Summary
Goal
Transform the quotation process for a premium automotive brand in Thailand with a digital tool that enhances customer experience and data transparency.
Areas covered
Data accuracy, digital solution implementation, and measurable improvements in customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.
Insight Gained
Learn how digital transformation can elevate customer interactions and streamline business processes, leading to significant competitive advantages.
Intro & Background
(Most large automotive companies will have their own financial services companies that provide the car sales side of the business with solutions for financing, insurance and vehicle maintenance. These financial services companies play a unique role in the automotive ecosystem, as they have frequent and direct contact with the end customers, helping them to enjoy their vehicles in a worry free manner.
ddx recently worked with the financial services business of a large premium German automotive company, whose mission was to be a 1 stop service provider for vehicle services. To be successful, they need to be present on a wide range of customer channels, from in person contact at the dealerships, to telephone and email, but also online and via messenger apps. Ensuring a smooth and premium customer experience across these channels is paramount to their success.)
The Sales team at the customer identified a major gap in their digital customer journey. When customers visited a sales event or a dealership, they received their quotations either as a print of an excel template, or even worse, handwritten on a piece of paper. In addition, the templates and input data that dealerships used, differed significantly across locations and had a high error rate.
As a result of the non coordinated and paper based process, the sales team also had a total lack of transparency on what types of quotations were being made. Nor did they have any data for reporting and data analytics.
In a highly competitive automotive industry, with new competitors leveraging a fully digitalised sales process, this was a major disadvantage. Without a digital quotation tool, it was impossible for both the financial and car sales businesses to tie together marketing activities on their different digital platforms, to customer activity at events and in dealer showrooms. In addition, the lack of quotation data made them slow to respond to changes in customer demand and adjust marketing campaigns and product supply accordingly.
Figure 1. Structured discoveries in initial analysis
From a customer perspective, the low quality of the vehicle quotations was completely disconnected from the premium brand image that the brand represents. Frequent errors and miscommunications around prices and campaigns were creating friction in the sales process.
To tackle all of the above, ddx was engaged to develop a digital quotation tool to be fully integrated in their online and offline customer journey.
Goal of the Assignment
The overall aim of this project was to completely redesign the vehicle and finance quotation process and create a range of quotation analytics and reporting.
Our client wanted customers to have a fully digital experience from the first interaction with the sales team, to the configuration of the vehicle and corresponding finance offers. Our solution also needed to allow customers to transfer between physical (sales events, dealer showroom) and digital (online shop, virtual events) touch points. At the same time, we needed to make sure that the solution met regulations for customer data and privacy protection.
Together with the customer’s leadership team, we listed the following goals:
- Enhance customer experience for vehicle and finance quotations.
Covering both online and offline customer touchpoints. Measured based on customer satisfaction survey after receiving a quotation. - Generate quotation reporting and advanced data analytics.
Covering both vehicle and finance quotations across all touchpoints. Based on a qualitative measure, i.e. creating a realtime reporting dashboard and daily reports to sales teams. - Streamline the IT target picture.
Allowing our solution to connect to the existing contract management system as well as to a planned system enhancement in 2 years. Measured by internal IT maintenance cost.
Figure 2. Mock up sample of MINI Reporting dashboard
Enhance Customer Experience for Vehicle and Finance Quotations
Getting your dream vehicle configured to your individual taste and quoted is a key part of the customer purchasing process in the automotive industry. Offers are made at various touchpoints, including physical (sales events, dealer showroom) as well as digital (online shop, virtual events) touchpoints.
For premium brands like this, offers also include vehicle services (finance, insurance, maintenance) to ensure a worry free experience where customers can enjoy their vehicle to the fullest. This of course adds complexity to the input data that is required to calculate the offers.
Together with the customer’s team, we developed a web based application. This allows for sales consultants to log in on their phone or laptop when they are meeting with customers. At the same time, customers can access the application directly when they are connecting with the brand in the online shop or during a virtual event.
We connected the application to a database containing all available vehicle models, finance products, insurance offers and maintenance packages. In addition, the database contained information on applicable prices, campaigns, special offers and promotions, as well as an image gallery with up to date pictures for all vehicle models.
