[{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BlogPosting","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2020\/08\/04\/car-buying-experience\/#BlogPosting","mainEntityOfPage":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2020\/08\/04\/car-buying-experience\/","headline":"The car buying experience: Engaging the reluctant consumer","name":"The car buying experience: Engaging the reluctant consumer","description":"The car buying experience is changing course. Manufacturers must overcome the barriers of a mostly-digital world by focusing on UX, CX, and BX.  ","datePublished":"2020-08-04","dateModified":"2024-06-13","author":{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/contributor\/rob-murray\/#Person","name":"Rob Murray","url":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/contributor\/rob-murray\/","identifier":445,"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d948907aac0a6913c75b807f6a664c95c476684bc0b8c590d3414a0f285cbb8f?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d948907aac0a6913c75b807f6a664c95c476684bc0b8c590d3414a0f285cbb8f?s=96&d=mm&r=g","height":96,"width":96}},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"The Future of Commerce","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/logo-foc-schema-app-1.png","url":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/logo-foc-schema-app-1.png","width":172,"height":60}},"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/car-buying-experience.jpg","url":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/car-buying-experience.jpg","height":375,"width":1200},"url":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2020\/08\/04\/car-buying-experience\/","about":["Auto",{"@type":"Thing","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/commerce\/commerce-general\/","name":"Commerce","sameAs":["https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Commerce","http:\/\/www.wikidata.org\/entity\/Q26643"]},"COVID-19 and Business",{"@type":"Thing","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/customer-experience\/","name":"Customer Experience","sameAs":["https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Customer_experience","http:\/\/www.wikidata.org\/entity\/Q984142"]},{"@type":"Thing","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/customer-experience\/customer-experience-general\/","name":"Customer Experience","sameAs":["https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Customer_experience","http:\/\/www.wikidata.org\/entity\/Q984142"]},"Retail Trends, Data, News"],"wordCount":1853,"keywords":["Auto Industry","Customer Experience | CX"],"articleBody":"I\u2019m a \u2018hand-raiser\u2019. Prompted by the actions of thousands of other Americans, I’m actively preparing to buy a car. Please note, I don\u2019t even have a driver\u2019s license. As I embark on the car buying experience, though, I can\u2019t help but think like a designer.Cars are obviously amazing machines, and they’ve always offered their owners incredible freedom. In a way we couldn’t have imagined a few months ago, there’s something newly compelling about car ownership \u2013 safety. Potentially great news for car manufacturers, it means that there’s an immediate and urgent pressure for the car buying journey to transform.Here are some of my observations and a few recommendations for the auto-industry as they grapple with the same issue that we all are dealing with\u2026 global behavioral disruption.\u00a0Curves ahead: Disruption spurring changes across the auto industryIt\u2019s very clear that the global auto industry is recalibrating – and that the car buying experience is changing, too. In January of this year, CNBC reported that US auto sales would be about 17 million vehicles in 2020. That number, constantly being revised is now expected to be about 13 million. USNEWS notes that April car sales were off by 45% from 2019, but that was only 4% off by the second week in July.Numbers, however, only tell part of the story.Attitudes, expectations, and behaviors are shifting and adapting. Some will eventually return to pre-2020 standards, while others will continue to be shaped by our news realities.In April, Mintel notes that car buyers fall into two camps \u2013 \u2018WANT car buyers\u2019 and \u2018NEED car buyers\u2019. The \u2018Wants\u2019 are expected to be very deliberate about owning a particular vehicle longer due to economic concerns, the \u2018Needs\u2019 will buy a car in the next 3 to 6 months due to lease expiration, mechanical issues, or general reliability.COVID-19 is making auto ownership more appealing and the car buying experience more importantI contend, through my personal bias, that there’s actually a third group, the \u2018OPPORTUNIST car buyers.\u2019The Opportunists, like me, are exploring and weighing the increased flexibility, freedom, and – above all – health related peace of mind that automobile ownership would offer. This includes who have not owned or leased a car in years as well as those who have never owned a car.In the new world, they no longer trust the close quarters, and high touch environments of public transport. They want to be able to experience the world on their own term, and that is with a focus on limiting their exposure to contact with others. The car has recently become associated with a type of safety and freedom previously overlooked\u2026wellness.With a new urgency to be able to quickly get to family and friends in a social distant environment, people also want to be able to attend to more mundane, everyday activities like obtaining food and other supplies.Until this spring, cars were often focused on the daily commute. It has now morphed into a symbol of care and reduced health risk. Car owners have a new advantage, a highly sought after one, over non-car owners. Car ownership is the ultimate social distancing enabler.Historically closed to the idea of purchasing a vehicle, some people have turned to rentals and car share services as a workaround to avoid both public transportation and ride share services. Interestingly, this taste of car ownership seems to be a gateway drug to actually purchasing one.Amazon.car, butts in seats, and voice of the customer\u00a0With a laser focus on contactless and convenient experiences, is it possible to simply buy a car online? Yes. And no. It depends.Being spoiled by Amazon, the first thing I googled was whether Amazon sells cars. No. But\u2026 they do have a Vehicles-Amazon research site and community with Amazon reviews. And they have an extensive auto parts site for after-market products. I do wish they had an \u2018Amazon.car\u2019. Very dangerous to have \u2018one-click purchase\u2019 activated.CarMax, Vroom, Carvana, and Tesla and others all offer full digital pixel-to-door commerce. From my experiences, it\u2019s possible to buy online through other manufactures and retailers, but it\u2019s complicated. That is, of course, my personal impression. I have no time to actually review all of the car related sites.