Volkswagen says, regaining customer's trust is of utmost priority!

Kuala Lumpur: Attaining the No. 1 spot in worldwide automobile sales is every automakers dream, or say goal. But, when this goal of achieving the top position becomes an obsession, it may prove fatal to the brand's image. The case was same with the Volkswagen. But now, it is moving on the better take by revising its objective. From becoming the top automaker by 2018 (as earlier said), it will now focus on regaining customer's trust and confidence instead.

Martin Winterkorn, VW's ex-CEO, first boasted in 2007 that his company intended to pass Toyota in global vehicle sales by 2018, which would cement the automaker's supremacy. VW achieved its early than the target. But then, the celebration didn't last long. By the end of the following quarter, Winterkorn had resigned in disgrace.

On Wednesday, the German automaker reported a net loss of €1.7 billion ($1.9 billion) for the quarter, down from a profit of nearly €3 billion a year ago. VW shares are off 26% in value since Sept. 18 and 31% since the beginning of the year, owing to weak demand in China, where VW sells about a third of its vehicles. VW's new CEO, Matthias Muller, said on Wednesday that the automaker's new strategy, called Strategy 2025, will focus on making customers happy and on profitability, not selling as many vehicles as possible.

Herbert Diess, Volkswagen CEO of passenger cars stated at the 2015 Tokyo Motor Show that customer’s trust now takes precedence over vehicle sales. “This is not our first priority, our first priority is to regain the trust and confidence of our customers, and then later we will look at market share,” he said.

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He further added on Volkswagen's presence in the American auto market, the automaker lacks interest of people as expected. “Our first priority is to really now to look at the customers, fix their problems, recover confidence and then we will look at what we are going to do in the American market, which is for sure our biggest challenge,” Diess explained.

Further, asking about the calling for affected cars back to the garage, Diess expressed, “Buy backs are too early to say because at the moment that we are hopeful and we believe that we can fix. I think it’s too early to really consider all the options.”

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“We have different car types, engine types. We will finish evolutions before the end of the year and then we will be able to really determine which cars and what kind of fix. Most of the fleet, we are sure we can fix by software,” he reasoned.

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