According to The Daily Telegraph motoring correspondent Andrew English, Mercedes-Benz was in trouble not so long ago, with complaints about quality ranging from endless trips to dealerships that failed to fix anything, fruitless correspondence with the manufacturer and truculent customer care.
The reasons for customers not receiving the quality they expected, according to Mercedes-Benz, stemmed from a product offensive that saw many new models introduced, the commissioning of new factories and the implementation of new technology. To put things right, it set about trying to regain its quality mantle. At the heart of this strategy was the first in a campaign of roadshows that has resulted in parent company Daimler Chrysler UK forging closer relationships with both its dealerships and its customers.
In 2005 the debut roadshow Class Leaders on the Road visited all 9,000 Mercedes-Benz retail staff, plus head office and Maastricht call centre staff. It totalled 250 events, managed by Mobile Promotions and training organisation Power Train, in five months.
"The people who work in our head office and retail network are the best ambassadors we have and we wanted to engage them and harness their ideas and enthusiasm," says Mercedes-Benz after-sales director Mike Belk. "We asked them to take ownership of the subject and contribute by making suggestions on how they felt service levels could be improved within their own department or retailer. Senior management attended all the roadshows to underline the highest level of commitment to the strategy."
The tour took delegates through the customer experience using actors, first tucked up in bed discussing which car to buy and complaining about Mercedes-Benz and then playing out a showroom scenario to illustrate bad customer service. Senior management were grilled by the audience, with a planted actor getting those around him to open up by being the first to voice his complaints.
The feedback led to a Class Leaders 2 roadshow at the end of 2006 that visited all 3,500 front-line staff until September and focused on individual training requirements. The result was a significant rise up the league tables of the industry's JD Power Survey and an award for the most improved brand in overall Customer Survey Index.
In January 2007, Daimler Chrysler created another version of the first Class Leaders tour, this time on behalf of Chrysler Jeep Dodge. The US brand needed a more American roadshow environment so Road Trip 1: The American Way was launched, visiting 14 locations including football stadiums, Portsmouth dockyard and racecourses for a nine-week period that finished in April.
Belk says: "It was a major step in Chrysler's journey to improve customer satisfaction and realise the brand's growth potential in what is an extremely competitive environment. The concept was to secure the buy-in of every employee in the Chrysler Jeep Dodge dealer network in an interesting and interactive environment."
Feedback from Road Trip will be used to develop more tailored training and action plans for Daimler Chrysler UK and its German arm, and there are suggestions that Mercedes-Benz will embark on a Class Leaders 3 tour to ensure additional flavour change across the group. On using roadshows to implement strategic sea change Belk concludes: "Clearly our suppliers were key to the success of undertaking such huge logistical roadshows spanning the length and breadth of the country. Although it meant significant investment in terms of people and logisitics, the roadshow option worked very well for us. It means we are able to interact with considerable numbers of retailer staff to get their ideas and buy into our strategic goals."
EXPANDABLE TRAILERS
Mobile Promotions has worked for Daimler Chrysler brands for many years as preferred partner on trailer units and structures. For the Class Leaders campaign, it provided an expandable mobile studio that is 13.6 metres long and 2.5 metres wide on the road but opens out hydraulically to reveal 80sqm of floor space. According to Mobile Promotions managing director Robin Carlisle, after a 30-minute set-up the interior is dressed with staging, audio-visual and backdrops in around an hour. "The Actros, which is the truck that pulls the unit, never leaves it and forms part of the presentation unit," he says. "We provide the motor manufacturer with full logistic support including staff, resources, maintenance and securing the venues to host the campaign."
For Road Tip 1, Mobile Promotions was driven to secure venues in addition to retailer premises, due in part to its success. Carlisle adds: "The investment in new premises meant that forecourts were crowded and in some cases no longer viable places to host events."