Resource Category: Automotive

Over the last couple of years, we have all begun to value positive experiences and connection even more than we did before. Many things we took for granted were taken away from us, forcing us to re-evaluate our priorities. For companies, this has made customer experience (CX) a critical piece of the puzzle.

What sets automotive brands apart?

Quality engineering, performance, and reliability are a basic expectation for car buyers these days. When you’re choosing a car, you’re not just choosing something that gets you from A to B. You’re buying into a brand that you feel comfortable with, and with the technology available to each brand becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate, the customer experience is fast becoming the secret weapon automotive brands can use to get ahead of the competition.

To assess customer experience, various factors have to be taken into consideration; How brands responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, communication with their customers, the range and quality of services, and how they interact with their community, the environment, and their employees: all these factors impact the customer experience.

But which brands have designed their CX to be something they can be proud of? A customer experience that is the result of careful design, based on what their customers value and need? A customer experience that actually delights customers and exceeds their expectations.

We’ve looked at each of these factors and chosen five of the top Automotive Brands for Customer Experience below:

Five top automotive brands for customer experience

• Mini – Mini has worked hard to minimise the friction of buying. By reducing form-filling and creating a frictionless website experience, Mini captures more customers. They keep their customers updated during the (sometimes lengthy) buying process and their post-purchase strategy aims to create loyal advocates for the brand.
• Hyundai – Hyundai captures data by tracking customers as soon as they start searching for their brand. This enables them to build meaningful relationships and track their customers through their entire journey. As a result, they can offer a more personalised buying experience.

Click here to discover how Engine service design helped design an immersive, culturally inspired retail experience for Hyundai Motor Company.

• Tesla – like Mini, Tesla has removed much of the friction throughout the buying process. Cars can be bought online with less than ten clicks and their pricing is transparent.
• Volkswagen – VW uses a direct-to-consumer sales model and so cross-channel transactions are seamless.
• Lexus – since the 1980s Lexus has understood the value of the customer experience and worked hard to keep their reputation. Amongst other things, their aftercare service is quick and personalised.

The key to a great customer experience is in the detail. It won’t design itself. The top automotive brands have recognised this and used it to their advantage for their services, purposefully designing customer service experiences that enable them to attract and retain loyal customers, in spite of the fast-evolving car buying market.

You can click here to discover more of our automotive client stories.

If you would like any information on service design and how Engine Service Design can help you deliver a better customer experience, book an appointment with a service design expert below.

The automotive industry is changing, and in this first blog in our automotive series, we explore how smart tech and connectivity within the car is increasingly changing the automotive industry, and why the car is no longer ‘just’ a car; automobiles are now even a mainstay at the influential Consumer Electronics Show, held every year in Las Vegas. So, what should automotive brands be doing right now to stay relevant?

We can assume that there will be a move towards cars being bought or leased more along the lines of mobile phones. We also know that tech requires frequent upgrades and car makers will need to take account of how their users’ existing technology, data and media connect.

The automotive retail sector operates a business-centric, old-fashioned, and linear model that needs to adapt to the changing times. Brands that can connect with customers to design a unique experience around buying and owning a car will differentiate themselves from the pack. Car manufacturers will need to increase their ‘design thinking’ capabilities to stay relevant. This encompasses the customer’s entire experience with a brand, from the initial decision to look for a new car, through to after-sales care.

Here we look at the five main ways in which brands can rethink the experience for customers to meet new expectations. They need to provide a service that keeps customers engaged and deliver a positive experience throughout the entire process.

1. 1. Immersive online researchIt’s a given that these days people start their research into buying a new car online. It’s quicker and easier than visiting or calling a dealership and they can look for what they want rather than being pushed towards something they don’t. Automotive manufacturers can help the customer by, for example, designing online tools that can be used intuitively and that provide objective answers to their questions. Interactive experiences can help potential customers visualise products and services better.
   2. Go to the consumerCar manufacturers tend to have a better outcome if they can engage directly with customers at an earlier stage of the car-buying process. Many dealerships are in out-of-the-way locations and will only attract visitors when most of the decisions have already been made. Pop-ups in shopping centres, partnerships, and town-centre stores can be effective ways to create engagement with potential buyers at a critical stage in their journey.

