Trollhattan Saab has changed!
The site you're viewing now is the original Trollhattan Saab weblog, though it's now an archive only and no new material is posted here. As of February 2009, all new material is posted at our new site - Saabs United.
Please join us at Saabs United and get your daily Saab fix from Saab sources all around the world.

They say that cars are emotional buying decisions for the most part. As a long-time salesman, I’ll venture that anything more complex than your average ream of white paper is bought on emotion and then rationalized with facts. It’s been that way since the dawn of civilization, a fact not lost on the practitioners of the world’s oldest profession.

Thus, it’s not only the thing that you are buying, it’s how it makes you feel.

Believe me, having a great automobile manufacturer like Saab invite you to pick up a brand-new 9-5 Aero in Trollhattan and then paying you US$2000 to tour Sweden and Northern Europe in your new ride can make a body feel pretty darn good.

Therefore, one of the items that I was most curious to ask Steve Shannon while I had time with him this week was on the subject of continuing the EDP next year. After all, we are expecting a return of the program in the short term.

Alas, it is not so according to Mr. Shannon.

Steve Shannon believes that the process previously in place is entirely too “manual” and placed an undue burden on the marketing staff in the US and the front office in Trollhattan to administer the EDP. In his words, “Just intercepting the order once placed in the system, changing the delivery point and getting the car held at the factory in Trollhattan was never a given because it was completely manual.” He cited the pitfalls of missing a delivery when the customer has gone to great expense and invested a good deal of time to arrive at the factory. Having any buyer leave Sweden empty-handed is too great a risk, and he feels that managing the EDP is something that can and should be easier.

Thus, Saab USA is pursuing a complete revision of the procedure and systems that touch the order of any Saab to create an option for European delivery right alongside all of the other options currently available. That is, Mr. Shannon and his staff are working to create a formal program that can deliver any Saab order to the Trollhattan vistor center, track overseas shipping in the same way that intra-US deliveries are tracked, automatically release the travel stipend to the buyer in a timely fashion, etc. In short, he’s looking for automation and consistency.

All of this sounds good to me. I want some assurance that when I plunk down my hard-earned nickels on a new 9-5 Aero in a couple of years, that I can drive my car through Sweden, not a loaner with an apology letter attached. But, like everything in life, there’s a catch.

It’s taking a long time to get the system worked out. That’s the downside.

According to Steve Shannon, they are very close to the complete vision and scope of what they want, but now they have to implement the changes, which is a fairly lengthy process. When asked if the program would be back on track for next year, he explained, “Things are moving a lot slower than I thought they would. It probably won’t be available at the beginning of the model year, but maybe we could see it sometime in the next calendar year.”

The next few paragraphs from Steve were filled with statistics and differences between the Saab EDP and other such programs available from Audi, BMW, Porsche and Volvo, so Mr. Shannon has clearly done his homework on this subject. It is also clear that he wants this to happen because he understands the “social marketing” aspect of European delivery programs. Remember the opening to this post? Emotions drive buying decisions. If your neighbors are enthusiastic about their trip to Sweden to get a new 9-3 SportCombi, you are likely to warm up to the idea of Saab as a trustworthy and “good” company to buy a car from. That’s the reason for the program.

I’ll throw in my thoughts on this: since Saab USA is striving for better control of a more streamlined program, be prepared for fewer options. It’s simply easier to track a process if there are fewer divergent paths to take. I don’t think that there will be fewer automobile options, but I believe that Saab USA has to reduce the number of shipping points to a manageable number (in the last program, there were almost unlimited options available, the buyer simply paid any differences in costs) and they almost certainly have to use a single auto transporter to ease tracking. I can live with that. Most EDP participants aren’t planning on shipping the car from Istanbul or Palermo anyway, and no big deal if the selected carrier takes a few days longer to deliver.

Finally, a note to Saab USA: European delivery programs are worth it. They bring new buyers and, more importantly, they make new enthusiasts out of those buyers. Enthusiasm brings great visibility as evidenced by the kind of exposure seen in unrelated media such as Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel, About.com, the New York Times and Forbes.

I’m very much looking forward to the next European Delivery Program with anticipation since I’m planning to be a customer.