The car manufacturers develop vehicles that first come onto the market a few years later. But which trends then prevail and which design is the right one in the corresponding segment? A secret book with seven seals are the car or customer clinics that look into the miracle ball.
Some big hall at the end of a cul-de-sac in a nameless industrial area near Essen. Boxes are stacked up on the site next door, the neighboring warehouse for pipes is overflowing and a large bakery supplies its numerous branches from here. The sober hall with an anteroom and bare walls has no windows and the associated parking lot is bursting at the seams. A few smokers are lolling around in front of the portal and next to the security guard there is a large sign on the door that reads “No trespassing – no cell phones”. No question, things are mysterious here, because even the people in front of the door apparently only speak the most necessary words to each other. What seems like something out of a spy thriller from the early 1980s is part of everyday life for the car manufacturers. The manufacturers themselves or agencies commissioned by them regularly organize so-called car or customer clinics. The aim is to find out the customers’ tastes, and as precisely as possible those that will not prevail for a few years. At the customer clinics, the test persons are shown vehicles, technologies or interior fittings, which they are asked to evaluate as neutrally as possible. You can often compare vehicles from different brands at the clinics, but sometimes you can see similar vehicles from one manufacturer with different design details or body shapes – mostly without company logos or model names.
The reason for the secrecy is simpler than ever. The car companies usually have to spend hundreds of millions of euros to develop a new vehicle. If it is even a completely new model that is to be produced in different variants in different plants worldwide, such a development sometimes costs several billion. Therefore, nothing must go wrong in development and design, because every mistake is expensive – very expensive. For this purpose, car manufacturers organize customer clinics, just like consumer electronics, food or clothing companies do. However, the auto industry is about sums that other industries can only dream of. The customer clinics take place at different levels and have different target groups. When it comes to a new segment, the companies in the strictly secured facilities ask for general opinions and trends in order to position the vehicle. This can sometimes take place four to six years before the supposed vehicle comes onto the market. When it comes to the specific model, the final customer surveys usually take place before the final design or technical process. That’s usually two and a half to four years before it finally starts and only small details can be changed if necessary.
The target groups surveyed are very different in the surveys. Either there is a cross-section of the supposed customer group or you direct specific questions to customers of the brand or potential customers of the supposed model in order to be able to get as precise a picture as possible. After the participants in the car clinics have seen the vehicles, technologies or competitors, they are specifically questioned. What is your impression of the new vehicle? What wishes do potential customers have or does the supposed competitor simply look better? Does the name fit and how do you like the operation and ergonomics.
“Every year, the Renault Group conducts around five to ten car clinics,” explains Céline, Customer Intelligence Manager at Renault impression of the high tempo that we are currently setting.” At least eight weeks of planning and organization are necessary for the French in advance of a customer clinic. “Every detail is important – right down to the spatial positioning of the vehicles so as not to influence customers and not create bias. And last but not least, absolute confidentiality must be guaranteed at every stage of the test. The Car Clinics are an important event. It is a moment of truth and validation for a vehicle in development.” Since the tests at Renault usually take place three years before the start of sales – i.e. almost halfway through the five-year development period – there is usually only one prototype available for all test demonstrations. With Renault doubling and in some cases even tripling the number of countries for testing, the teams are in perfect sync – from the highly secure transport of the prototype to on-site confidentiality – cellphones and cameras are banned.
While the test persons examine the vehicles – often according to a fixed catalog of criteria – the respective project team or even important managers of the manufacturer observe the reactions of the participants. “If participants take too long to understand the concept or react unexpectedly, the tension is palpable – and the relief is great when the first signs are positive,” explains Celine from the Renault team. The results of the customer clinic are available in different depths, usually four to eight weeks after the event and are presented here at the latest as quickly as possible to the top management, the chief developers and designers, who are then commissioned to take the corresponding feedback from the clinic into account or to change it completely. Usually, however, the teams do not have to start from scratch or fundamentally change the vehicle. Nevertheless, Céline recalls, “we had to stop some projects”. In recent years, it’s often not just about the cars themselves, but there are also customer clinics on the brand, the positioning or properties that new electric cars bring with them. In addition to range, performance and economy, aspects such as the charging infrastructure or the practicality of the charging process or the operation of increasingly complicated vehicle functions are also important.
Source: Stern
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