For any customer, purchasing a car involves plenty of logical, emotional and long term thought process. Behind this decision making, is a customer who is doing their thorough research trying not to get this important decision wrong. The question is, would your brand end up in the consideration set?
Features, price, and brand equity- all play a role at different stages of the selection process. However, one aspect that plays an invisible but critical role is the customer’s experience during the information search process.
A customer’s quest to choose for the right car generates multiple journey phases where they reach out to the websites, offline dealers and social media channels. By capturing the audience satisfaction levels at each point of direct contact, the auto brands can personalize the communication strategy and reduce “Closed Lost” outcomes .
Let us dissect how brands can navigate through the network of touchpoints and focus on a meaningful customer journey.
What is omnichannel customer journey mapping?
Even before a new customer makes a permanent purchase from a business, the organisation will have captured the customer persona much before their financial transaction with the business. When the person gets on board as a client, the new journey they will have with the brand, will create multiple touchpoints within the entire organization. Omnichannel means that there are multiple channels via which a potential buyer can contact the organisation.
Omnichannel customer mapping is a strategy that allows businesses to track and analyze customer interactions across all channels, including online, offline, and mobile. As per statistics, 59% of people use mobile devices to browse online for cars and at least 22% of prospective customers use social media as a source for virtual vehicle shopping.
Omnichannel mapping allows businesses to understand how customers interact with their brand, where they are in the buying journey, and what their needs and preferences are. It also helps businesses to identify gaps in their customer service and make data-driven decisions to improve their customer experience.
Omnichannel customer mapping typically involves collecting and analyzing data from customer interactions across various channels, such as social media, email, phone, chat, and in-store visits, to create a holistic view of each customer. This allows businesses to personalize their interactions with customers and provide a more seamless, integrated experience across all touchpoints.
In the automobile industry, the main journey mapping begins for the first time after a car purchase. This can last for multiple years of service and assistance. The automobile industry is highly competitive, with many companies vying for the attention of customers. This emphasizes the importance of adopting modern strategies for providing customer-centric service. To offer a unique multi-channel experience for every buyer, one has to use the latest technologies to gather real time information as a part of their strategic planning process.
Benefits of omnichannel customer journey mapping
Omnichannel customer journey mapping offers numerous benefits for businesses looking to enhance their customer experience. By leveraging market research, companies gain valuable insights into customer behavior and preferences, allowing them to understand the customer’s motivation and tailor their strategies accordingly. Through mapping the customer journey across multiple touchpoints, businesses can identify pain points and inefficiencies, and devise potential solutions to address them. This holistic view empowers organizations to take a customer-centric point of view, bringing a seamless and consistent experience across all channels. By delivering personalized and relevant interactions, businesses can foster customer loyalty, as customers feel understood, valued, and satisfied with their overall journey. Omnichannel customer journey mapping thus becomes a powerful tool for organizations to optimize their customer experience and drive long-term success.
Traditional methods of managing customer experience has disadvantages
The customer journey map in the automobile industry is typically very long. So much so that sometimes, it can get hard to keep track of certain customer needs and their pain points. To eliminate traditional ways of capturing experienced based data, we must first see the current state of roadblocks.
Not up to speed:
Traditional medium of collecting customer data has always been slow and tedious. Customers would choose from an existing pool of brands and narrow down on the few that seemed to fit their needs. Current customers are experience-oriented and interact with brands via website chat bots, in-app chat assistance, customer executive calls, mobile applications, emails or social media platforms.
Fails to fire in the test-drive wars:
In the past, a limited number of dealerships provided specific experiences for customers. Since the available options were limited, there was a lack of choice for consumers. According to the trends based on current experience, today’s customer base tends to engage in dialogue with multiple dealerships. Studies also denote that a buyer will readily spend more on dealers that offer them the experience- for offline stores and in-app user experience.
Out of sync with the buying journey:
Traditional methods of tracking feedback relies on mediums such as browser based feedback surveys. In this method, the feedback is collected via a link that redirects to an external link. Emails have always been the common medium to capture data, share product information or push newsletters. In the recent era, it will be wiser to use the AMP technology by Google. This allows recipients to share instant feedback without going to an external browser.
To bring a better customer experience across touchpoints, Whatsapp surveys and Facebook messenger surveys are a great way to capture real time feedback from the target persona. All throughout the customer journey, your existing customer base can offer instant feedback for the service they were given at the dealerships/ service centre.
The new superheroes of research and feedback:
Earlier, existing customers would visit a store when they needed or would have to fill lengthy forms to share feedback. There were limited options to do this except emails or phone calls. Today’s omnichannel tracking can capture customer reviews at any platform, collect positive and negative responses and close feedback loops for every dissatisfied customer.
The Automobile Buyer Persona: A Lengthy Touchpoint
The customer journey in the automobile sector is lengthy. It does not end after the ignition keys have been transferred. Automobile sectors can start mapping a customer journey so that they can recommend appropriate cars, accept documents, initiate financial transactions, understand their pre and post driving experiences and continue assisting customers during car servicing timelines. This can drive customer experiences into new milestones and keep churn at a minimum. This creates multiple customer touchpoints to note.
