G
Guest2018
Something another member of this forum just posted in the CX-9 section brought this whole question back to life for me: Is The Current Dealer Model Broken and What Should Replace It?
I put this here because most eyes are here in the CX-5 section which makes sense - they sell more of them. I want to bat around an idea that I've been thinking about lately. Nothing brand new but it does have a little twist to it.
Given that I just paid over twelve dollars for a few drops of touch-up paint (no kidding), this question revives my clarion call for significant changes to the pre and post sales customer experience as we know it within the Automobile Industry. How hard would it be for a company like Mazda to step out and make such a change by offering direct to customer sales and technical support and is now the right time for Mazda to do it?
As Mazda redesigns its fleet of vehicles through the new Kodo Design Language platform, would it make Mazda stand out even more boldly as an auto producer, if it brought into existence a Direct Sales model and Direct Service, Repair and Maintenance model to its broad base of customers world wide. I think it would distinguish Mazda in ways that would really make its brand and its offering stand out even more and well beyond what the new design language can produce on its own.
Benefits to the Mazda Customer?
- Lower pricing for new vehicles
- Lower maintenance, service and repair costs
- Higher confidence in the Direct OEM experience
Benefits to Mazda?
- Increased sales volumes across the board
- Increased revenues through delivery of maintenance, service and repairs
- Much stronger customer satisfaction coupled to ironclad customer loyalty
- Broader market penetration world wide
- Enhanced stock price
- Enhanced new development capital
A classic Win/Win. I don't see how Mazda could lose here. Sure, it would take time and cost to build out the infrastructure but that would be recovered in a relatively short period of time as a new stream of sales/revenues began flowing as a result of the new services being offered to a new breed of highly dedicated Mazda owners and customers. But, how Mazda goes about delivering such service would be just as important (if not more) than the service itself.
So, for brief moment, just assume that a drastic change is needed in the current model for how we buy our vehicles and have them serviced after the sale. Then, turn to the question of how. How would Mazda implement Direct OEM Maintenance, Repairs and Service to its current and future base of customers?
Well, what if it went something like this:
When you need service, Mazda would send a Maintenance Concierge to your home or office, swap like vehicles with you on the premises and then bring your vehicle back after service is complete. If you own a CX-5 then you get a CX-5 of equal or greater trim value as a loaner until your vehicle is returned to your home or office. What if you need repairs and your vehicle is not operable (cannot be driven)? In that case, a Mazda Maintenance Concierge drives a like vehicle in convoy with a Mazda flatbed tow truck to your home or office with the same net result at the end. Your vehicle is towed on a flatbed to the nearest OEM Mazda Repair Facility, you get the CX-5 of equal or greater trim (because that's what you own now) and your personal vehicle is returned to your home or office as you designate upon completion of the work.
How Could Mazda Physically Structure This?
This would allow Mazda to carefully and strategically locate its physical service centers to make the logistics work in their favor and at lower operating costs than most dealers have right now. Other than pure politics and protecting sacred cow pre-historic business models that don't work, I don't know why this is not being done right now throughout the industry. Mazda could easily drive down the ongoing operating costs of these OEM Repair Facilities because it won't have the overhead associated with needing fill an entire storage lot with new vehicles of the current and next years model. It can construct (or renovate) dedicated space that functions as Pure Play Maintenance and not both maintenance and sales.
So, the size and scope of these facilities can be greatly scaled down to facilitate lower operating costs. And, though the total size of the facility would actually shrink relative to a full scale dealer lot, the actual floor space dedicated to maintenance and repairs under roof would increase in relative size - again making the operation more efficient internally (a very important factor to consider).
How Could Mazda Implement Delivery?
When we recently purchased our new 2017 CX-9 Signature, we got a Welcome To The Family of Mazda type of letter form the CEO. In that letter, the CEO explained how grateful they were that we selected Mazda and how committed they were to making sure our Mazda experience was second to none. That's essentially what the letter was intended to communicate and I think it did it rather well.
