Offering the Best Customer Experience Across All Industries
Why is aiming for excellence within your own industry no longer enough? Because you’re likely already behind. Customer expectations are changing rapidly, and 2022 is no exception. So, in a constantly changing environment, the key is to test, analyze, and learn.
The automotive industry, in particular, has witnessed one of the most significant shifts in buyer behavior. A decade ago, a used car buyer would visit an average of 5 to 7 dealerships before making a choice. Now, it’s not even 2 dealerships that are visited in person before making a purchase.
A consumer will start their search online and expect to be “wowed” from their initial research about you. The overall look of your site, mobile responsiveness, the variety of choices available, personalization of your offers, and more—now, it takes much more than a good price to attract a customer to your physical store.
You must provide them with a comprehensive A to Z experience that meets their expectations and with which they can personally identify. So, the focus now shifts to interaction with them.
Personalization Reaches a New Level
People no longer evaluate their experiences in a vacuum. In the past, a customer would compare one used car dealership to others, or they would compare one online clothing store to others.
Now, consumers remember the best experience they’ve had in any industry and expect at least the same level of experience in other sectors.
Anticipating Customer Needs
If they can have an ultra-personalized coffee in the morning, why should it be any different when buying their car? This means that everything must be personalized for the customer, from mobile marketing messages to the in-store experience with the advisor. To do this, you must learn to anticipate customer needs.
For example, for car dealerships, is their top priority to find the right car for their needs? Is it speed or convenience? Is financing the first step in their car-buying process?
Enter Search Data
The best way to anticipate customer needs is by analyzing their web behavior data as users. Depending on their behavior, a dealership can determine whether to use financing messages or promotional ones, for example.
Personalization can be taken even further with data analysis. If a customer has scheduled an appointment in-store to test drive a Toyota Camry, the dealership can prepare a Toyota Camry. But they can also prepare a Nissan Altima and a Honda Accord, as these would be two models the customer has also searched for extensively.
A Period of Testing is Necessary
Providing THE best customer experience requires numerous tests, trial and error, and constant adaptation.
For example, car dealerships began to realize that they weren’t meeting customer expectations in terms of vehicle photos. Google Analytics data showed that less than half of the individual car photos were being viewed.
Employees took many photos, but not necessarily the ones customers cared about most or at the quality they expected.
To address this issue, customer feedback was gathered, and new elements were tested. More photos of the cargo space, fewer exterior photos, more HD photos, and so on.
Now, these dealerships can ensure they offer the visual support that customers are looking for.
A Better-Informed and Smoother Shopping Experience
What we’ve described is, in fact, the foundation for moving toward offering THE best experience. To provide the “extra” that customers are seeking, testing is required once again.
360-degree photos/videos, among other things, are rarely available, yet they offer significant interaction with users who can then see themselves directly inside the vehicle. This allows them to envision themselves behind the wheel.
It’s precisely with strategies like these that the likelihood of a buyer choosing your dealership after their mobile research becomes very high.
Key Takeaways
The more you anticipate customer needs at each stage, the happier they will be. To achieve this, it’s essential to analyze, learn, test, fail, and try again. Who cares if you tried and failed? As long as you’ve learned about your customers, you’re always getting closer to meeting their needs.
Ultimately, you can’t do everything or know everything. That’s why there are specialized marketing agencies. Turn to Nerd Marketing for further advice or personalized strategies!
