Loyalty Smart Card / Case Study

A small Dealer Group with 5 retail outlets and six franchises became increasingly aware of three aspects of the business that would benefit from attention. These three areas were as follows: Workshop utilisation New and Used Car Customer retention Staff involvement in the success of the business. The DP looked at the LLL Smartcard solution, which addressed the issues in the following way: New and used car customers were all given a Dealership Branded smartcard that had a number of benefits preloaded into its memory chips. The benefits included Free Winter checks, MOT for life, discounts on accessories, and other items. Purchases of servicing, and accessories also qualified for points which mount up on the card during the period of ownership of the car, and these are redeemed against the customer´s new car when he/she orders it. This way, benefits given by the dealership do not cost anything to the dealership unless the customer buys a new car. They also went for the staff card. In this case, each staff member gets a smartcard personalised to him or her, and suddenly there is a tangible reason for the staff member to try to get their friends and relatives to bring their cars in for service or MOT. Each referral, whether it is for service or for car sales, each additional year of service, and each new training course that they participate in successfully, generates points on the card which can periodically be redeemed against bonus or car or parts discounts. The benefits of the strategy were tremendous – staff members were suddenly interested in generating more workshop work, because for once they felt that their efforts were really being appreciated. The new car customer referrals became highly profitable for the staff members, which in turn resulted in increased new and used car sales. The used car customers started using the workshops and parts departments because they enjoyed a number of free benefits, and began to familiarise themselves with the aftersales facilities. Service reception staff were able to point out that service costs in the franchised outlet were sometimes even cheaper than "under the railway arches" and were certainly more reliable. Also, as the dealer group is multi-franchise, if any customers get disenchanted with one particular brand, there is an incentive for him/her to stay with the dealer group, albeit with a difference brand of product. The smart cards starts to build loyalty to the dealer group not just to the brands that they sell.