Global automotive group

Turning finance and insurance into a trusted part of the customer journey

The Challenge

A global automotive group faced intense competition, changing ownership behaviours and rising customer expectations. They needed to define how a premium customer experience should work across vehicle sales, financial services and ownership, and align its brands, retail network and digital capabilities behind a shared transformation roadmap.

The group needed a shared customer experience strategy. Customers loved the vehicles, but complex finance choices and fragmented support could undermine that connection. The challenge was to make buying, financing and owning a vehicle feel like one coherent relationship.

Creating clarity around a changing financial services model

Customers expected the brand, retailer and finance provider to work together. Instead, they could face repeated explanations, unclear responsibility and difficulty managing their agreements. Good experiences often depended on individual employees who helped customers navigate the organisation.

As digital sales and new ownership models developed, the group needed a direction that connected customer needs with commercial priorities and the capabilities required to deliver.

Understanding what customers need and value

Research combined customer, retailer and stakeholder interviews with a review of more than 100 documents. It revealed how uncertainty around finance could leave customers feeling vulnerable, while limited support after purchase weakened the relationship.

Breakthrough

Trust in finance often depended on individual staff, and price wasn’t always the deciding factor. One customer only understood their agreement after a salesperson sketched it by hand, and some customers chose costlier finance from a provider they trusted. Reassurance was shaping decisions the organisation had assumed were led by price.

Defining a customer-led vision for the future

Together, we created a vision built around customers feeling looked after, confident, valued and able to enjoy the experience. We translated these outcomes into service principles, including transparent information, proactive support and recognition of loyalty.

The vision gave teams across brands and functions a shared framework for designing the experience throughout the customer relationship.

Turning the vision into services and new sources of value

Cross-functional co-creation shaped seven service propositions, supported by 35 concepts. Prioritisation considered customer value, business value and ease of implementation.

Proposed services included early soft credit checks to help customers understand their borrowing options before choosing a vehicle, and self-service tools for managing financial agreements during ownership. Coordinated support was designed to help customers resolve issues without being passed between teams, while clearer onboarding aimed to help them understand their agreements and responsibilities. Together, these connected greater customer confidence and control with opportunities to improve conversion and reduce unnecessary effort.

Breakthrough

Customers saw the vehicle brand, retailer and finance provider as one relationship. Delivering on that expectation required shared information and clear ownership of customer needs across organisational boundaries.

Creating a route from strategy to digital delivery

We mapped the future journey and the capabilities needed to deliver it, then developed a phased roadmap and initial plans for three connected areas: customer contact management, vehicle selection and financial services selection. The plans addressed workflows, data handovers, technology and performance measurement.

The work gave the business a shared basis for prioritising investment across customer contact management, vehicle selection and financial services selection. By connecting proposed services to the data, technology and operational capabilities they required, it clarified the dependencies and sequence of change needed to deliver a more consistent customer experience.