With its sales surging, Toyota Motor Sales USA Inc. is outgrowing its Torrance headquarters and plans to open new facilities in the South Bay the first step in what is expected to be a continued expansion.
The additional facilities include 30,000 square feet for a new University of Toyota to train company and dealer employees, and 140,000 square feet for the customer-service division both in the Harbor Gateway near Torrance.
“Our whole campus here is just basically maxed out,” said Toyota spokesman Mike Michels. “A lot of our conference rooms have disappeared to accommodate people.”
Michels said the growth has come in several areas of Toyota Motor Sales, the U.S. division of Tokyo-based Toyota Motor Corp., including Toyota Motor Credit Corp., which has become the eighth-largest consumer lender in the United States.
Last month, Toyota had its best October ever, with 121,216 Toyota and Lexus vehicles sold a 26.8 percent increase from the 95,562 vehicles sold during the like period last year. Between January and October of 1998, Toyota sold 1.1 million vehicles, an 8.8 percent increase from the like year-earlier period.
The spike in sales has put increasing demands on Toyota’s customer-service division, where employees deal with requests for brochures, questions about warranties and problems between customers and Toyota dealers. The unit now has about 840 employees, and 50 new employees will be added after the unit moves to the Harbor Gateway early next year.
Richard Chitty, vice president of the University of Toyota, said the expansion of that program is necessary to continue the company’s growth. “The whole key is to improve the performance of our business through the education of our people,” he said.
Bob Schnorbus, director of macroeconomic analysis at Agoura Hills-based J.D. Power and Associates, agreed that while Toyota is performing well in the U.S. market, improving the education and customer-relations skills of dealers should be a priority.
“It’s always been a problem that, when you have a good product that sells itself, the sales staff gets a little lackadaisical, and that’s not always the best environment for customer satisfaction,” he said.
