SIGN ANYWHERE MAKES VW BUYING TOUCHLESS

Volkswagen’s new Sign Anywhere app makes car buying an absentee proposition. It used to be that buying a vehicle required a visit to the dealership for a long, drawn-out face-to-face visit with the salesman, a sales manager, the GM and usually a go-see, to the Finance and Insurance office, before you were able to take delivery of your new chariot. Thanks to this new app, buyers can finish their financial paperwork with a participating dealer without having to visit the dealership.

Once you have driven your new car for a week, it’s almost a guarantee you’ll receive a survey from the manufacturer asking how the entire process was. Even the team at Napleton.news deals with such things! Was the process fast? Were those who dealt with you nice and respectful? Was the car spotless inside and out? Did they offer an extended warranty? The form they expect you to fill out is usually as long as the sidelines inside Soldier Field.

Well, fret no more! Volkswagen has come up with a solution in the form of new tools to launch Sign Anywhere, which is a digital signature tool that’s among the first of its kind in the U.S. The second part is a new system that allows customers to dispense with the long list of questions on a dealer Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI) survey. After filling out the survey, buyers may post their results and feedback to the VW.com website. Let the fireworks begin!

SIGN ANYWHERE WITH SECURITY

The Sign Anywhere app is a joint effort of Volkswagen and CDK Global, and allows customers to remotely and securely put a digital signature on financial documents from their smartphone or computer. While common in most industries, financial documents have sometimes required the use of in-person or “wet signatures” instead. Volkswagen had been planning this app for more than two years, but the Covid-19 pandemic caused the implementation to occur much sooner. Currently, use of the app is enabled at more than 400 Volkswagen dealerships in states where laws allow it.

“Customers are asking for flexibility and looking for peace of mind, especially during this time, and Sign Anywhere helps provide that,” said Anthony Bandmann, President and CEO of VW Credit. “Since this pandemic took hold, we’ve accelerated our plan to make this a permanent tool for our dealers,” he said.

SURVEY SAYS?!

Not as friendly as an episode of “the Family Feud,” the post-sale survey is known as a “pain point” in the shopping process. The new online survey rolled out to VW dealers in late January and features far fewer questions than many buyers will remember. The new format allows buyers to give credit where it’s due, and allow dealers more insight into what they did wrong and right. “We stopped chasing a numerical score and started listening to what people had to say,” said Erin Buhrmaster, Director of Customer Experience for Volkswagen of America.

Since the pandemic occurred, according to Volkswagen, the surveys have shown that the steps dealers took to handle a new set of challenges, especially at-home test drives and deliveries, have been well-received.