• by Karl Greenberg , August 8, 2011

Volkswagen of America last week announced senior management changes that give Mark Barnes, head of VW's sales organization, the new title of VP at a cross-enterprise division, Volkswagen Customer Experience.  

In a conversation with Marketing Daily he explains that his focus will be on bringing the customer voice to the highest levels of the organization, and eliminating the kind of redundancy -- at least in the area of customer service -- that can happen when disparate divisions do similar efforts without communicating tactics and strategy to other areas and also to leadership.

Q: Why does VW need this new organizational program? Hasn't the company had a cross-silo structure around customer service?

A: What's interesting is that while we certainly are doing an awful lot toward customer experience and improving customer satisfaction, we hadn't seen a culmination of it all into one main area. Yes -- we had a number of different departments working on their little piece, but it was more or less done in silos. The intent, and where I want to take this department, is to cross-functionalize: to be able to look at work within each area and make sure there's a common thread.

Q: What would the practical results be?

A: Awareness within the highest levels is one, since this will be brought to the executive-team level. I will remain a member of that team with the same responsibility I had in sales, and will report up once a week. So this will be the first time what we are doing from a satisfaction standpoint will report to that level.

It's also about not having different messages, but one common message all geared toward what we are calling the "Volkswagen Vow" (VW's unifying motto for customer service.)

Q: Are you bringing the consumer voice into product development?

A: I think we have always tried to incorporate the customer, but what I want to do with this, and what this allows me to do, is to start both customer -- as well as employee and dealer -- "roundtables." The customer roundtable will let us understand what impediments are keeping us from growing our business as well as growing our satisfaction. Where are the gaps customers are experiencing in purchase and ownership process at Volkswagen?

Q: Would this be an online community along the lines of what automakers like Chrysler have done?

A: It's certainly something I want to look at. I really want to hear and listen to the voice of the customer and understand what needs to change, or the way dealers and the company are treating customers.

Q: Will this change marketing communications?

A: We honestly don't know yet, it's so new to us. I think if we go out and learn that our customers are not responding, we would look at that. But, again, at this point we don't know.

Q: Finally, the technology is something of an elephant in the room, both in terms of in-vehicle and in-dealership. How will you use this new organization to navigate rollout of new devices and technology?

A: It's going to be on the front burner. How my role comes into play is identifying what customers are looking for in products. It comes back to having the customer voice in product development. In this area I would say yes, -- we want to learn. As we look at IQS (J.D. Power & Associates' Initial Quality study), some manufacturers have tried to get into high-tech areas fast, and the lack of customer understanding has hurt them from the IQS standpoint. We want to make sure we stay on the cutting edge, but also within the realm of what a customer can really use and understand.

Q: Is that the most important thing you want to see in this, making sure new products and tech aren't disconnected from what customers can use?

A: That's a component, but if I really want to look at what the goal is here, the end game is to really improve our customer experience and that happens in so many different ways. If we continue to grow, we have to maintain the training, the level of expertise, and facilities at dealerships. There are so many things that come into play here. What you are pointing out is very important, but there are many other things we need to address as well.

Q: Any changes planned for dealer network?

A: We will grow our dealer network very slowly. We want to make sure as we grow our business to the levels we want to go -- and it's massive growth we are experiencing -- we take care of the number of dealers we have now so they reap the benefits of profitability. We will have some growth, but it will be very controlled.