Scooping Best Overall Dealer, plus an aftersales award at Honda UK’s dealer conference, Miles Kingsport look odds-on to take the 45-Year Long Service award (won in 2019 by Doble Motorcycles) in the near future. The Hull business has been with Honda since its foundation in 1976 and is not likely to change tack any time soon.
Longevity and consistency are key factors for success, according to MD Andy Kirkup, with Miles Kingsport since 1995, and Tim Wade, son of company founder Harold Wade. Tim passed the overall management mantle to Andy five years ago, but remains involved with the showroom, backing-up sales executive Lee Fetches.
“Hull is out on a limb and that works to our advantage,” Tim says. “The shop is known to everyone as ‘Miles’s’ and you might say we’re a local institution.”
“The town is flat and scooters and 125s are a big part of the business: if the smaller end is going well, the rest will go well,” Andy Kirkup says.
The Overall Best Dealer award won by the Miles Kingsport team attests to a positive relationship with Honda UK. Not merely based on sales performance and market share in the territory, the award was also judged on customer satisfaction and other indicators.
“We are fair with people, leading to a lot of repeat business because customers come back,” Wade says. “We’ve had people who first came in as teenagers, then got married and had children but still come back years later.”
Most used sales come via the internet, both through MK’s own website and eBay and Gumtree, with nationwide deliveries by the firm’s own van and staff.
Not only looking set for that 45 Years Honda award in 2021, MK aims to be around for a while yet.
Full feature in the February issue of BDN.