Genesis opens UK dealer network following Hyundai merger

Genesis has opened a network of UK dealerships as part of its strategy to increase brand awareness and to deliver a stronger proposition to fleets.

Three years from launch, the first six Genesis dealerships have opened their doors. A further nine are expected by the end of the year.

Jonny Miller, the company’s newly-appointed brand director, told Fleet News: “We're going to be closer, we're going to be more available and our cars are going to be present across the UK for more people, whether they are a retail or a corporate customer.”

Stating the importance of customers being able to see, touch, feel, and most importantly, test drive its cars, Miller explained that the brand’s previous strategy of “we come to you” was no longer solely sustainable as demand has grown and capacity has diminished.

Genesis still stands by its “Genesis difference” promise of VIP-style customer-focused engagement. Central to this is the Genesis Personal Assistant (GPA) programme that assigns each customer a single point of contact that will support them with test drives, ordering and handover, all the way through to aftersales.

This function will be adopted by the dealers, primarily, and the in-life management of existing Genesis customers will be transitioned to GPAs based within the dealer network. The opportunity for remote test drives and handovers will remain. A small team of central staff will manage customers that live more an hour from a dealer.

The new network also provides an enhanced aftersales proposition, with faster turnaround times. Miller said this will be especially beneficial to fleet customers as service and repair jobs can be performed more quickly. Genesis will continue to offer its collect and return service, for customers that don’t want to travel to a dealer for maintenance work.

While the overall customer service proposition at Genesis remains very much “business as usual”, behind the scenes the brand has undergone a more significant transformation in becoming part of Hyundai Motor UK. The previously independent Genesis business merged with its sister brand earlier this year.

The integration has given Genesis access to shared services, such as logistics, parts supply and finance, which are said to "maximise business efficiencies and synergies".

Miller explained: “Theoretically, the Genesis team has become much bigger. We've now got all the expertise, we've got all the processes, we've got all the mechanisms and, more importantly, all the ideas for how to take the brand to the next level.

“We're now in a much bigger team, where people can give us ideas and, as a brand, we can look to develop that and drive Genesis forwards.”

In the fleet space, Genesis has focused on building relationships with the UK’s largest leasing firms and larger corporates. It will now work in collaboration with the Hyundai fleet team to expand its reach.

Miller said: “Hyundai has spent a long time building a database of end user customers that they are transacting with. We are now going to be complementing that with the Genesis offering.”

The retailers will also play a part in boosting Genesis’ fleet sales, according to Miller.

He added: “What the retail partners bring is the ability to go and tap into the SME market. I think there is a huge opportunity for Genesis there, so actually having the retail partners on board will allow us to get into that. We’ve just never had the capacity or the time to do that.”

Key to the Genesis fleet offering is its line-up of electric cars: the GV60, Electrified GV70 and Electrified G80.

The company registered a total of 1,362 cars in 2023, 78% of which were EVs. In the true fleet market, more than 90% of Genesis models sold last year were EVs.