They always say that the truck sales department sells the first truck and the parts and service departments sell the next ones. It seems that is true for drinks wholesaler, Nectar Imports.
The long-term relationship between Nectar and local Isuzu dealer Ferndown Commercials has been confirmed with the arrival of five new Isuzu trucks into the Nectar fleet. With four new Isuzu 7.5 tonne rigids and one new 11 tonne Isuzu rigid, all specified with curtainsided bodies and supplied by Ferndown, Nectar now operates 18 Isuzus in total within its 25-strong drinks distribution fleet.
The Nectar Fleet
Comprising 16 Isuzu 7.5 tonne N75.190E rigids and two higher GVW 11 tonne Isuzu F110.210’s, all featuring dedicated curtainsided drinks bodies, the Nectar Isuzus operate within a highly intensive delivery operation covering up to 80,000 km per annum per vehicle over a seven-year working life.
Richard Waterworth, head of sales, Isuzu Truck UK said:
Without doubt Nectar Imports work their Isuzu trucks really hard, day in, day out. However, this is food and drink to the Isuzu truck range and, with many years proven experience within the Nectar fleet, the arrival of the latest five new Isuzus is definitely something to celebrate”.
Apart from the proven reliability and excellent payload of the Isuzu trucks over a decade of service, another main reason behind the long-term relationship between the companies is the performance of Ferndown Commercials, who are Nectar’s local Isuzu dealer.
This was evidenced during the current Covid-19 crisis as Matthew Lapham, transport manager at Nectar Imports explains:
The onset of the Corona pandemic has presented many challenges within our market sector. One of these challenges was ensuring that our vehicle maintenance schedules were followed and that all the vehicles were presented to Ferndown so that they could uphold our schedule. The Ferndown team have been fantastic, ensuring they were able to maintain our fleet and communicate any changes to schedules to enable a smooth working partnership. This means that Nectar as a company is in a strong position to return to normal trading as soon as we get the green light.
Matthew continues, “For 10 years now, we have worked closely with Ferndown on both the supply of new Isuzus, as well as the level of service support we get from them. Their aftersales service is second to none as they keep our vehicles out on the road through their excellent maintenance support team, whilst we are totally impressed by their refreshingly proactive approach to our requirements,”
“Ferndown are always prepared to go the extra mile looking after our fleet. With this individual approach to our business, we believe that Isuzu trucks really do serve their purpose within our fleet. Not only that but our drivers also find them to be extremely user-friendly, especially when doing city centre deliveries where the Easyshift gearbox comes into its own,” concluded Matthew.