5:23 am, February 15, 2011
SKODA will offer free courtesy cars to its 14,000 customers waiting for deliveries of their new vehicles.
In a move that mimics Nissan’s announcement last week, the Czech marque has decided to keep customers happy with loans while they are forced to wait up to six months for their cars.
Speaking exclusively to Car Dealer at the Skoda Greenline II launch on Monday, brand manager Robert Hazelwood said the move was being rolled out now.
‘We have goodwill programmes in place,’ said Hazelwood, pictured. ‘Customers who have courtesy cars at the moment will be told by the dealer that they can have the car for longer, and we’re getting our dealers to give customers cars on short-term loans.
‘This not an issue unique to Skoda, and it’s not due to the actual capability of the manufacturing. It’s the second and third tier component manufacturers who have just not been able to ramp up manufacturing to meet the group’s expectations.
‘We’ve started this year with an order bank of 14,000 cars, but we have had supply issues like the whole Volkswagen Group. Had we had full availability last year, we would have reached 49-50,000 cars.’
In the end Skoda registered more than 41,000 cars in 2010 in the UK – up 10.5 per cent compared to 2009, resulting in a two per cent market share. By the end of January 2011, Skoda will have registered another 3,000 cars.
‘This year we will beat 2010’s record performance, and we will improve our market share,’ added Hazelwood.
So just how long will these customers have to wait? Hazelwood admitted some buyers face waits of up to six months for their new car to arrive which ‘wasn’t ideal’.
‘Ordinarily that would be eight to 12 weeks,’ he explained. ‘However, on the flip-side, it’s nice to have a customer order bank of 14,000 orders because we have effectively reached our quarter one targets even before we begun the year. That also allows us and our retailers to trade with confidence.’
