Volvo Cars, the premium car maker, is promising that you will never have to stop at a petrol station, go to a car wash or even take your car in for a service ever again, with the launch of a range of concierge services that will become an integrated part of the Volvo On Call mobile platform.
Volvo is announcing the roll-out of a pilot programme in San Francisco, targeting Volvo owners driving the new XC90 SUV and S90 luxury saloon. In an effort to make their customers’ lives easier, Volvo has dug deep into consumer research to deliver on their customers’ unmet needs. The pilot is due to start in November and will ramp up to include around 300 Volvo owners.
“Imagine parking your car in the morning at work and when you head home your car has been serviced, cleaned and refuelled. These are the kind of services we want to deliver to our customers. Our research shows that people spend hours every week doing these small errands – we want to give that time back to Volvo drivers, so they can do something more valuable instead,” said Björn Annwall, Senior Vice President, Global Consumer Experience at Volvo Car Group.
Research by Volvo has shown that more than 70 per cent of customers want fuelling services at their fingertips, while 56 per cent want their car picked up for routine maintenance, and 49 per cent would like to be able to have their car moved to another location when desired.
“Our approach is a simple one – we aim to make life easier by employing the latest connected technology in an easy-to-use smartphone app. We are taking an open and agile approach to this, and welcome collaboration with partners with new and innovative service offers. This is just the beginning,” said Anders Tylman-Mikiewicz, Vice President, Consumer Connectivity Services at Volvo Car Group.
The Volvo owners participating in the pilot can use the pilot app to identify concierge services available in the immediate vicinity and order them via their smartphone. Requests are then sent to an authorised Volvo service provider, who will refuel the vehicle, perform scheduled maintenance, or whatever additional service the owner has requested.
The app provides a one-time-use digital key, which is location- and time-specific, and sends it out to the authorised service provider. When the services are complete, the car is locked and the digital key expires. The car can also be returned to where the customer left it or delivered to a completely new location at the customer’s request.
Volvo Cars’ network of digital innovation labs in California, Shanghai and Gothenburg are focusing on understanding the needs of the company’s growing customer base in an effort to further expand the range of services on offer. Due to the scalable nature of the Volvo On Call platform, new services can be easily added to ultimately offer a whole range of time-saving services around your car.
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Volvo Car Group in 2015
For the 2015 financial year, Volvo Car Group recorded an operating profit of 6,620 MSEK (2,128 MSEK in 2014). Revenue over the period amounted to 164,043 MSEK (137,590 MSEK). For the full year 2015, global sales reached a record 503,127 cars, an increase of 8 per cent versus 2014. The record sales and operating profit cleared the way for Volvo Car Group to continue investing in its global transformation plan.
About Volvo Car Group
Volvo has been in operation since 1927. Today, Volvo Cars is one of the most well-known and respected car brands in the world, with sales of 503,127 in 2015 in about 100 countries. Volvo Cars has been under the ownership of the Zhejiang Geely Holding (Geely Holding) of China since 2010. It formed part of the Swedish Volvo Group until 1999, when the company was bought by Ford Motor Company of the US. In 2010, Volvo Cars was acquired by Geely Holding.
As of December 2015, Volvo Cars had almost 29,000 employees worldwide. Volvo Cars’ head office, product development, marketing and administration functions are mainly located in Gothenburg, Sweden. Volvo Cars’ head office for China is located in Shanghai. The company’s main car production plants are located in Gothenburg (Sweden), Ghent (Belgium), Chengdu and Daqing (China), while engines are manufactured in Skövde (Sweden) and Zhangjiakou (China), and body components in Olofström (Sweden).
