Design Mind frogcast Ep.51 – The CX Auto Race is On

Today on our show, we’re pulling up at the junction of customer experience and automotive. To drive this conversation forward, we’re joined by Christina Schehl, an Executive Vice President and Head of Germany at frog, part of Capgemini Invent. Christina brings her experience leading global CX transformation programs with top automotive brands as well as insights from her recently published thought leadership in the space. Join us as we explore innovative strategies to revolutionize customer journeys across the automotive industry.

Listen to the podcast episode below. You can also find the Design Mind frogcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and anywhere you listen to podcasts.

Episode Transcript:

Design Mind frogcast

Episode 51: The CX Auto Race is On

Guest: Christina Schehl, Executive Vice President and Head of Germany, frog, part of Capgemini Invent

[00:09] Elizabeth Wood: Welcome to the Design Mind frogcast. Each episode, we go behind the scenes to meet the people designing what’s next in the world of products, services and experiences, both here at frog and far, far outside the pond. I’m Elizabeth Wood.

[00:24] Elizabeth Wood: Today on our show, we’re pulling up at the junction of customer experience and automotive. To drive this conversation forward, we’re joined by Christina Schehl, an Executive Vice President and Head of Germany at frog, part of Capgemini Invent. Christina brings her experience leading global CX transformation programs with top automotive brands, plus new insights from the recently published Capgemini Research Institute report: Joining the race: Automotive’s drive to catch up with customer experience, which she co-authored. Find the link to this report and more recent frog publications on automotive in our show notes. But first, here’s Christina.

[01:01] Christina Schehl: In general, customer experience is not a specific moment. It’s the sum of all interactions that a customer has with a brand over time across all touch points. And I think key pillars definitely include consistency across all touch points, so seamlessness. It also includes personalization and the relevance to individual customer needs. So what we are really interested in, it’s about also creating memorable and differentiating moments—to make customers smile and be surprised maybe. And yes, of course, it’s always about convenience for customers, hassle-free support. Yeah, and at the end, it’s also about offering the right product and service at the right time at the right channel that the customer prefers. So I think these are the key pillars of a good customer experience.

[01:55] Christina Schehl: My name is Christina Schehl. I’m an Executive Vice President at Capgemini Invent, and I’m leading the Business Reinvention and Customer Experience team in Germany, and being therefore Head of frog, which is part of Capgemini Invent.

[02:09] Christina Schehl: Loyalty is super important for the automotive industry. And if you look to the companies, they’re increasingly adopting loyalty strategies from other sectors. Consumer products and retail is a good example, and these loyalty programs in automotive are evolving to a certain point. Many of them focus more on creating, I would say, exclusive experiences focused on community building. In the end, it’s all about keeping customers engaged with the brand, beyond the initial purchase phase, throughout the usage phase—interacting with them, but also with giving them the stickiness effect to the brand to make sure that the next car is, of course, also purchased by the same brand.

[02:56] Elizabeth Wood: Christina’s goal has always been to improve experiences and outcomes for her clients and their customers, whether that involves expanding their consumer outlook, applying behavioral science or making sure to put creativity at the forefront.

[03:09] Christina Schehl: I oversee over 350 experts in strategy, design, data and technology. And personally, I have more than 15 years’ experience in guiding global companies in various industries through their customer experience transformation, always looking at the marketing, sales and service departments to question how to unlock new business models and drive sustainable growth.

[03:29] Christina Schehl: I think, for me, the guiding principle was always to really challenge the status quo, to always think radical somehow, to make a difference for our clients, but also for the customers of our clients, and to really change things for the better somehow. I have chosen Capgemini Invent 13 years ago. It’s a long time already. I can’t believe it sometimes. And Invent is one of the most well known strategy and management consulting brands globally, and frog has therefore chosen me as we acquired frog as part of a large engineering company acquisition a couple of years ago. But what I really love about the brand frog is its rebellion mindset. It’s very much a forward-thinking approach that frog has, and that’s what I really like and appreciate about being at frog. I love it.

