Mercedes-Benz wants you to visit its showroom from your couch

Mercedes-Benz has introduced a new way for you to check out its vehicles, and you won’t even need to get dressed.

Called the Digital Showroom, it features a secure video portal where you can log in remotely and get a video tour of the car without anybody seeing you.

The Mercedes-Benz employee can, however, hear you. You can talk with the product expert, who is using a phone in a gimbal, and receive a tour.

You can also make specific requests, like asking the expert to show you a particular feature of the car.

The Digital Showroom is open now – Mercedes-Benz quietly opened it for business in February – and features a rotating roster of vehicles.

It currently features the new GLC and EQE, though customers can request other vehicles – even a pair of cars, should a customer want to compare, say, a GLB and a GLC.

The physical venue itself is at Mercedes-Benz Australia’s headquarters in Melbourne.

Sessions will be available from Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm AEST, and you can book a session time via the Mercedes-Benz Australia website.

The company says it can run up to 16 sessions per day, and conversations have been running up to 30 minutes.

At the end of a session, customers are given the opportunity to configure a vehicle, search existing stock, and book a real-world test drive.

When asked what the catalyst was for creating the Digital Showroom, a Mercedes-Benz Australia showroom said: “It’s probably a little bit of coming out of COVID, where we’re finding more people are doing research at home and then going into a dealer.”

“Now that we’re talking a little bit more about it, it should fill up quite quickly,” he added.

“If it does grow, then there’s a potential to grow this space as well.”

The company says it was a local decision to introduce the Digital Showroom, with some of the learnings coming out of the Mercedes me cafe and customer surveys.