Park Jin-hai primarily focuses on K-dramas, entertainment shows and actor interviews. Beyond that, she also pens articles covering the broader arts scene, with a particular emphasis on classical music, dance and various aspects of lifestyle. Since joining The Korea Times in 2013, she has made significant contributions in the realms of hallyu (Korean wave), industry news and international affairs.
BMW focuses more on customer service
The exterior of BMW Korea’s newly opened Opo Service Center in Gyeonggi Province. The two-story building opened last week and has 20 work bays that can repair up to 60 cars a day, as well as provide a fast-lane service that can exchange working parts in less than two hours. / Courtesy of BMW Korea
By Park Jin-hai
By Park Jin-hai
BMW Korea says it will prioritize improving customer services and cementing its place as Korea’s largest import car brand by sales.
“We make a great deal of investment into customer services,” said BMW Korea CEO Kim Hyo-joon, during a recent interview.
The German automaker sold more than 40,000 cars in Korea last year and already has the largest after-service networks of any foreign car brand with 59 auto shops and 793 work bays.
Now the company will increase that number to 78 auto shops and 1,183 work bays across the country by 2016.
In particular, the number of fast-lane auto shops that provide speedy services for simple mechanical problems in cities will increase to five, while auto technicians will be nearly doubled to 2,246 from 1,500.
To address the needs of customers and meet them in advance, the company started a “BMW Customer Service Evaluation Group” system in 2012.
Compromising 100 BMW customers, the group used the services the company provided for a year and played the role of a service watchdog until June 2013.
Those people were obliged to visit BMW auto shops at least twice a year to monitor standards and then have a customer discussion session.
In all, 125 service evaluations are compiled during a year.
“It is the first of its kind. Only Korea, among all BMW locations around the globe, has a system like this. All those positive and negative voices of our customer evaluation group provide valuable guidance on how we proceed,” said Kim. “Customers become partners of our business.”
Those voices were heard.
For a limited number of auto shops, the company will select a day during the week and extend opening hours until night time. The company also plans to open auto shops until three in the afternoon on Saturdays.
Concierge services will be extended so that customers’ waiting time is minimal, while the waiting rooms for customers will be renovated.
The second batch of customer-evaluators, active until March 2015, included 100 MINI customers, doubling the customer group.
Also in place is an “Invoice Hotline.”
Faced with criticism about foreign carmakers’ parts prices, the Invoice Hotline has been set up to provide transparency in repair costs. Starting with BMW in 2012, MINI also set up a hotline the following year, so customers could review parts prices and repair costs and request refunds if the prices were not legitimate.