Automotive: 3 tips to meet new customer needs

2020 became the year of digital acceleration – to strengthen the connection with consumers, digital transformation is a must for the automotive industry.

The road may be circuitous depending on maturity, but implementation of the right tools and a strong customer-focused strategy will support in maneuvering ahead.

To assess this maturity and support you in this transformation, Julie Bouis, Sales Director for Webhelp’s Automotive and Mobility BU shares some insights and advice.

  1. Automotive sales and after-sales: new challenges and customer needs

There is no doubt about it, the automotive sales and service environment has changed markedly over the last few years, long before the 2020 health crisis.

At national and international levels, we noticed:

  • Significant shifts in customer loyalty to manufacturers and their owned cars
  • Demand for digital services increasingly diversified and more personalized offers
  • Stricter environmental and safety regulations

New industry challenges are emerging in the automotive industry. Customers’ expectations are increasingly pressing, requesting for greater personalization, immediacy, choice, connectivity, as well as more security and reassurance.

To differentiate, interactions must be customized to the needs of customers, while considering these new industry challenges.

  1. 2020, accelerator of the CX digitalization in the automotive sector

These challenges – combined with 2020’s events drove businesses to adapt customer journeys to maintain contact with prospects and customers.

Depending on the company – and its level of digital maturity – this adaptation resulted in:

    • Implementing 100% digital or online journeys
    • Setting up digital showrooms
    • Creating or participating to 100% digital car shows
    • Introducing e-advisors or e-salespeople
    • Starting or consolidating a remote diagnosis service (video)
    • Contactless terminals installation

In many cases, these solutions have been an emergency reaction: they need to be re-evaluated internally to stabilize or improve the new model and make it efficient and sustainable.

The booster effect of digital transformation from 2020 events has significantly impacted customer relationships in the automotive sector: these technical evolutions now require internal modifications to be fully integrated.

  1. Automotive sales and after-sales: new models focusing on new customer needs

Digitization has embraced emerging needs for customer interactions management, but at the same time it has revealed many barriers to transformation.

Let’s take the example of creating e-salespeople teams to sell vehicles 100% online – the preferred solution for many players: Automotive distance selling framework: building a successful sales strategy.

This solution requires to overcome the barriers of tools technical complexity – in order to promote information sharing, data analysis, and personalization of the offer (sales and after-sales).

To adopt this strategy, you will need to carefully assess the competitiveness concern evaluating competition between dealerships and online sales in order to shape the solution according to the customer’s needs.

  1. Diversify contact channels and redesign customer journey

With customization offers, it should be noted that a digital transformation cannot be implemented without a solid CRM solution: this is the cornerstone that will enable you to collect and analyze the data of your prospects and future customers.

A CRM solution can provide real data based on the identified customer needs to proceed efficiently and effectively.

To establish satisfactory contact with your customers and prospects, consider multiplying your contact channels: from the most common channels (telephone, email, chat, social networks), to the most innovative (bot, video chat, WhatsApp, Messenger).

Let’s take the example of video chat. According to our research conducted by OnePoll  in July 2020 in France, the UK and Germany:

  • 12% of customers interacted with a brand via video chat for the first time during the Covid crisis
  • 20% of video chat users are now using it more often
  • 27% might switch to a competitor providing video as a contact channel: that’s more than a quarter of the respondents.

In a comprehensive way, it is recommended to redesign your customer journey to offer an enhanced experience, by offering new services to your customers, such as

  • Communities of experts
  • Selfcare tools
  • Luxury concierge service, etc.

These new services will enable you to adapt to your customers’ expectations, reinforce the quality of service and improve your economic performance.

5. Accelerate your digital transformation

Our 3 tips to help you move forward quickly:

    1. Assess your customer relationships and contact centers: the objective is to measure the performance of your organization (benchmark of best practices), in an unprecedented context of uncertainty.
    2. Identify the ways to improve your customer experience, also the internal constraints that slow down your digital transformation.
    3. Consider outsourcing, on a one-off or partial basis: set ambitious budget and commercial performance objectives -see the article Automotive distance selling framework: building a successful sales strategy.

Have you implemented any of these points, or considering how? We can support you in planning your digital transformation and redesigning your customer journey, from sales to after-sales service.

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