Nissan goes on a van offensive

Jon Pollock – newly returned to Nissan as corporate sales director. He wants to sell more vans

JON Pollock. Yup, many of you probably won’t know him.

Personable and always friendly, Jon has done the rounds, so he knows his stuff: Ford, Nissan, Toyota, and now back to Nissan.

Jon’s recently taken up the post of corporate sales director at Nissan and he’s convinced that Nissan has not been making enough of its commercial vehicles in the SME market.

I was talking to him at the launch of their Nissan Van Report, stuffed full of interesting facts. But reports are one thing, having product in the market quite another.

“We’ve now got the Nissan Navara Visia, which I’m really excited about,” said Jon.

“It gives us a real competitor in the essential user segment of the pick-up market,” pointing to the Toyota Hilux HL2 and Mitsubishi L200 4 Life as two key rivals to the Navara Visia.

The Nissan Navara Visia went on sale in January this year featuring a lower output 144PS 2.5dCi engine but with 350Nm torque. There’s standard 17 inch alloys and anti-skid ESP is standard too, so the Nivia provides business users with a smart image but plenty of practical usability, too: there’s a 2,600kg towing capacity while payload is 1,250kg.

The Visia is a more down to earth working version of the Navara pick-up. Less bling

Jon said that vans and pick-ups would become much more important to Nissan in the future. “We appointed van specialist Matt Dale last year and as a result we’ve grown our LCV base and the range of Nissan vans has expanded.

“So we’ve put some resource in but only got so far. The next step is to improve the SME customer experience at our Nissan business centres. And that we’re working on for April launch.

“It’s one of the reasons we undertook some research into the van market. We all know van operators need to keep their business vans operating, but what was surprising was that virtually all the van drivers surveyed – over 90% – said that they felt better when driving a clean vehicle, and it even made them a better driver.

“So should we start making a proper van valet part of the servicing package? The report suggests we should.”