There’s a good reason Lincoln sales are up 10% this year over standard deviation, the best number they’ve posted in nine years. (Their Chinese sales, meanwhile, are up threefold.) They give the people what they want: intuitive convenience and quiet luxury.
And now, with their new Chauffeur service, they’ll even do your grocery shopping or pick you up from happy hour. Announced in tandem with the regal 2018 Navigator, the Lincoln Chauffeur service is exactly what it sounds like. You provide the car, Lincoln provides the driver.
Now available in Miami as part of a soft roll-out (San Diego is next), the service allows an owner to request a driver via smartphone app to come to their house and drive them home or wherever they’d like to go in their own car. The situations where this could come in handy extend well beyond the bar. Say your daughter needs a ride home from basketball practice and you’re in the middle of cooking dinner. Lincoln will deploy a driver to pick your child up and bring them home. And if you had something on hold at Saks that you forgot to pick up — well, they’re more than happy to swing by and snag that as well.
And owners can kiss airport parking goodbye. Lincoln Chauffeur will take an owner to the airport and bring the car back, allowing the family to use the car while the owner is away. And they’ll fill up the tank on the way bac, should you so desire. Drivers are vetted internally by Lincoln, and if an owner finds a particular driver he or she fancies, they can request that person and Lincoln will attempt to accommodate.
The company has been winning big in the lifestyle game for a minute with their Black Label service, which offers perks like free any-time carwashes, complimentary annual services and access to their exclusive culinary program and concert series. But the Lincoln Chauffeur will be available to all Lincoln owners, not just members of Black Label: all new owners will be privy to eight hours of the service free — a big win considering the pilot price is approximately $30 an hour.
While other manufacturers are trying to find their 21st-century identity by adding shiny doodads, Lincoln has been looking backward, by championing customer service and adding that “personal touch” that is harder and harder to find, these days.
In essence, Lincoln’s new mantra is “Ask not what your customers can do for you, but what you can do for your customers.”
Take note, industry.
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