AM Live 2023 saw industry experts gather to debate the imperative task of making a seamless and unified digital ecosystem for electric vehicles (EVs).
Currently, EV sales are dominated by the fleet and latest automotive market, but there can be a shift towards more retail customers and used EVs in time. This may mean a much tighter window to organise every thing around charging the vehicle, particularly if the shopper has off-street parking and is looking to scale back costs by installing a house charger and switching their home energy tariff.
The session explored how the present customer journey for EVs will be fragmented, particularly with post-sale support including arranging a house charger, explaining public charging infrastructure and help with switching to smart home energy tariffs and reduce EV running costs as much as possible.
The insights shared by the AM LIve panellists underscored the necessity for a seamless end-to-end journey which could only be delivered through close collaboration between automotive and energy stakeholders.
The session was steered by Raj Lyons Chohan, chief executive of Affinity EV, and panellists included Andrew Mouat, head of smart mobility at Scottish Power, Euan Cameron, marketing director for Peter Vardy, and Jacqui Barker, global OEM director for Keyloop, who shared their insights on the challenges, opportunities and techniques for delivering an enhanced EV customer experience.
The session kicked off with Chohan who said the automotive industry was undergoing a transformative shift within the automotive industry, which was witnessing the convergence of the automotive and energy sectors.
He said the journey from early adopters to the early majority now requires a strategic approach to education, information dissemination and guidance to assist the shopper navigate the twin journey of each purchasing and owning an electrical vehicle in a rapidly evolving landscape.
Euan Cameron at AM100 motor retailer Peter Vardy Group highlighted current market dynamics, declaring the numerous increase in EV supply which worryingly contrasted with a decreasing variety of actual leads, stressing the importance of addressing the issue of conversion following that initial surge in inquiries.
“We were swamped with inquiries as a business,” he reported. “We probably got about two and a half times the variety of inquiries that we actually required on electric vehicles. But we still had a conversion issue because we did not have the knowledge to assist convert. And now it’s develop into much more pronounced because now we’re at that time where the demand has dropped barely in order that guest experience must be loads higher and we want to do a much better sales job of with the ability to guide and convert people from an EV perspective.”
Cameron also touched upon the challenge of constructing the EV purchasing process frictionless, acknowledging the historical disconnect between automotive and energy sectors. That will have been easier to administer for early adopters, who had conducted extensive research, but now servicing the early majority needs a much more streamlined and integrated approach.
The conversation turned to the imperative of not merely recommending charging solutions but creating an end-to-end digital journey for EV customers. “It’s key for us as an industry to not only throw that customer over a wall and say ‘now go find your individual charger’. It’s crucial to create a seamless end to finish digital journey,” said Chohan.
Andrew Mouat from Scottish Power said the consolidation and integration of energy supply systems presented a possibility to streamline processes to support the growing expectation of shoppers. “Increasingly, we’re seeing that expectation from customers that the approach is more streamlined and more joined up and fewer fragmented and disparate,” he said.
The main focus then turned to the pivotal role which data management systems (DMS) can play within the automotive industry, particularly within the context of EVs and the evolving consumer landscape. This discussion make clear the challenges and opportunities presented by the influx of knowledge from various sources and its potential to remodel the whole customer journey.
The panel here agreed that there ought to be a rethink of the industry’s approach to leveraging data with the important thing lying in understanding and utilising data as a invaluable asset to assist the industry reevaluate its strategies and embrace revolutionary ways to harness the ability of knowledge for a more connected and customer-centric automotive future.
Jacqui Barker emphasized the necessity for education as OEMs progressively introduce latest products to support consumers to make informed decisions, and the way the systems provided by businesses corresponding to Keyloop facilitate the transfer of vast amounts of knowledge from OEMs to retailers through its partner ecosystem. She added that it was not nearly purchasing a brand new vehicle; it was also about educating drivers to optimise the usage of their vehicles throughout the ownership lifecycle.