[04:20] Christina Schehl: I always wanted to make a difference for organizations interacting with their customers, no matter if it’s B2C or B2B, and how to really drive growth through innovation. And it basically has a direct impact on all our lives while interacting with brands, and that’s why I’m super excited about helping companies to deliver superior service and address customer needs when customers are shopping or having an issue and they need support. And it’s also a very creative space where innovation is at the forefront. So I think this is basically the reason why I always was so passionate about working in the customer experience space.

[05:01] Christina Schehl: There are so many amazing projects I have done. You can’t imagine. If I should mention a couple of them, I think one exciting one was definitely when I shaped the retail experience around the globe of a premium automotive company for I think three years. Another one was definitely helping a premium automotive company to shape their digital customer experience, from the awareness to the configuration to even the online sales experience that customers have when purchasing a car. And maybe a cross-industry example is when we defined the future customer loyalty program for a large international retailer.

[05:41] Christina Schehl: We are, first of all, leveraging behavioral science and human-centered design principles to really understand what customers need, and based on that research and insight that we gain, we are supporting them with our end-to-end capabilities, from strategy to design to data and even to technology and creative work. So we are able to really support our clients end-to-end when it comes to the question of ‘how does a good customer experience look?’ And I think what is also important, and many companies do, is to look from a cross-industry perspective on what is really good customer experience, and that’s also something that we are elevating, of course. And for our clients, to bring these kind of cross-industry impulses, external impulses, to the client, to enrich our ideas on how to really improve customer experiences at this specific brand.

[06:38] Christina Schehl: So what we see is basically that, of course, consumer products and retail are at the forefront. But it’s not the only industry where we see where the customers have the best experience. There are tech companies like Apple, but also streaming services like Netflix who are really setting high standards when it comes to customer experience. And they excel, actually, because they offer highly personalized recommendations based on user data. They offer seamless integration between their physical and digital touch points with the customers. They’re highly responsive, and offer real-time customer support, and they use also innovative digital tools that enhance convenience and the engagement with customers. Yeah, but it’s definitely consumer products and retail and more in the tech space and in the streaming services space.

[07:33] Elizabeth Wood: While industries such as consumer products and retail are leading the way when it comes to customer experiences, it’s clear that OEMs—manufacturers in the automotive space—are needing to step up a gear.

[07:45] Christina Schehl: The automotive industry is currently undergoing a significant transformation. OEMs are struggling a lot due to the low sales of electric vehicles and the pressure of their business in China. And at the same time, we see a tremendous opportunity for them. Let’s call it really an opportunity and not a challenge to improve their customer experience. But also, of course, in the end, with a better customer experience to drive sales and drive transactions. So I think this is something where a turnaround is needed from the companies to do so.

[08:19] Christina Schehl: The industry is evolving in thorough ways. Companies are integrating digital touch points to create omnichannel experiences, including web, app, all the different digital touch points. I think what is an important thing is that over the last years, all automotive companies are trying to push their sales towards the online world. So companies like Penske Automotive, for example, are offering online credit applications and things like that. So this is a strong shift that is currently going on, that everything is going more to the digital world—where customers can access information at the different touch points digitally, but also even purchase cars, accessories and services on the web.

[09:08] Elizabeth Wood: This leads us to the recent Capgemini Research Institute report, co-authored by Christina. Filled with insights from a survey of thousands of industry leads and automotive customers around the world, the report sheds light on the industry’s current opportunity to pick up the pace when it comes to CX.

[09:24] Christina Schehl: So we have the well-known Capgemini Research Institute, which is doing regular reports. Our recent report about customer experience in automotive is titled ‘Joining the race: Automotive’s drive to catch up with customer experience,’ and it actually provides a comprehensive look at the current state of customer experience in the automotive industry. And for that, we conducted actually a global survey involving more than 10,000 automotive customers from different countries, as well as 600 senior executives from various segments of the automotive industry. And this report actually gave us a balanced view from both the consumer, but also from the industry professional perspective.