Customer Driven Transformation

How design-led companies get more of the right services to market faster

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With this book, the authors show you how to instil an outside-in approach to strategy; moving away from a management approach that’s technology, marketing or resource optimization-led, to one that is customer-inspired and experimental with innovation.

1. 1. Design connection and relationshipsCheck any online list of hated professions and you’ll find car salespeople fighting it out with real estate agents. Car salespeople have a reputation for being pushy and arrogant. The commission-based model for sales people only incentivises them to sell. It doesn’t reward expertise, customer service or helpful guidance. Training, development, and customer-centric selling practices will help brands stand out from the crowd.
   2. Streamline the purchasing processCustomers looking to buy a car, as with many products, will often visit the store and then make their purchase later online. This often requires customers providing the same (or different) information on various occasions. Car buying needs to be as simple and straightforward as possible to give the customer the smoothest, most straightforward, and value-added experience possible. Not everyone is an expert in cars, but everyone deserves to feel confident they are making the right choice – from those with limited knowledge, to passionate car enthusiasts. The challenge Is, how do you serve these extremes in a way that suits them both and feels seamless? How do you serve them through different channels, seamlessly integrated with a physical experience? The answer Is to design the entire customer journey, to design an experience that sets your brand apart from the rest and creates a seamless customer experience. An Important foundation of this process is to collect data at an early stage, that can be utilised to tailor a more personal service with the right service design. This also requires less effort from the customer on subsequent visits.

How to lead the design of services across your business ecosystem

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1. Use data in a meaningful way
   Technology within cars gives manufacturers an insight into car usage: they just need to capture the data. With it they can get a better understanding of their customers and how they use their vehicle – enabling them to have a better understanding from which they can design and offer innovative solutions. Car manufacturers should be adding value and helping to make their customers’ lives safer and more efficient.

Here at Engine Service Design, we thrive on fixing, re-imagining and innovating services that help our clients deliver brilliant customer experiences. In our next blog we will be looking more closely at the traditional franchised network nature of car dealerships and asking how much longer it can be sustained.

If you have any questions about how we can help or would like any further information, please get in touch: we would love to help.

The automotive industry is no different to any other when it comes to online and in person experiences. Organisations need to understand and recognise their target customer’s digital behaviour and expectations and ensure that the physical experience matches it. And vice versa, of course.

In our previous blog we looked at how automotive companies tend to approach their business in a siloed way and how that will need to change. This is also relevant to the online and offline customer experience itself. And as we noted in our blog The Future Of Automotive Retail: Rethinking The Customer Experience, customers begin their research online.

In fact, according to McKinsey’s 2020 automotive retail report, “almost 90% of customers use dealer websites or OEM [original equipment manufacturer] websites in the early steps of their decision-making journey”. Mobile technology is particularly key in the purchase funnel and is playing a greater role within the dealership itself too.

Potential customers are not just looking at engine sizes and running costs. As well as all the facts and figures relating to a vehicle, buyers are looking for video content and promotions, using comparison tools and seeking the opinions of online reviewers, friends, and family. It is vital that the online experience merges seamlessly with the in-person customer experience.

How to lead the design of services across your business ecosystem

Download a free guide to ecosystem services design

Learn how to use design thinking as a driver for organizational change, translate your vision into compelling services and experiences that your customers will love.

We were thrilled to work with new Chinese market entrant Qoros. We were able to define their service proposition and customer experience, and the brand launched with a seamless digital journey through research, purchase, and ownership. This was all enabled through a range of online, mobile, and in-store technologies including apps, configurators, and dedicated website services.

In our next blog in this automotive series, we will look at how consumers are shaping the reputation of brands and dealers and how to maintain control.

If you have any questions about the service design process or would like any further information, please get in touch: we would love to help.

In this series of blogs about the future of automotive retail we have looked at the challenges currently facing the industry. The linear processes of a facility-focused model are no longer fit for purpose. We have looked at how companies need to embrace a holistic, online, and offline presence that provides exceptional customer experiences in order to compete. The way that brands manage this shift will be key to their success going forward.

