VOLKSWAGEN will “massively expand” online and direct sales as it gets fit for the future.
A new sales model to be launched in Europe by 2020 will see five new sales and service formats such as city showrooms or pop-up stores while at the same time, the sales organisation will become more flexible and efficient.
VW and its European Dealer Council presented their vision for the future this week in Berlin, outlining how it will affect its 5,400 dealers and service partners as well as their 54,000 employees in Europe.
The objective is to provide individual round-the-clock support for customers going far beyond vehicle sales on the basis of a unique VW customer ID.
Each year, the VW brand intends to introduce about 5m customers to a new world of mobility around the world and to offer individual services on the basis of their ID.
Jürgen Stackmann, Board Member for Sales for the VW brand, said:. “Our business environment is changing at a breathtaking pace in view of new technologies, changed customer expectations and new market players.”
According to Stackmann, VW is well-positioned, with qualified sales and service partners, an established logistics network, a strong product portfolio and extremely loyal customers.
He said that the new sales model was the combination of this infrastructure with the new elements which would define business in the future, such as digital products and services or new online sales possibilities for products and services.
The new sales model is being driven by the progressive digitalisation and connectivity of the VW fleet, which will reach a new level with the introduction of the new, fully connected electric ID family in 2020.
From then, VW customers with their personal ID number are to be at the centre of a fully-networked world of mobility including individual support going beyond vehicle purchasing, with round-the-clock availability.
Stackmann added: “This way, we will learn more about our customers’ needs and will be able to develop optimum tailor-made offerings for each individual customer through intelligent data management. This is already practiced successfully in other sectors.”
Customers will benefit from a wide variety of tailor- made offerings. For example, vehicles will be kept up-to-date by over-the- air software updates via the mobile phone network.
Vehicles will notify the dealer that the next service is due via the predictive maintenance app. Customers will also be able to access a broad portfolio of services from the Volkswagen We digital ecosystem such as We Park, We Deliver or We Connect.
There will also be services going beyond customers’ own vehicles such as We Share – the planned car sharing offering from Volkswagen.
Online business will make a key contribution to the development of the new sales model and is currently being massively expanded.
Within the framework of its new digital partnership with its dealers, VW will develop a joint Internet platform which will handle the entire purchasing process through to contract conclusion – including financing, payment and even used car trade-ins.
Customers will be able to choose from the entire brand model range and to complete their car purchase with their selected dealer online. For VW, the new platform will offer the possibility of direct sales for the first time; the brand intends to use this possibility mainly in the fields of software and online services.
People who prefer to maintain personal contact with the brand and the dealer will have a choice of different points of contact. There will be five new formats in addition to the traditional full-feature dealership with sales and service under one roof.
Dealers will be able to shape their business by agreement with the relevant importer and make it more effective and customer-oriented, with city showrooms, pop-up stores, service factories, used car centres or scalable full-feature dealerships (i.e. of variable size) all possible.
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