“Loyalty inside a brand happens inside the lifetime of the vehicle,” Barker noted, underlining the importance of continuous engagement and knowledge dissemination. She said the thought was to maintain customers informed throughout the vehicle’s life through a more flexible approach based on real-time data.
Barker said the challenge lies in unlocking the ability of knowledge not only from a DMS but additionally from the vehicles themselves. “The information that we’re seeing coming out of vehicles goes to power completely different experiences and the technology that sits behind that is admittedly going to alter the best way that we live and work with and keep customers on a journey.”
Chohan raised a practical concern about connecting data from DMS to numerous entities, corresponding to energy providers like Scottish Power and charger manufacturers, to reinforce dealership visibility.
Euan Cameron added that in addressing the challenges faced by salespeople there was a must play to the strengths of sales staff and never burden them with becoming experts in diverse areas like electrical engineering and energy tariffs. The main focus should slightly be on making the sales process frictionless by partnering with trusted entities, allowing salespeople to focus on what they do best – selling.
Cameron’s perspective echoed findings from a recent McKinsey report which identified an absence of dealer knowledge as one in every of the important thing aspects hindering EV adoption. By partnering with organisations like Affinity EV as a trusted partner, the goal is to offer a seamless and knowledgeable sales process, eliminating obstacles and accelerating the acquisition end result.
The discussion then shifted to the importance of developing a holistic approach, involving energy providers and EV chargers as gateway products. Andrew Mouat spoke here of the necessity for seamless customer interaction, constructing long-term relationships – beyond just selling a charger system as a single opportunity – to assist decrease the general cost of ownership.
“The EV charger within the vehicle is the gateway product but then you definitely begin to speak about your heat and power requirements in the house after which how those hardware technologies integrate. Throughout the day, utilisation varies and complements one another so that you just’re not only adding layers and layers of consumption but actually using these technologies to balance things and make things more efficient.”
Jacqui Barker underscored the necessity for dealerships to develop into immersive experience centres stating: “It’s about creating an experience, not only 4 partitions or a dealership but an experience centre.” She highlighted the role of technology on this transformation, noting, “as technology continues to evolve, it allows us to not only give customers the power to do more online, but we have now the power to trace what consumers are doing in order that we are able to then intuitively serve them with the fitting messaging at the fitting time. So we want to think the best way that we use data and technology to make that retail process rather more intuitive.”
Barker also stressed the importance of simplifying complex data for consumers, explaining, “A extremely big gap on this industry has for thus long been the power to match Thing A with Tthing B which may be very difficult since the product may be different in various other ways – so don’t overcomplicate because as humans, there are only so many choices we are able to make in a day.”
Chohan also identified the importance of empowering salespeople early in the method. “What we have done with the Affinity EV platform is to embed it within the sales process, whereby we’re empowering the salesperson to permit that customer to begin their energy journey much earlier,” adding that post-sale introductions of products ought to be avoided.
Euan Cameron here illustrated the evolution of the EV purchasing process at Peter Vardy: “Literally, at the purpose of inquiry, we are able to set someone up into the Affinity EV system, so that they can start doing the pre-work,” he said, adding that there have been tangible advantages to with the ability to pre-qualify leads through helping offer advice about tariffs and the charge point on the inquiry stage. “Guests are almost prequalifying themselves before we even get them in to check drive and buy so the method has probably already began every week to 10 days sooner than what it was by ourselves alone.”
Scottish Power’s Mouat agreed that an acceleration at this stage also allows his business to discover installation issues. “We price obviously on a regular installation but not every house is identical and never every customer the identical as there could also be variances that must be identified and costed, processed and approved. So it allows us to try this much earlier in the method and it’s less of a surprise to the shopper when issues may occur.”
The panel collectively agreed on the transformative role of knowledge and technology in reshaping the automotive retail landscape, as highlighted by Chohan, who concluded: “Weve got to leverage the information we have now to deliver a really truly end to finish digital experience.”
This Article First Appeared At www.am-online.com
