Background

Volvo wanted a way to communicate with their dealers, and to feed them information to support the sales process and dealership operations.

Tension

How can you help car dealers convert footfall into sales, when you’re not part of the sales process and the dealers are spread across the country?

Approach

You put the power into their pockets, and onto the screens in the dealership.

We started by talking to the dealers themselves, as well as the centralised dealer operations team, to understand their behaviours, needs and pain points. This allowed us to create a Dealer Toolkit around these factors, and then built it using a scalable, modern architecture, which could be easily maintained and updated.

We focused the design around the information & functionality that dealers told us was important to them, and which they couldn’t get easily elsewhere. This included:

• Detailed product information & specs,
• Information to to support prospective buyers in the dealership on the occasions when all dealers are busy with other customers,
• Access to up to date video content to use in the dealership,
• National sales data & dashboards, and
• The ability to submit service requests to Volvo

By doing this we created a series of tools for them, that have become a core part of their processes. This Dealer Toolkit includes

• A Dealer App to access product information, sales data & dashboard, and to submit service requests to Volvo Cars Australia,
• A digital ‘silent salesperson’ iPad app to support prospective buyers in the dealership while browsing cars themselves, and
• A video content feed for the TV screens throughout the dealerships, which is updated digitally and is therefore seamless for them to use.

Impact

The Dealer Toolkit is now used throughout Volvo’s dealerships, with many staff in the dealerships using it daily.

Dealership staff use the toolkit as a preferred method for accessing certain product and sales information, to request and lodge service plan certificates, and to access centralised marketing tools.

Feedback from the dealers has been overwhelmingly positive, and Volvo are considering adding further functionality to the App.