Shaping Customer Experiences in the Automotive Industry

Competition has been high for some time in the auto industry. Buyers have a wide array of options and can choose a vehicle based on the smallest detail. They can easily find another business if one doesn’t meet their preferences. Nowadays it’s all about delivering great customer experiences that build a positive first impression and become the foundation of fruitful customer relations.

Creating Experiences for Every Stage

To deliver great customer experiences, your business should provide useful services and resources at every step of your buyer’s journey. The buyer’s journey can be segmented into three main stages:

Awareness — The customer understands that they have a need fulfilled or an issue that needs to be solved. For instance, the customer may need a second car because the family has grown larger or their car has lately been too often in service.

Consideration — At this point, the customer has identified their problem and now they are looking for relevant solutions. A customer knows they need to buy another car, and they may be looking at auto retailers and potential financing solutions.

Decision — The customer settled on what solution solves their issue, and they are determining which specific service, product, or business to use.

In order to deliver excellent customer experiences, consider creating these experiences for every stage of this process.

Customer experiences in the awareness stage — Consider what customer issues your services address. Think how you can connect with people who are in the awareness stage. If you have an car service shop, you can create an article on how to take care of a car, and explain the benefits of regular oil changes.

Customer experiences in the consideration stage — Help your potential customer when they look for options to solving their issue. A car dealer can provide guides on how to assess a used car or a service shop could provide tips on how to change oil and highlight the ease of hiring someone to do it as a service instead.

Customer experiences in the decision stage — Offer guidance to customers as they pick which service or product will be the best solution for them. A car service shop could share customer reviews on their website and highlight the features customer could enjoy while waiting for the oil change.

By going through the buyer’s journey for your specific offerings, you can define ways to provide helpful customer experience in the automotive industry for each phase of your customer’s purchasing process.