Background: New approaches to after-sales service: is the customer still king?

On paper, the matter reads simply. You get experienced engineers on board and design a car. Once the vehicle is ready, you find a contract manufacturer or take over unused production facilities, including the tools, from long-established car manufacturers. It all sounds logical and according to a plan that “young” car manufacturers like VinFast are practicing. However, the manufacturer-customer relationship does not end with the sale of the vehicle. This is where the real challenges begin. A car lasts many thousands of kilometers and buyers want to feel that they are in good hands even after they have bought the vehicle. Key word: customer loyalty. If you get an all-round carefree package when you have a problem, you are more likely to choose a product from the manufacturer for your next purchase.

If a defect occurs, it should be solved quickly and easily. If this happens, the customer feels that he is in good hands. What happens when this is supposedly not the case can be seen in a Tesla driver forum. There, a user loudly vents his anger about the customer service of the American car manufacturer. The service is “very bad”, Tesla is “absolutely unsuitable” and has “no idea about service”. In the further course, some other Tesla owners report who are satisfied with the customer service, but also those who agree with the disgruntled fellow sufferer. The episode shows how great the challenge of digitizing customer service is.

“Established automobile manufacturers have an established network of workshops, dealers, service points – of course, there is also experience in this area. Here, of course, the big brands have a massive lead. Building such a network is not easy – and above all not cheap. Building a greenfield network or based on independent workshops costs money and a lot of time, and the processes also have to get used to it first. Here it is extremely difficult to immediately be able to offer a higher level. At the same time, of course, customers expect certain standards in the area of ​​aftersales, especially in the Central European market,” says Klaus Schmitz from the management consultancy Arthur D. Little.

It is precisely this challenge that newcomers like VinFast or Nio have to face. An established dealer and service network makes some things easier, but it also costs money. This is not so easy with these manufacturers because it is immensely expensive to put a production-ready car on the road. It is also part of the nature of these start-ups not to present their products in traditional car dealerships, but in hip “flagship stores” where the car salespeople are called either consultants or genius and the chai latte tastes much better on the chic lounge furniture , if the impact wrench isn’t rattling in the workshop next door.

One solution is to raise a service network of free and established workshops, as practiced by Hyundai’s luxury brand Genesis. “Due to the complexity and special requirements, the search for suitable partners was a particular challenge,” explains Daniel Pokorny, Head of Customer Service at Genesis Germany. But he also dutifully emphasizes that one is satisfied with the partners. Nevertheless, the German branch will also rely on a classic dealer network in the future in order to achieve sales goals.

In order to gain a foothold in Germany, VinFast relies on cooperation with the digital vehicle repair management platform Fixico in Germany, France and the Netherlands. According to its own information, it offers a network of around 3,000 workshops throughout Europe and the supply of spare parts should also be guaranteed. The Dutch are not quite today’s rabbits. The company from Amsterdam is already digitizing the repair process of their vehicle fleets for over 250 customers such as Sixt, SAP and Share Now. On the Fixico homepage, certified master companies are promoted and customer satisfaction is 9.4 out of 10 points.

If desired, communication between the driver and the workshop can be carried out easily via an app. It all sounds great like a no-fuss way to make customer service seamless. Anyone who has taken their car to an independent workshop knows that the results can vary and, especially with complex modern vehicles, the skill of the mechanic is a very crucial factor. The Fixico makers know that too. “Together with the manufacturer, we define a list of requirements ranging from certifications to tools and equipment. Most of the selected workshops also already work with premium manufacturers and thus cover the highest industry standards,” explains Derk Roodhuyzen de Vries, CEO and co-founder of Fixico.

It all reads wonderfully on paper. In reality, however, there are different tasks. The service and repair routines are different for the different products and the customer expects a perfect result. Fixico wants to counteract this with meticulous controls and penalties. “In the event of a poor result from a workshop, our internal network team examines each individual case and supports the driver in ensuring that the workshop rectifies the situation according to the agreements. Based on such experiences, a workshop can be approved or excluded from future repairs depending on its performance and compliance with the agreements,” says Derk Roodhuyzen.

Fixico also sees itself prepared for the difficult technical challenges, since the partner workshops are trained according to the requirements of the respective car manufacturers and have also put money into their hands for this. “For example, they invest in advanced training in high-voltage technology, in tools for calibrating driver assistance systems and in the welding of hybrid components,” says the Fixico boss. The future will show what it looks like when employees have to repair a VinFast car today and another car tomorrow. So the cooperation between Fixico and VinFast is an endurance test as to whether digitization also works in the workshop service of automobile manufacturers.