3 Ways Tesla Creates A Personalized Customer Experience

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In the competitive car industry, Tesla stands on top. The company has the highest customer satisfaction1 rate of any car manufacturer. Tesla customers tend to be incredibly loyal, and 91% of customers2 plan to buy or lease another Tesla for their next car. Customers are so fanatic about the brand that they are often willing to wait years for the next model. 

What is it about Tesla that has created such an engaged and loyal fanbase? Part of it is the sleek design, innovative features and eco-friendly nature. But it’s also because of the personalized experience. Tesla is completely dedicated to its customers and treats each person as an individual.

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I’m a proud owner of a Tesla and finally understand the hype. Everything from the design to the customer experience is built to create an innovative driving experience. 

Here are three ways Tesla does personalization well. 

1 . Personalized Driver Profiles

The hallmark of Tesla’s personalization efforts is its driver profiles3. Each driver can change their settings with a single push of a button. Instead of having to manually adjust things like the wheel and mirror location, Tesla makes the changes automatically based on who is driving. Other manufacturers may change the seat location setting based on which key is used to open the car door, but Tesla driver profiles go beyond typical car personalization to adjust things like suspension, braking, lights, radio presets and even driving style to match each user.  

Users switch between profiles on Tesla’s touchscreen, which means the profile isn’t attached to a single key. Driver profiles are seamlessly integrated into the Tesla experience, which makes the car an extension of the driver and allows each person to drive the car in the way they want and that is most comfortable to them. 

Many cars feature tablets on them—but they don’t work—the cars are not smart. Half the time they can’t find your phone. Connecting your Bluetooth is nothing short of a nightmare. Tesla’s user experience just destroys the competition.

2 . Data-Driven Design

Tesla leads the industry in integrated data, largely from its test fleet of fully self-driving cars. Each car picks up movements from numerous sensors, which it then connects to create a full picture of the driving experience. That data helps create a powerful navigation system and strengthens Tesla’s self-driving technology, but it also provides valuable insights on customers. 

Tesla has an incredibly strong understanding of who its customers are—both as a whole and individually. By understanding each customer, what they are looking for in a driving experience and why they chose Tesla, the company can tailor the experience and change how the car drives to best meet their needs. A busy professional with a long commute will have different needs and therefore a different driving experience than a mom driving her kids around town. By staying in tune with data, Tesla can regularly update its offerings, finetune its software and build experiences and features that resonate with each user. 

3 . Dynamic Personalization

Unlike many other car companies, Tesla aims to create a fluid system that can be updated as systems improve. Most other cars include dashboards with physical buttons that never change, Tesla has a fully upgradable dash?. That means that as the software improves over time, the entire driver experience can also evolve and improve. 

The fluid dashboard and internal software open the door to dynamic personalization, which is the next wave of innovative personalization. Tesla has a patent to use the existing interior-facing cameras in its Model 3 to recognize occupants and automatically apply personalized settings. The dynamic personalization approach takes it a step further than the current driver profiles by sensing who is in the car and making the necessary adjustments for an automatically personalized experience. 

Tesla CEO and visionary Elon Musk? put it this way: “You’ll probably want dynamic personalization, so it’s like you step into the car, it knows who you are, it knows everything you want, and the car reconfigures itself automatically to all your preferences. So you could step into any car, and that’s how it would be.” 

Tesla isn’t just the fastest growing car company, it’s the fastest growing company? in the world. And at the root of its growth and innovation is personalization. Tesla demonstrates that forward-thinking companies must focus on personalization and that doing so and creating a unique customer experience can lead to incredible loyalty and growth.

*Sources cited in the comments section

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