Automotive Dealers Are you ready to provide Customer Experience 4.0

Automotive Dealers: Are you ready to provide Customer
Experience 4.0?
While searching for “digitalisation” in Google, the seven million hits emphasise the fact that
digitalisation is omnipresent irrespective of any particular industry. Many industry leaders feel
that digitalisation is just on a paper thing as the results are difficult to measure. If this the fact
and not a belief than why are automotive dealers eager to learn and implement digitalisation?
What does it bring in in store as customer experience?
Digitalization acts as a game changer in direct sales models of an automotive dealership
Automotive dealers are likely to face two significant challenges due to changing customer
expectations. Today’s customers expect less physical involvement and look for more digital touch
points which eventually affects dealers to create a digital proof system.
Though few customers want to opt for physical experience visiting the store, dealers should be
well prepared for the process that provides seamless customer experience and exceeds their
expectations. With the rise of current evolution in the world of automotive management services
and dealerships especially in their sales model, it seems dealers will have to become smarter
about their sales process in the future.
Nevertheless, dealers play the vital role for customers in their purchase process as buying a car
is one of the most expensive shopping of the life.

Customer expectations are high at the dealer level no matter what the channel be it offline or
online
To become the best customer experience provider, think like a customer. As a customer firstly I
would expect complete end-to-end consultation at my dealership. Also, my queries should be
addressed explicitly without any waiting on revert throughout the digital and physical contact
channels. Mainly, when I want to opt for a short-term service appointment, the process should
be quick avoiding the unnecessary follow-up processes. The best thing which would delight me
is a service app where I can book my date and be in touch with a dealer from any device.
Similarly, same should be the experience with overall sales process of a car. As I am making the
most significant investment of my life, I expect to receive personalised experience instead of the
long, tedious process that is not even useful to me.
Dealers can achieve 360-degree view of customers through different digital tools
Customers feel committed and loyal to the dealer if they provide personalised experiences in the
service they receive during entire sales and aftersales processes. If the service quality is not
maintained than what happens is customer will start looking to switch the dealer or even a brand.
What keeps them with you is the new concepts to provide them personalised services or other
methods that foster the customer experience during every step where physical contact is
required with the dealer and the brand.
Does a dealer know me well as a customer? Do they have enough tools to understand their
customers closely? Maybe, yes especially with the help of smart technologies – virtual reality,
augmented reality and more has opened gates of digitalization for automotive to bring
personalized experience dealers a first step has been taken towards digitalization of the
dealerships.
Dealers can achieve integrated view of customer data through Agile IT infrastructure
The regular inflow of data brings a significant challenge to the dealer for storing and viewing all
at once. Therefore, they are not able to understand their customers and have a rough idea of
their expectations. To follow the sales and aftersales processes rigidly this isolated data is used,
and the customer feels irritated receiving non-informative content as well as follow-ups from the
company.
In order to solve this condition and achieve long-term benefits, all the data stored in an isolated
system should be integrated within the sales processes. Agility and a change in mindset are
essential factors that will bring the vision to sales processes and meet almost all the requirements
at the dealership level.

Furthermore, the most effective touch points that would create a long-lasting impact on
customers is through emails, social networks, messages, pop-ups, push notifications and
automated assistant systems like chatbots.
From the current scenario, it can be concluded that automotive dealers are going through the
repositioning phase regarding adopting digitalization. By converting the overall process from
scratch and creating a digital-driven strategy, dealers are getting ready to welcome the new
digital era. Dealers are preparing their employees to bring the entire change in the style of
working to presenting their services to customers. Thus customer experience 4.0 has become
the heart of every automotive business and so do their systems are becoming seamless at offline
as well as online levels.