[10:09] Christina Schehl: I think one interesting key finding was that automotive manufacturers and dealers rank surprisingly low in customer experience compared to other consumer industries. To be more precise, they are at ninth place and eleventh place. So automotive companies and retailers, out of 13 industries which were surveyed, it’s a really low result in terms of customer experience ranking. And the report has actually given us a very clear picture of where the automotive industry stands and where it actually needs to go—so how it needs to evolve. It’s a call to action in the end for the industry to step up their game in customer experience very urgently.

[10:55] Christina Schehl: It actually addresses everyone working in the customer experience space in an automotive company, no matter which organizational level. So really starting from top management to team members, and it offers an in-depth analysis of how customer experience in the automotive industry needs to evolve driven by the shift. For example, from traditional vehicle ownership to modern mobility models. For example through ride sharing and subscription services. And it also gives a critical insight about current consumer expectations towards the industry, and compares it specifically to the experience in other industries.

[11:36] Christina Schehl: I think the most interesting statistic from the survey was to me, actually, that only 18% of automotive companies have a current and comprehensive CX strategy. That’s from what they say. And this is very surprising, because normally, all the companies have anchored customer experience and customer centricity in their strategy, but obviously it’s not really implemented. So this gap is quite interesting to see that companies are reflecting on that. Obviously also it’s a very siloed approach that they are still following when looking at the customer experience, and there are still silos between marketing, sales, commerce and after sales that need to be overcome.

[12:24] Elizabeth Wood: We’re going to take a short break. When we return Christina will share her perspectives on the key shifts in automotive.

[13:07] Elizabeth Wood: Now back to Christina Schehl of frog Germany with more insights from the new CX in automotive report published by the Capgemini Research Institute.

[13:16] Christina Schehl: Cross-functional collaboration is definitely something that needs to accelerate. Just 27% actively engaged marketing teams, for example, in customer experience initiatives, and even only 17% IT and digital. So this needs to dramatically change to ensure cross-department collaboration. The industry, I mean, they must adapt to the changing consumer preferences. Particularly in Europe, where, for example, you have 65% of Gen Z individuals living in urban areas and at the same time, 68% in suburban settings are inclined towards end-to-end mobility services. And, Gen Z definitely expect a completely different customer experience compared to other generations than we will ever see. And this is getting more and more important, so this target group will get more and more important, and organizations need to understand what are the specific needs of this generation and how they want to buy. Or even asking the questions: Do they still want to buy a car or work with a subscription model? Or even with a non-ownership model?

[14:28] Christina Schehl: Mobility as a service is getting more and more important. I mean, 9% of global consumers already use multimodal transportation solutions, and I’m very sure that this will increase significantly over the next years. And it’s not about owning a car anymore, only. It’s about really I need the mobility service at a certain point in time, and I need to be able to simply get access to it, wherever I need it, in the way I need it.

[15:01] Christina Schehl: One big trend is going away from I would say, traditional ownership model of a car, towards a more comprehensive mobility solution ecosystem. Because 65% that we see in the study of consumers are open to consider actually end-to-end mobility services. So there is a tremendous shift coming up from a traditional ownership phase towards a more, I would say, flexible approach towards mobility services. So that’s definitely one point.

[15:35] Christina Schehl: Another trend, of course, is AI. AI is here to stay, and it will completely disrupt the digital experience of customers in the automotive industry. They will go to a website where they don’t need to click through the navigation, but intuitively talk to an agent, a virtual agent that is helping to, for example, configure the car and to really make the deal or go to the next dealership or answering questions. So that’s a tremendous shift. And even AI might impact also the physical experience that customers have when they are entering a dealership. And the question at the end is also, of course, then, how AI will be integrated into dealerships? So what are, for example, use cases that AI will drive in the dealership, in the retail experience that customers perceive in the future? So I think this is also a very important point.

