BMW Excels at Customer Fulfillment

It's not often that I get to talk about customer fulfillment on my blog. It's obviously a critical part of the supply chain because any screw up in the fulfillment process could leave a lasting impression on the customer. Or as in the case with me, it could turn the customer into a loyal client. Which brings me to BMW. As many of you know I picked up my new BMW last Saturday in Munich at BMW Welt, essentially the customer fulfillment operations of the automaker.

After receiving a warm welcome at the door my girlfriend and I were treated to breakfast.

This was followed by a meeting with my service rep. Before actually taking ownership of my car, BMW lets me take it for a virtual test drive where I get to test how my actual car, with its real world configuration, will drive in snow and rain conditions. In the simulation I can test the brakes and cornering. Cool stuff.




From there I am taken to a landing area that has my car spinning on a platform. And from that point on I am given a tour of the facility and a tour of all of the features of my car. Unfortunately, the manufacturing side of the facility is closed on the weekends, so no shots of manufacturing. But on the logistics front I have a scoop. Prior to prepping my car its sits in a loading dock within BMW Welt that holds roughly 250 cars. The dock is 100% automated, in fact humans can't even go inside because BMW has removed a considerable portion of the air from the room. The reason is simple, to prevent fires. Similar to a large parking garage an automated arm moves the platform, which the cars sit on from station to station where the car gets final tests and cleaned up.

To summarize, the BMW Welt experience, is exactly what customer fulfillment should do, which is fulfill my every wish and desire. And they sure did.