Manufacturers still require a physical presence where buyers can see, touch, and drive the cars that they are interested in buying. These cars will still need to be serviced and repaired. However, the way that these services are delivered needs to be approached differently.

Online sales are now more secure, and people are more confident in making significant purchases, such as cars, online. The pandemic has only served to accelerate this trend. According to Haig Partners, an American auto dealership brokerage, “nearly 30% of US new car sales last year were completed online. Before the pandemic, less than 2% of vehicles were purchased digitally”. This will have a huge impact on how the industry does business and on the scale, functions, and locations of car dealerships. The way in which brands meet the evolving needs of customers will need to be very carefully managed.

How to lead the design of services across your business ecosystem

Download a free guide to ecosystem services design

Learn how to use design thinking as a driver for organizational change, translate your vision into compelling services and experiences that your customers will love.

The traditional franchised network model has had a huge amount invested in it thus far, and this cannot be easily ‘written off’. It is vital that rather than attempting to apply fragmented and disparate fixes that will not deliver the holistic, sustainable change required, a well-designed, carefully-considered service design process is applied.

At Engine Service Design, our experience in the automotive industry has given us the opportunity to help fix, re-imagine, and innovate services that help our clients deliver brilliant customer experiences. If you would like to talk to us to find out how we can be of service to you, please get in touch: we would love to help.

In our previous blog we talked about reimagining the customer relationship in the automotive industry and how customers want to connect with brands on their own terms. Here we look at the siloed structure of how manufacturers and dealers manage their operations, how it is at odds with customer perceptions, and how it can change.

Business operations in the automotive industry tend to be managed in departments depending on what they do, how they view customers and how they see themselves. For example, there are sales and aftersales departments, prospects and buyers, brands, and dealers. But this is not the way that car buyers and owners see brands.

Customers often feel a sense of disconnect when one department effectively disowns them and leaves them to fend for themselves with the next one. While one department may have provided good customer service as a standalone entity, the customer’s perception of customer service from the brand is poor.

How to lead the design of services across your business ecosystem

Download a free guide to ecosystem services design

Learn how to use design thinking as a driver for organizational change, translate your vision into compelling services and experiences that your customers will love.

Brands that can take a holistic view of the process of buying and owning a car will stand out from the crowd. A superior customer experience can be crafted once an organisation has a better understanding of how each department fits into each part of the process. They need to understand how the initiatives, actions and programmes of different departments can impact on other areas of the business and on the retail customer’s experience.

Embracing and investing in the service design process will signal where this process can be fixed or reimagined and provide opportunities for creative innovation. As we know, the key to brands remaining relevant and differentiating themselves from the competition is in transitioning from a transactional approach to a relationship-based one. In our next blog we will be looking at how digital and physical experiences can be merged seamlessly: this will be a crucial part of this relationship.

If you have any questions about how service design could help you create services or experiences your customers will love, please get in touch: we would love to help.

In our last blog about the future of the automotive industry we looked at why it is so important to ensure that digital and physical experiences are merged seamlessly. Here we discuss the ever-greater role that consumers are playing in shaping the reputations of brands and dealers. It is an area that companies cannot afford to lose control of, so it is important to be proactive.

Online reviews and ratings matter hugely to people when it comes to making buying choices, as do the opinions of their friends and family. A Nielsen study found that 83% of people trust personal recommendations by friends and family and 66% trust consumer opinions posted online. Community Facebook pages (every town and village now has at least one), for example, are just one space where people are quick to air their opinions, particularly if they feel they have been treated poorly.

It’s vital that companies keep control of their reputation online. Minimising the areas that tend to be a cause for complaint is the obvious first step. Designing a service with the customer’s needs in mind from the outset is key.

Customer Driven Transformation

How design-led companies get more of the right services to market faster

Download a free copy of the first two chapters of our book.

With this book, the authors show you how to instil an outside-in approach to strategy; moving away from a management approach that’s technology, marketing or resource optimization-led, to one that is customer-inspired and experimental with innovation.