However, what if that letter went on to describe something additional, something truly unique in the entire gas powered automobile industry. What if that same letter from CEO Masamichi Kogai, went on to explain a new kind of post-sale experience of truly remarkable Technical Support that you could expect to look forward to receiving from Mazda. How much more confident would such a letter make you feel about your new purchase:
Dear highly valued new Mazda family member,
Your new journey with Mazda has just begun. Our goal at Mazda is to make certain that your entire ownership experience is covered form A-Z with everything you will ever need to get the most from your new Mazda vehicle. To make your ownership experience as trouble free as possible, we would like to take this time to introduce you to our On-Demand Mazda OEM Maintenance Service program. At no additional cost to you and for the life of your warranty (or extended warranty), Mazda will provide personal Concierge level service to you whenever you need maintenance, service and/or repairs to your vehicle. At Mazda, we're doing things different.
We call the core service our On-Demand Mazda OEM Maintenance. You interact with the service through your On-Board Mazda Connect System. When you authorize scheduled maintenance, service and/or repairs to your vehicle through the Mazda Connect System, we take care of the rest. Mazda Connect Version 61.000.001 contains the the On-Board version of the On-Demand Mazda OEM Maintenance Service which works seamlessly through the Maintenance screen of your Vehicle Status Monitor.
The On-Board Service will monitor your vehicle's performance, critical systems and components. Upon detection of a maintenance and/or repair signal from your vehicle, you will be given several options to schedule a service appointment in real-time through the Mazda Connect System. Pressing the Yellow Button on your Maintenance screen will immediately put you in contact with an On-Demand Mazda Maintenance Representative via your SmartPhone's Bluetooth connection who will assign and dispatch a Maintenance Concierge to your home or office at a time that you designate appropriate. The Maintenance Concierge will bring you a replacement vehicle equal to or greater in trim value and then deliver your personal Mazda vehicle to nearest Mazda OEM Maintenance Facility.
During the time that your personal vehicle is in our care one of our Mazda OEM Maintenance Facilities, you can expect that our Professional Mazda OEM Technicians will handle your vehicle with the utmost in care and consideration. All of our Professional Mazda OEM Technicians are also trained to follow our industry leading Customer Vehicle Protection Protocols. That means that your vehicle will be treated with the dignity, honor and respect that it deserves and that you expect as our valued customer. In turn, this guarantees that your vehicle will never suffer extraneous damaged while under our care and will be returned to you in better condition than when we initially received it. That's our pledge to you as our value customer. Once work has been successfully completed on your vehicle, it will be returned to your home or office by a designated Maintenance Concierge.
If your vehicle is inoperable and cannot be driven, a Mazda Transport Vehicle and your assigned Maintenance Concierge will arrive at your home or office at the time you designate. You will then be given a temporary replacement vehicle of equal or grater trim value and your personal Mazda vehicle will be professionally transported to the nearest Mazda OEM Maintenance Facility for professional Mazda OEM diagnostic evaluation, repairs, maintenance and/or service.
If for any reason maintenance, repairs and/or service are necessary and your Mazda Connect System is inoperable or you simply wish to arrange delivery of your temporary replacement vehicle and pickup of your personal Mazda vehicle by other means, we have an App for that! Either Android or iOS, our On-Demand OEM Concierge App allows you to conveniently schedule your temporary replacement vehicle delivery and pickup of your personal Mazda vehicle, just like the Mazda Connect On-Board version of the On-Demand Mazda Maintenance Service. You can download the App right now from Google PlayStore or the Apple AppStore. If you need help downloading a copy of the On-Demand Mazda OEM Maintenance Service App, please visit www.mazda.on-demand.maintenance.com.
At Mazda, we don't just deliver state of the art vehicles. We also take pride in delivering to all our valued customers flexible, innovative, convenient 21st century OEM Maintenance & Repair services that you can trust and rely upon to be valid and necessary. All from the comfort of your own home or office, you can expect personalized Concierge level care with any necessary maintenance, service and/or repair to your vehicle through our On-Demand Mazda OEM Maintenance Service Program.
We hope you enjoy both the driving and ownership experience of your new Mazda as much as we did making it.
Thank you for choosing Mazda and welcome aboard!
