Rolls-Royce chief executive Torsten Müller-Ötvös has said that when members of ‘Whispers’, the luxury brand’s app-based private members’ club, connect with and talk to one another, business deals are “100%” being done that can even change an economy.
He was talking during select gathering in Austria of Rolls-Royce-owning high- and ultra-high-net-worth individuals about what the company says is the world’s most exclusive connected car app.
When launched in 2019, Whispers was all about luxury lifestyle: concierge support, exclusive luxury goods previews, shopping and events.
Initially curated by a tight senior Rolls-Royce team – including Müller-Ötvös – the app has developed and taken on a momentum, more so following its most recent evolutions. While the luxury lifestyle elements remain, there’s a developing inter-member introduction, communication and chat function used for both leisure and, increasingly, business purposes.
Whispers members must own a Rolls-Royce built after 2003 and they only get full features access if they own a 2018 or later model. For reference, new customer-specified cars are typically priced at €500,000 (£431,575).
There are fewer than 20,000 Whispers members globally. LinkedIn has 930 million, and Facebook 2.98 billion users.
Questions to Müller-Ötvös’s senior colleagues about the security of the app are met with a very Rolls-Royce response: silence and a smile.
Alexander Steinbrueck, Whispers operations manager at Rolls-Royce, said: “We are a facilitator. [Clients] talk to each other. Whispers is not a corporate communications channel.
“[Clients] meet on Whispers. They go on vacation together. It just shows how homogeneous this group of people is. In the business aspect, I know of a customer in the financial industry who I had a phone call with. For him, it’s a great source of making business connections with other like-minded people. He says it couldn’t be a better filter or selection of people, and he uses it very often.”