How OEMs Can Create Customer-Centric Sales Channels

The digital age has further increased the complexity of the sales model with the introduction of new sales channels and marketplaces, such as Amazon, Alibaba and Sixt. Among all of the key players in automotive sales, only a few are connected to the broader mobility ecosystem. In short, the process of purchasing and owning a car often leaves something to be desired for customers as channels remain disconnected.

Traditional sales models are not as effective in this new automotive landscape. With more flexible mobility options, many young people are dropping out of the traditional automotive market entirely. Overall sales rates have decreased, whereas competition over the same customers has increased—ultimately driving up marketing and sales costs. The industry is now at an inflection point; to maintain profitable growth, OEMs must adjust to this new environment.

The unprecedented number of concurrent challenges has created a perfect storm of disruption. Without swift and bold action, the OEM marketing and sales business model will face further problems in the form of diluted brands and decreased sales, overall profitability and customer loyalty. While customer acquisition remains important, customer retention and loyalty will be paramount for OEMs, as not only does it lead to a customer re-purchasing from the same brand, but because that customer is also more likely to recommend the brand to others.

Marketing and sales must shift from traditional, “set it and forget it” campaigns to continually optimized, personalized assets, touchpoints and experiences that deliver clear and frictionless value along the entire customer lifecycle. OEMs that remain siloed with a leaky sales funnel, fragmented sales channels and disparate data will miss these opportunities to create customer value and drive growth through existing and new channels.

Create efficient and effective marketing and sales

To remain effective in the face of disruptive new players and business models, the sales network will require a ground-up transformation that focuses on connecting the people, technology and operations across all of these participants. Integrated data platforms allow each entity to connect meaningfully with customers who have rising expectations. Whether they sell directly through key account managers, online or rely on a multichannel ecosystem built upon third-party partners, OEMs must manage the feasibility and profitability of each channel—and that is no simple task. The key question is how to optimize investments depending on a brand’s specific business model, product lifecycle, target audience, market and competitive landscape.

To meet these expectations, marketing and sales will need to create optimized and personalized digital assets and touchpoints informed by data and insights. It’s important to move quickly and flexibly with the market–at this stage, sales and marketing must shift to a mindset where experimentation and innovation are encouraged, gathering customer feedback along the way. Teams must listen, test, learn and iterate in real time; feedback from customer interactions not only results in the creation of better assets that meet specific needs, it allows them to get into market faster and refine as they go. And this must happen along the entire sales and marketing value chain, from headquarters to national sales companies and importers to dealers.

Once measurement, optimization and goals are implemented across the sales channels and buyer journey, the question of where and when to invest funds in things like marketing tactics and incentives will become less risky and more predictable. However, decisions on investments must be made considering various forces in the market, competitors and automotive lifecycles across all channels.

Key challenges faced today occur on a global scale and include duplicate work, lack of measurement, disconnected experiences and inconsistencies. This new approach to sales and marketing drives transparency, speed and flexibility through multi-disciplinary teams armed with data, allowing for the creation of global frameworks, standards and best practices that can be adapted locally.

What needs to happen next

It’s time for OEMs, national sales companies, importers and dealers to bridge the gap that will allow them to collaborate more effectively to create a data-driven, seamless experience for their customers across all the channels and buyer journey. The value chain needs to transform into a consumer-focused ecosystem to cater to the emerging consumer needs. OEMs must develop trust-based collaboration with dealers to learn together, pilot new ideas and decide what to do next to impact the bottom line for both entities. Collaboration and smarter ways of working can ultimately lead to profitability for all.

OEMs may hold the key to the automotive ecosystem, but true partnerships are essential. Digital has strengthened the connection between OEMs, national sales companies, importers, dealers and customers via online channels. However, digital has also made it so that customers expect the same level of innovation and personalized experience at the point of sale as well as aftersales. Marketing must prioritize experience and sales must make customer lifetime value the focus.

However, digital is only an enabler to modernizing marketing and sales. It’s one part of a broader effort to improve sales channels both online and offline. OEMs must fix disconnects by creating new ways of managing sales channels, building trusted relationships with dealers where data sharing is encouraged, collaborating with the automotive ecosystem to innovate, and by testing and gathering feedback on new ideas that have the power to transform ways of working.