Reaffirming its customer first principle, Toyota rewards top performing retailers with European Customer Satisfaction Award

Toyota Motor Europe (TME) announced the winners of the 2012 'Ichiban' European Customer Satisfaction Award during an event held last night at the Zappeion Megaron Hall in Athens, in presence of the Minister of Tourism of the Greek government Mrs. Olga Kefalogianni.

Quality has always been the focus of Toyota, as part of the company's DNA. With this principle in mind a total of 42 awards were presented to retailers from across 32 markets, in recognition of their exceptional performance in Customer Satisfaction both in Sales and After Sales areas.

Approximately 2,300 European retailers were evaluated on their results during a continuous performance monitoring, which is included in the company's standards. Based on a very demanding set of selection criteria, the winners offer top performance aiming to exceed customer expectations.

Speaking at the awards ceremony, Didier Leroy, President and CEO of TME said: 'Toyota is deeply committed to bringing superior product and service to ensure customer satisfaction. Thank you, our Ichiban winners, for continuing to lead and to be the example of how to make our customers happy!'

'Ichiban' is the Japanese word borrowed from 'Okyakusama Ichiban' which means 'Customer First', with 'Ichiban' meaning 'first' or 'number one'. Since the beginning of the TME's annual Ichiban Awards in 2007, Customer Satisfaction performance of the Toyota retailers has improved by some 43% in Sales and 34% in After Sales, according to an internal Toyota customer satisfaction survey performed Europe.

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