When the manufacturer was looking for an outsourcing provider to deliver its front office customer service for its brands, the company needed a partner that could support its ambitious growth strategy for the UK market –to achieve 5% market share by 2017. Three objectives emerged as key: to build a partnership that could evolve together, to achieve cost-savings without compromising on quality and to identify additional commercial opportunities to drive sales through customer contacts.
Having been a trusted partner for its fleet services since 2007, Arvato was chosen thanks to its innovative solutions and technology, its flexible approach to partnership and its ethos of looking after employees.
Together the partners completely re-designed the customer experience model to focus on leading effective conversations with customers and identifying and fulfilling customer needs at first point of contact. On top of the initial requirement for customer service via telephone and email, Arvato implemented new digital service channels to improve engagement with customers and identify additional commercial opportunities.
The partners introduced proactive web-chat which has since become the most popular contact channel for customers. Supported by social media channels, the contact centre has been able to generate more leads and generate appropriate additional service offer relevant to each customer.
With 12 new models launched in the UK in 2012-2013 alone staff’s product knowledge is key. The partners developed an ‘immersive brand experience’ programme including test drives, product demonstrations and on-going training. Knowing the cars inside out ultimately enables the customer service agents to have effective conversations with customers, resolving queries and offering additional services at first point of contact.
The team developed ‘best-in-class’ standards for customer service which have now been rolled out across the automotive manufacturer. A close-knit set of KPIs and independent, externally audited quality measures enables the team to continually evaluate performance; and a partnership built on trust allows the partners to regularly challenge each other to improve services and deliver their vision of outstanding customer experience.
