What does this button do?

When discussing the customer buying journey with a few members over the last few weeks, the subject of vehicle handover has come up.  Over the last few months, there has been a lot of innovation to allow a socially distanced handover, either with the salesperson outside the car, or through using video to give the customer a self-help guide.  As far as we know these have worked insofar as there haven’t been any horror stories related to an imperfect handover.  However, when we get back to some sort of normal, we can assume that manufacturers and dealers will again return to carefully planned handovers, sometimes in dedicated handover bays, and subject to specific questions in follow-up customer satisfaction surveys.

However, this approach does not start to scratch the surface of what is needed if customers are really going to understand their car and make informed decisions about how they configure the various settings, or even know that some features are configurable.  Even in a car costing €30,000, drivers can now configure powertrain and chassis settings, set up the infotainment system to suit their taste, connect multiple devices, change interior lighting modes and much more.  In addition, over the coming years every time a customer changes their car it is quite likely that the basic powertrain will be different to their previous car as hybridisation and electrification increase their penetration, and new safety features will be added that may only make their presence felt when a hazardous situation is detected.  In parallel, the controls to manage all of these features have migrated from physical buttons to touch or voice control, sometimes supported by a few physical buttons that are themselves configurable.

Somehow, we are generally still stuck in the mode that all of this can be understood by the new owner by talking them through a scripted process in an hour or so.  Various studies suggest that the maximum attention span of an adult is 20 minutes, so it is likely that any details of the car functions are lost on the new owner.  In addition, the customer is probably itching to get going and enjoy their new car, perhaps planning to catch up later from the owners’ manual.  In practice, this is forgotten as the customer settles into the car.  I will admit to following this pattern.  When I came to sell my Maserati Quattroporte after five happy years, I took the prospective buyer for a test drive who noticed some buttons on the back of the steering wheel.  I was unable to enlighten him with any information on what they did…  Recognising these issues of behaviour and attention span, Lexus in the USA require the handover to be split into two parts, with the first part focused on the basics of driving the car and using basic functions such as the phone connectivity.  A week later there is a separate ‘tech’ handover where a specialist goes through the more complex functions.  This is a good step forward, but it is still locked into the traditional face to face approach. 

Connected cars and other digital advances open up a whole new range of opportunities which will not only allow the customer to fully understand and enjoy the functionality of their car, boosting their satisfaction with their purchase, and starting to build a closer relationship.  Given that most controls are now within a touch screen in the car, why not send a link to a ‘simulator’ a week or two before the handover to allow the customer to start to understand the functions in their own time, and build a sense of anticipation?  This would be similar to the process that the buyer of a new light aircraft would go through, where they will spend some time learning the new controls and functions before the aircraft is delivered.  I could then extend this by building in the functionality to set up my phone, favourite addresses, radio stations and music accounts in advance, and then just sync these with the car when it is delivered.  Why not build ‘help’ functions into the car so that rather than expecting the customer to dig into a manual, they can just ask for guidance on how to change settings, or reconfigure the car?  And perhaps, we finally have a good reason to have a concierge as many manufacturers suggest when thinking of connected car services?  Rather than ask them to book a restaurant, I could instead ask about how I add a new Spotify account, and have them support me remotely, giving them control, whilst I just sit and watch new menus and sub-menus open up, much as happens if you need help with your laptop.  And as a final thought, how about prompting the driver with an explanation of how and why an ADAS function was triggered, so that they understand the tug on the steering wheel, rather than think the car has a fault?

Here is a real use case for the connected car – one that will improve customer satisfaction, eliminate a process that can be inconsistently performed, fits well with a home delivery process and ensures that customers get the most out of all the expensive engineering invested in creating all that flexibility in the first place.   And you wouldn’t end up stuck when someone asked “what does this button do…?”