Galway garage excels in sales service

Excelsior Garage Ltd has proved its worth in 26 years of car and light commercial sales and repairs. Dealer Principle Shane Cunniffe spoke to Irish Trucker about the company.

Excelsior Garage Ltd was established on the Tuam Road, Galway in 1980.
The company are now an established Isuzu and Iveco dealership
servicing Galway and the surrounding area. Over the years the company has prided itself on delivering a personal, reliable and effective sales service to all its customers. A speedy after sales service and a good repairs service also helps the firm maintain a high level of customers throughout the whole year. The company also holds a wide range of Isuzu and Iveco parts and accessories headed in the parts department by Angela Flaherty. Alongside this, Excelsior Garage Ltd has a wide selection of quality used cars.

A glance at the firm’s website (www.excelsiorgarage.com) tells customers that Excelsior Garage Ltd also has an excellent after sales service. Under Service Manager Pat Delaney, the public can count on trained technicians and service managers who have years of technical experience. The company will always ensure that they have the best facilities to ensure that a person’s vehicle is well-repaired.

Shane Cunniffe, dealer principle in the company, highlighted his own entry into the business. Given that he grew up beside the garage, perhaps it was inevitable that at some stage, he would embark on a career in the
industry. It proved to be exactly like that.
“My father John Cunniffe set up the firm and I was living right beside it. As he was working there from the start, it gave me a flavour for it. All I ever wanted to do when I was in school was to get out and serve my time as a mechanic. This is what I did when I left school,” he says.

Eventually he got his rewards, moving into various roles within the company. Although he trained as a mechanic, his work is not confined to that area. At the moment he isn’t doing much work as a mechanic and most of his work is concentrated on the increasingly busy sales area. With the company well-established, he is rarely bored. Moreover he enjoys the
crossover between the tedious task of catering for vehicles and dealing with the public. Given a choice though, he prefers selling vehicles than repairing them.

“I enjoy working as a mechanic but I get a great buzz out of sales. There is good job satisfaction. Working on the commercial end of things is really the road I want to take as there is a good market for that kind of work.”
He also explained that cars also provide him with a hobby in his spare time alongside his livelihood.
“I have also done a good bit of rallying in my time. I was always keenly interested in it. Even though I just do it in the local area, it’s been a very enjoyable side interest.”

At the moment there are 23 people working in the company across all the departments. Having had a base on the Tuam road in the early stages, the company are now in an expanded premises with larger workshop parts and showroom facilities as Shane explained.
“We were based in the same place for a good while. Then things got bigger and we needed another premises. So at the moment we are around one and a half miles from Eyre Square. It’s ideal being very close to the city.”

Alongside the new Iveco range of commercial vehicles, Isuzu has also been a big seller for the company over the last few years. As mentioned above, the company also has a selection of quality used vehicles from which the public can choose. Prior to that, the firm were agents for Fiat and MG Rover for a number of years. Still, the company has grown considerably in the eleven years that Shane has been with them.
“I have seen a good bit of expansion in the time that I’ve been here. We’ve been getting progressively bigger. The products have improved a lot and we’re always looking to the future. We also have a repair and recovery person on board for repairs 24 hours a day so that helps us retain customers,” he says.

Managing Director John Cunniffe had his entry into the business abroad. He worked in Canada for a number of years before relocating to Ireland. Having worked with his brother in the Hiway garage, Tuam, he decided to go out on his own. It’s not a decision he’s regretted and John’s presence has always been very helpful to the employees in the premises.
“I suppose you’re always learning. Every day there is something new. Dad is beside me all the time and I think it’s helped me and everyone else that we have somebody so experienced to head the business,” says Shane.
Despite all the success which the company has had, they are hoping for further growth in the years ahead. At the moment they are looking to move to a Greenfield site in the near future. They intend to move into a purpose-built place and will work towards that aim.

All at Excelsior Garage Ltd can be proud of their achievements over the years. They have built on their foundations well and maintained their high standards of service all the time. The result has been a very reliable and successful company which is working very hard to keep pace with its registered company motto: ‘Service Nulli Secundus’ meaning ‘Sales and Service which is second to none’.