Audi To Video Service And Repair Work

Thursday, 22. July 2010

It was over 2 years ago that I started to write articles claiming that the motor industry would be transformed by the creative use of video. In the US, where buyers can travel hundreds of miles just to view a used car, only to decide that they don’t like the wheels fitted or the colour of the interior, badly wasting our diminishing oil supplies, they came up with an ingenious way of taking videos of the car, as directed by the potential customer, and embedding the video in an email. A great idea that will eventually be replaced by streaming video. In the meantime another part of the motor industry has seen the benefit of video – servicing. Audi have started to video the work done on your car whilst the mechanic is working on it via an ‘Audi Cam’ headset attached to the lead mechanic. The video is then streamed onto the TV monitor in the service waiting room. In future this will be streamed to the client’s PC at home or at work. The programme is called AudiDirect and is currently being rolled out across the entire Audi dealer network. The customer will even be able to discuss what is going on with the mechanic via a 2 way radio link. Audi see this as a big move to allay the fears of drivers that they are being charged for work that hasn’t been carried out. They point out that customers will not be charged for using the service. Although I suspect that unless Audi have registered as a charity that we will see the costs reflected in the hourly rates charged. By Graham Hill