Executive-Winter-Spring-2019

A car dealership that’s not a car dealership is how Johanna Ellis Reisinger, president of tlanta Classic Cars, describes her business. Atlanta Classic Cars is a new- and pre-owned Mercedes-Benz dealership in Duluth, but it is so much more than that, she says. For Reisinger, it’s a family, both literally and figuratively. Reisinger’s grandfather, John Ellis, opened the dealership in 1975 in Decatur, naming it Atlanta Classic Cars because of the legendary branding and style of Mercedes- Benz. His daughter (and Reisinger’s mother) Cathy Ellis took over the business in 1988 and moved it to Gwinnett County in 2005. The third generation to run the family-owned business, Reisinger said her 170 employees are also treated like family and are the reason her customers keep coming back. Atlanta Classic Cars recently completed a major expansion that offers more opportunities for its employees and better service for its customers. Reisinger spoke with us about what makes her dealership different than others, what changes they’ve made to increase their excellent customer service and what is in store for the future of Atlanta Classic Cars. Q: What makes Atlanta Classic Cars unique? A: What I think makes us different is our people. Our staff is here to build relationships. Yes, we build relationships so we can sell cars, but first and foremost, we are here to support and serve the Atlanta community. That community philosophy is true internally as well; 50 percent of our staff has been here 10 years or more. Customers can count on returning to Atlanta Classic Cars and seeing the same EVERYONE IS FAMILY AT ATLANTA CLASSIC CARS faces and hearing the same names year after year. We recently surveyed our customers and the they told us that they can feel our staff’s engagement and satisfaction. We have customers come by just to visit because they enjoy the company of our staff. Q: You recently expanded your showroom. What is included in the expansion? A: We have an all new detached detail shop and specialty service center dedicated to our Sprinter customers. In addition to our detailing service, we wash 30,000 vehicles every year. I don’t have anyone on our detail team that has been with me for less than 15 years. They are professionals and we decided it was time to give them their own space. By moving the detailing out of our facility, we also made room to add six more service bays so we can help customers even 6 the EXECUTIVE