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BMW Australia is rolling out more customer-friendly IT initiatives within its showrooms and workshops as the company rises up on the tide of sales in the Australian premium car market.

Group boss, Marc Werner, told GoAutoNews Premium that there were no plans to increase the BMW dealer network nor change BMW dealership CI (corporate identity), “but what is definitely going to change is on the inside of the dealerships around technology”.

“(There would be) no particular CI changes. I think our CI has been very robust (and) definitely appealing,” Mr Werner said. “So there are no substantial CI changes as far as the pure structure of building is concerned.”

But he said sales staff and service advisors were, over the next weeks and months, to be armed with iPads linked to customer retention and service software.

“We will see more and more iPad technologies, in particular for the sales consultants but also for the after-sales consultants.

“It is quite fascinating what is happening there. At what we call service reception at the vehicle for example, when the customer can actually drive his or her vehicle into the service reception and put it on a hoist, and then walk around the car to see what needs to be done in terms of servicing.

“That is really, really exciting and we will roll this out for the entire network.”

Meanwhile Mr Werner said the 12 per cent increase in the prestige segment during 2016, was “good news for the BMW Group”.

BMW sold 28,028 vehicles for a 12 per cent flat increase (3006 vehicles) over 2015.

“This was a great result, exactly in-line with the premium market and well ahead of the overall market,” he said.

Mr Werner said that 2017 was “going to be huge” for the BMW Group with the replacement of some key products with all-new versions including an all-new 5 Series with a plug-in hybrid variant that he said the company was committed to marketing in Australia.

“We can’t wait to release it next month. There is no doubt in our minds that it is a fantastic car which will give our colleagues from Stuttgart some food for thought,” he said.

By Daniel Cotterill

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