‘Consumer Duty’ is the phrase creating ripples across many sectors.

It’s not, however, just a regulatory mandate or a buzzword for car dealerships; it holds their future firmly in its hands.

In recent years, the car industry has undergone massive shifts due to technological advancements, environmental concerns, and evolving consumer expectations. Amid these challenges, the focus on consumer protection has shot up the agenda.

The concept of ‘consumer duty’ is not only a core aspect of fostering trust but also holds long-term implications, presenting both challenges and opportunities, particularly for car dealerships in the UK. Understanding its importance and the ramifications is crucial for the future of this dynamic industry.

Consumer Duty is the responsibility of businesses to ensure that consumers’ interests are at the heart of their products, services, and overall operations. It isn’t merely about complying with obligations introduced by the Financial Conduct Authority in July 2023; it’s also about creating a culture where the welfare of the customer is paramount.

In the car industry, this ensures that vehicles are safe, environmentally sustainable, and fit for purpose. It means being transparent about the costs, maintenance needs, and potential life span of a vehicle. For car dealerships, it implies giving customers accurate information, fair financing options, and genuine after-sales support.

Building Trust

There are three key reasons why Consumer Duty is of prime importance to the car industry.

First, despite the perception that car dealers may have had in the past, think TV’s dodgy Arthur Daley, nowadays trust is vital in industries where high-value purchases, like cars, are involved. Consumers are more likely to purchase from, and remain loyal to, dealerships that have a reputation for prioritising their interests.

Second, as the world moves away from petrol and diesel towards electric and hybrid vehicles, a strong focus on consumer duty also pushes car manufacturers and dealers to adopt sustainable and ethical practices.

Third, by embracing consumer duty, car dealerships can ensure that they are always in compliance, avoiding potential legal repercussions and penalties, as regulatory bodies increasingly focus, rightly, on protecting consumers.

Implications for UK Dealerships

“¢ Products and services: Firms must ensure that their products and services are suitable for their customers’ needs. They must also be transparent about the risks and costs associated with these products and services.

“¢ Price and value: Firms must ensure that their customers are getting a fair price for their products and services. They must also be transparent about the pricing of these products and services.

“¢ Consumer understanding: Firms must make sure that their customers understand the products and services they are buying. They must also provide clear and concise information about these products and services.

“¢ Consumer support: Firms must provide support to their customers if they have any problems with the products or services they have bought. They must also be responsive to customer complaints.

“¢ Improved product and service disclosure: Dealers will need to make sure that they disclose all relevant information about the vehicles they sell, including any known defects or safety recalls.

“¢ More transparent pricing: Dealers will need to be more transparent about the pricing of their vehicles and finance products. They will also need to be clear about the total cost of ownership of a vehicle, including the cost of insurance, fuel, and maintenance.

“¢ Better customer education: Dealers will need to do a better job of educating their customers about the products and services they sell. They need to make sure that customers understand the risks and costs associated with these products and services.

“¢ More responsive customer service: Dealers will need to be more responsive to customer complaints. They will need to investigate complaints quickly and take steps to resolve them.

“¢ Shift in marketing strategies: Car dealerships will need to re-evaluate their marketing strategies to highlight their commitment to consumer duty. Authenticity will become a vital currency, and marketing efforts must be more transparent and consumer-centric.

“¢ Investment in after-sales services: Embracing consumer duty means providing comprehensive after-sales services. Dealerships will need to invest in training, infrastructure, and technology to ensure consumers receive the support they need post-purchase.

“¢ Enhanced training for sales personnel: The sales approach will shift from hard-selling tactics to consultative selling. Sales personnel must be trained to offer genuine advice, ensuring that consumers make informed decisions.

“¢ Adapting to technological changes: With the rise of electric vehicles and advanced driver assistance systems, dealerships will need to equip themselves with the knowledge and tools to cater to these evolving consumer needs.

“¢ Re-evaluation of financing options: Transparent and fair financing will be crucial. Dealerships might have to collaborate more closely with financial institutions to offer consumer-friendly financing options.

Embracing change

With these challenges, however, come opportunities, and competitive advantages.

By understanding consumers’ evolving needs, dealerships can diversify their product and service offerings. This could include branching into the second-hand electric vehicle market or offering bespoke maintenance services for hybrid cars.

