The future of the vehicle purchase experience needs to quickly become more technologically sophisticated and experience-based.
The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated a wave of much needed dealership evolution to support online purchase. Accelerating the dealer’s and the brand’s online capabilities resulted in the creation of more needed content, like images, videos (like 360 degree vehicle walk-around) and experience-based feature descriptions. Unfortunately, much heartache continues for dealer networks that consist of multiple different brands. The reason is that each brand has different requirements of their dealers - including website design, physical space design, EV charging infrastructures and more.
Some brands also dictate who the network must work with to create and stage their assets via different channels. The need for more digital assets, transnational capabilities and logistics may complicate these existing challenges. In addition, many (new) logistics need to be planned and accommodated, from vehicle delivery and pick-up to structuring a remote drive to return policies and accepting trade-ins. New physical property and space designs should also consider the use of outdoor space. And everything in-person is going to take longer, so inside and outside waiting areas become a critical experience of the contact-less customer journey. All the while, vehicle margins are dropping and technology and digital infrastructure and facilities costs are increasing.
The next wave of evolution is in dealerships shifting from “retailers” to providers of mobility services and highly personalized customer experience. Dealerships will evolve from being solely transaction-based on sales, service and parts to focusing on customer engagement and the delivery of experiential value. The in-store touch-screen may go the way of voice activation or motion detection. Some element of human interaction will still be desired and may be more important than ever, but in-person shopping will need to be fun and more on an emotional level - as individuals truly serve as a brand experience ambassador. Assume that buyers will already have the facts and stats, and will have already consumed the videos and visualizations.
This is also the time for dealers to be experimenting with these new domains and new models of vehicle access to both consumers and businesses. Dealers would be well served to make new ownership models, subscription models, on-demand access, usage-based billing (per minute or per mile), and highly personalized services part of the new equation. Stay aware of the short-term, mid-term and long-term changes in consumer belief, expectation and behavior post pandemic as well as throughout this wave of new product and service interaction. The property of the dealerships will also have to include remote lots and parking spots.
