Ocean Ford Whakatāne has been recognised as one of the country’s top-performing Ford dealerships after receiving a President’s Award at Ford New Zealand’s annual awards ceremony in Christchurch last month.

The President’s Awards recognise the best performing dealerships across five groups nationwide, with winners assessed on a range of measures including sales targets, parts performance and customer satisfaction.

Ocean Ford dealer principal Stephen Hermansen said the award was a proud achievement for the whole team.

“To win the President’s Award for 2025 is amazing. It’s so hard to win and to be awarded the highest honour was a great reward for the whole team at Ocean Ford.”

Mr Hermansen said Ocean Ford competes in the rural and smaller dealer group, which includes strong competition from around the country.

“This award recognises the best of the best. It isn’t easy to win. You’ve got to show excellence through a lot of different categories.”

Customer experience carries the greatest weighting in the judging criteria, based on customer satisfaction scores.

“Every time we sell a vehicle or we service a vehicle, customers get a survey.”

The dealership has previously won the award several times but has not claimed the top honour since 2022.

He said the business had worked hard in recent years, including redeveloping the dealership and continuing to improve service standards.

“We thought we were good, but we had to improve and we’ve got to keep improving, to meet customer expectation,” he said.

“We don’t come to work to win the award, we come to work to do our best. So, every day we’re trying to be better than the day before. We’re constantly fine-tuning.”

Mr Hermansen said the award win would give customers confidence when choosing Ocean Ford.

“It gives our customers confidence in the fact that when they come to Ocean Ford, that we’re going to do a good job for you and we’re going to continue.”

Mr Hermansen and his wife, Paula, travelled to Christchurch for the awards but were not expecting to win.

“We didn’t expect it. I sort of thought we’d been beaten. When Ocean Ford’s name was called out for our group, I was like, you are joking. It was just such a good surprise, and it was great reward and recognition for the whole team.”

He said the award ultimately belonged to the team.

“For me, it’s just about the team. It’s a whole Ocean Ford team award and we’ve got some really good people here that do a fantastic job. And without them, we would be nowhere, it was definitely a team effort.”