Volkswagen Australia turns to Qualtrics to understand customer insights

Volkswagen Australia used Qualtrics to better understand evolving consumer demands to launch and then strengthen its e-commerce and virtual showroom offerings.

Using the online surveying tool, the carmaker found consumers were willing to purchase cars online, with one vehicle model selling out in 12 hours of public release and without dispatch of the vehicles to Australia even underway.

Looking to cement its customer loyalty, Volkswagen Australia implemented cloud-based survey platform Qualtrics to its 104 dealerships across Australia.

Speaking at a Qualtrics web event, Volkswagen Australia chief marketing and customer officer Jason Bradshaw said the company has been transforming its real-time customer experience over the past six years.

Volkswagen was also able to use insights gained from employees using virtual reality tools for training combined with customer responses to create an augmented reality showroom.

The showroom was launched in October last year to act as a virtual showroom which let customers view and tailor cars via their smartphones.

Bradshaw said Volkswagen uses data platforms not only inform decisions, but also to continue internal conversations to reinforce the need for data based-investments and discoveries.

“The key to improving is just everyday looking at your data," he said.

“Instead of trying to get large, extensive datasets over a 12 month period, let's look at smaller datasets and design and improve over time on a continuous listening approach as opposed to trying to have that silver bullet at the end of each year that we're going to solve this one big problem.”

He added that Qualtrics had been useful for the company during the pandemic.

“Utilising our Qualtrics platform, we were able to very quickly put into the marketplace a survey to understand the evolving needs and desires of our customers," Bradshaw said.

He said an online sales tool was developed using customer feedback collected through Qualtrics and had been improved over the past year.

“We're able to make decisions in real time, backed by customer brand, product data and employee data that really enables us to move quicker and more nimbly than perhaps our competitors," he said.