Now, clearly I'm no copy writer, but what stops a company like Mazda from doing this right now?
I put this here because most eyes are here in the CX-5 section which makes sense - they sell more of them. I want to bat around an idea that I've been thinking about lately. Nothing brand new but it does have a little twist to it.
Given that I just paid over twelve dollars for a few drops of touch-up paint (no kidding), this question revives my clarion call for significant changes to the pre and post sales customer experience as we know it within the Automobile Industry. How hard would it be for a company like Mazda to step out and make such a change by offering direct to customer sales and technical support and is now the right time for Mazda to do it?
As Mazda redesigns its fleet of vehicles through the new Kodo Design Language platform, would it make Mazda stand out even more boldly as an auto producer, if it brought into existence a Direct Sales model and Direct Service, Repair and Maintenance model to its broad base of customers world wide. I think it would distinguish Mazda in ways that would really make its brand and its offering stand out even more and well beyond what the new design language can produce on its own.
Benefits to the Mazda Customer?
- Lower pricing for new vehicles
- Lower maintenance, service and repair costs
- Higher confidence in the Direct OEM experience
Benefits to Mazda?
- Increased sales volumes across the board
- Increased revenues through delivery of maintenance, service and repairs
- Much stronger customer satisfaction coupled to ironclad customer loyalty
- Broader market penetration world wide
- Enhanced stock price
- Enhanced new development capital
A classic Win/Win. I don't see how Mazda could lose here. Sure, it would take time and cost to build out the infrastructure but that would be recovered in a relatively short period of time as a new stream of sales/revenues began flowing as a result of the new services being offered to a new breed of highly dedicated Mazda owners and customers. But, how Mazda goes about delivering such service would be just as important (if not more) than the service itself.
So, for brief moment, just assume that a drastic change is needed in the current model for how we buy our vehicles and have them serviced after the sale. Then, turn to the question of how. How would Mazda implement Direct OEM Maintenance, Repairs and Service to its current and future base of customers?
Well, what if it went something like this:
When you need service, Mazda would send a Maintenance Concierge to your home or office, swap like vehicles with you on the premises and then bring your vehicle back after service is complete. If you own a CX-5 then you get a CX-5 of equal or greater trim value as a loaner until your vehicle is returned to your home or office. What if you need repairs and your vehicle is not operable (cannot be driven)? In that case, a Mazda Maintenance Concierge drives a like vehicle in convoy with a Mazda flatbed tow truck to your home or office with the same net result at the end. Your vehicle is towed on a flatbed to the nearest OEM Mazda Repair Facility, you get the CX-5 of equal or greater trim (because that's what you own now) and your personal vehicle is returned to your home or office as you designate upon completion of the work.
How Could Mazda Physically Structure This?
This would allow Mazda to carefully and strategically locate its physical service centers to make the logistics work in their favor and at lower operating costs than most dealers have right now. Other than pure politics and protecting sacred cow pre-historic business models that don't work, I don't know why this is not being done right now throughout the industry. Mazda could easily drive down the ongoing operating costs of these OEM Repair Facilities because it won't have the overhead associated with needing fill an entire storage lot with new vehicles of the current and next years model. It can construct (or renovate) dedicated space that functions as Pure Play Maintenance and not both maintenance and sales.
So, the size and scope of these facilities can be greatly scaled down to facilitate lower operating costs. And, though the total size of the facility would actually shrink relative to a full scale dealer lot, the actual floor space dedicated to maintenance and repairs under roof would increase in relative size - again making the operation more efficient internally (a very important factor to consider).
How Could Mazda Implement Delivery?
When we recently purchased our new 2017 CX-9 Signature, we got a Welcome To The Family of Mazda type of letter form the CEO. In that letter, the CEO explained how grateful they were that we selected Mazda and how committed they were to making sure our Mazda experience was second to none. That's essentially what the letter was intended to communicate and I think it did it rather well.
