Face to face: Wessex Garages – using video to build trust and transparency

Video has become a crucial tool in delivering Wessex Garages’ aim of creating an air of trust and transparency around its business. One month can see the six-site franchised dealer group create almost 1,000 videos of customers’ cars being health-checked before service and 600 two-minute sales films of used cars in stock.

WESSEX GARAGES
Turnover £102.4m     (2012 accounts)   New car sales 4,400   New LCV sales 100   Used car sales 4,000

“Video has replaced so many things that we used to do,” said Wessex Garages managing director Keith Brock.

“In most cases if you can put a video around it then it explains things to the customer in a much clearer manner.”

To achieve such focus has meant several developments for the business. One was the decision to employ a tech-savvy digital sales executive in each of its sites to take on all the digital activity, including filming the key features and benefits of each car with a camcorder and giving a sales message on any offers relating to that particular car.

In traditional dealerships, the digital activities are imposed on the sales manager. Wessex’s solution frees the sales manager to concentrate on leadership, customer satisfaction and stacking deals and means.

Brock said: “We want the customer to decide they now want to see that car in person, or they want to reserve it online. Our job is to make that whole part transparent. You can see the price, the condition, the wheels, the seat covers, the mileage, what it’s got in the boot, and get a very clear picture of that vehicle.

“We know that 90% of used car customers research online before they buy, and the latest stats suggest the customer will only visit 1.3 dealerships on average. Our job is to make sure that 1.3 becomes one, and that one is us. This is where the trust and transparency comes into it.”

In aftersales, all electronic vehicle health checks are filmed for customers to see, using CitNow’s video system. If extra repairs are identified, the video evidence often helps the service adviser to convert the sale. If everything passes the health check, it’s a reassurance for the customer.  

Brock said: “Some of these videos will be purely for customer satisfaction. If we video a customer’s car in the workshop, detail various aspects of the car and tell them it doesn’t need any extra work, that’s building trust. Although we don’t make any money out of that today, we’re giving an element of trust and transparency to that customer.

“In a year or two’s time, when we go through the same process and might find it needs new discs or has a leaking shock absorber, that element of trust and transparency means the customer is engaged with us and what we say is believable.

“We know there’s an element of mistrust in our industry and consumers are not experts. They wouldn’t know if their shock absorber was leaking so it’s our job to show them in a clear manner.”

Video technology also allows staff to record a customer testimonial for a job done well, to be hosted on the group’s website and YouTube, and to film how-tos such as pairing a phone via Bluetooth or checking tyre tread depth.

Another development has been Wessex Garages’ relationship with its digital supplier, GForces. The dealer group isn’t happy to sit and wait for online innovations to come along, it works with GForces and pushes it hard to reset the boundaries.

Brock sees the recent digital innovation of Wessex Garages as one way to recruit fresh talent into motor retail. The group offers video and website apprenticeship roles and the digital sales executive roles also attract young blood into the business. Once these people have gained a wide knowledge of the business they can adapt to fresh challenges in new roles.

Next to the managing director’s office at Wessex Garages’ headquarters in Pennywell Road, Bristol, sits a group department with eight people focused on managing the group’s internet, social media, marketing, database and customer satisfaction functions. It’s no coincidence that they’re next to Brock – they share his passion for getting the best out of the business and moving it forward.

Wessex Garages hasn’t used Auto Trader for two years. Instead, it took the money it had been spending on Auto Trader and invested that, and more, in its own team and in mechanisms to create its own online traffic. Its YouTube channel gets 30,000 views a month, and its website visits in September were up 36% year-on-year to almost 48,000.

Asked how the business ensures the customer’s experience in the showroom lives up to their expectations created online, Brock said it came down to the basics.

The dealership experience is still vital

“I like working on basics. When they walk in the showroom or phone into the business, those first 10 seconds are the telling time, because you’re confirming that they’ve made the right choice. They need to get the right response.

“I don’t want to sound blasé about it, but our people just do it. That’s how we’re set up. We don’t dual-price, we’re transparent. It’s part of our DNA.”

That experience inside the dealership is still vital, for despite the group being able to take online deposits to reserve used cars, only 1% of its customers actually do so. Despite offering a £75 discount for online reservations, and backing these with a 30-day no quibble refund policy, it appears consumers still want

to commit inside the showroom.

