Ford Retail Online video case study

Ford Retail Online

Steve Hood, Managing Director

We launched Ford Retail in 2009 because we knew there was a lot more consumer interest in following their sale through online. The consumers were spending a lot of time looking for brands online, but then we could see that they wanted to move and find out more about the pricing, find out more about vehicle availability, and find out how to do parts exchanges. All those kinds of actions they wanted to do online as well.

We needed two ways to import leads and to talk to customers – the telephone way and we needed the electronic way. Then we needed a very, very good system that would enable us to recognise the conversations that we’d had with a customer and be able to pick up the conversation when they called or emailed us back again with accuracy, and be very respectful of the customer’s time and not ask them to repeat things because we had captured the information properly.

Lee Basham, Head of Sales, Ford Retail Online

We have knowledgeable people that can talk about the car that they want, any options that they want, and the colour they want. They can also talk about the part exchange because we do part exchange online as well. You couldn’t do that on a pure online sales platform. So having agents in the contact centre that can talk to them is a massive benefit.

Steve Hood, Managing Director, Ford Retail Online

The system is doing the deduping for us. So we’re presented with one customer contact, and then we’re presented with the contacts that the customers were interested in underneath the customer details. So we’ll know for Customer X, they were also interested in a parts exchange value, they’re interested in finance, and they want to know availability. When the system brings that all together, by definition our agents are becoming much more efficient.

Lee Basham, Head of Sales, Ford Retail Online

In the Internet sales business, answering an email is paramount. The quicker you can do it, the more likely it is that you’re going to sell that person a car. It will take for as long as they press the enter key for it to appear into the system, so you’re talking minutes. In fact, we’ve had customers say, “Blimey, that was quick.” We need to be that quick in this business.

Steve Hood, Managing Director, Ford Retail Online

When they’ve got the information at hand and when the screens are very quick, which is what we’re finding at the moment with our system, the agent can move through very quickly. They can move the customer through the journey very quickly. They avoid any repetition, and they always have the right information for the customer. We did have a high degree of customisation on it, which was easy to be able to implement. We did take what was a basic call centre system and we were able to adapt it quite easily and flexibly to fit out own processes.

Lee Basham, Head of Sales, Ford Retail Online

The agents have really adapted to the system, really taken it onboard, and they see the benefit to them and to us as a business. In terms of embracing it and using it, I can say it’s been wholehearted. It’s really good. The efficiency of the team is 25% up at least. It’s made them more proficient in their day-to-day work, and in turn, it’s made us a more profitable organisation.