Huw Lewis signs Michelin Certified Centre 2013 agreement

Huw Lewis Tyres, a family run tyre dealer with three sites in and around Aberystwyth, became the first independent tyre dealer to sign a long term contract with Michelin in March. The agreement follows a partnership begun in the second half of 2012 with ATS Euromaster, for whose fleet customers Huw Lewis Tyres provides local services. From the acquisition of the former ATS Euromaster Aberystwyth site in 2009, the tyre retailer has since expanded to three sites with Lampeter and Machynlleth run by Lewis’s two sons – all this merely seven years after Huw started his business.

The Michelin Certified Centre agreement is designed to extend Michelin’s support for the standard of service provided by Huw Lewis Tyres, allowing the indie retailer to “work on bigger projects” and “longer term contracts”, Lewis said; Malcolm Scovell, commercial director at Michelin, told Tyres & Accessories of the importance to Michelin of gaining in return the sort of “third-party recommendations” from retailers such as Huw Lewis.

Michelin Certified Centres – the bulk of which are ATS Euromaster sites, or Micheldever Tyre Services’ Protyre centres – are awarded by the manufacturer to tyre dealers it considers to have “reached high standards in all areas of their business”. Michelin judges this on criteria under the three main headings Workshop and buildings; Levels of customer service; and Personnel requirements. The motivation behind the scheme is to find dealers who, in the words of Lewis, buy into the “shared ideology” of assuring the customer of the high standard of service. From a commercial point of view, it is not a giant leap to see how customers seeking a quality proposition in terms of service are also more likely to appreciate the qualitative arguments for buying the most expensive tyre on the market – especially if they are made by a service provider they trust.

Guy Heywood, Michelin UK and Republic of Ireland commercial director, told Tyres & Accessories that the strategy behind the Certified Centre scheme is to provide a “more robust… local hero contract” marking out the “most professional tyre retailers in the area” in order to move the UK consumer “from a cost to a value mentality” with propositions such as increased vehicle uptime, fuel savings and so on. This is motivated by a “desire for growth” in Michelin’s business of course, and Heywood talked of the possibilities of “actively winning business” for the retailer with support in the form of visits from Michelin staff, joint calls with customers and so on. Lewis concurs, saying his business is “growing with the support of the manufacturer”.

Putting this agreement within the context of current severe pressures on the high street, it seems a natural progression for premium brands to seek the support of local retailers and vice versa. Just as tyre brands such as Michelin feel the pinch of consumers seeking the cheapest ways to run their vehicles, retailers providing high quality independent service must find a way to sustain their perceived value as e-Commerce offers a more price-driven selling model. Scovell and Michelin continue to advocate the “need for service” in tyre retail, and the Certified Centre scheme aims to provide structural support for dealers with this ideology.

ATS-E seeing “increasing traffic” at partner sites

While the signing of the Certified Centre agreement is a ramp up of Huw Lewis’s relationship with Michelin itself, ATS Euromaster’s agreement with the retailer – and with Northern Ireland’s Modern Tyre Service centres in Belfast, and Lisburn – has been yielding some impressive results.

Gill Addy, efficiency programme director at ATS Euromaster, told Tyres & Accessories: “The network partnership agreements we set up in 2012 have been performing well, both for us as a business, and for our customers. We are seeing increasing ATS Euromaster traffic into the six network partner sites on a monthly basis, and receiving positive feedback from fleet customers who appreciate the added convenience of being able to access an extended network.

“During the last three years we’ve invested more than £14 million in our own network and this focus on further modernising our centres and launching new services is continuing throughout 2013 – complementing our new relationship with Huw Lewis Tyres and Modern Tyre Service.” 

The ATS-E partnerships are also reciprocal in nature; customers of Huw Lewis Tyres and Modern Tyre Service have access to ATS Euromaster’s network of more than 350 centres throughout the UK when outside of their own service provider’s coverage.