Profile: Auto Hase

When Dolák finished school six years ago, he plunged into the world of car sales by helping his father out at his Toyota dealership. In 2008, Dolák became director of Auto Hase when he and his business partner Jiří Vana acquired the dealership. Since then, Dolák says he hasn’t had to make too many changes at Auto Hase, since the company seemed to be “pretty much in good condition.”

However, in the time that Dolák has presided over Auto Hase, he has had to deal with the impact of the financial crisis on the dealership. He explains that customers used to come more eagerly to the dealership five to 10 years ago.

“But times are changing, and now we have to go to the customer. It’s something that is very demanding on sales representatives. So in the last three to four months, we’ve made some changes. We needed sales reps who weren´t afraid to go out there, to talk more, to have meetings with the customers outside on the lot,” Dolák explains. Currently, Auto Hase has 76 employees, including four people on the sales team.

But Dolák knows that it takes more than just a strong sales team to boost sales.

“We can sell a V50 or C30 to people who thought they could never afford it. But it’s similar in price to a Škoda Octavia. We’d like to show people that they can afford a Volvo,” Dolák points out.

Dolák lists his main competitors as Mercedes, BMW and Audi.

In September of this year, the Volvo S60, a sedan model, will be introduced to the Czech Republic, a car which Dolák says will be “on top of the Volvo range, in terms of quality and safety.”

Dolák mentions that Volvo is considered number one in the world in safety, but “people still think Volvo is too expensive, and don’t want to even try it. We want to tell them we have cars for everyone. Sports cars, small cars, family cars, cross-country cars, off road cars, etc.”

In fact, Dolák’s personal favorite is the XC70 model, a wagon that he drives himself and can be used “as a family car or cross country car. You can put two or three bikes inside. You can use it for everything,” he says.

As the new owners of Auto Hase, Dolák says that he and his partner are learning that their customers are wealthier, with a family, over 35 years old, and work as managers or entrepreneurs. “But the final word on the sale is always from the female,” Dolák adds with a grin.

The dealership, with its main location in Prague West and a smaller showroom in Dejvice, has around 20 cars set aside to loan to customers whose own car is in service, as well as 12 demo cars, which are used for test drives either for the day or even for a weekend.

Auto Hase sells mostly new cars, around 65 percent of its total sales, while the rest of the sales are from used cars, Dolák says. They also offer full maintenance and repair services in their main showroom location, including a pick up and drop off service for customers whose cars are being worked on.

Because of the comprehensive services available at Auto Hase, Dolák points out that the company’s main motto is “100% service, because when the customer buys a car, that is the just the beginning of a long partnership.”