Ms Zschernig has worked for VGA for the past 11 years, having most recently served as product marketing manager over a three-year stint.
Roles concerning commercial vehicles, including area sales manager, preceded the product marketing manager position, and while she has never worked directly in fleet sales, her experience has set her up well.
“With launching Crafter, I worked very closely with the fleet team, and we met customers years before it was even launched, and throughout the phase with customer contact and trying to find a way to sell it to all of these organisations and government bodies, etc,” she said.
“So there was a strong involvement, but not as a part of the fleet team.”
While not planning any drastic changes to strategy at the helm of Volkswagen’s fleet business, Ms Zschernig said she would be constantly looking for ways to improve operations.
“As always, you can always make things better, and just because something has worked for the last six months or 18 months, doesn’t mean it will still work for the future,” she said.
“So we’re constantly reviewing how we can improve our approach and dealings and so forth, and our own tools that we have available.”
Regine Zschernig
Ms Zschernig cited Volkswagen’s new servicing care plan that can be had in three- or five-year periods as well its five-year/unlimited-kilometre warranty – the only German brand to offer such a term – as examples of tools the company can use to its advantage.
While Volkswagen has a full range of commercial vehicles to offer to fleet businesses, it also operates in the fleet passenger car space, with around 50 per cent of its fleet business coming from this segment.
Recently, 32 Passat 206TSI wagons were sold to police services, while Volkswagen has high hopes for increasing fleet sales of the Golf small hatch and wagon range since making the switch to driveaway pricing in July.
“With Arteon, Touareg and Tiguan 110TSI just coming back on to the fleet program and the price realignment of the Golf that we had on the first of July, the passenger vehicle range we can offer here now has just broadened immensely,” Ms Zschernig said.
“The Golf price realignment made it so much more affordable and hence very attractive for fleets and small-to-large rentals.”
The Crafter large van is still seen as Volkswagen’s crown jewel in the fleet space, with Ms Zschernig saying the model that was launched in all-new guise last year had a chance of taking some market share away from Mercedes-Benz and its hugely popular Sprinter.
“There is huge potential with the Crafter in particular to grow the fleet business and where we are now of interest to customers where we couldn’t previously talk to for various reasons, and that feeds into the rest of the passenger and commercial vehicle range,” she said.
“Another win that we’re very excited about is the 40 Crafters that commenced service with St John’s (Ambulance) in Victoria for patient transport vehicles, and we’re starting to ease into the Mercedes Sprinter dominance, so that’s been very exciting.”
Ms Zschernig also said that in the future Volkswagen will offer full-electric powertrains on all of its fleet offerings, however there was no timeline for the arrival of a suite of EVs.
“With electric vehicles, what the really, really exciting part for us is that we are going to have a full range of full-electric vehicles from the small, Polo-size hatch to the big van,” she said. “So having a solution for all kinds of fleet requirements is very exciting.
“More and more customers, government bodies want us to have a solution down the track, and we’re very excited that we will be able to offer a product to do that.
“It’s definitely a big topic – not now – but down the track, absolutely.”
By Neil Dowling
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