Who killed the fleet customer?

Citroën is putting service managers through a course entitled ‘who killed the fleet customer?’ to show them the value of fleet business and their needs.

The course includes best practice examples, help making fleet contacts and advice on managing databases. More than half of Citroën’s 200 service managers have completed the training so far.

The manufacturer has also been working with Epyx to speed up response times to repair work. Average response times have dropped from 65 minutes at the end of 2010 to 15 minutes at the end of last year.

Van tracking ‘as standard’

Trafficmaster stolen vehicle tracking is fitted as standard to every Berlingo, Dispatch and Relay panel van.
Customers also get three months SafeSpeed camera warning, which can be extended at extra cost, and the option to upgrade to Trafficmaster’s Fleet Director management package which includes driver behaviour monitoring.

“It’s a differentiator for us so we’re not going to market with the same product as Fiat and Peugeot,” Wady says.

C-Zero engages with car fleets

The full-electric C-Zero allowed Citroën to “engage with a lot of fleets” last year, according to Wady.

“It allowed us to talk to them about their policies and whether electric is something they are considering,” he says.
He acknowledges that sales have been difficult, with just 46 units shifting last year.

“It was lower than expected but the overall market was smaller than expected at just over 1,000 units,” he says.

One of the hurdles is that electric vehicles “need a lot more qualification than a normal sale”, according to Wady and “there are steps in place which wouldn’t necessarily be in place with a conventional product”. For instance, installing charging points at offices.

Consequently, Citroën is finding that the time between a customer enquiring about the C-Zero and the purchase point is much longer than a standard car.
 

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