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Re-imagining the car showroom

By Polly Jones, managing partner

December 16, 2016 | 7 min read

Imagine the typical car showroom. You might picture a pushy salesman, who tries to baffle you with auto lingo. Maybe you see rows upon rows of cars in the same colour, each with a subtle difference that you can’t quite quantify. Perhaps you see yourself pouring over complicated spec sheets, with the pressure of the next customer leaning in behind you.

Reimaging a car showroom

But whatever image springs to mind, you might need to scrap it. That’s because 2016’s customers are thinking of something completely different to the traditional car showroom. Rather than floor-to-ceiling glass and lines of coffee machines, they’re dreaming of an altogether different environment. Somewhere to discover and explore at their own pace. Somewhere that they can access from the comfort of their own homes.

That’s because the new car showroom isn’t on the outskirts of town anymore. It’s in our living rooms, on our desktops, on our phones.

Showroom 2.0

Accenture recently reported that some 80% of all research into buying a new car is conducted online. The average auto customer hits 900 digital touch points over three months on the journey to purchase, with 71% of those occurring on mobile, according to Google.

When you think about it, that shouldn’t be altogether unexpected. But you might be surprised to know that 75% of drivers would consider conducting their entire car-buying process digitally. That means not stepping foot inside a physical dealership at all. And in keeping with this, the number of visits to dealerships had actually fallen from an average 2.2 in 2012 to 1.7 in 2015. Instead, people were doing more research - and crucially even purchasing - online.

The self-serve element of buying a car is becoming increasingly important and it’s surpassing the influence of face-to-face interactions with the supposed ‘experts’. And to keep up, brands need to count their website as their primary showroom. Sorry, dealerships and salespeople, you’ve been banished to the backseat.

An online journey as smooth as a test drive

Automotive pioneers Tesla are best-in-class when it comes to the smart digital showroom. As the customer lands on the site, they are greeted with a simple nav to browse the product range and two large CTA buttons – ‘order your Model S’ or ‘order your Model X’. There’s no messing around – buying the car is front and centre. One click and customers are directed straight to the design studio, where they can customise their car.

It follows that the best car websites empower customers to self-serve. By removing the pressure of the traditional showroom, brands allow customers to explore the range at their own pace and to understand its features for themselves. In behavioural terms, this is a psychologically powerful move.

Rather than traditional ecommerce UX – which aims to get customers from landing page to checkout as quickly as possible – the successful website showroom should slow down the customer journey. Prioritising discovery and exploration, the customer journey here should provide relevant information in the correct order, to guide customers through to purchase on their own individual timescale.

Smart brands don’t take this as an excuse to rest on their laurels though – in fact, quite the opposite. They are using shortcuts, like pre-completed forms, that can make the customer’s life easier during the check-out process. Brands can also reconsider their speccing process.

After all, it’s simple behavioural economics to encourage people to remove items to make a product ‘cheaper’ - rather than to ask them to add on additional things to the tune of an additional cost - and play to their sense of value. So whilst most configurators assume customers want the basic model, and then encourage them to add on additional features, the opposite process may yield interesting results for brands willing to take the risk for increased sales.

Reflecting the move online in the real world

But won’t buying always be a fundamentally visceral, physical experience? For every bold petrolhead who wants the latest exclusive engine, won’t there always be the safe suburban couple who want the assurance of comfy backseats for their kids? After all, even Tesla, the gold standard of auto ecommerce, have started setting up showrooms on the high street to integrate mainstream shopping activity. So how far can the online experience really take automotive brands?

The argument goes that there are certain aspects of buying a car that can never be replicated online. Like the customer’s desire to see the car in real life or to physically touch it. What about the test drive? Or how the customer physically sees themselves in the car?

Brands are already looking at ways to bridge this gap. And they’re succeeding. Volvo did just this when they created their first 100% digital launch. The new XC90 was only available to reserve online and the brand partnered with Google Cardboard to create a 360° preview of the car. People simply downloaded the app to experience ‘Volvo Reality’ and complete a full virtual test drive on their phones. The result – all 1,927of the limited edition cars sold online within 48 hours.

For automotive brands who believe that buying a car will always be a ‘real world’ experience, this should provide something of a wake-up call. The ‘phygital’ – that’s the merging of the ‘physical’ and ‘digital’, and includes technologies like AR and VR – can go some way to making up the difference. With VR, we’re already in the space of customers seeing themselves in their brand new car, without ever leaving their office or living room.

Or, in the case of Bentley, in the middle of a shopping centre. The brand set up their luxury studio, which allows customers to design their bespoke Bentley in the middle of Westfield Stratford. Using the Inspirator app and ‘emotional recognition’ technology, users could watch a personalised film, guided by their own reactions to it. And once the film finished, users were left with the profile of their bespoke car, suited perfectly to their unique emotional preferences.

The next leg of the journey

So as the pre-completed form and the virtual test drive steams ahead of the traditional salesman, brands who refuse to face the music are setting themselves up for a fall. The traditional dealership isn't dead (yet), but the significant move to buying online should be a warning to brands to consider a more integrated journey. The way forward? Think digital first – even when it comes to your showroom. Otherwise, you’re in danger of getting stuck in the slow lane.

Polly Jones is managing partner at Partners Andrews Aldridge.

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