Mitsubishi Motors Philippines Corporation (MMPC) recently concluded its annual Skills Olympics for its dealers last November 12 and 13, 2005. This annual Skills Olympics was introduced by MMPC in order to promote competitiveness and encourage continuous development of skills among dealer personnel in vehicle sales, Mitsubishi genuine parts merchandising and service operations. By doing so, MMPC believes that only in the further improvement of personnel and making them realize the importance of customer satisfaction (CS), will enable the dealers to serve the customer better and keep customer loyalty towards dealerships and the Mitsubishi brand in general.

"We have been emphasizing on Customer Satisfaction a lot since it is really an important aspect in our business. The Mitsubishi Skills Olympics promotes competitiveness to which we improve the level of quality and consistency in dealing with our customers. I am very pleased that our CS programs, such as this Skills Olympics, is leading us to success, as Mitsubishi was able to achieve the highest ranking in SSI for two years in a row based on the latest announcement by J.D. Power. At the end of the day, our loyal customers are the ones really benefiting from this contest," said MMPC senior executive vice-president for marketing Yoshiaki Ichimura.

A total of 88 participants from MMPC's nationwide dealership network took part in this year's Mitsubishi Skills Olympics, competing to be the champion in Vehicle Sales, Genuine Parts merchandising, Service Technician champion, Service Advisor champion, Service Team champion and overall 2005 Mitsubishi Skills Olympics champion. Prior to this, MMPC's dealers also conducted their own mini-competition prior to the Mitsubishi Skills Olympics in order to determine their representative for this Skills Olympics.

In determining the champion for Vehicle Sales, the best salesmen from all dealers underwent product knowledge testing and were instructed to demonstrate a comprehensive walk around and delivery procedure to a customer. Similarly, for genuine parts representatives and service advisors, participants were assessed a thorough written examination and were given situational enactment of parts sales and service reception management in order to determine how they receive customers.

For the Service Technicians, aside from the Mitsubishi Service Technician Education Program exam, their diagnostic skills were put into test as they were told to repair a vehicle problem and start the vehicle in a given time limit. All the scores on sales, parts and service were tabulated to determine the champion dealer in the Mitsubishi Skills Olympics.