Focus on family at VW
Volkswagen Knysna has over the past year undergone some major changes and according to its owners is now a completely new dealership where the bottom line is no longer just about selling cars.
There has been a change in mindset, say the father-and-son owner team Gideon and Francois Knoetze, which not only places gaining the customer’s trust as a top priority, but the company is focusing on its staff in order to make the client’s entire motoring experience one they won’t soon forget.
“We want to bring our customer an experience of world-class standards, but in a homely way, with values they would hold dear. We want them to feel like family because we are a family, and with that we hope to gain their trust and confidence. To do that, we need to start at home,” Gideon Knoetze says.
To achieve this, the Knoetze team put together a brand new workforce who they trust, and who will stand by their customers, just as a family would. Over the next few weeks consumers will get to know Volkswagen Knysna’s new team leaders, commencing this week with head technician Francois Deysel.
Deysel, a father of two boys, comes from a long background in the motoring industry with Volkswagen and Audi, having started out as an apprentice in Springs, Johannesburg in 1999.
He qualified as a VW and Audi-certified mechanic in 2005, and by 2010 had qualified as an Audi diagnostic, convenience and air-conditioner technician. He plied his trade at the same institution in Springs until the Knoetzes brought him to Knysna in July 2017.
“I have a real passion for cars and love working on and tinkering with them, and that is how I got into the trade. Over the years though, the longer you work with people, you realise how important your relationship with your client is. You win their trust and that is the most important aspect of my job, one I want to carry through in my work with Knysna’s people,” Deysel says.
According to Deysel it is about more than just servicing and selling cars at VW Knysna.
“There is a family feeling, from top management to the bottom of the ladder. We want our customers to know that money is not our bottom line or our number one priority – our clients aren’t just a number, they are family.
The motor industry in general is greatly lacking that,” he says.
It is that family feeling in the workshop, he says, that changes one’s work ethic completely. “You know your VW family supports you in every aspect of your job, and we can then pay that feeling forward, to our clients,” Deysel added.
Deysel, currently busy with his VW master’s technician qualification, invites Knysnarians to come see him at VW Knysna for all their servicing, diagnostic and mechanical needs.