Driving sales for a new generation

It could be a result of the post-lockdown era or the increasing presence of telephone-phobic Gen Z in the workforce, but many companies are discovering that their customers no longer want to communicate via phone, website, or even email — perhaps preferring a more digital customer experience.

Even organisations that might not regard themselves as “digital first” are recognising that they need to be where their customers are, and that might no longer be on the other end of a landline.

Take UK and Europe-wide company Euro Car Parts — owned by the LKQ Corporation — which is something of a sleeping giant. The firm now boasts more than 330 branches and stocks over 160,000 distinct parts for automobiles.

The spare parts firm’s purpose-built 1 million sq ft national distribution centre in Tamworth, UK, is second only in size to Amazon’s warehouses. And yet, as head of sales excellence Chole Thomson explains: “Unless you’ve ordered a spare part from us, you’ve probably never heard of us!”

Given the size and scale of Euro Car Parts, it’s surprising to learn that, until recently, its sales offices relied on an old, end-of-life telephony system. Phone desks were still ringing constantly, but these were increasingly supplemented by WhatsApp messages between sales team members using their personal devices and customers.

According to Thomson, the firm recognised the need to bring these customer interactions back in-house and to save valuable data so that they could build up a better profile of these customers and their preferences.

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Euro Car Parts turned to customer experience vendor Genesys to integrate voice notes, WhatsApp, and other digital channels to meet these new generational customers’ expectations.

For Thomson, another advantage of using Genesys’ cloud-based orchestration system was getting a heads-up on incoming calls.

“Our old school way of doing things was to memorise the incoming phone number that came up on the screen so that you’d know ‘that is Sandra!’

“But knowing that a call is coming from ‘Bob’s Garage’ and immediately being able to see the customer’s likes/dislikes brand-wise is helpful,” Thomson enthuses.

The new system was installed in February and has now launched in England, Scotland, and Wales. Genesys and WhatsApp were fully deployed by mid-May, and according to Thomson, Euro Car Parts is now dealing with over 500 brand new WhatsApp conversations every day; a figure that, she adds, is growing “week-on-week”.

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Data dive

One of the big business benefits of moving to the new system has been the amount of data the company has been able to gather on its customers and internal processes, according to Thomson.

It is currently in the process of pulling in the latest info it has gained from Genesys so that it can apply this data in meaningful ways.

“We’ve never had as much data as we do now,” she says. “We don’t have any more blind spots. We can see everything. We can now analyse the peaks and troughs of the different queries we receive as well as the different sales that are coming in. So, we can enhance that journey and look at what’s working and not working for our sales teams.”

In terms of the WhatsApp integration, Thomson explains that a typical interaction might include a customer taking a picture of a registration plate, and requesting some brake pads or a clutch and flywheel.

“The sales advisor will order that part but now they will be able to look at what those customer preferences are and add any weekly specials that we might have on brake fluid, for instance,” she says.

She adds that while Euro Car Parts comprises of sales offices, rather than contact centres, the firm is looking closely at this model and its customer journeys.

“We’re currently looking at what CX centres do well, looking at the customer journey and are learning how we bring that into our world,” she says.

AI capabilities

According to Thomson, the next step for Euro Car Parts is to integrate AI and gamification into its new orchestration system.

“We’re excited about using AI for data mining and sentiment analysis to understand what our customers want,” she says.

“AI will let us know things like whether we’ve already set up a promotion for a weekly deal that we’ve already offered before, five times. Or finding out whether there’s a tool on offer that they want. We want to use that information and give the customer what they want.”

Gamification, she adds, will also help celebrate the performance of the company’s sales teams, by giving managers a clear view of who the top performers are.

“In the past it was a bit more unpredictable – someone could just have sold one expensive part. Now we can see who has really been working hard on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. It will certainly make them more competitive!”

• Chloe Thomson spoke with TechInformed at Genesys Xperience UKI tour 2024 in June at the Truman Brewery in East London. Live event photography by Nick Beard