The problem Publicis Sapient set out to solve for Nissan is perfectly summed up by Madhu Nutakki, Chief Customer Experience and Digital Officer at the automaker:
“The car industry hasn’t changed much toward the customer experience in the last 100 years… customers, on the other hand, have changed. They want decisions made on the website to be communicated to a local dealership, they want one integrated app for everything Nissan, and they don’t want to be treated like a new customer every time they interact with us because data is not being shared effectively.”
Together, Nissan and Publicis Sapient started with the customer journey. They truly got to know their customers, their day to day and the friction points they face in relation to their vehicles. Along the way, Nissan took those friction points and set out to smooth them over by anticipating customer needs, connecting touchpoints and exceeding expectations.
To do this successfully, Nissan needed a whole new way of working. One that was customer-first, not just digital-first. “We moved away from our channel-based, organizational silos to a customer-centric view,” said Mike Lavigne, Director and Head of Experience Strategy and Design at Nissan. And the secret to successful transformation? Nissan learned it’s all about connecting the front-end with the back-end. What started off as a front-end optimization quickly expanded to the integration of several back-end data sets and systems and a scalable cloud infrastructure. By re-focusing the entire company around the customer, the automaker was able to unify all touchpoints across all channels and markets to see the world as its customers do.