55 International Salespersons are First Recipients of Volkswagen Diploma - Award Ceremony at the Autostadt

For the first time, Volkswagen has awarded a diploma to the best international salespersons. At a ceremony held last week in the Autostadt, 55 people who successfully completed the Volkswagen International Training Center received certificates and trophies. Awards were made to Volkswagen Brand salespersons from Italy, Ireland, Slovakia and Turkey.

"Our objective is to ensure uniformly high levels of customer support throughout the world. This will be crucially important for the success of our brand," stressed Michael Horn, Head of Sales Europe. "Excellent customer support is only possible with uniform global standards and outstanding training content," added Sven Uphaus of the International Training Center (ITC). The standardized global training system developed by Volkswagen has already been used successfully in 50 countries. "Our objective is to implement the ITC concept consistently with all Volkswagen's world-wide sales partners," underlined Kevin Rose, Head of Sales International.

For new sales team members, the route to a Volkswagen Diploma includes several stages of a training system. Initially, candidates must successfully complete an assessment centre and demonstrate their sales talent. This is followed by 15 days of basic training mainly designed to develop sales competence and to provide in-depth knowledge of the model range. Further training then covers areas such as customer loyalty or acquisition. In addition, only sales personnel who have demonstrated above-average sales performance within two years can be considered for a Diploma.

The 55 salespersons who were awarded their Diplomas this year were invited to Wolfsburg for several days. The highlight of their visit was the award ceremony at the Autostadt. The award-winners also took part in offroad drivers' training with the Volkswagen Experience and stayed at the Ritz Carlton. A tour of the Autostadt rounded off the programme. Throughout the world, more than 20,000 salespersons are active for the Volkswagen Brand.