\u00a0 I have, after all, a car purchase to make.To keep the mere tire kickers satisfied, there are more virtual tours via 360 spins and YouTube videos that ever before. These virtual experiences act as a filter so those who actually show up for a test drive are more likely to actually become buyers.Unfortunately, there are a great many that disappoint. The \u2018QuickTime 360 Spin\u2019 of days gone by was quite the innovation for its day, as was IPIX. VR seems obvious so I\u2019m still surprised I still cannot find high-resolution VR tours of cars on my Oculus Quest – not even one sad little prototype or beta test.Real estate has moved to 360 videos to narrow choice. Auto websites are doing the same. The intent is to help a consumer narrow their choice to one specific test drive and to become more invested in the end game purchase. In fact, the concept of \u2018butts in seats\u2019 comes to mind here. It may be anecdotal or even apocryphal, but if you\u2019ve worked in the auto industry, this is a pillar of the \u2018leading indicator\u2019.A person who takes a test-drive and has a relatively positive experience is highly likely to buy that car within 30-days. True or not, there was a time when dealers would provide incentives to take a test drive.This precursor behavior was the one behavioral experience event all salespeople aimed for. Get their butts in the seat. It makes perfect sense, but there’s a great deal that can get lost in the virtual world. It’s certainly not visceral. It doesn\u2019t engage all the senses. Where is that new car smell? How does the door sound when it closes, or the engine (if there is one) sound when it starts?I\u2019m reminded of a Media Influencer Kit (that\u2019s a real thing) that was sent to online influencers to promote a new show called Game of Thrones. Success is never a guarantee, so HBO sent a few dozen of these hand-made sensorial kits out to promote the show. The kits contained carefully designed oils that when dipped in paper could be combined to recreate smells from the show \u2013 such as the kitchen, or a rainy day, or flowers that were featured. It was full-on amazing and basically \u2018olfactory VR.\u2019 I wonder what the auto industry is working on to influence us \u2013 especially those of us who are new to the market?A friend recently commented that \u201cI should not be trusted to buy a car.\u201d She was correct, as most of us are in no way qualified to select and buy a complex and extremely expensive machine. Once basic comfort, safety, price, performance, efficiency concerns are met, it all comes down to emotion. There\u2019s not much that is rational about the process even if we try to convince ourselves otherwise. It\u2019s a cognitive mess.It’s always been a matter of trustMintel also reported in April that \u201cHalf of consumers say they dislike visiting dealerships and that they find salespeople to be untrustworthy.\u201d This is yet another hurdle for the industry.\u00a0 In the past, the industry has been viewed with a profound lack of trust so the virtual buying experience will need to overcome that.What effect will this lack of trust have in the execution during the final moments of the digital car purchase experience?Someone once said our current world is not so much a disrupter as it is an accelerator. I like this sentiment. We’re seeing the auto industry accelerating the path into digital (but not yet VR). Young people were previously discounted as potential car owners. There were, after all, often not even interested in getting drivers licenses. They have fundamentally changed their attitudes around ownership of cars and are now appreciating the freedom and safety that come with car ownership.On the whole, our spending and savings habits are accelerating into the behaviors of retirees. Spend less, save more, travel less, cook more. Focus on health, safety, and wellness and spend more time with a smaller circle of friends. Given this acceleration of both good and bad, what can the auto industry do? (aside from VR\u2026)The car buying experience: Three factors contribute to overall outcomesA Tesla owner once told me that the first time he test drove his car, it was a transformative car buying experience. It\u2019s not the futuristic iPad like dashboard or even the speed of the car that was the most compelling aspect. It was the feeling of instant torque. He said that once you feel this physical sensation, you can\u2019t do without it. The electric power is instantly translated to kinetic energy which flows to each wheel. There are blessedly no gears, shafts, gee-gaws, and doo-dads to get in the way. It\u2019s elegant. It\u2019s simple.And this is what sells the car: The experience is everything.There is a semi-permeable membrane that we must struggle through that stands between a person and actually owning a car. It is inherently uncomfortable because \u2013 for most people \u2013 it is saturated with unknowns. Navigating landscape with no trusted GPS for this journey means it is easy to make a wrong turn, it is easy to get lost, it is easy to feel vulnerable.Some car manufacturers have figured out the car buying experience, like Tesla. Given the industry trust issues and new safety issues, auto manufacturers need to rebuild the buying experience, so it is commensurate with the significance of the investment. I don\u2019t think we\u2019re going back to 2019. All the components of experience have to be re-evaluated, for the sake of the industry, and the sake of OPPORTUNISTS like me.In a dramatic over-simplification of experience, one can think of experience being broken into three components – UX, CX, and BX:User Experience \u2013 Head: \u201cThis works great.\u201dCustomer Experience \u2013 Heart: \u201cI just love this.\u201dBrand Experience \u2013 Soul: \u201cI cannot believe I ever lived without this.\u201dIt’s important to consider this because car manufacturers do lots of research and conduct many surveys.\u00a0 They’re trying to do all the right things to bring experience to life – that’s not at all the problem.The problem is the tendency to look at the world through silos of UX-CX-BX. That means the dots do not get connected and the full potential of the ideal customer experience never really comes together.So, I\u2019m a \u2018hand-raiser.\u2019 I think I want a car. I do not look forward to this journey.Thank you for reading and I hope to NOT see you any of you on the road. I really need practice driving\u2026 and definitely need insurance. That\u2019s a story for next time.  Rev up revenue + customer loyalty.Discover how digital tech is transforming the auto industry HERE."},{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"2020","item":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2020\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"08","item":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2020\/\/08\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"04","item":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2020\/\/08\/\/04\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":4,"name":"The car buying experience: Engaging the reluctant consumer","item":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2020\/08\/04\/car-buying-experience\/#breadcrumbitem"}]}]