There are other elements of the sales process where brands are losing out, including test drives. People can access vehicles through friends, colleagues, and rental companies to spend longer getting the feel of a car than a standard test drive would give them. This is likely to increase. The test drive may be the first touch point that a brand has with a customer and an opportunity to begin building a relationship with them. It is therefore an element that needs to be approached from a customer perspective to provide a simple, comprehensive, and more attractive experience than they can get elsewhere.

Here at Engine Service Design, we have worked for automotive brands including Jaguar Land Rover, Fiat Group, Volkswagen, Hyundai and Qoros. We have helped them design their future customer service approach to consider all the customer touchpoints and provide an excellent customer experience. It is this experience that will make all the difference to a brand’s longevity in a rapidly changing market.

Keeping control of your online reputation is not just about avoiding negative reviews. A decent customer experience may make people loyal to a brand, but a great customer experience can make them advocates for the brand. If people receive great customer service, they are more likely to recommend a company to their friends and colleagues without fear of letting them down. Brands need advocates that can be trusted, and their service design should aim to create advocates, not just keep people from complaining.

In our next blog we will be looking at how the automotive industry needs to approach the challenges that culture change is generating.

If your company could benefit from the service design process, you have any questions, or would like any further information, please get in touch: we would love to help.

In our previous 2 blogs in this series about the future of the automotive industry, we have looked at how customer expectations have changed while the industry itself has been slow to adapt.

Franchised dealerships are at risk of becoming irrelevant if they do not step up to the challenge of doing business in the internet age. Customers no longer ‘need’ a salesman at a dealership to sell them a car. So, dealerships need to offer a service that adds value.

The car buying and ownership process is currently very much a transactional one. As we know, the internet offers a source of all the facts and figures a person could wish for, as well as a competitive aftersales market. Customers will visit showrooms to get something that they are unable to get online: real-life access to the cars on their shortlist.

How to lead the design of services across your business ecosystem

Download a free guide to ecosystem services design

Learn how to use design thinking as a driver for organizational change, translate your vision into compelling services and experiences that your customers will love.

At such a pivotal point in the journey to ownership this contact needs to be rewarding, relevant and of added value to the customer. It needs to confirm to them that this is the brand they want to buy into. Pushy salespeople and recited vehicle statistics will not entice potential customers to spend their money. Dealerships that offer their customers the opportunity to make personal connections with the brand on their own terms will differentiate themselves from the competition.

Engine Service Design worked with Hyundai to define the customer experience and staff behaviours for the launch of their new Motorstudio brand space in Seoul. The environment was designed to build brand image rather than as a sales point. The state-of-the-art features include an auto library, a premium customer lounge, an area where children can play, an art gallery and a café. All of which serve to provide an excellent customer experience.

In our next blog in this automotive series, we will look at how and why the siloed nature of automotive businesses drives a poor customer experience.

If you have any questions about how we can help or would like any further information, please get in touch: we would love to help.

In our previous blog The Future of Automotive Retail: the 5 most important things automotive brands should do, we discussed how the industry is changing and the five main ways in which brands can rethink the buying and car ownership experience. Customers’ buying habits and expectations have evolved over the years along with the internet. Most industries and sectors have responded to this by refocusing their efforts to put their customers at the heart of their offerings. Conversely, the automotive retailing industry has continued to invest in the linear processes of franchised networks.

McKinsey’s 2020 report on the automotive industry points out that, “five years ago, customers visited dealers an average of five times before purchasing a car; now they enter the showroom well-informed, giving the dealer one chance to turn the browser into a buyer”.

Dealerships operate on a business-centric model rather than a customer-centric one. They tend to be located outside town centres and operate typical ‘business’ hours – when many of their customers are also at work. Apart from giving the opportunity to physically see and drive a vehicle, they are no longer an essential part of the buying journey. Customers can research online and no longer feel obliged to accept aftersales care from a dealer either.

How to lead the design of services across your business ecosystem

Download a free guide to ecosystem services design

Learn how to use design thinking as a driver for organizational change, translate your vision into compelling services and experiences that your customers will love.

The customer experience will be the driver that gets people into dealerships and keeps them relevant. As contact between a customer and the dealership is reduced there are fewer opportunities to connect through the ownership cycle. For dealerships to survive, every point of contact will need to be carefully managed to offer an excellent customer experience.

