Executive View: Delivering the vision

Bumper co-founder and CEO James Jackson explains why a focus on service has never been more important for dealers than it is today. 

The automotive industry is undoubtedly one of the most dynamic in the world. It is a sector that lives and breathes on innovation, with those businesses innovating fastest and deepest always winning. Consumers are quick to vote with their wallets if a brand comes out with something they are desperate to get a piece of. 

Whether you are a manufacturer or dealer, maintaining competitive advantage is no longer just about the vehicles you make and sell; it’s about product, service and brand seamlessly combining to tell consumers that this is the one for them. 

But delivering that vision is harder today than ever before. The cost-of-living crisis, which isn’t going away anytime soon, has led any car owner or buyer to consider their options more deeply than I have seen in my lifetime. And this is true regardless of where you sit on the income spectrum: the old cliches that go with owners of certain marques really do not apply, and the squeeze on household finances is being felt from top to bottom. 

With consumers across Europe feeling this pinch, the need for more flexible ways to pay for car repairs is vitally important, and the most successful dealers are looking to ensure they can provide customers every reason to book them in there and then. The barriers to a customer saying “yes” are higher than ever, and it is incumbent on dealers to ensure they do everything they can to lower these barriers as much as possible. 

Barriers

While some of the solutions to this issue are not purely financial, removing the personal finance barrier is one with a relatively limited level of difficulty. Dealers have the ability to provide a range of flexible financing terms that will take a weight off their customers, while ultimately speeding-up the time to purchase and driving incremental revenue. 

Partners like Bumper have a critical role to play in supporting dealers in delivering this. Our journey began with a simple yet powerful idea: to make car repairs less financially burdensome for owners, while empowering dealerships with advanced payment solutions to enable those customers to go ahead with the repairs and upgrades they need. Delivering a product to meet this simple mission has ultimately driven our growth, and the endorsement of $48 million in investment announced recently from investors including JLR’s InMotion Ventures and Porsche Ventures is a hugely positive moment for us. 

While Bumper is already available through 5,000 dealers, enabling more than 250,000 repairs in the past year alone, our goal is to double this number annually – that is where we think the market is going, with combined and aligned dealer/consumer demands driving it. This is why our funding round, led by Autotech Ventures and bolstered by Shell Ventures, in addition to both JLR and Porsche, is about more than capital: it is a resounding vote of confidence in our vision to become the go-to payment platform for dealers anywhere in the world. 

There has never been a more important time for dealers to think about the service elements of their business, and I’m excited to be working with the biggest automotive brands in the world to make their customers’ car-owning lives simpler, easier and less pressured than ever before. 

James Jackson is CEO of Bumper, which helps drivers split repair bills into interest-free payments, working with many of the world’s biggest automotive brands including JLR, Porsche, Volvo, Ford, Nissan, and VW Group.