Full Annual Report - Inchcape
Full Annual Report - Inchcape
Full Annual Report - Inchcape
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Section<br />
One<br />
Business<br />
review<br />
Our customers<br />
We place emphasis on the quality of our customer service and in 2007 we launched the Customer 1st initiative as part of the<br />
<strong>Inchcape</strong> Advantage programme to deliver outstanding customer service‘every time,every day,everywhere’.<br />
Following extensive consumer research, we<br />
developed and implemented Customer 1st<br />
processes, training and systems throughout<br />
our retail centres. In particular, this has<br />
allowed local management to set targets<br />
for each centre based on customer<br />
satisfaction measured through Net Promoter<br />
Score (NPS) and sales and service funnel<br />
management analysis. In 2008 the<br />
programme was expanded to include our<br />
aftersales operations.This is described in<br />
more detail on pages 14-15 of this <strong>Report</strong>.<br />
We have introduced a system for tracking<br />
daily customer information for both sales<br />
and aftersales operations including retail<br />
centre traffic, sales leads, test drives and<br />
vehicle and service orders. Results are<br />
collected and monitored daily through<br />
a dedicated award winning portal on<br />
the Group’s intranet.This information is<br />
aggregated overnight, providing reports<br />
and comparisons against brand, country,<br />
region and across time periods.This allows<br />
us to measure, for example, the number<br />
of orders taken as a percentage of leads<br />
and to set targets accordingly and gives<br />
management a strong knowledge of the<br />
automotive industry and detailed insight<br />
into particular markets.<br />
Our customer understanding is facilitated<br />
both by our mystery shop in each of our<br />
retail centres’ sales and aftersales<br />
operations and by quantitative analysis<br />
of our NPS results. On a monthly basis,<br />
each retail centre submits feedback<br />
from 20 buyers and a further 20 visitors<br />
about their experience at the centre<br />
together with feedback for at least 20<br />
aftersales customers.<br />
Guidance on best practice and detailed<br />
recommendations on opportunities to<br />
improve customer service are accessible<br />
to all retail centre employees via our portal.<br />
We use the Customer 1st programme to<br />
monitor both our own performance as the<br />
retailer for our brand partners and the<br />
performance of our third party retailers<br />
where we manage the retail networks as<br />
the distributor.<br />
We believe that this focus on customer<br />
service and sales technology will help<br />
us deliver a superior retail service to our<br />
customers. Further, an improved customer<br />
experience sets us apart from our<br />
competitors and builds loyalty, resulting<br />
in stronger relationships with our brand<br />
partners and leaving the Group better<br />
positioned to grow market share.<br />
Customer 1st in 2009<br />
• We carried out approximately 2,800<br />
mystery shop exercises in 240 retail<br />
centre showrooms across the Group.<br />
• We carried out approximately 2,200<br />
mystery shop exercises in 225 service<br />
centres across the Group.<br />
• We talked to 44,500 vehicle buyers and<br />
45,500 showroom visitors for our vehicle<br />
sales NPS.<br />
• We talked to over 54,400 service<br />
customers for our aftersales NPS.<br />
Our NPS position has improved across the<br />
Group in 2009.<br />
Supporting our customers<br />
We are committed to providing clear<br />
information to our customers to help<br />
support them in their vehicle purchase<br />
choices.This is provided in our showrooms<br />
and on our websites.<br />
As part of providing a customer focused<br />
aftersales service, we offer our customers<br />
an environmental vehicle health check<br />
which includes:<br />
• tyre pressure check<br />
• CO 2 test and emissions test<br />
• air condition check<br />
• engine lubricant test<br />
• emissions test<br />
In some of our retail centres, customers are<br />
offered a free ‘Green Test Drive’ when they<br />
visit us for a vehicle service.The Green Test<br />
Drive shares tips with the customer on how<br />
to drive more efficiently, how to improve their<br />
environmental impact and ultimately how<br />
to reduce their vehicle running costs.<br />
We also have accessories available that<br />
help our customers manage their<br />
environmental footprint including low rolling<br />
resistance tyres, which can reduce CO 2<br />
emission by around 2% and lower engine<br />
friction lubricants which can reduce CO 2<br />
emissions by around 1%.<br />
Our brand partners<br />
We carefully select the brand partners<br />
that we represent in each market.The<br />
automotive industry has made significant<br />
progress in reducing vehicle emissions<br />
and we fully support the investment that is<br />
being made by our brand partners in this<br />
area. In the UK, average new car emissions<br />
have fallen by over 13% in the last 10 years.<br />
The biggest impact that motorists could<br />
have on the environment is replacing<br />
older high emission vehicles and having<br />
their cars regularly serviced. Improvements<br />
in CO 2 emissions have been achieved<br />
in all product segments.As an industry<br />
leader, <strong>Inchcape</strong> stays close to CO 2<br />
technological developments.<br />
Improvements in CO 2 emissions<br />
2009 2008<br />
Industry average<br />
CO 2 g/km 149.8 158.7<br />
Improvement 5.6%<br />
<strong>Inchcape</strong> weighted<br />
average CO 2 g/km 148.9 160.9<br />
Improvement 7.5%<br />
www.inchcape.com 43
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