Automobility
changing how we buy, disrupting what it means to own
the challenge
A major auto maker and premium brand struggled to position itself in the face of changing tastes and a general customer turn from quality to value. Further, dealers were not selling with a consistent consumer experience in mind. The company needed a way to encourage dealers to be a part of the program and to see benefit.
What we discovered
The company faced an immediate problem in that its current approach to customer experience was lagging behind the kind of interactivity and engagement expected by today’s consumer. No matter the system or tool one designed, it required the full participation and adoption of the dealers. Of the various incentives and rewards we tested, nothing resonated with the dealer demographic more than fostering competition amongst one another.
Through our research we also realized an adjacent and more long-term problem: An emerging demographic, millennials and those just behind them are not as interested in buying cars as older generations. The organization needed to rethink car ownership and the buying experience we were exploring lead to the notion of a new business model, which effectively combined traditional leasing with ride sharing.
At the completion of the engagement, we not only provided a positive result for the immediate problem, but launched a pilot business model in cities across the country.
The Results
Within 60 days, Dealers engaged with the application and using it increased close rates from 35% to 65%.
The company beat all ROI expectations, achieving gains at 12 months instead of the predicted 24.
Dealerships sold 31% more units in the first 12 months than the 12 months prior.
How we did it
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Walk in their shoes
Our first efforts were aimed at developing a full picture of the car buying, and car owning experience. We recruited dozens of participants and rode along on people’s journeys from buying cars from vending machines to suburbanites who’d never owned a car and commuted entirely via ride share apps. In subsequent design thinking sessions with both potential customers and company stakeholders we devised a number of storyboards to immerse ourselves in these journeys and catalyze new ones.
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Who's first?
We came away with a ton of potential personas to craft this solution around. Our next step was to create typologies of the various people we’d interacted with. This method of categorization allows us to gauge who might represent the best candidates to learn from: Why they would or wouldn’t use the service, what obstacles might they need to overcome?
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Make decisions
Our next design sessions were centered on evaluating everything we’d learned about the journeys we were trying to impact: Shopping for a car, buying a car, owning a car... We chose inflection points that absolutely needed to be solved for and assumptions that would absolutely need to be true in order for this solution to work. Based on these studies, we had a framework for the solutions we needed to design and how we would test whether they worked.
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Test it
Having articulated our assumptions and identified the inflection points that would make or break us, we set about creating prototypes (wireframes, videos, physical rehearsals) in order to test our solutions. With a refined idea in hand, we set about planning and developing an MVP.
Make it stand out.
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customer validation
The first hurdle was to validate the solution concept with actual customers. Did the business model make sense, did it communicate value?
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Dealer validation
Finally, could the dealers make sense of this new form of ownership? Would this deeper and more immersive engagement with their customers create value for the organization and had we designed a system they could see themselves adopting?