By Brock Weir

A new era has begun at Aurora Toyota under the growing umbrella of the NewRoads Automotive Group.

The Newmarket-based company, which now boasts five brands in their portfolio, took over Aurora Toyota, located at Bayview and Wellington, in November and are now hard at work bringing the NewRoads philosophy to loyal customers.

“We have been present in Aurora and Newmarket for the better part of twelve years,” says NewRoads president Michael Croxon. “It was eight or nine years ago that we bought the GM store (in Newmarket), rebranded as NewRoads and focused our thinking on how we were going to position ourselves in the community. Community is one of our four pillars, along with employee engagement, customer enthusiasm and performance. We developed these four pillars quite conscientiously and we spent a lot of time figuring out how to execute better in each of those areas.

“We just came off our annual NewRoads retreat where we had 85 of our associates and…we talked about employee engagement, customer enthusiasm and what we can do to be better in those two specific areas. The community piece ties into our fundamental belief that employee engagement will lead to customer enthusiasm, that employee engagement will lead to community involvement and if we're involved in giving back to the community, our hope is the community will consider us for their next automotive purchase.”

If the community is considering NewRoads for their next automotive purchase, they are spoiled for choice. Aurora Toyota joins a portfolio that not only includes General Motors, but Chrysler, Mazda and Subaru.

“Toyota is aligned with quality and has always been,” says Mr. Croxon. “We like to think NewRoads and what we do is aligned with a certain quality as well. To that end, the brands complement each other. Toyota has always put a premium on a tremendous service experience for their customers. They have a very loyal customer following and they have a significant market share, if not the top market share, of any brand in this geography. If we are to become the predominant automotive retailer in the northern 905, as it were, Toyota makes a lot of sense for us.

“Toyota has a broad portfolio. The trends now are towards small SUVs and I think it is timely we closed this deal on November 30 because by December 10, we had the new Toyota RAV4 on the showroom floor, and that has been met with tremendous enthusiasm from both current RAV4 customers and people who are new to the Toyota brand trading in other makes. As other manufacturers exit the car market [in favour of small SUVs], Toyota is not doubling down, but they have made a point in saying they're staying in. Their redone Corolla is a tremendous car and a tremendous value for customers.”

Throughout the rest of 2019, NewRoads aims to bring Aurora Toyota, as well as their recently acquired Newmarket Toyota showroom, into “the NewRoads culture.” It is a task Mr. Croxon says he does not take lightly.

“You always want to sell more cars, you always want to service more automobiles, you always want to drive the bottom line of the organization, but if we have been successful in taking the 85 Toyota associates that we inherited [from both stores] and getting their thinking aligned with our other 250 associates around our culture and the way that we like to treat each other and our customers, then it will have been a successful year,” he says. “Wrapping our arms around the associates here was our first priority.

“I am not doing my job unless I am waking up in the morning trying to figure out a way to create an environment where people are happy and our customers will not be satisfied unless our employees are happy.”