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www.oakvillebeaver.com The Oakville Beaver, Friday May 18, 2007 - 19 New store offers unique service from CAA By David Lea OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF The Canadian Automobile Association (CAA) is up and running in Oakville again. The travel consulting business celebrated the grand opening of its Oakville superstore recently attracting about 100 people who enjoyed the day's festivities with employees. Pedestrians who passed by the store's new central location in the Longo's Plaza, at the corner of Dundas Street and Trafalgar Road, were drawn to the tropical style steel drum music emanating from a sound system in front of the store. If this proved insufficient to peak their curiosity the large blond man in a golden toga, who broke his statuelike trance just long enough to hand out strings of colourful beads, certainly did. Inside the new spacious superstore a party atmosphere greeted guests as balloons and streamers hung from the walls and a great strawberry-covered cake, complete with a frosting CAA logo, sat on a table waiting for its part in the celebration. "It's been like this all day," laughed Sales Manager Joanne Colburne, gesturing to the multitudes of people who filled her store. While the services of CAA, which RON KUZYK / OAKVILLE BEAVER NEW BEGINNING:The new CAA Oakville store held its grand opening complete with ribbon cutting, cake and summer travel tips. Attending the opening were: left to right, Joanne Colburne, manager, Mayor Rob Burton, Art Leitch, Incoming Vice Chair of the Board, Nick Parks, president and CEO and Warren Tom, chief operating officer. range from a travel agency and providing passport photos to home and auto insurance, have stayed the same, the setting in which you receive those services has not. Warren Tom, the Chief Operating Officer for CAA, explained why the party was not just about celebrating the opening of another regular CAA store. "The whole point of this store is that it's our new concept store for our organization," he said. "It's essentially our third store only (like this) in our entire network and the thing that we really love about it is that it caters to the privacy issues that our members have." As an example of this new design Tom pointed to the enclosed insurance centres. "When you're sitting with someone and they start talking about your accident history or the possessions inside your house you don't want someone else hearing about that. So, this really allows a member to deal with us in a very comfortable manner." In an effort to further this comfort theme the CAA Superstore has incorporated a reception area near the entrance where a greeter is on hand to usher people to the services they require. "A lot of retailers have lost the concept of the fact that when people enter a large store like this they have no idea where they're going," said Tom. Another change noted by Colburne is that the superstore has been outfitted with the new Internet TripTik, which is an information package concerning the trip the customer wants to take. This package contains customized information that is important for the customer's trip including a map with a highlighted route, information about any known hazards or delays along the way and information on how to deal with things like border crossings if required. "We're very fortunate to be one of the new stores to have this and we can actually make a TripTik while you wait, unlike in the past where you had to order and you had to wait four or five days and you had to come back and pick it up," said Colburne. "Now we just do it on the computer, bickety boo, we use the binding machine and off you go." The store also comes equipped with a state of the art backup system that quickly fixes any problem that may arise with the phones or computers. See CAA page 21