carsales Insights chats with Subaru Australia managing director, Blair Read, a mad keen rally driver who has four kids below the age of 12.
BRAND: SUBARU
NUMBER OF DEALERS: 114 (APROX)
NUMBER OF MODELS: 8
HOW ARE RELATIONS WITH YOUR DEALER NETWORK?
“Dealer relationships are really good. They’re great now we’re in a more normal operating environment and we can get more face to face. We’re loving that aspect and so is the network, of getting back together.
With the current environment where there are challenges around supply and the like, the working relationship with the dealer network is as close as its ever been. Keeping customers informed, they’re doing an absolutely fantastic job for us.
Keeping people who have cars on order, keeping them updated on changes, looking after them. So yes, support from the dealer network is fantastic.
In terms of changes, our dealer network is very stable. There’s one new site opened at Indooroopilly, Eagers Automotive auto mall. That’s really transitioned from what was a previous site we had, to now a newer site, with our new CI [corporate identity] rollout, which is more just some internal changes to CI.
Other than that, we’ve had a couple of ownership changes but nothing too exciting. It’s a very stable dealer network.”
ANXIETY OVER VEHICLE SUPPLY?
“We give dealers as much transparency and as much support to be able to handle the natural customers enquiry that comes in, on ‘where is the vehicle at?’. Being able to support them and work with them hand in hand.
We remove any anxiety from being really close with them and sharing the latest information.”
HOW WILL SUBARU DEALERS TRANSFORM IN THE EV SPACE, ESPECIALLY WITH SOLTERRA COMING?
“We don’t see major change in that space. We see an extension of the way our network operates at the moment and in some ways the support for customers, helping people understand new technologies, having a dealer network that’s fully informed and trained and understanding the products is really critical.”
SUBARU SALES VS SUPPLY
“In terms of sales, sales momentum has been really strong for the brand. The launch of BRZ, Outback has been really strong, WRX coming on stream [below] – there’s a lot of exciting product.
Supply has been a challenge in the last couple of months, there has been some supply chain issues for the brand at a factory level.
We see improvement over the coming months and as we come into the second half of the year definitely.”
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