Introduction
The world’s third-largest automotive company faced a critical challenge with its Digital Program: low dealer satisfaction, engagement, and a feedback completion rate of just 0.5%. This limited participation made it difficult to understand dealer needs, address issues effectively, and enhance the program’s profitability.
Background
The Digital Program was designed to support the company’s extensive dealer network by providing digital tools to complement physical locations and drive sales. However, low dealer engagement and limited feedback mechanisms hindered its success, affecting both program effectiveness and dealer trust. Partnering with Emojot’s Customer Experience Management (CXM) platform, the company aimed to create a responsive, feedback-driven system to increase dealer satisfaction, improve participation, and boost program profitability.
Challenge
A major player in the automotive industry faced a critical challenge with its Digital Program. Low satisfaction and engagement levels among its network of dealers threatened the program’s profitability and effectiveness as a digital sales tool. Without clear and consistent feedback from dealers, it became challenging to:
- Deploy all these solutions to over 17,000 contacts across 3,000+ dealerships, which added significant technical complexities.
- Assess overall program satisfaction.
- Gauge dealer confidence in new products and updates.
- Measure the success of recent changes and optimizations.
These issues posed a risk to the program’s financial success and to the dealers’ commitment to using the platform effectively, undermining its value as a digital extension of sales operations.
Solution
To address these challenges, the organization partnered with Emojot, a Customer Experience Management (CXM) solution provider, to implement a feedback-driven approach that would transform its Digital Program. This partnership enabled the introduction of a data-backed, user-friendly, and responsive system for gathering, analyzing, and acting on dealer feedback. Key elements of the solution included:
- Real-Time Analytics and Rapid Feedback:
Emojot-enabled surveys to be dispatched and analyzed within a 24-hour window. This real-time feedback loop allowed the organization to respond promptly to senior executives’ questions and gain valuable insights into dealer sentiment, satisfaction, and engagement levels in near real time.
- Direct, Actionable Feedback Mechanism:
The Emojot platform offered an engaging survey experience, leveraging emoji-based responses that resonated with dealers and boosted survey participation rates. This format made it easier for dealers to provide feedback and for the organization to gauge immediate sentiment on various issues.
- Proactive Issue Resolution:
By providing immediate access to dealer feedback, the team could quickly identify areas where dealer expectations weren’t being met or where service quality gaps existed. This allowed proactive issue resolution, ensuring that dealers saw prompt responses to their feedback, which helped build trust and boosted confidence in the program.
- Enhanced Communication with Dealers:
Emojot facilitated an ongoing communication loop between the organization and its dealers, serving as a two-way channel for updates on improvements and actions taken based on dealer input. This enhanced transparency and responsiveness, creating a cycle of continuous improvement.
- Leadership Engagement with Dealers:
Beyond digital feedback tools, senior team members engaged directly with small dealer groups multiple times a year. These face-to-face meetings offered additional insights, strengthened relationships, and highlighted a commitment to addressing dealer needs and expectations. This direct engagement distinguished the organization as a uniquely responsive OEM within its industry.
Results
The partnership with Emojot led to significant improvements in dealer satisfaction and program performance. Key outcomes included:
- Increased Dealer Engagement:
The accessible feedback process saw a marked increase in dealer response rates, resulting in a more comprehensive and representative flow of insights from across the network. Notably, the completion rate for dealer feedback rose dramatically, from an initial 0.5% to 34%, a remarkable indicator of the platform’s effectiveness in engaging the dealer network.
- Enhanced Program Profitability:
Higher dealer satisfaction and engagement translated into a greater willingness to invest in and fully utilize the Digital Marketing Program, leading to stabilized and increased profitability.
- Accelerated Decision-Making:
With real-time analytics, the team could make data-driven decisions faster, allowing them to act on feedback almost immediately and address dealer concerns more effectively.
- Strengthened Dealer Relationships:
Consistent follow-ups on feedback, clear communication regarding actions taken, and in-person meetings fostered trust, created a stronger dealer network, and boosted confidence in the program’s direction.
Conclusion
The integration of Emojot’s CXM platform transformed the organization’s approach to dealer engagement, providing an agile, feedback-driven system that improved satisfaction levels, sustained long-term dealer engagement, and enhanced profitability in its Digital Marketing Program. The feedback loop established through Emojot allowed the organization to transform dealer feedback into actionable insights, strengthening relationships across its dealer network and supporting the continued success of the program.