This will not only enhance the chances of a sale at the beginning of a customer’s car ownership journey, but it will also increase the opportunities to retain customers going forwards and to create advocates.

In the next blog in this series exploring the future of the automotive sector, we will look at how the purchase and ownership experience needs to shift from being transactional, to relationship driven.

If you have any questions about how we can help or would like any further information, please get in touch: we would love to help.

Since the birth of the car industry, brand strength has been a powerful influencer of consumer choice in the automotive marketplace. From family favourites and symbols of status, through to reputations for safety, environmental respect and reliability, manufacturers have long depended on brand positioning and perception to attract buyers of both new and used cars.

However, with a marked shift from car ownership to usership, there are new challenges ahead for vehicle manufacturers. Ian Robertson, Business Champion of the Government’s Future of Mobility Challenge, said: “A transport revolution in the way people and goods move around will see more changes in the next 10 years than the previous 100.”

There’s been plenty of recent reporting on the increasing reluctance towards car buying amongst urban-dwelling millennials with the costs of ownership, insurance and parking, plus environmental considerations all being cited as reasons not to buy. The range of convenient transport service alternatives continues to expand with car sharing, ride-hailing and autonomous vehicles soon to become a reality. But perhaps the biggest disincentive to ownership is that on average our cars sit idle for some 95% of the time, according to Transportation adviser Paul Barter in Fortune Magazine. What’s more, according to a study by Zipcar, owning a car in London can cost a staggering £3,435.87 a year; that’s almost £19 per hour, for a car we may seldom use.

So how can individual car brands remain relevant and important to consumers with the advent of new business models termed Mobility as a Service (Maas)? Perhaps the answer lies in manufacturers adopting a ‘fleet car’ marketing mindset to maximise future ‘private car’ sales opportunities. Manufacturers have always looked to supplying rental companies, taxi firms and driving school fleets with vehicles as a means of exposing consumers to their products and the same opportunity exists with car share and ride-hailing models. This is especially relevant when considering that many of today’s young townsfolk will reconsider car ownership later in life when starting families or relocating to out-of-town locations.

Of course, some auto brands have already made headway in this approach with Toyota’s Prius dominating the Uber driver network and Volkswagen ruling the fleet of Zipcar (an Avis subsidiary). Other examples include Daimler’s investment in US-based peer-to-peer rental group Turo, BMW Group’s acquisition of Sixt’s stake in DriveNow and Toyota’s launch of app-based subscription service Hui in Hawaii.

Most recently, Volvo Car’s president and chief executive, Håkan Samuelsson, announced the launch of Volvo M, a new brand for 2019 that will expand the company’s global mobility operations by providing dependable, on-demand access to cars and services through an intuitive app. “Volvo Cars is becoming more than just a car company. We recognise that urban consumers are rethinking traditional car ownership. M is part of our answer. We are evolving to become a direct-to-consumer services provider under our new mission ‘Freedom to Move’,” said Mr Samuelsson.

Carplus, an independent charity which monitors the car-sharing industry, identified a 765% growth in car club membership across the UK in the last decade from 32,000 members in 2007-8 to more than 245,000 members in 2016-17, using more than 4,000 cars. During the same period, they also stated that more than 250,000 privately owned cars had been sold by club members who have adopted vehicle sharing.

Whether by designing and launching new service wrappers around their own products and channels to market, or by forging partnerships with tech start-ups and disruptors, it’s clear that the growth and popularity of car sharing, and other alterative ‘Mobility as a Service’ options, are becoming too significant for Auto brands to ignore. We’ve already seen manufacturers diversifying their retail estates into shopping centres and pop-up locations in an effort to offer more customer-centric and convenient access to their products and services.

As more technology and connectivity is built into cars, we can expect car makers to further push the boundaries of what’s possible as they further develop their strategies for keeping their brands front of mind amongst both prospective buyers and importantly, business partners. The latter should not overlook the customer appeal that leading automotive brands have spent billions on building over the last century, which could have reciprocal value in accelerating the adoption of new-to-market mobility services.