Interview with Rudi Schogger - MD, Goingreen

GoinGreen, the company best known for introducing the G-Wiz electric car into London, recently celebrated its seventh birthday and announced a new Managing Director, Rudi Schogger. Rudi joins GoinGreen at an exciting time in the electric vehicle industry with interest in electric cars higher than ever before.

Michael Boxwell asks the questions.

So tell me about you, Rudi?

I've been a serial entrepreneur since I was eighteen and run a variety of businesses in a whole range of different sectors. My first company was in legal services and since then I've ended up running different businesses in food, leisure and property. Fundamentally I consider myself a serial entrepreneur in the purest sense of the word.

Why did you want to join GoinGreen?

I was contacted by one of the directors to ask if I knew anybody who would be suitable for the role. I thought it an interesting and exciting opportunity in a space that I knew was growing, so I put myself forward as a potential candidate. The directors thought I would make the right sort of candidate to take the company forward.

Tell me about GoinGreen - what makes the company unique?

GoinGreen has been a pioneering company in the electric vehicle market. My predecessors did a fantastic job at putting the company and the product on the map. Seven years on, it remains a leader in its sector. It is now an exciting time to take it forward, keep its unique proposition and market lead and get more G-Wiz onto the road.

GoinGreen has just celebrated its seventh birthday. There have been other electric car specialists retailers come and go over the past seven years.

What has been the difference that has allowed GoinGreen to keep going when most of its competitors have gone under?

We have a competitive product with good availability and we've built an infrastructure that has proved to be commercially viable. Whilst others have come and gone, we're still here.

So where next for the business?

For the last couple of years, GoinGreen has been a 'sleeping giant' and may not have made the most of its opportunities. What I'm now looking at doing is improving customer service, improving product, putting together new promotions, new service agreements for our customers and rewarding loyalty. I'm very much involved in customer services myself, both looking at what has gone before and determining how to improve things going forward.

I'm also setting the pace for new sales of the G-Wiz and future products that we will introduce.

When GoinGreen started, it sold products from different manufacturers but in the past five years it has been focused purely on REVA.

Will GoinGreen be looking to introduce other products into the market?

I'm certainly looking at other products. I've been approached by a number of manufacturers, including one of our competitors dare I say it, concerning expanding our product range - everything from electric bikes to electric vans and other electric cars.

Any plans to expand beyond London?

We're certainly looking at expansion beyond London through the DTI Plugged In Places initiative initiative. At least two areas have been identified as having the infrastructure to support electric vehicles more widely. So I'll be looking at those areas, along with a number of others, and make sure that we've got a suitable infrastructure in place to properly service customers in those new areas.

A lot of G-Wiz owners - especially those with older cars - are concerned about the cost of battery replacements and servicing costs for running their cars long term. Is there anything that GoinGreen can do to keep the costs down over a longer period?

Batteries are a key component. It is one of the very first things I turned my attention to - both from a performance point of view and a cost point of view. I am continuing to work with REVA on their Dynex batteries and Union Power (who supply the Trojan batteries) to see how we can better improve the products on price, performance and perhaps most importantly, how customers use and look after their batteries.

We've introduced the mantra "if you love your G-Wiz, it will love you back", so we can fully convey and explain to customers how to get the most out of their batteries. We think this is the most cost effective way to get the most value out of batteries.

Over the next year or so a lot of different manufacturers like Mitsubishi, Citroen and Nissan will all be launching new electric cars, how will GoinGreen retain its unique position in the market?

Well I say "Bring It On" to the big companies. We remain very much in our niche. Whilst companies like Mitsubishi, BMW and others are launching products in the £20-35,000 market, we retain our niche with an entry level vehicle under £10,000.

What new things are we going to see from GoinGreen in the next couple of months or so?

To begin with, we've got a new website being launched later this month. We're also looking at a whole new marketing strategy. Historically we've gone the no advertising route. However, we've now entered a new phase for the market with bigger companies coming and we need much more of a market presence, so we're doing a range of marketing activities starting with our own customers and I've already introduced new options on service agreements which have had a great take up.

I'm also looking at the operations of the business to ensure efficiency and better and better customer services and quality control all the time.

I make myself available for customers at all times. If there is something going on in the office and I get wind of an issue that has come up with an unhappy customer - or a particularly happy customer - then I do my best to speak to them personally.

I'm in the opinion that the person at the top sets the tone for everything in the company. As part of the customers services initiative I'm available on the end of the phone any time one of my customer's would like to speak to me. If they've got comments, an issue, questions, criticisms, complements or otherwise, I'm always here to listen to the customer first and foremost.

Further information on the G-Wiz and its benefits can be found on GoinGreen's website.