The power of delivering a personalized customer experience within your dealership
In today’s world, a level of personalized service has become the norm.
In fact, according to Zendesk’s CX Trends 2024 report, 76 per cent percent of survey respondents said they expect personalized experiences which could include: engagement over their preferred contact method, account type or status, and product recommendations based on purchase history.
We know that the best way to achieve loyalty is to exceed a customers’ expectations — so how can we offer a level of personalization that will have an impact?
Processes
To truly leverage the power of personalization, your goals must be supported by quality internal processes. Consider your processes for collecting customer data:
- Are your team members trained to ask their customers relevant questions?
- Do you have a culture that encourages team members to build authentic relationships with their customers?
- Do you have a CRM system in place that allows data to be recorded? Is it fully used?
- Who has access to this data and how can it be leveraged in different departments?
Zendesk also reported that 71 per cent of respondents expect companies to collaborate internally so they don’t have to repeat themselves.
The basis of a quality personalization process is to establish how customer data is effectively collected and communicated to all relevant dealership personnel. Used properly, this will create valuable consistency in the customer experience.
Modern software offers many helpful ideas for customer personalization, so it may be worth having your provider conduct a refresher with your team on the features available to them.
Technology
When it comes to personalization, technology is a valuable asset!
A great CRM system will be crucial to your success, along with a focus on fully using your system’s tools. Modern software offers many helpful ideas for customer personalization, so it may be worth having your provider conduct a refresher with your team on the features available to them.
Additionally, leveraging social media, online reviews and personalized videos provides endless opportunities to exceed your customers’ expectations.
A dealer group I work with in Atlantic Canada has been hugely successful in leveraging video. By sending personalized messages to their customers across all departments, they have strengthened relationships with them and elevated their customer experience. The key to their success is in how they have established a quality process and how it has been embraced by their people.
People
Once you have your process crafted, the next step is to inspire your team. To illustrate this, consider the story of Will Guidara and his restaurant Eleven Madison Park in New York. If you are not familiar with this story, I highly recommend you watch his TedTalk on YouTube.
Will created the concept and coined the term ‘Unreasonable Hospitality’ after he witnessed the power of personalization in his restaurant one evening.
His TedTalk is full of inspirational ideas, but I particularly want to highlight how he inspired his team to embrace his unconventional plan.
First, he effectively communicated the why. That’s to say, he clearly explained to his team what his goal was and why it was important. He was successful in communicating his vision and inspiring his team to share in it.
Next, he gave his team autonomy to personalize their guests’ experience. He encouraged them to think creatively and make decisions without consulting him.
The result was a highly engaged team who created exceptional guest experiences and felt fulfilled in their work. Staff turnover was zero, and they achieved the ultimate goal when Eleven Madison Park was rated the #1 restaurant in the world.
The Power of Personalization
Will Guidara and his team understood that if they were unreasonable with their dedication to personalization, they would reinvent what it meant to provide an exceptional experience.
They also understood that providing a personalized service created a memorable experience for their guests, evoked positive emotions, and established authentic relationships.
In our business, the opportunities to personalize our customer experience are endless. Think about how much you learn about a customer throughout your relationship with them, and then ask yourself what impact you could have if you focus on providing a personalized service.
For example, you could give your sales team autonomy to provide a personalized gift on delivery. Or, by tightening your internal communication processes, you could give your service department the information they need to provide a personalized service throughout the customers’ ownership experience.
The beauty of focusing on personalization is that it does not necessarily require significant financial investment. Rather, it requires a shift in mindset and a willingness to try something new.
