When a premium product is already offered, it is time to look at other areas, such as service, to keep the customer loyal to the brand. The BMW Group knows this very well, which is why it took another step to consolidate the luxury car market in the Dominican Republic.
It is a new service center, which with an investment of over US$2.3 million, promises to be the most cutting-edge and complete in the Caribbean, and in fact, in the entire Latin American region. “For us it is very important to give our customers a premium service,” the CEO of BMW Latin America and the Caribbean Import Markets at BMW Group Latin America, Alejandro Echeagaray, told elDinero.
“Just as we sell premium individual mobility vehicles, we want to offer a service center with all the equipment and trained technical equipment,” he added. As he explained, the central objective is to bring the service to the same level that its customers expect. Of “top quality,” he said.
luxury market
As Echeagaray expressed, the fact that the luxury car market shows growth was one of the reasons that led the BMW team to install the modern service center. “The vehicle fleet has grown, so according to the particular growth, what we want to achieve is to keep customers with us,” he said.
The success formula used will be a premium service and “giving them the best attention” to that vehicle fleet that they already have in the Dominican Republic. BMW is currently the market leader with 27% and MINI with 5%, as well as having a large UKL segment. Even BMW Motorrad leads the way in high displacement motorcycles.
“We must have that premium customer service offer so that it goes to the quality of the brand,” added the president of Magna Motors, Agustín Lama. To this, Echeagaray adds that although it has a standard that the brand has worldwide, “as the market develops, the idea is to expand it.”
By expanding their facilities, they seek to serve the country’s vehicle fleet more quickly, as he explains, because otherwise it begins to become unproductive due to lack of capacity. “We have to adapt all the processes so that this capacity does not become a problem for our clients and they can be attended to quickly,” he said.
BMW and Mini are brands that are gaining more land each year in the region. As they reveal, as a performance of their management in 2021, Magna Motors achieved first and second place in the ranking of importers of BMW and MINI in Latin America.
In addition to the Dominican Republic, thanks to the management of Magna Motors, they are in the top 5 in sales of electric vehicles for BMW Group Latin America, along with countries such as Brazil, Mexico, Costa Rica and Colombia.
Although they express that they have service centers in other countries in the region, the newly opened space comes with the latest equipment in facilities. It details that it is not only the installation.
“You have to put the hardware in the building, they are standards that are met from the layout of the workshop, the ramps, a special floor so that it is always kept clean and it is easy to wash the work areas for the technicians who work, that the specialists who they are comfortable, that they have all the facilities to do their job in the best way and that is what we are achieving”, he explained.
For the BMW team, according to Echeagaray, it is very important to build customer loyalty and retain customers by offering them the best service, without neglecting what had already positioned them in the market before, such as original supplies. “What we want is once again, I repeat, an experience that is the best for the customer, a premium experience like the vehicles we sell.”
The new proposal comes after challenges such as price increases, inventory availability and contraction of the economy due to monetary policies were presented during 2022.
trained team
One center, which is 100% compliant with future retail standards, including the ability to service up to 40 vehicles per day, required the training of an entire team to launch.
Echeagaray comments that they have certified personnel who are constantly being trained either within the region or in Germany. Also, “we have a training center in Colombia and Mexico with trainers.”
These centers have trained technicians, who are responsible for instructing the workforce. The new after-sales service center, located on Doctores Mallen street, Arroyo Hondo, Santo Domingo, has specialists, even for electric and hybrid cars.
“We need special training (with this equipment), because the batteries, for example, are high voltage. So you have to have the experience and training to be able to attend to this type of vehicle,” he said because electric vehicles of that brand are beginning to be marketed in the Dominican Republic, despite the fact that it is not yet high-volume.