The same desire to engage with customers and the wider community that informs Wessex Garages’ charity efforts (see panel, right) is also behind the Wessex Premier Club. The web-based initiative is free to join and offers rewards such as a free Bristol City FC scarf or discounts on partnered beauty and leisure services as well as half-priced MoT tests and discounted servicing.

It provides added value to customers, shows them it’s not all about selling them another car, and encourages customers to share their email addresses for Wessex Garages’ database of 40,000 active customers. That database, cleansed in 2011, is a crucial tool because the business does its own electronic marketing, with email offers set in-house.

Growing a group with consistent profits

In the 17 years since Brock was brought in by Wessex Garages founder and chairman Steve Patch, the business has grown into a consistently profitable regional group with 2013 sales expected to exceed £120 million.

It began in Bristol with a single Nissan dealership 27 years ago. Today it has six sites in Bristol, Cardiff, Newport and Gloucester and represents Nissan, Kia, Fiat, Hyundai, Alfa Romeo and Abarth. A Citroën franchise in Hereford was closed in 2008 when the showroom’s lease expired.  

Hyundai in Newport is Wessex Garages’ most recent addition, having opened in August at a former Volkswagen showroom. Next in the pipeline is a £5m new Nissan dealership to open at Bristol’s Cribbs Causeway in 2015. That will be its seventh trading location, as the Pennywell Road Nissan site will remain as a service centre, commercial vehicle operation and head office.

Brock described the business as a portfolio of exciting brands with genuine growth potential that is product-led. “I think if it’s built on product it’s more sustainable. It’s not like they’ve just thrown a lot of money at the marketplace, they’ve actually got genuine customers pulling and wanting the brand,” he said.

While the door is never closed, Brock said the group is not courting additional franchises. Nor does it plan to abandon the focused approach to its steady growth of the past two decades. It’s a sensible approach – data from AMi suggests expansion comes at a cost of reduced profitability per site.

“We need to make sure we stay geographical. You cannot have a geographical motor group if you don’t stay geographical, and our goal has always been to have the businesses within a maximum of 60 or 90 minutes, so if we need to be hands-on and deal with something face to face you can do that.”

“What’s important to us is the structure of the company, and what I don’t want to do is unsettle the gearing of it. Our growth has been quite gradual, and all done from an element of reserves and an element of very limited borrowing. It means we’ve a sound platform, we’re not over-geared (see gearing figures on p58), and if we do have a difficult time, or we need to invest in something, we have the resource.” The scale of the business brings other benefits.

Alongside Patch and Brock are two operations directors and a finance director, and all meet each Monday to set a focus for the week. Brock describes it as being big enough to benefit from an element of scale yet small enough to see exactly what is going on in the business.

“The team of directors, the size and structure of the business all mean we can change things quickly. For example, when we launched the videos, from deciding to do it to having our entire stock videoed was two weeks. It was an amazing result, but you can only do that when everyone rolls up their sleeves and makes it happen.”

Brock said he learnt a long time ago that the way to do well in motor retailing is just to perform. The manufacturers will not tolerate poor performance on sales, market share, customer satisfaction and standards. Wessex Garages has good relationships with all of the brands it represents, and all see good growth.

“It’s a good business, but there’s more to come. The brands we represent will grow, but I think there’s more that we can do. The consumer is going to drive more change, digital technology will drive more change. I think more of what you see today as being interesting will become normal.”

The importance of cracking good PR

Steve Patch, Wessex Garages chairman with Gromit and Aardman Animation’s Nick Park

The image Wessex Garages portrays to its local communities is important. It appointed a public relations company in Bristol two years ago and it feeds stories from the business to the local media.

Certain staff at each dealership are tasked with getting stories weekly. Wessex sponsored the Bristol Balloon Fiesta and each branch selects a charity to support each year through staff fundraising activities.

Many of these generate publicity, such as its £21,000 purchase of a Gromit statue based on Bristol-based Aardman Animations’ famous dog, painted by patients of Bristol Children’s Hospital.

After the auction last month, Steve Patch, Wessex Garages chairman, said: ”Our version of the famous sidekick will take pride of place in our new showroom, which we aim to open at Cribbs Causeway in 2015. Until then, it will tour all our dealerships.” Wessex has also won awards for retailing and customer service from the Bristol Evening Post this year.

Brock said: “We advertise the 0% finance and minimum part-exchange deals, like any other car retailer, and that’s one part to our business. But by working on the PR side and the charity work you join it all together.

“You’re building your local presence, building on this trust and transparency and you become normal. I think customers want to deal with normal people.”