With an intuitive UX, sales consultants and customers can create personalised quotations in only a few minutes, and even compare multiple offers next to each other. Quotations can be saved, sent to the customer via email or social messaging app, or printed at events. All quotations are also stored and can be retrieved later based on a unique identifier, to allow the customer to continue their customer journey across touchpoints. Finally, as a result of having all information available and updated in one single system, the amount of errors in customer quotations drastically reduced.
Generate Quotation Reporting & Advanced Data Analytics
Before the implementation of the digital quotation tool, our customer’s sales teams had no view on what was happening in the quotation part of their sales funnel, as they only started to capture data once the customer made the purchase. In a highly competitive automotive industry, this meant it was hard to measure the impact of marketing campaigns and sales measures and to make data based adjustments in the future.
With the implementation of our digital quotation tool, we introduced a number of reporting and data analytics functionalities.
- Interactive quotation dashboard: interactive dashboard showing number of quotations per model, dealership, finance product. Also includes information on pricing, discounting policy, finance rate and term. This dashboard is accessible to sales managers in the dealerships (for their dealership only) and to the central sales team (across all dealerships).
- Automated daily, weekly and monthly reporting: preset snapshots of quotation activity that is sent to executive leadership. The reports provide actuals as well as trending data and can be fully configured by the central sales team.
- Predictive analytics: using AI and machine learning, the data analytics module allows to predict the conversion rate of quotations. This allows the central sales team to better plan, budget and steer
Streamline the IT Target Picture
One of the main objectives of the digital quotation tool was to streamline the Group IT target picture. The solution also needed to be built to allow for maximum flexibility and minimum internal system maintenance costs.
As our client had already scheduled a full back office system overhaul to be implemented in 2 years, we developed the digital quotation tool on top of an API layer. This meant that only 1 integration was required to connect it to both the clients back office contract management system, as well as to the clients other customer facing tools, like the online shop. The API based set-up also ensured that the solution is ready for the new back office contract management system once it goes live.
On top of the local readiness, the API based development also offered our customer the opportunity to use the digital quotation tool solution on other markets around the world. This allowed for increased standardisation of processes and systems, resulting in significant cost savings.
Finally, to allow for additional flexibility and efficiency, the digital quotation tool contains a business user self service interface. New vehicle models and services offers can be created and configured by the sales and marketing teams without requiring support from the internal IT team. This also counts for sales campaigns and promotions, as well as for the vehicle image gallery.
Results
12 weeks after the start of the project, we went live with the first customer facing version of the digital quotation tool. Our team successfully supported the client to roll-out the new solution across physical and digital touchpoints and start collecting customer feedback.
The customer journey was completely updated, with customers now receiving premium vehicle quotations and interacting with the customer’s Thailand team via email or social media messaging applications, or with sales consultants on iPads in the dealer showroom. From a paper based quote on the back of a napkin to a fully digital product discovery and quotation experience, the difference could not have been bigger. In addition, all customer data is captured and available for sales funnel management, reporting and data analytics.
The customer satisfaction score in the quotation phase of the customer journey increased from 7.1 before the start of the project, to 8.4 in the first quarter after the go-live of the digital quotation tool. As we are further developing the tool together with the customer and their team based on customer feedback, further improvements can be expected.
From the moment the solution went live, realtime reporting dashboard and analytics were available to the client’s sales and marketing teams. Getting feedback from both online and offline channels instantly, they are now able to steer and adjust campaigns and promotions much more effectively. At the same time, increased transparency for executive management reporting ensures that important strategic decisions can be based on up to date market data.
On the IT operations side, the business self service solution reduced the number of tickets and required interventions to maintain the solution by 50% in the first 6 months. This represented a cost saving of over 200k EUR and allowed for resources to be allocated to other priority projects. The digital quotation tool was implemented across touchpoints and into the new client contract management system without extra development costs.
Overall, the project met all of the predefined goals and made a big impact in the digital customer experience for the groups Thailand operations. With the digital quotation tool in place, the client’s team can continue to lead its segment and further increase its digital advantage over its competitors, while ensuring strict adherence to regulatory and compliance requirements. Driven by the digital transformation journey they embarked on with ddx, our customer reached market leadership in its segment for the first time in 20 years–a position it’s held since 2021.
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