Elzanne Marais has a first-of-a-kind job in South Africa. However, it is one that should become increasingly prolific as local dealerships start to embrace the digital economy. 

Marais is the customer private lounge (CPL) consultant at Audi Centre Centurion.

This means that she can build a potential buyer a virtual Audi down to their exact specifications, including colour, trim and any imaginable extra available in the German premium car maker’s arsenal, creating a sales quote as she and the customer move through the process.

Marais does this in a specially built soundproof CPL with the help of digital technologies such as a virtual reality headset, a 75-inch screen and a dedicated satellite dish to ensure data flow and integrity.

Customers can view, and get into their vehicles, in a variety of settings, ranging from a desert and a city scape, to the moon.

More than 400 Audi CPLs are already in operation around the world, but the Centurion one is the first in South Africa.

Audi South Africa (SA) head Trevor Hill describes the Centurion CPL as the first step in Audi SA’s digitalisation process.

The next step would be to digitise the after-sales area, which would see customers, for example, checking their vehicles in digitally for a service, and/or sending customers videos or photos of the work required on their vehicles.

Hill says digitalisation will require a fresh skills set at dealerships, with Marais’s job a new position targeted at aiding the sales consultant, who remains tasked with inking the final deal.

Audi Centre Centurion MD Peter Preusse says expanding the new-vehicle showroom at the facility would have cost R9-million, owing to poor ground conditions (dolomite) in the area, compared with the R800 000 invested in the CPL lounge.

“In net terms this was not expensive,” he notes.

“We flew to Munich to experience the CPL lounge and I was sold.”

There are so many options available on vehicles, it is impossible to talk customers through all of them, adds Audi Centre Centurion dealer principal Bart Hettema.

“Why not rather show it to them?”

Hettema says the process allows for Marais to manipulate the quote until it suits the customer’s budget.

The CPL has made the sale process more personal, softer, and more specific in terms of the vehicles Audi Centre Centurion orders from Germany, says Hettema.

“We order cars to clients’ exact specifications.

“The process works on the wow-factor. It takes the customer out of the dealership and into a different world.”

PREMIUM MARKET

Hill believes that the days of “massive dealerships” stocking every Audi model imaginable are numbered.

“We cannot afford to build big temples anymore. We have to make what we have work harder.”

This is especially true as the local premium market has taken a hammering over the last five years.

This year will be the fifth year of double-digit premium market decline, says Hill.

“We are predicting slight growth next year, which we hope will be the start of an upswing.”

The premium new-car market has dropped from around 85 000 units five years ago, to the roughly 50 000 units expected this year.

Audi used-car sales are, however, doing well, with Audi Centre Centurion recording a 28% increase year-on-year, says Preusse.

He adds that a CPL allows a premium-car dealership to keep its new-car showroom smaller, which is currently not that profitable compared with the used-car space.

Hill says the domestic premium car market has suffered as a result of a combination of the weak rand, price increases, buying-down trends and the move towards sports-utility vehicles.