honda, which has served the community ever since.
Pranav Gill, managing partner, joined the store in November of 2022 after a long history of working with luxury brands. His experience caught the attention of Atamian Honda’s longtime dealer principal, Terry Atamian.
“Looking at the business with fresh eyes, I saw that although the store was profitable, there was an opportunity to continue growing the store with a larger focus on customer retention,” Gill says.
Gill started by going back to the basics. “How do we take care of a customer? How do we build our team? How do we make sure we’re covering all the steps in the sales process? How do we instill good service to drive processes?” Gill says. “I knew we had to change what we were doing in order to get to where we needed to be today.”
A major part of the plan was to grow the store’s relationship with Honda Financial Services (HFS). Susan Chipman, American Honda Finance Corporation dealer relations manager, says that in addition to Honda financing, Atamian Honda now offers the full suite of Honda Care products. That includes being one of the first dealerships to offer Honda Care Multi-Coverage Protection and Term Protection, introduced last October.
“Pranav is an incredible business partner, and we’ve seen the penetration rate jump from around 30%–40% to 89% over the past year,” Chipman says. “He wants the store to be number one in the district, and they’re already on their way to earning their first Council of Excellence award.”
Honda Care products are a key part of the store’s retention strategy. “We have to provide our customers with products that protect their vehicles,” Gill says. “Honda Care is an amazing retention tool for both new and certified pre-owned sales because owners are going to come back to you for service. And if you continue to treat them well, they’ll return to buy their next new or certified pre-owned vehicle.”
That’s not a coincidence. “Customers can have a negative experience with some third-party products, which can affect whether they return to a dealer,” says Emily Agosti, regional performance manager for Honda Care Products. “But we find they are 10%–15% more likely to buy an OEM-branded service product, which improves the customer experience and, ultimately, customer retention.”
At Atamian Honda, customers are introduced to Honda Care service and protection plans early in the sales process. “That helps them understand what’s available and the benefits of the different products,” says Gill. “Then, when they’re presented again at a later point in the process, there is a higher probability of us completing the sale.”
Ultimately, success is about more than sales numbers and branded products. It’s having a culture that encourages operational excellence and customer service that treats everyone like the most important customer of the day.
“Just because we’re not a luxury store doesn’t mean we can’t act like one, so we strive to treat every customer like a million bucks,” Gill says. “We also pay very close attention to our processes, because if you have good processes in your service department, your sales department success is inevitable.”
