After Sales Expert Community – understanding dealers‘ needs
A close connection with practice is at the forefront of the D!AS application development, because only in this way solutions meeting the needs of end users in dealerships can be delivered. The D!AS Team has therefore launched the After Sales Expert community, a new initiative with systematic research approach involving skilled service personnel from various European countries.
The After Sales Expert Community supports the goals of D!AS by providing knowledge and insights from dealerships as well as validating ideas, approaches and new features with actual users.
“We know the retail service process and have a theoretic idea of workflows in the workshops. But we also know that the reality is more versatile. Processes in a small dealership are different from processes in large ones, customers in a rural area differ from big city customers, the application landscape varies from market to market and even from dealer to dealer. We need to understand the dealer employees’ pains and problems, listen to their experiences and opinions – and the only way of doing that is getting in touch with them”, commented on the situation Mr. Jan Siegfried, responsible manager at the Volkswagen Group IT Services (GIS) research team.
The After Sales Expert Community therefore offers all service employees (see a list of job roles) an active participation in the future design of their digital workplace and daily processes as well as first-hand view of future digital functionalities developed by the Volkswagen Group. How does it work in practice? Depending on the research questions, the D!AS Research team will setup a research design and invite community members to an online survey, arrange Teams/phone calls or visit the interviewees at their actual workplace.
For the initial contact with a service employee it is used an online registration form online registration tool available in various languages. New research participants are always welcomed: the more people join the After Sales Expert Community, the more conclusive results will be achieved. Taking part in the After Sales Expert Community will not take more than one hour per quarter, any participation is voluntary and all generated data is being treated according to legal regulations such as GDPR etc.
Matthias Streubel, service manager, Feddersen Automobile GmbH, Alfeld, Germany.
"We have been working with the D!AS research for almost two years and since then our employees have already participated in a series of interviews on various topics and processes in service and workshop, including ODIS extensions, the warranty process and Elsa2Go. I am delighted that our wishes, problems and concerns are taken into consideration and thus we can work on the change in digitalization, even if not directly. I see daily how my workload of a service manager for three branches is increasingly growing. There are more and more programs and applications and not everything that is new really helps us. That’s is why I consider the work of the D!AS research very useful”, said one of the community members, Mr. Matthias Streubel, service manager, Feddersen Automobile GmbH, Alfeld, Germany.
Since mid of 2020, the GIS research team has conducted more than 20 research projects with more than 100 teams interviews. The After Sales Expert Community will even accelerate this progress.
Thanks to online research tools, a survey can be setup and sent out to the relevant target group within hours. Depending on the speed of the interviewees’ feedback, the results can be provided in only a few days. This ensures the product teams make the right decisions. Furthermore, the research results help to convince sponsors on strategies by proving the benefits of new solutions.
In Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Ireland the After Sales Expert Community is already live, further European markets (up to 21 markets) are in preparation and should be launched short-term.
How can dealers in your country become a part of the D!AS development?
Open a link HERE.
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