Volkswagen hires first Australian customer experience chief

Bradshaw has been the head of customer experience at Target Australia for nearly two years. Prior to that, he spent a year working as a senior commercial manager at Fairfax Media, and was also formerly director of procurement transformation at NSW Department of Finance and Services. General manager of communications for Volkswagen Group Australia, Karl Gehling, said the director of customer experience position was created in recognition of the importance of customer service to the business. “This new role brings together responsibility for all customer touchpoints in the business encompassing call centre, roadside assistance, customer satisfaction and loyalty,” he said. Bradshaw’s key priorities are to deliver improvements in customer experience across every touchpoint in the business. He officially commenced the role in October 2015 and reports directly to the managing director, Michael Bartsch. The appointment comes as Volkswagen globally reels from an emissions scandal that originally broke in the US in September and has since caused shockwaves around the world. The scandal centres around software used within its engines that tells each car to go into ‘clean mode’ when it detects the car is being tested for emissions.