However, what if that letter went on to describe something additional, something truly unique in the entire gas powered automobile industry. What if that same letter from CEO Masamichi Kogai, went on to explain a new kind of post-sale experience of truly remarkable Technical Support that you could expect to look forward to receiving from Mazda. How much more confident would such a letter make you feel about your new purchase:
Dear highly valued new Mazda family member,
Your new journey with Mazda has just begun. Our goal at Mazda is to make certain that your entire ownership experience is covered form A-Z with everything you will ever need to get the most from your new Mazda vehicle. To make your ownership experience as trouble free as possible, we would like to take this time to introduce you to our On-Demand Mazda OEM Maintenance Service program. At no additional cost to you and for the life of your warranty (or extended warranty), Mazda will provide personal Concierge level service to you whenever you need maintenance, service and/or repairs to your vehicle. At Mazda, we're doing things different.
We call the core service our On-Demand Mazda OEM Maintenance. You interact with the service through your On-Board Mazda Connect System. When you authorize scheduled maintenance, service and/or repairs to your vehicle through the Mazda Connect System, we take care of the rest. Mazda Connect Version 61.000.001 contains the the On-Board version of the On-Demand Mazda OEM Maintenance Service which works seamlessly through the Maintenance screen of your Vehicle Status Monitor.
The On-Board Service will monitor your vehicle's performance, critical systems and components. Upon detection of a maintenance and/or repair signal from your vehicle, you will be given several options to schedule a service appointment in real-time through the Mazda Connect System. Pressing the Yellow Button on your Maintenance screen will immediately put you in contact with an On-Demand Mazda Maintenance Representative via your SmartPhone's Bluetooth connection who will assign and dispatch a Maintenance Concierge to your home or office at a time that you designate appropriate. The Maintenance Concierge will bring you a replacement vehicle equal to or greater in trim value and then deliver your personal Mazda vehicle to nearest Mazda OEM Maintenance Facility.
During the time that your personal vehicle is in our care one of our Mazda OEM Maintenance Facilities, you can expect that our Professional Mazda OEM Technicians will handle your vehicle with the utmost in care and consideration. All of our Professional Mazda OEM Technicians are also trained to follow our industry leading Customer Vehicle Protection Protocols. That means that your vehicle will be treated with the dignity, honor and respect that it deserves and that you expect as our valued customer. In turn, this guarantees that your vehicle will never suffer extraneous damaged while under our care and will be returned to you in better condition than when we initially received it. That's our pledge to you as our value customer. Once work has been successfully completed on your vehicle, it will be returned to your home or office by a designated Maintenance Concierge.
If your vehicle is inoperable and cannot be driven, a Mazda Transport Vehicle and your assigned Maintenance Concierge will arrive at your home or office at the time you designate. You will then be given a temporary replacement vehicle of equal or grater trim value and your personal Mazda vehicle will be professionally transported to the nearest Mazda OEM Maintenance Facility for professional Mazda OEM diagnostic evaluation, repairs, maintenance and/or service.
If for any reason maintenance, repairs and/or service are necessary and your Mazda Connect System is inoperable or you simply wish to arrange delivery of your temporary replacement vehicle and pickup of your personal Mazda vehicle by other means, we have an App for that! Either Android or iOS, our On-Demand OEM Concierge App allows you to conveniently schedule your temporary replacement vehicle delivery and pickup of your personal Mazda vehicle, just like the Mazda Connect On-Board version of the On-Demand Mazda Maintenance Service. You can download the App right now from Google PlayStore or the Apple AppStore. If you need help downloading a copy of the On-Demand Mazda OEM Maintenance Service App, please visit www.mazda.on-demand.maintenance.com.
At Mazda, we don't just deliver state of the art vehicles. We also take pride in delivering to all our valued customers flexible, innovative, convenient 21st century OEM Maintenance & Repair services that you can trust and rely upon to be valid and necessary. All from the comfort of your own home or office, you can expect personalized Concierge level care with any necessary maintenance, service and/or repair to your vehicle through our On-Demand Mazda OEM Maintenance Service Program.
We hope you enjoy both the driving and ownership experience of your new Mazda as much as we did making it.
Thank you for choosing Mazda and welcome aboard!
Now, clearly I'm no copy writer, but what stops a company like Mazda from doing this right now?
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