We have a target to sell over 10,000 cars this year despite the lockdown, says Zac Hollis, Director Sales & Marketing, Škoda Auto India. During an exclusive interview with Swati Khandelwal, Zee Business, Zac Hollis said, we are preparing our business ready for India 2.0 project. The interview was live on Zee Business Facebook page yesterday.

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Sharing his expectations from Skoda India’s latest launch ‘Rapid Rider Plus’ sedan, priced at Rs 7.99 lakhs, Zac Hollis said, the idea behind Rapid Rider Plus was to capitalize on the actual popularity of the Rapid Rider. So on the 26 May through a virtual conference, we launched the Rapid Rider. And, had tremendous success, people thought that this was the right product at the right time, giving customers in India a fantastic value for the position. It has a slightly different external appearance, next to trims, and has a fantastic value of Rs 7.99 lakh. Just looking at the social media and what is going now and it is setting a great perception from the people in India and I can comfortably carry on with the success that I had with the Rapid Rider. 

Commenting on the Indian market and Indian consumers psyche during the COVID times, where the customers may replan or restrategize their purchases, Zac Hollis said, actually, I have been quite positively surprised about how the market has restarted, we have got many orders or bookings, as we say, now as we had 12 months ago. So, this is very positive and shows that the reception of new products that we have launched Rapid and all the BSVI cars has been very well received by Indian consumers. I have got great bookings and it is the positive side. The question is how we will react now in these COVID-19 times. Then the first and the most important thing from a customer point of view is that we keep them safe. So, when you visit the dealership then we make sure that we provide a safe environment for the customers. So, we are making sure that the environment is sanitized and we are providing masks for the customers, maintaining social distancing within our customers and are sanitizing our premises all the time. We have very stringent conditions that our dealers are following to make sure to have a safe environment for our customers and our prospective customers. 

He also said that we are allowing these transactions to take place completely away from the dealerships. If the customer doesn’t feel to come for a visit at the dealership then we have online bookings and make a video to understand more about the product and we take a step close to deliver the car without the individuals to the customers from going to the showroom for a tour. So from that perspective, we are offering both things. We are finding that people are comfortable while visiting the showrooms as long as we prove that we are safe and sanitize the environment for them and their family. It is quite important for us to not only for our customers but also our employees. 

Talking about the India 3.0 journey and the way he is adjusting in the new situation that has emerged, Zac Hollis said, we set out this year to sell a similar number of cars as last year as this is awaiting year. This is a year before, which the India 2.0 cars are launched. And, of course with the India 2.0 cars were launched we had high aspirations in terms of our sales number in India. So, this is a waiting space actually, this is to make sure that make sure to bring the customers along with the cars now and of course, make sure footfalls going through our dealerships as our dealerships viability is also very important to us. So, originally set to have similar numbers as last year and we want to achieve that. We have the plan to sell over 10,000 cars this year in India despite the lockdown and we are confident to achieve that. At the same time, we are preparing our business ready for India 2.0 and we are working on numbers to prepare our dealerships for India 2.0 and this is a key for us as a preparation period. 

#ShiftingGearsWithSwatiK is a Zee Business exclusive series created to reveal the extent of COVID-19 impact on the world’s leading auto brands, their pivot strategies in the New Normal and much beyond that.