BMW Using ‘No Sales Stores’ To Improve Customer Experience

Tesla Motors uses their flashy gallery stores to attract new customers. It seems that German automaker BMW is following suit. Tesla puts their gallery stores right in the middle of malls with their Model S sedan on display. Consumers are able to come by and interact with the vehicle in a casual fashion. However, while Tesla Motors has gallery stores to bypass dealers, BMW has created a similar set-up to create traffic to their dealerships.

At the South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, CA BMW has a boutique store. Or, so it seems. The store displays a BMW i8, the high-performance hybrid that competes with the Tesla Model S for high-end green luxury customers. The store went up without the usual hubbub that would surround such an interesting endeavor. BMW quietly created the store, which doesn’t allow sales. The location grants customers the chance to sign-up with a local dealership for a test-drive.

This effort is all part of the future of retail program being rolled out at BMW dealerships. The automaker wants all 340 BMW stores in the USA to be participating in the program by 2019. The dealerships will need to update their real estate to accommodate the new initiative, which is slated to cost dealers nationwide around $500 million dollars, or about $1.4 million per store. The upgrade is reportedly similar to what other auto groups such as Sonic Automotive are trying to do in order to improve the customer experience. Part of the experience includes a more modern look, which makes good use of smart devices like iPads and has numerous flat screens to show off readily available information to car shoppers. This concept for BMW isn’t entirely new, however. It was debuted in some form back in 2012, when BMW launched their factory stores across Europe in Paris, London, Zurich and Munich.

Their goal according to a press release is to, “first, to increase the number of possible contact points with customers and prospects, second, to increase the services and benefits offered in its retail channels, and third, to enhance the retail experience at all touch points.” A Reynolds & Reynolds report about CX looked at what dealers can do to improve the customer experience at their stores. The report said in part, ” It’s no longer simply about customer relationship management. It’s about customer experience management. CEM not CRM.”