After remaining virtually idle for decades, the automotive sector has been undergoing a radical transformation in recent years, driven by social, demographic, and habit changes in its customers, who are increasingly savvy about new technologies. As explained in the recently published Everis study “The dealership towards digitalization”, the sector is facing an increasingly urban, fully digital, and hyperconnected customer.
This customer, who lives in a world where objects, people, and organizations are connected to each other, also demands “ultra-connected” experiences throughout the customer journey of the buying process, regardless of the channel they are using.
In addition, this is a customer with a growing environmental awareness that, although it does not translate into the use of public transport (it is used less than ten years ago), it does transmit a greater demand for companies to take care of the environment.
The automotive sector, like almost any other, cannot remain indifferent to the transformation of its customers and is beginning to realize that the users, and not the vehicle, must be at the center of all processes and decisions.
If we focus on the sales process, the customer has significantly reduced the number of visits he makes to the dealership before buying a vehicle because he has an infinite number of sources where he can find technical data, comparisons, opinions from other drivers, etc.
This allows him to know the product perfectly before purchasing it, so he arrives at the dealership almost with the decision taken as to what make, model, and type of finish he wants, which increases his level of demand on the sales staff, from whom he demands a much deeper and more detailed knowledge of the vehicle.
Some brands are already reacting and incorporating into their dealerships people with a much more technical than commercial profile who are located, not in spaces designed to close a sale, but in others full of media, which include technologies such as augmented reality or virtual reality to explain to the customer in an optimal way and improving their experience the technical operation of the vehicle.
Brands are also starting to manage the customer relationship through a single platform to achieve a single 360° view of the customer, even if the customer visits different dealerships. The aim is that all interactions with the customer, including after-sales, will be managed on this platform, which will be accessible at any time securely via PC, smartphone, or even from the car itself.
It will be an open and collaborative platform from which the customer will have access not only to services provided by the manufacturer or the dealership but also from other external players who will be able to offer, for example, digital content or apps that improve the vehicle’s performance.
The business model of the automotive industry, is evolving from a product-based model to a mixed model of products and services, with the electric car, the connected car, and the autonomous car as the starting point for the development of this new world of possibilities.
The connectivity and digitalization options offered by a vehicle are already a key parameter when choosing which car to buy, and the massive amounts of data and information that are beginning to be collected are enabling the creation of services such as the sale of this data to third-party companies for the creation, for example, of tailor-made insurance policies based on driving patterns.
Thus, the car will eventually become a platform that will serve as the basis for the consumption of services related to it. It is possible to imagine a market in which vehicles will be practically the same as each other and drivers will activate or deactivate the functionalities they need by paying for them according to use. For example, we could activate the four-wheel-drive when we were going to travel in the mountains and pay for that function only when we use it.