10th Anniversary of Mercedes-Benz Customer Center in Bremen

OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE

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Ceremony with Bremen Mayor Jens B�hrnsen and Mercedes-Benz Director of Passenger Car Sales Germany Peter K�spert
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Mayor Jens B�hrnsen: �The Mercedes-Benz Customer Center strengthens Bremen�s position as an attractive city for tourism and special events.�
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Plant Manager Peter Schabert: "The Customer Center is a window on the plant, and at the same time it creates a link to the city and the region."
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Berta Benz available as travel companion with historic patented motorcar

Bremen, Apr 28, 2008 - Today, the Mercedes-Benz Customer Center Bremen will mark its tenth year with an anniversary celebration. It was opened on April 27, 1998, after a construction period of 15 months. The imposing glass structure was the third customer center in a Mercedes-Benz passenger car plant, following Sindelfingen and Rastatt. Every day, about 140 customers pick up their new cars here, and roughly 100,000 visitors experience the Mercedes-Benz brand at the site every year.

On April 27, 1998, the Mercedes-Benz Customer Center was opened at the Bremen plant. Today, ten years later - almost exactly to the day - 400 invited guests, including Bremen Mayor Jens B�hrnsen, will gather here to celebrate the tenth anniversary. Plant Manager Peter Schabert comments: �In our Customer Center, people can experience the Mercedes-Benz brand at first hand. For customers and visitors, it�s a window on the plant, and at the same time it creates a link to the city and the region as a whole.�

Peter K�spert, a member of the management team at the Mercedes-Benz Sales Organization Germany and responsible for sales for Mercedes-Benz Cars, underscores the Customer Center�s role for building brand loyalty: �Our Customer Centers are a crucial part of the brand strategy of Mercedes-Benz. Our company recognized the importance of direct contact between the customers and the plant very early on.� The Sindelfingen Customer Center was built in 1981, replacing a car delivery office that had been there since the 1950s. In 1997, the Mercedes-Benz Customer Center in Rastatt was opened, followed half a year later by the Customer Center in Bremen.

�The site of production is the best place to generate enthusiasm for the Mercedes star and the Mercedes-Benz brand,� K�spert adds. �And if you experience the brand and the people behind it at first hand, you have a much more emotional bond with the brand and the product.�
In January 1997, development began on the site at the northern edge of the �Holter Feld� area, on a piece of land the company had purchased in the late 1970s for the purpose of expanding the plant. The impressive edifice of steel and glass was built in only 15 months at a cost of �18.5 million. The main hall, which is more than nine meters high, is covered by a wave-shaped aluminum roof that modulates the austerity of the large structure. A sweeping, single-story section of the building shaped like the quadrant of a circle extends beneath and beyond it, framing a lake specially created for the Customer Center and welcoming customers and visitors as though with open arms.

Fourfold brand experience

Inside the building, customers and visitors can enjoy a variety of activities related to the Mercedes-Benz brand. Doris Heitkamp-K�nig manages the Customer Center with a staff of 73 employees. �Our approach for giving customers an experience of the brand is based on four pillars: vehicle pick-up, support for groups of visitors, the events, and the exclusive product consultation,� says Heitkamp-K�nig.
About 140 customers arrive every day to pick up cars, often in the company of family and friends. Mostly, they drive away in cars built at the plant, in other words, the C, CLK, SLK and SL-Class. But if the customer chooses, any other Mercedes-Benz passenger car can be delivered and picked up here as well.

The Customer Center also offers plant tours, which are very popular. �We want to give customers and visitors a clear idea of the production processes and show them how a Mercedes-Benz is created,� says Plant Manager Schabert. �We offer hands-on quality, innovation, and high-tech.� Last year, 510 groups with 11,100 guests visited the Customer Center just to take these tours. Many of them combine the trip with a visit to the city of Bremen.
�The Mercedes-Benz Customer Center attracts many visitors. That�s a welcome development to the Bremen senate too, because it underscores and strengthens Bremen�s position as an attractive city for tourism and special events. One thing I find especially impressive is the fact that a remarkable note has been struck with the architecture too. There are many reasons to offer our warmest thanks,� says Mayor B�hrnsen.

The Bremen Customer Center has become an established venue for business conferences and evening activities, too. On average, more than one event per week takes place there.
On the other hand, the automotive customer is the sole focus of the exclusive consultations involving the customization packages designo, Mercedes-Benz Guard, and AMG. In these discussions, customers can get expert advice on highly personalized and exclusive equipment options for their new Mercedes-Benz cars, based on samples of material and paints.

Berta Benz available as travel companion with historic patented motorcar

To mark the anniversary, the Customer Center will host the Benz patented motorcar - complete with an actress portraying Berta Benz - until April 30. After all, this year is also a centenary of the first �long-distance trip� by Berta Benz, the wife of Karl Benz. In 1888, she drove the roughly 100-kilometer-long route from Mannheim to Pforzheim together with her two sons and thus proved that the first gasoline-powered car in the world was fit for extended travel.
The current exhibit in the Customer Center likewise deals with a historical theme, namely, the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart. Until mid-July, visitors will find selected museum exhibits replicated accurately in every detail, as well as all manner of valuable, interesting information and curiosities from over 100 years of automotive history.

More information about the Mercedes-Benz Customer Center in Bremen is available on the Internet at: www.mercedes-benz.de/kundencenter-bremen/


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