Martyn Collins

Alpine is opening up to fleet buyers, following the launch of the award-winning A290 and the incoming range-topper, the A390. Asked about the response from fleet customers so far, Burnside said: “The A290 has been successful in fleet, and particularly SalSac, because salary sacrifice is basically retail customers purchasing through a business scheme. The Alpine A290 works well because it’s very retail-focussed, and a user-chooser car. We’re really hopeful the A390 will follow.

“In contrast, the A110 is pure retail, because of the type of car it is.  We did have some B2B customers, but there’s quite a specific use case for the A110. For A290, it was always our plan to have a strong retail mix, between 60 and 65%, and fleet - or salary sacrifice – at around 40 to 45%. Our plans are to still have a strong retail mix but also have a good reputation in fleet.

“A390 will be a slightly different balance, again. We think it could be more of an even split between retail and fleet buyers, but we’re still working on that. Larger C-segment cars tend to be skewed more towards fleet than retail, but we want to aim for it to be equal because of the brand that we are.”

We move on to ask Nicola if Alpine are finding that these fleet buyers are new to Alpine? Or are they coming from other Renault Group brands? Burnside said: “It is a real mix, to be honest. We have a proportion of customers that are Renaultsport enthusiasts, and therefore they know Alpine, and want the latest model that comes along. But, when we look at it holistically, thanks to SalSac, over 80% are new to the brand.

“The whole plan of the ‘Alpine Dream Garage,’ is that by expanding our everyday extraordinary product line-up, it thus enables more people to access the brand, with products that are more suitable for everyday use. A two-seater sports-coupe, as brilliant as it is - and I love the A110 - is not for everybody, so it has a limited appeal. Whereas the A290 and A390 especially, will give us more appeal, and bring more people into the brand.”

We suggest that the reason SalSac works for Alpine is that clients are more like a retail customer. Burnside said: “Exactly. We have salary sacrifice providers that we’re dealing with centrally. However, the end users are coming into our showrooms, they’re doing the test drives, they’re getting the experience a retail customer would get, they’re just funding it a different way.  The way we’re working with retailers is encouraging that relationship with that end user, so that we can support from an aftersales perspective.

“We’re mindful of offering the same customer experience to SalSac buyers, but some retailers are offering delivery rather than expecting customers to come in and collect the car. In the salary sacrifice arena, customers can be much further away – so they’re not so location based. Therefore, we have retailers who have invested in transport to serve that better. So, they’re delivering Alpine cars in covered transport, with specialised handover procedures to go with it. So, even if the handover isn’t on site, we are looking to maintain the Alpine experience.”

We go on to tell Nicola how excited head of fleet, Justin Costello, was at the prospect of being able to sell Alpine to fleets, alongside other Renault Group products. So, we ask if she thinks this is a major opportunity when compared to Alpine’s rivals? Burnside said: “From a company perspective, they want one point of contact for fleet, that they can go to, to get a variety of solutions for their internal customer base. So, to have Justin and the Renault Group Fleet team who can do that across all the different brands – cars and vans, that we have – it puts us in a really strong position.

“The way Renault Group is set up, we are thinking about business opportunities in serving fleet demand in the right way, and Alpine plays its part within that. I’m really happy that we’ve got that set up. We still want to maintain the brand definition in the way that we share materials, or present the product, and do test drives, and all the things round this. In terms of having one key contact to do business with, I think we’re set up in the right way.”

For our final question, we ask Nicola if fleet is a massive opportunity for Alpine? Burnside said: “Yes, we’re super excited for the brand, and we’re very much focussed on building the relationships now, in order that we’re present in the right channels. One of the challenges for Alpine is that we’ve not been here before. It’s about getting out there to see everybody, introducing the brand and its heritage, and the A110. So, taking people on the journey, and not just assuming that everyone will know who we are just because we started 70 years ago! That’s been a bit of a journey for us, but it’s working, with Justin and the fleet team helping from a central perspective.”