Increasing Customer Retention at the Dealership

Background

The client, local dealership, sought to increase customer service retention by increasing sales of Planned Preventive Maintenance (PPM) plans*. The goal was to demonstrate how NEC’s Visitor Recognition white label product would achieve the business objective.

*PPM plans: Cover a predefined period of scheduled vehicle maintenance—such as oil changes and tire rotations—based on the guidelines in the vehicle's owner’s manual. Leading to customer retention as well as upselling.

NEC’s Visitor Recognition Product

Touch-free self-service product using facial recognition to check in/check out customers, a process normally provided by a front desk receptionist.

The challenge, team, and process

As the UX Designer, I was challenged with leading my team and the client through a Design Thinking discovery engagement that included interviews, feedback synthesis, and artifact production.

The Team

  • Customer Success Manager - Worked with client to establish a working agreement and remove barriers during the discovery phase e.g. on-site employee interviews.

  • Product Manager - Ensured the solution worked towards the client goals while establishing a value-delivery roadmap.

  • Solution Architect - Lead the implementation with the client’s environment, integrating to CDK’s and NEC’s services

  • UX Designer - Lead the research effort to design a customer experience that facilitates the purchase of PPM.

Project Process Overview

User Interviews > Problem Definition > Ideation Workshop > Process Blueprint > Validation

Research - User Interviews

In collaboration with the Customer Success Manager, I was able to conduct on-site employee and customer interviews.

Customer Interviews

Customers perceived dealership PPM plans as costly and with long service wait times and prefer fast, affordable, and professional services.

Customer Needs:

  • Avoid paying higher dealership costs.

  • Minimize the time spent getting vehicle serviced.

  • Maintain their vehicle in optimal condition.

  • Protect the value of their purchase

F&I Interviews

PPM plans present cost-savings for customers. Typically, they are purchased during or after the F&I phase of the vehicle purchase process.

PPM Plan Benefits:

  • Fixed Costs: Protects from inflationary prices.

  • Fast Service: When scheduled ahead of time.

  • Value Protection: Serviced by OEM-Cert. Service Technicians, extending the vehicle lifespan and resale value.

Problem Definition

The interviews revealed that customer’s perception on PPM plans overshadowed the true benefits. Therefore our problem statement focused on creating an experience that changed the customer perspective on PPM plans.

How might we help customers see PPM plans as the obvious choice to meet their needs?

Solution Ideation

Together with my product team and an SME (F&I Sales Rep), we flushed out ideas that answer the problem statement. The ideas centered around ways to present convincing content that compared the cost-savings of a PPM plan against the rising costs of going to non-OEM certified vehicle repair shops over time risking the vehicle value.

Presenting the Solution

We presented a visualization of the end-to-end experience, with a Process Blueprint (See Image D) that demonstrated how the customer experience is supported by touch-points, back-end services, and the F&I sales reps. This helped the client see how the solution fits and enhances the customer journey.

Image B - Shows how the customer experience is supported from end-to-end by not just the product but service as a whole.

Outcome and Results

During the pilot, 4 PPM plans were sold as a direct result of the new customer flow, which enabled F&I Representatives to engage customers with personalized information about the benefits of the PPM plan. Increasing the monthly PPM plan sales by 24%. However, low adoption ended the pilot.

Image D - NEC’s Visitor Recognition table UI with the dealership’s branding.

What went wrong?

  • We leaned heavily on the Visitor Recognition tech (biometrics) without fully addressing customer privacy concerns or mental models. Not every customer opt-ed in to use the solution due privacy concerns.

    • The research did not include customer sentiment on using facial recognition, leading to low-adoption.

  • Only one employee role (F&I Sales Rep) was included in the workshop, leaving most feeling like the new process was imposed without seeing clear benefits to them (e.g., extra training for no commission boost).

    • UX research should have included deeper empathy work with employees to align incentives and reduce friction in their workflow.

Key Lessons Learned

  • Customers reject products not only because of the product’s flaws, but due to misaligned mental models (e.g., "dealerships are expensive, why does the dealership need my face?").

  • Benefit framing, PPMs can be presented as "cost-saving shields" (vs. "upsells") when compared to using local repair shops over time with data visualization.

  • The "Visitor Recognition" kiosk’s success depended on employee buy-in, not just customer adoption.