Helping a top automaker reinvent how people buy cars
Helping a top automaker reinvent how people buy cars
This automaker excelled at launching popular vehicles, but leadership felt it could still improve the whole purchasing and owning experience. When competitors started winning attention with new digital initiatives, AutoCo sought to build its own digital capabilities, and hired Bain to help.
These teams helped AutoCo build a new digital organization
Bain consultants, designers, marketers and other experts helped AutoCo understand its current buyer journey in detail. They then helped it build a better mobile experience and new digital capabilities to create a better customer experience.
These teams helped AutoCo build a new digital organization
Bain consultants, designers, marketers and other experts helped AutoCo understand its current buyer journey in detail. They then helped it build a better mobile experience and new digital capabilities to create a better customer experience.
Background
This leading global automaker excelled at producing popular and innovative vehicles at competitive prices. But AutoCo’s leaders suspected there was room to improve the experience people had while shopping for, purchasing, and maintaining their cars.
After seeing several competitors launch highly successful digital experience initiatives, AutoCo turned to Bain to inform and accelerate its ambition to do the same.
The plan
Automotive companies think about their customer’s journey as a series of “episodes”—interactions individuals have with the dealership and car company from awareness to purchase, and into servicing vehicles as an owner. The relationship between AutoCo and buyers was mostly indirect because AutoCo sold primarily through dealerships. Prospective buyers knew its brand and models, but the company otherwise didn’t have as much control or direct interaction. Until recently.
New technologies like more connectivity in vehicles, AI assistants and chat experiences, and omnichannel commerce solutions have created additional opportunities for AutoCo to interact with customers. They can now reach buyers while they’re researching, negotiating, financing, paying bills, getting service, navigating, adding accessories, and more.
Bain’s consultants, designers, and experts documented that new customer journey in detail. They interviewed and studied consumers and dealerships to diagram the full sequence of potential episodes that would constitute a win for all three parties—customers, dealers, and company. They then helped AutoCo focus on 20 high-priority episodes that together promised the greatest value from a redesign.
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How could Bain help AutoCo deliver new digital experiences in-year?
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What digital experiences did customers expect?
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What was the new customer journey, and all the episodes?
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Which episodes were the highest priority for AutoCo?
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What internal and external resources would AutoCo need?
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What customer segmentations should AutoCo pursue?
The approach
For each high-priority episode, Bain’s team developed detailed mappings of the sub-episodes. They noted the pain points that diminished the customer experience, ways to address them, and the technological and organizational requirements needed to do so. Bain then helped AutoCo create the digital tools and the digital experience organization it’d need to realize its ambition.
While this was happening, AutoCo deployed Bain’s customer sentiment analysis tool NPS Prism® to reveal where it met customer needs, where it fell short, what changes could make up the gap, and what those fixes would be worth. Then Bain’s design and product experts helped AutoCo build and launch a new, high-fidelity prototype of an improved mobile care shopping experience.
Bain teams thereafter set about ensuring those improvements would endure. AutoCo appointed its first customer experience leader to head up a Customer Experience Office to work across functions and solve customer experience issues in an Agile way. As a result, customer experience goals are embedded within all of AutoCo’s annual planning.
The results
AutoCo’s new mobile experience and digital organization have made it a customer engagement leader. It has made car shopping far more enjoyable, and at the same time, Bain identified ways to reduce AutoCo’s costs by adjusting advertising spend, consolidating operations, and optimizing vendor agreements. These efforts contributed $30 million in run-rate savings that AutoCo could reinvest. In the end, Bain left AutoCo with a five-year plan of prioritized customer experience initiatives that, now that it has the ability to execute, will help it continuously increase sales, retention, and repurchases.
approximate run-rate savings
roadmap of prioritized initiatives and capabilities
