Seat, which has seen fleet sales rise 42% in the first half of the year compared to a rise in the overall market of 14%, has said it is determined to concentrate on establishing its three key foundations for success: building awareness among fleets; sales and marketing of its range and ensuring customer loyalty and satisfaction.
Fleets are taking notice of Seat – fleet sales this year will top 15,000, with plans for progressive year-on-year growth to 23,000 by 2013.
“We are targeting steady growth, not boom or bust,” explains Sally Livingstone Seat’s national fleet sales manager at today’s Greener Company Car in Action. “We ideally want a 2.5% market player.”
Sales have traditionally been split equally between retail and fleet, but as more fleets take notice of the marque, so that is predicted to rise to 60% in favour of fleet.
Growing sales is dependent not only on good product, but also fleet awareness. To build this and to create lasting relationships, Seat has created a network of 20 specialist fleet development dealers based regionally throughout the UK within its larger dealer network.
It has also just established a Seat Fleet Business Centre – a dedicated resource that will act as a conduit between fleet field sales team, the local dealer network and Seat head office.
“It’s about us building and creating more relationships with fleets,” says Livingstone. And these fleets range from small sub-25 fleets operated by SMEs to large blue chip companies, like British Gas, which has just taken delivery of the first of 500 sub-100g Leon Ecomotives.