Online and offline integration is the key to a holistic customer journey!

Car dealer visits on the weekend to look for a new car? That has been the customer practice for many years right now. Countless comparisons, test drives, offers, and negotiations render the weekend fully booked. What is the opinion of your customers regarding these hurdles? Having a thorough overview of the entire customer journey has become more important to exploit customer-centricity. Automotive disruptors like Tesla and Polestar conduct online car sales entirely online with a high degree of transparency and comfort. Future car retail will shift towards the e-commerce practice where customers decide where, when, and how they acquire their new mobility demands. 

Adjusting your sales strategy towards future car retail with customer-centricity should be a key point on your agenda. The COVID-19 outbreak has fostered urgency. The pandemic shows us that sales figures are under pressure, but the customer demand is still present. Dealer visits are not always possible or responsible behavior in the bigger cities. For all organizations within the value chain, OEM, NSC, and Dealer holding, the urgency for developing digital strategies is present to comprehend customer demand fully.  

A customer-centric and efficient new car sales process from online targeting towards signing a sales contract is not yet daily practice. To underline this, Panoff Consulting has analyzed the new car sales processes for three OEMs and concluded that OEMs need to exploit opportunities in two main areas: 

  • An omnichannel strategy connects the online brand experience with the traditional dealer visit to exploit synergies in efficiency and customer orientation. 
  • Integrating OEM, sales- and management systems. A wide variety of applications need to be handled simultaneously with sometimes challenging interfaces and time-consuming practices that result in time waste for both the car sellers and the buyers. 

After analyzing the results, Panoff Consulting decided to enlarge the study by analyzing the biggest OEMs’ online-and offline sales processes on the German and Dutch markets. We will be publishing our review at the beginning of next year. We are looking forward to sharing the result with you. 

Panoff Consulting is committing to digitalize car sales strategies and processes at the core level for manufacturers, sales companies, and retailers. Our industry expertise in redefining or optimizing your strategy and operations. Our goal is to serve your clients a digital, efficient, and transparent sales experience where the focus lies on product excitement and a high conversion rate.

Tobias Bald

Partner

Arbachstrasse 2d
6340 Inwil / Baar
Schweiz

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