Volvo Cars, the premium car maker, is promising that you will never have to stop at a petrol station, go to a car wash or even take your car in for a service ever again, with the launch of a range of concierge services that will become an integrated part of the Volvo On Call mobile platform.
Volvo has announced the roll-out of a pilot programme in San Francisco, targeting Volvo owners driving the new XC90 SUV and S90 luxury saloon. In an effort to make their customers’ lives easier, Volvo has dug deep into consumer research to deliver on their customers’ unmet needs. The pilot started in November 2016 and will ramp up to include around 300 Volvo owners.
Research by Volvo has shown that more than 70 percent of customers want fuelling services at their fingertips, 56 percent want their car picked up for routine maintenance, while 49 percent would like to be able to have their car moved to another location when desired.
The Volvo owners participating in the pilot can use the pilot app to identify concierge services available in the immediate vicinity and order them via their smartphone. Requests are then sent to an authorised Volvo service provider, who will refuel the vehicle, perform scheduled maintenance, or deliver whatever additional service the owner has requested.
The app provides a one-time-use digital key, which is location- and time-specific, and sends it out to the authorised service provider. When the services are complete, the car is locked and the digital key expires. The car can also be returned to where the customer left it or delivered to a completely different location at the customer’s request.
Volvo Cars’ network of digital innovation labs in California, Shanghai and Gothenburg are focussed on understanding the needs of the company’s growing customer base in an effort to further expand the range of services on offer. Due to the scalable nature of the Volvo On Call platform, new services can be easily added to ultimately offer a whole range of time-saving services around a Volvo car. 