- A customer journey mapping in the automobile sector starts much before a purchase: Customers are browsing advertisements, both offline and online. This influences decision making and triggers a certain user action. They visit websites, check social media profiles of car brands, shortlist dealers in their city, talk to chatbots and dial customer hotline numbers. Since a lead’s hunt begins early, it is wise to map their search at the start.
- Customers communicate with automobile brands via multiple platforms: Customers interact with brands on social media platforms and if it piques their interest, they visit showrooms in the city. Reports state that the timeline to make final purchases can shuttle between 5 to 12 weeks. Between these weeks, they gather necessary information that will amplify their desire for a certain car brand. Automobile sectors can capture these interactions via website chat bots and offline dealers to understand their requirements, intent, budgetary expectations and provide personalized assistance.
- Customers are predisposed to buy from dealers and manufacturers that provide the best experience: Most leads opt for a test drive before giving away their final verdict. At this point of experience, capturing a lead’s immediate feedback is crucial. There will be a faster response while using a messenger based platform to capture feedback while potential customers have had an on-site experience. Statistics state that customers are willing to spend more with dealers that provide them the best experience and assurance.
- Omnichannel is about providing a consistent online and offline experience: Once a customer has finalized a car model, they actively have conversations with dealers via social media or offline at stores. Using real time mediums of communication such as Whatsapp surveys and Facebook Messenger, SMS and RCS will be a wiser option to reach them faster. New leads may not respond to emails immediately. At this point, capturing their interest via browser based email will reap a very low response rate. The simple reason being that cellular devices are always within our reach and customers will prefer a real time platform.
- Tracking post purchase conversations can cater to existing customers and provide better service: A customer’s journey continues even after the purchase has been made. The customer can choose to receive their new car either by delivery or by collecting it directly from the dealers.
- It is imperative to track the satisfaction at certain milestones post purchase. This can be in the form of (real-time) mediums of communication such as via Whatsapp, SMS or Facebook Messenger. The milestones can be anything from a first month usage to their first 1000 miles.
- Capturing feedback during and after car servicing can help close feedback loop: Dealers and manufacturers can be notified when customers do not get an expected service or endure a delayed assistance. While tracking every stage of the customer journey, dealers can make note of negative feedback, take quick action to close any feedback loop and create customized communication strategy for the future.
Merren can augment the journey mapping experience for automobile sectors
Merren opts for a messenger based survey platform that collects and collates conversational surveys from respondents. Here is how Merren can augment the omnichannel customer mapping journey for automobile sectors.
10x your response rate in prospective phases:
When customers take a test drive, their experience is immediate and in the moment. Traditional methods such as sending feedback emails, may not be as effective as customers may not respond or forget about their experience. To address this, Merren uses instant messaging platforms such as WhatsApp surveys, Facebook Messenger and SMS to gather feedback at the time of the test drive. This approach is more relevant and does not put unnecessary pressure on customers to remember or respond.
Automate surveys using CRM platforms and collect live feedback:
Automate the entire feedback collection process with Merren. You can use our integrations that will decide on a particular action to trigger the surveys. Remove manual handling and let the integrations create a worry-free process for the entire organization.
Collect and analyze extensive data
Consumer data is the most important part of any business. This helps augment business goals, improve the internal customer support systems and understand the customer’s perspective with clarity. Merren is designed to collect and organize data in a way that is easy to understand. The data is presented in interactive charts and can be monitored in real-time as customer interactions occur across omnichannel platforms. This allows for a comprehensive understanding of customer behaviour and preferences. Clients can also download every raw data , analytics and segregate it on their preferred business intelligence tools.
Capture customer satisfaction metrics
Using Merren tools, dealers and manufacturers can capture important customer metrics such as net promoter score (NPS), CSAT score or commonly used rating scales. Using in-moment mediums is one of the best practices when you consider high response rates. In-moment applications include Whatsapp, Facebook messenger and website chatbots which capture instant conversations at the right time.
Use pre designed templates
Merren offers various customer journey templates and surveys that you can use. There is no need to start a survey from scratch. We have already created a robust blueprint for our clients which can bring high response rate and analyze every data on the dashboard. We have integrated a no-code AI in Survey Builder that can create instant surveys which are ready to be deployed among target audiences.
How do you create a customer journey map?
Marketers can use Merren to create a no-code customer journey map that can seamlessly run during your campaigns. Use omnichannel surveys to reach out to your patrons. Build your customer journey mapping with our tools here.
Conclusion
Automobile manufacturers around the world are generously investing in marketing strategies that span multiple channels. Studies show that it costs a company six to seven times more to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one through positive customer experiences. By mapping the customer satisfaction at every stage of the journey across multiple channels, manufacturers can provide a smooth and consistent service, quickly address customer feedback, and create memorable experiences. This can help reduce lost opportunities, increase sales and enhance customer retention.
To understand how Merren can upgrade your journey mapping and CX, you can check out Merren. Sign up for a 14 day free trial here and take your CX to the next step.
