Services
Support for OEMs transitioning to agency or a direct sales model
Understanding the retail sales journey
OEMs often make the mistake of believing that they are experts in new car retail sales processes. Retailing new cars comes with the need for understanding and being able to walk, and sometimes run, the full customer journey until check out, and even after that.
While more and more customers become familiar with buying new cars online without ever putting a foot in a dealership, many customers still want to hop on and hop off the digital journey, and still seek the assistance of the agent (dealer).
Marketing to retail customers
When OEMs sell directly to customers, OEMs also take on the responsibility for marketing, including retail advertising. A very agile and trusted relationship is required with OEM captive financiers or partner banks to provide attractive customer offers, minimally affecting the resale value of the used car at a later stage. OEMs should aim at being more effective and efficient with their marketing resources by targeting conquest and loyal customers rather than the “spray and pray” approach.
Dealing with trade-ins / part settlement
Many markets still have a high proportion of customers choosing loan, rather than lease products. The trade-in of a used car is often associated with the sale of a new car. It is also one of the new car buying processes that customers dislike the most as the proceeds for the used car are often lower than expected, leading to lower down payments and higher monthly repayments, if the new car is financed.
Integrated success
Working with used car finance settlements and negative equity
If the customer’s existing finance agreement is settled (paid off) early, it could lead to positive or negative equity in the value of the used car. In both instances, the unexpected low (or negative) value of the equity may cause the customer to go from “buy” to “no sale” within seconds. OEMs need to develop a method to support the equity in the used car without affecting the price of the new car.
Establishing an OEM business development centre
Successful retailing, particularly in the automotive industry, is supported by omni-channel communication. Existing OEM call centres are most often set up to interact with customers on technical and administrative topics. Call centres are not set up to provide the support required by customers purchasing directly from the OEM. An appropriately resourced business development centre needs to be considered.
Using legally obtained customer data for CRM purposes
Customer data has been referred to as gold. Yes, it is, if appropriately used. The sad fact is that organisations collect the equivalent of large mine dumps as they seldom use the data to best effect. Direct sales can be the catalyst to extracting the gold as OEMs could have access to the most valuable data previously missing from its field of prospecting.