Lights, camera, action!
As dealerships reopen or prepare to do so in the coming days across Europe, it is too early to determine how volumes will develop, and any significant change in consumer buying behaviour will also take some time to become evident. There has been much speculation about a possibly higher interest in online sales, which I commented on last month, but one area where there has been some innovation during the lockdowns and the potential for that to be sustained and extended once we return to work is the use of video in both sales and aftersales.
The use of video has arguably lagged behind other sectors, despite customers making extensive use of car reviews on YouTube and dedicated channels as part of their pre-purchase research. It has been quite widely adopted in the UK market, particularly for aftersales, largely due to the efforts of pioneer CitNow and the adoption of this tool as a dealer standard by a number of UK National Sales Companies. Progress in other markets has been slower – less than one third of repairers in France, Germany and Italy were using any form of imagery (still or video) in our last survey, compared to the majority in the UK, though there has been some significant progress in Germany. Repairers were also not convinced about the value with a neutral view on the benefit, compared to data in the UK showing that upsell on ‘orange’ items in health checks almost doubled if supported by video.
We first highlighted the opportunities to provide a virtual showroom in 2015 with the Fiat Livestore in Brazil, where individual consumers could connect in real time to a product expert who conducted a walkround, demonstrating features of interest and responding to individual questions. That initiative died at some point in the subsequent economic crisis, but was then tried in Europe by Seat in 2016. It’s possible that the idea was ahead of it’s time, but Renault UK have recently launched a ‘virtual showroom’ with support from our friends at Sophus3 and after a few days without any specific promotion reported 200 leads, primarily for Zoe, and plan now to advertise it and to invest further. In Germany, Hyundai launched a virtual showroom in February, so unrelated to the lockdowns, but clearly an asset in these challenging times.
The crisis has highlighted other opportunities to use video to engage with customers without physical contact during both sales and aftersales. Dealers have been using video to provide a personalised walkround on specific used cars that a customer has expressed interest in, allowing them to at least place a deposit without physically seeing the car, and Heycar in Germany and the UK allows customers to request a ‘video viewing’ through a link on each car listing. In Germany, an initial group of 40 Audi dealers had signed up by the start of last month to offer live consultations by appointment on new cars using VR glasses that allow them to configure a car in direct consultation with the customer and for this to be displayed on the customer’s device remotely.
The relevance of video reports for additional aftersales work and to seek remote authorisation takes on even greater importance in terms of a contactless process and avoiding unnecessary second visits for follow-on work. It can also play a role in a contactless handover, where the salesperson can walk the customer round their car by video, highlighting all the features and then sending that to the customer. This would allow a much briefer face to face physical handover, reducing or eliminating the time required to be in the car together. This has benefits beyond the current crisis, as few customers retain all the information the salesperson tries to convey during a conventional handover, particularly on feature-rich cars.
Whether we are approaching a new dawn of online selling may therefore be an open question, but it is clear that the cameras are now rolling for wider use of video to engage with customers before a sale and at other key points during the sale and ownership experience. Perhaps the next step will be the Auto Oscars?