[16:31] Christina Schehl: And AI will also, of course, somehow change significantly the experience of a customer and also a driver in the future, in the in-car experience. When talking to a personal assistant without having the need to walk through a navigation system with media and entertainment, but having someone who is somehow maybe becoming the best friend in the car to help with the questions around, for example, what’s the next restaurant here? Where can I go because I want to have some pasta? The AI is generating you a best matched solution where to go with the best recommendation. So this is completely changing also the in-car experience. So we should not underestimate the potential of AI and its impact towards this industry.

[17:22] Elizabeth Wood: So, while the report shows that automotive needs to go the extra mile to meet the benchmarks other industries have set, isolated initiatives are likely to fall short of real change. Christina examines the role that taking a holistic, collaborative view—and building a comprehensive strategy to match—has to play.

[17:41] Christina Schehl: It needs to have a comprehensive CX strategy in place to also improve cross-functional collaboration. And in addition, the industry needs to focus on enhancing the post-purchase experience, because many automotive companies are significantly focusing on shaping customer experiences in the pre-purchase and purchase phase. Interestingly, they are not emphasizing enough of their efforts into enhancing post-purchase experiences. However, these experiences in the usage phase of a customer are super important also to create and build loyalty in the end, because customers are getting less loyal, and therefore it’s super important to make sure that customers are sticking to the brand somehow.

[18:27] Christina Schehl: And currently, if we see also that’s a big, I would say, improvement lever, is we’re in the age of AI. Companies in the automotive industry, they need to leverage AI for offering more personalized services, more personalized support, and also, of course, use AI to empower the digital experience. For example, with AI-based assistants for online consultancy, or AI-based assistants for support when there are requests and urgent needs from the customer. So it’s very much also about, of course, leveraging AI throughout the entire customer journey.

[19:08] Christina Schehl: There are some companies there which are stronger in some certain areas. Others are stronger in other areas. Again, I mean just talking about the post-purchase phase experience, I think one example is always, of course, NIO because they are focusing very much on this community building aspect, driving this a lot with their NIO Life, which is the lifestyle brand at the NIO houses, which serves as an exclusive clubhouse for users. So they, they very much look on onto this more, I would say brand ecosystem that goes beyond the vehicle ownership and is a nice example of how to really build relationships with their customers on a long-term journey.

[19:55] Elizabeth Wood: According to Christina, automotive must reframe the very concept of experience within the industry, considering it not as an add-on, but as an integral part of delivering elevated business value.

[20:07] Christina Schehl: Customer experience sometimes gives a feeling of this is just fancy stuff, but where’s the business value? And the automotive industry is currently in a very, I would say, cost-pressured situation. So what is important, I think, is we are not talking about customer experience for the sake of customer experience. Customer experience is the lever to really drive sales and to really make sure that it goes into a transactional direction wherever the customer is. Automotive companies, yes, they need to wow the customer, but in the end, it’s always the question around how to bring a lead into the web touch point, how to bring the person towards a dealership to do a test drive. So it’s really around a transaction increase. It’s really about sales increase. And I think if companies manage to push sales with a stronger and transactional-based customer experience, this is super powerful. So it’s not about, as I said, customer experience for the sake of wowing customers in the end, but it’s really about making sure that companies are driving sales in the end.

[21:19] Elizabeth Wood: That’s our show. The Design Mind frogcast was brought to you by frog, a leading global creative consultancy that is part of Capgemini Invent. Check today’s show notes for transcripts, a link to the Capgemini Research Institute report and more from our conversation.

[21:36]We really want to thank our guest, Christina Schehl, for bringing her expert insights on how a push towards great CX in automotive can fuel better experiences for all and increase customer loyalty. We also want to thank you, dear listener. If you like what you heard, tell your friends. Rate and review to help others find us on Apple Podcasts and  Spotify . And be sure to follow us wherever you listen to podcasts. Find lots more to think about from our global frog team at frog.co/designmind. That’s frog.co. Follow frog on Twitter at @frogdesign and @frog_design on Instagram. And if you have any thoughts about the show, we’d love to hear from you. Reach out at frog.co/contact. Thanks for listening. Now go make your mark.