5:14 pm, April 21, 2020
Two of Kia UK’s senior executive team joined Car Dealer Live today (Apr 22).
Aftersales director Chris Lear and sales director Steve Hicks were on the live broadcast to talk about how the manufacturer has coped with the coronavirus crisis, how they have supported dealers during the crisis and what can be learnt from nations that are ahead of the UK in relation to the Covid-19 infection curve.
Among the other topics discussed with Car Dealer editor James Baggott, they also chatted about parts, launches, taking new orders, how the manufacturer is placed to cope with new car supply, as well as sales and deliveries.
Hicks told how communication was key both internally and with dealers, giving reassurance and motivating them. Help for them from Kia has included guaranteeing margin where it could, paying bonuses quicker than usual, and removing costs where possible.
None of its dealers are handing over cars to customers at the moment, but once the lockdown starts to ease it will start thinking about how it can deliver vehicles.
Lear highlighted how Kia had been spreading best practice on the servicing side to minimise any risk of infection.
And when the topic turned to what sales stimuli could be applied to the market, such as scrappage, Hicks cautioned that if the economy crashes, there probably won’t be a stimulus that’s sufficient.
Viewers were reminded about the reassurance that Kia swiftly gave customers about honouring their warranties, and Lear said eligible vehicles whose warranties are currently due to expire by April 30 would have a longer period of grace – it is now June 30.
To watch the Car Dealer Live broadcast in full, click on the main image above. If you subscribe to our YouTube channel you’ll get a notification when we go live with our broadcasts.
Coming up this week on Car Dealer Live we also have:
- Thursday: Perrys MD Darren Ardron
- Friday: Peter Vardy Ltd’s Peter Vardy
If you have any questions that you’d like to ask them, you can submit them live during the broadcasts or you can send them to us via this website or our social media channels, including Twitter and LinkedIn.
You can watch all of our Car Dealer Live interviews by clicking here.
