Tesla is rewriting many of the rules of ‘automobile’ industry. Its latest target is ‘retailing’.
If you wish to buy a car you would have to go to a stand-alone car showroom, either owned by the company or its franchise. But if you wish to buy a Tesla you will have to visit a Mall.
You are right that no right thinking person will go to a Mall to buy a car & Tesla also realizes this reality.
But it also realizes that in a Mall shoppers are in a relaxed state of mind & it is this in this state that Tesla needs to educate them about itself.
Is Tesla being different for the sake of being different?
It does not seem so because the questions that are likely to be asked by a person buying a regular car are going to be different than those aspiring to buy Tesla.
Take a customer who enters a regular car showroom. Here she is unlikely to ask, ‘How will I get my car’s gas tank filled up? Where are filling stations located? Are there enough of them?’
Therefore Tesla showrooms are designed to educate its potential users about all the concerns that they may have about owning Tesla. Customers may find the process of getting educated, dull & boring.
To overcome this problem Tesla has installed interactive screens, which are devoted to 4 major themes:
1. Safety
2. Autopilot
3. Company’s battery charging network
4. Dual motor that powers each axel
But the larger goal of Tesla is to own entire end-to-end experience of a potential buyer’s experience so that at every ‘touch point it delivers a pleasurable experience.
———-
In this series, Rajesh Srivastava, Business Strategist and Visiting Faculty at IIM Indore gives you a regular dose of strategy case studies to help you think and keep you one step ahead as a professional as compared to your peers. Rajesh is an alumnus of IIM Bangalore and IIT Kanpur and has over 2 decades of experience in the FMCG industry. All previous
Strategy with RS posts can be found here
