Re-imagining customer experience through tech-enabled vehicle ownership lifecycle management.

Customer experience is the talk of the town for every sector today and yet we forget about mapping the customer journey in product life-cycle management. Wonderfully so, the technology in automobile industry has come a far way, however, we are more or less restricted only to the vehicle buying phase and often skip the post-purchase phase which also is one of the most lucrative markets for dealerships going forward.  

The global automotive aftermarket industry is expected to reach $722.8 billion by 2020(source: V2data). There have been quite a few posts on uberization being the key driver for dealership profitability and enhanced customer experience. Today let’s take a look at how customer experience could be enhanced manifolds through vehicle ownership lifecycle management. 

A month ago after putting great research, Jane purchased a car and its first service is due on the 5th of next month. Now typically to get her car serviced, Jane would call up the service center and follow the hassles of booking and getting the car serviced without even knowing how her vehicle is being handled and has no assurance on the authenticity of the spare parts being used in the servicing. Instead, consider her car has a QR sticker that is to be scanned every time she wants to book a car servicing schedule. Scanning this code would take her to a page pre-filled with her details (adding personalization), Jane then has to just enter the date and time and book the car servicing schedule.

Jane often gets busy with her office work and is hoping for someone to pick up her car and take it to the service center. But whom to trust for this task? Further, imagine a chauffeur has been assigned for her car on the due date I.e., 5th of next month. So on the 5th, Jane reaches her office at 10:00 am and the assigned chauffeur picks up the car, all his details are mentioned in the app Jane is using and she receives constant notifications on the status of her car. So ironically, Jane is now sitting in her office able to track her car’s movement without having to do anything. And before she even leaves the office premises on 5th evening, the car is parked for her already. All Jane is needed to do is settle the service invoice digitally.

Voila! This ain’t an imagination anymore, because we at 21North Europ assistance have already made this a reality through vehicle ownership lifecycle assistance (VOLA), an end-to-end digital tool. And that’s not all, we have gone ahead and added another level of convenience by incorporating pick up and drop facility for the car, connected the end to end technology to our drivers who are impaneled with a mobile app. The customers get to relax as they can real-time track their vehicle movement, receive notifications of vehicle reaching the workshop, enjoy the transparency of getting estimates of the cost of servicing and an ability to approve the charges through a chat or a call option. The journey completes only with the final invoice and delivery of the car.

We have left no stone unturned in digital technology and have harped on the QR technology, geo-tracking, the chat app technology, the digital payments and much more to enhance the customer experience and build a relationship of trust and convenience. It’s time for the dealerships and the service centers to re-imagine customer journey throughout the post-purchase lifecycle and create a frictionless aftersales journey for the consumer by addressing every interaction point the customer encounters to create a win-win for both.