Mercedes-Benz iService
Creating a digital service proposition to grow aftersales customers for the UK’s largest Mercedes-Benz dealer network.
The challenge
Inspired have been working with the UK's largest dealership network group of Mercedes-Benz since 2010 - responsible for delivering all digital, brand and media activity. Our first brief was a pretty urgent one – to elevate their acquisition and retention rates for aftersales customers, which at the time were the lowest in the UK. Their previous marketing strategy had been heavily focussed around traditional media platforms and direct mail contact strategies – it was ineffective, expensive, difficult to measure, and needed a radical rethink.
The work
Our research told us that the modern ‘time poor’ customer was more likely to book through a solution which worked to their needs, and fitted with their lifestlyle. We created ‘iService’ – a dynamic new online e-booking and digital marketing platform, completely focussed on the customer and enabling them to arrange their vehicle servicing through their preferred method, at a time to suit them. iService automatically contacts customers at 3 key touchpoints throughout the year, notifying them of a service, MOT or both and allowing them to complete the booking process online – with most of their data already pre-populated via eCRM. The contact centre team then manage the booking through to completion, keeping the customer engaged through iService at every stage.
The results
The end result has been a complete turnaround in their ability to attract and keep customers to their aftersales proposition. The results speak for themselves:
After 6 months:
- Bookings more than doubled
- A huge increase in conversion rates
- A significant reduction in internal costs (massively overachieving against the forecast ROI)
