BMW Group in the UK and Ireland has appointed business outsourcing specialist arvato as its customer service partner in a deal spanning the next five years.

The partnership will see arvato support customers of the premium automotive group’s BMW, MINI, and Motorrad brands across telephone, email, web chat, SMS and social media.

Debra Maxwell, chief executive, CRM and public sector, Arvato UK and Ireland, said: “We’re excited to extend arvato’s successful relationship with the BMW Group into the UK and Ireland, applying our expertise in customer relationship management for the automotive industry to create a long term, flexible and successful partnership.”

An estimated four million customer and retailer interactions will be handled per year as part of the role played by Arvato, with financial interactions throughout the customer lifecycle also being managed on behalf of BMW and MINI financial services.

The team of more than 200 staff required to fulfil these functions will be based at arvato’s multi-channel customer engagement centre in Slough, with a small group located in-house at the BMW Group UK offices in Farnborough.

The appointment of arvato follows a competitive tender process for its solution which will align customer relations activities across BMW Group UK’s sales and financial services operations.

The deal represents an expansion of arvato’s established partnership with BMW, which includes services delivered from Germany, China, Italy, France and Romania.

Part of the Bertelsmann group, Arvato delivers customer relationship management services for leading international businesses such as Renault, Harley Davidson, Zara, and Texaco and a range of public sector clients in the UK.