In response to increasingly fierce competition in China's luxury car market, manufacturers have increased investment in dealer training to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.
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To offer professional instruction to its dealer staff, BMW recently opened a new training center in Guangzhou, its third on the Chinese mainland.
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The opening of the new center has increased total training time within the company to 230,000 person-days this year, which is up from 182,000 person-days last year.
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A person-day is defined as a day's worth of training for a single person.
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The company's other two existing training centers are in Beijing and Shanghai.
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According to the company, it is preparing to set up another training center in the northwestern province of Xi'an, but no timetable has been disclosed yet.
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Additionally, BMW has training programs in 15 colleges or vocational schools across the country to cultivate technicians.
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The company said it will continue to increase training capacity to support the expansion of its dealer network.
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The number of BMW dealer outlets in China is likely to reach 420 by the end of this year, and they will employ about 43,000 staff.
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Karsten Engel, president and CEO of BMW Group Region China, said that the company needs "professional, experienced and dedicated people" to deliver high-quality services that live up to the expectations of customers.
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"The days of super-fast growth in China's premium market are over. The key topic of tomorrow is quality," he said.
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In the first quarter, sales of luxury cars in China edged up 4 percent from a year earlier.
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Though many analysts expect an increase of more than 10 percent for the full year, the growth is a far cry from the double-digit increases in the past several years.
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Last month, Mercedes-Benz also opened a new training center in China.
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The facility in Chengdu is the company's sixth in the country and its second-biggest one aside from the one in Germany.Â