Given the massive volumes of customer and vehicle data being held by automotive enterprises, customers demand that their data be used to empower transparency during shopping, efficiency amid the sales process and cost savings on maintenance while they enjoy the ownership of the vehicle. However, the ecosystem of vehicle sales and ownership is typically owned by various players, resulting in disconnected experiences. 

Complexity is compounded as customers engage with this variety of players through a range of touchpoints such as digital channels including web and mobile apps, at the dealership, via tools that enable a co-browsing experience and with customer service agents across devices.

This diagram illustrates the ecosystem players and the respective customer experience processes they traditionally “own” or act as a steward.

Today’s customers expect these experiences to be seamless and consistent, and the best way to do that is a comprehensive and integrated data strategy from each player in the engagement model. Quality and consistency enhance trust in the brand. With informed data strategies, these stakeholders can use the most relevant information available to help contextualize interactions and deliver consistent experiences, despite their differences in role and structure in the ecosystem.

To elevate experiences, all customer-facing applications and professionals (including dealer employees and customer service agents) must be able to draw on customer insights from the data that exists across enterprises. This requires orchestration. See below for a conceptual view of an orchestration layer that provides data aggregation services for specific scenarios to all relevant channels.

How data sources integrate with distribution between OEMs, Dealers and Captive Finance

Given that changes to the legacy multi-tier marketing and distribution model will be gradual for most automotive enterprises, what can be done now to unify data and experiences? And who should build this orchestration layer? 

Considering the interaction volume that captives have with the customer and their unique vantage point as a connector across organizational silos and vehicle and customer lifecycles, captives should play a leading role in orchestrating experience for the customer. And for vehicles that are not financed by the captive, there remains an opportunity to play this role, such as when a customer secures an extended warranty or other protection product from the captive as a similar data exchange is also executed.  

While there is an argument that the captives should lead this orchestration layer due to the early exchange of a wealth of customer data, it is key that all ecosystem players come together in this orchestration effort. The customer journey should be designed collectively, but modularly, by each player to accommodate a variety of channels and unique variations and dimensions, while still providing a cohesive lifetime of connected customer journeys. 

While a data strategy that connects the range of automotive entities is critical, it also needs to address some unique data-centric obstacles to unifying experiences. These include:

To provide a cohesive and consistent brand experience, OEMs and captive finance companies need to partner with their dealers around data strategies and orchestration capabilities so that all customer interactions are based on the same access and insights to common customer data and journeys with appropriate boundaries for the unique roles of each player. Such consistency will improve customer experiences, create profitable opportunities for all ecosystem partners and drive brand loyalty.  

This move will require data sharing and appropriate agreements, an orchestration layer and investment in dealer experience assets to enable third-party applications to benefit from the orchestrated data. Captives are in a unique position to play the catalyst role in these efforts in conjunction with their OEM and dealer partners. 

Publicis Sapient is a recognized global leader in digital business transformation for enterprises across transportation and mobility, financial services and a range of industry verticals. Our unique client success in data transformation empowers extraordinary customer experiences across OEMs, captives and dealers and delivers bottom-line impact for automotive enterprises. When you are ready to streamline and monetize your customer journeys, we combine unique capabilities from strategy to delivery to successfully get you there.