Dealerships can forge partnerships with tech firms, environmental organisations, or local communities to drive consumer-centric initiatives.

By promoting electric vehicles, car-sharing, or sustainable transport solutions, dealerships can position themselves as leaders in the push for a greener future.

AI-powered assistance

And perhaps most importantly, dealerships can, and should, leverage the very latest technology. From virtual showrooms to AI-driven customer service and speech analytics, technology can help dealerships enhance the consumer experience and build trust.

Speech analytics, the process of analysing recorded calls to gather customer information, can play a significant role in transforming the way UK car dealerships operate and adapt to the increasing emphasis on consumer duty. By harnessing the power of this technology, organisations can draw insights that align closely with the ethos of consumer duty.

1. Enhanced Consumer Understanding

“¢ Feedback Loop: Speech analytics can pinpoint specific points of discontent or appreciation in customer interactions. By understanding these, car dealerships can improve their offerings and customer service. Conversations can be analysed retrospectively or agents can be nudged in real-time.

“¢ Trend Analysis: By analysing a large number of calls, dealerships can identify trending needs, complaints, or feedback, helping them to adapt or tailor their services accordingly.

2. Compliance and Training

“¢ Monitoring Regulatory Compliance: Speech analytics can ensure that communication guidelines, especially around transparent advertising and financing options, are adhered to, reducing the risk of violations, this can be done in real-time to ensure 100% compliance.

“¢ Sales Training: By evaluating the effectiveness of sales pitches or strategies, organisations can modify their training to ensure they are more in line with consumer duty principles. Conversational data points can be merged with outcome data to run AI-based models to understand what conversational markers lead to the most successful outcomes.

3. Improved Customer Experience

“¢ Identifying Pain Points: Dealerships can quickly identify areas where customers consistently experience difficulties, allowing for more agile responses and redesign of processes.

“¢ Personalization: By understanding specific customer needs, car dealerships can offer more tailored options, enhancing the consumer experience.

4. Enhanced Transparency

“¢ Recording Disclaimers and Agreements: Speech analytics can identify whether mandatory disclaimers or financing terms are being adequately communicated to customers, ensuring clarity, and preventing potential disputes retrospectively or in conversation.

“¢ Documentation: All verbal agreements or commitments can be tracked, ensuring that there’s a record of every promise made, aligning with the transparency mandate of consumer duty.

5. Efficient After-sales Service

“¢ Feedback Analysis: Post-purchase feedback or complaints can be systematically analysed to improve after-sales services.

“¢ Service Personalisation: Knowing a customer’s previous interactions and issues can guide service representatives in providing personalised solutions more efficiently. Speech analytics can provide an accurate summary of every interaction to add to your CRM.

6. Optimizing Marketing and Sales Efforts

“¢ Consumer Insights: Understanding what consumers want, based on their conversations, can aid in designing marketing campaigns that resonate.

“¢ Sales Strategy Refinement: Recognising what works and what doesn’t in real-time interactions can help in refining sales tactics that align with consumer duty.

7. Fostering Proactivity

“¢ Predictive Analysis: Speech analytics can offer insights into potential future trends or challenges, enabling dealerships to be proactive.

“¢ Issue Resolution: By spotting potential issues in real time, dealerships can take immediate action to resolve concerns before they escalate.

8. Identifying Vulnerability

“¢ Monitoring conversations to identify vulnerable customers and ensure that the correct actions have been taken on calls to acknowledge and adapt service and product offerings. This can be done retrospectively or in real-time.

By deploying FourNet’s speech analytics solutions, car dealerships can grasp the future with both hands, while fully complying with Consumer Duty regulations.

FourNet’s technology ‘showroom’ offers a broad spectrum of benefits to car dealerships in the UK, particularly in an era where consumer duty is paramount. The rich insights obtained can reshape strategies, improve customer experience, ensure compliance, and enhance transparency.

FourNet’s AI-powered solutions work with legacy call recording applications for retrospective analysis, are fully integrated into your existing CCAS solutions or can be provided as an end-to-end service in real time.

As the car industry continues to evolve, harnessing the capabilities of speech analytics will be pivotal for those businesses aiming to stay ahead of the curve, and their competitors, while genuinely prioritising their customers.

In my next blog, I’ll examine in fine detail just how much speech analytics can help you and protect your customers.

Get in touch to find out more.