A 4 Audi Feature in The Sunday Herald
Our MD, Andy Dunn, has just been featured in The Sunday Herald with the headline of “It’s about getting away from the motor industry reputation as one that thinks customers are idiots”.
It makes great reading. Here’s an excerpt:
"Dunn, who has been in the motor trade since leaving school at 16, is reaping the benefits of re-imagining the whole car servicing experience from the point of view of the customer. His repeat business and customer-retention figures attest to the kind of customer empathy on which motor-business empires have been built, not least in Scotland. He has the knack, shared by Sir Tom Farmer and Sir Arnold Clark in their early days, of keeping things simple.
“Myself included, we have six technicians, two drivers and one office manager. We don’t have any non-productive employees, which allows us to concentrate on what matters; charging the customers a fair price and paying the employees a good wage.”
Paying more allows him to cherry-pick the best mechanics around – there is far more quality variation than the public knows about – and to retain them in a sector where labour is relatively mobile.
Partly because of Clydebank’s exceptional connectivity, A4Audi has a customer base that spreads from Oban to Edinburgh, where Audi and BMW owners have found that bills averaging a third cheaper than their local dealership make it well worth their while to travel. The brands are cannily chosen as the Audi-Volkswagen, BMW brands are “massive in Glasgow”. The sleek new Audi centre at Hillington is one of the biggest in Europe. Dunn is its biggest customer for parts.
Dunn has built up a database of 2500 customers – about 75% represent repeat business (“I don’t lose customers, I only gain new ones”) – to whom he markets directly. The selling points are service that offers clear explanations, a pick-up and drop-off service that dispenses with the need for a fleet of courtesy cars, and a labour cost that, at £50 an hour, is half of that which dealerships charge (see panel). Dunn, who has a marketing qualification is obsessed with service standards and personal connections, and is currently weighing the advantages of steady expansion against the risk of “spoiling” the personal service, becoming “another faceless money-making machine”."
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