West Way Nissan launches new AI car sales website

The Nissan GB-owned dealer group, West Way, has launched a new online car retail website with artificial intelligence (AI) features.

The website is e-commerce enabled, has built-in tracking and allows for tailored content delivery to all visitors with machine learning and AI, said West Way.

The new site can track visitors, identify them by name and change content to suit each visitor by using an algorithm that can predict the likely interest of each person.

Sara Harris, director of business transformation at West Way, said: “We have been working on this site for some time now and are absolutely thrilled with the early results.”

Combined with machine learning techniques, the site can quality-score each visitor and single out leads, identifying “in-market” customers. It then displays this data in a Lead Centre which helps when prospecting, said West Way.

Harris said: “We have been able to offer visitors a blended search of new and used vehicles, which was very important to us, and now we can market all our new stock vehicles to visitors and offer immediate delivery options.”

West Way worked with digital agency The Whole Caboodle on the project.

In 2020, West Way Nissan said its shift to a digital aftersales process during the COVID-19 lockdown period could save it 10,000 hours a year of "productive time".

The new site also offers ‘Build My Deal’, an interactive tool which allows customers to tailor a deal in real-time against any vehicle on the site, where method of payment, monthly budget and part-exchange can be factored in and dealer or manufacturer contributions are also considered.

Customers can then choose to either save their deal for later consideration, put down a cash reservation or buy online which includes a full finance application. Click and collect and home delivery options are available, said West Way.

All stages of the transaction are tracked to monitor the effectiveness of the process and data is collected both in The Whole Caboodle’s Lead Centre and West Way’s DMS.

Karl Rahmani, managing partner at The Whole Caboodle, said: “This site will be the benchmark for automotive websites – fully e-commerce focussed, intelligent and a selling tool, not just a brochure site.

“In these difficult trading times with lockdowns, we have already seen many enquiries from dealers looking for a similar approach.”