Customer service: Is automotive getting it right?
London, 26th June, London: Episode 16 of the new Auto Trader podcast Women in the driving seat, hosted by Editorial Director, award-winning motor journalist Erin Baker is released today. The series aims to rip up the rule book on the female-empowerment narrative by sharing personal as well as professional experiences, examining the space where both collide, and the challenges, fears and successes happen.
This episode we discuss how industries can balance the use of AI in customer service, while also maintaining the personal touch of a human. We also look at how women have often been left out of the automotive industry, and how we can make it a more inclusive space – from the boardrooms to the shop floor!
All episodes in the series feature a Podcast Pit Stop – a quick fire round covering the professional and personal including: TikTok or Instagram? Sportscar or hot hatch? Consumer or customer?
Join Erin as she puts two fearsome forces in the workplace in the driving seat.
Podcast preview
Jo:
“But what makes brilliant customer service...The softer, more intangible things. Do I trust this organisation? Does this organisation put my interests at the heart of what they’re doing? Do they design the customer experience around me? Do I think it’s an ethical and well run organisation?’’
“The balance between human interface and AI. I am really clear about this; you need both.”
“Above all for me, customer service, customer experience – is the board doing the right thing?”
“We’re living in a much more a tech driven world, and yet we don’t feel quite so connected. So when you’ve actually got real connection, that’s what makes brilliant service; feeling connected to that brand, to that organisation. Having someone think ‘actually they get me, they understand me.”
“The most critical part of this is actually understanding who you’re here to serve. Sometimes organisations forget that actually, without your customer there is no organisation…The lifestyle of the people you are trying to serve is a really critical aspect in getting it right.”
“Work now… we are encouraged to bring your whole self and if you don’t have a sense of the individual in that whole self, then people make wrong decisions or make stereotypical statements.”
“That link between employee engagement, customer satisfaction and financial return or productivity is huge in organisations.”
“We don’t live in vacuums anymore; life is more complex”
Michelle:
“We previously would get very pigeonholed on being a jobs platform, very much B2B focus, but I think now there’s this understanding that the platform is quite rich from a content perspective.
“People are coming to LinkedIn to do loads of different jobs. They could be coming to find their next role, to develop themselves, training. People are coming to LinkedIn to do business, to connect with each other, network. We are creating economic opportunity, which is an amazing thing to be a part of.”
“People bring their whole selves to work, people bring their personal lives in, it can enrich your skillset, one enriches the other; this whole podcast is about the Venn diagram for women of where, personal and professional collide and complement each other and what comes out of that.”
“I think it’s nice that people are able to bring some of these softer themes through into the platform, because it reflects everyday life, and what we talk a lot about in terms of empowering women, breaking down barriers and building confidence.”
“Empathy until about ten years ago was just dismissed by boards as a soft skill that was nice to have – if that – and now there’s such an obvious line between that and profitability of the company and the bottom line. They’re having to build it in into what they’re doing.”
“Context is something that AI really struggles to create. You know, AI can churn out loads of great content and responses for us, but it won’t give the same level of context to that, that you as an individual can give. So that’s another kind of nice USP that we can keep as human beings.”
“I think it’s nice that people are able to bring some of these softer themes through into the platform [LinkedIn]… It reflects everyday life.”
Auto Trader’s new podcast Women in the driving seat releases new episodes every Thursday.
Notes to editors
ABOUT ERIN BAKER
Erin Baker is an award-winning motoring journalist and Editorial Director of Auto Trader. She writes a monthly driving column for Vogue, is a World Car of the Year judge, consults for Goodwood and hosts She's Electric, a national roadshow bringing women and electric cars together. Erin is passionate about narrowing the gender gap, both in the automotive industry itself and between car brands and female consumers, through more targeted language, marketing and experiences. She is a single mother of two boys.
ABOUT JO CAUSON
Jo Causon joined The Institute as CEO in 2009. Since then, she has driven membership growth and established the UK Customer Satisfaction Index as the country’s most trusted indicator of consumer satisfaction. She brings a wealth of experience from the commercial sector, holding Director roles in financial services, brand, and business consulting, as well as policy development and research for City & Guilds and The Chartered Management Institute. Away from work, Jo is a keen walker and traveller.
ABOUT MICHELLE DAVIS
Michelle heads up the Automotive category for LinkedIn Marketing Solutions and for the past 5 years she has been working with Enterprise OEMs to help them get the most out of the platform. Prior to LinkedIn she crossed paths with me at AutoTrader and held senior marketing roles at Fiat Chrysler and Volkswagen Group. A proud northerner, she is passionate about social mobility and supporting other women. She lives outside of London with her husband and is constantly cooking or eating.
ABOUT AUTO TRADER
Auto Trader Group plc is the UK’s largest automotive platform. It listed on the London Stock Exchange in March 2015 and is a member of the FTSE 100 Index.
Auto Trader’s purpose is Driving Change Together. Responsibly. Auto Trader is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive culture, it aims to build stronger partnerships with its customers and use its voice and influence to drive more environmentally friendly vehicle choices.
With the largest number of car buyers and the largest choice of trusted stock, Auto Trader’s marketplace sits at the heart of the UK car buying process. That marketplace is built on an industry-leading technology and data platform, which is increasingly used across the automotive industry. Auto Trader is continuing to bring more of the car buying journey online, creating an improved buying experience, whilst enabling all its retailer partners to sell vehicles online.
Auto Trader publishes a monthly used car Retail Price Index which is based on pricing analysis of circa 800,000 unique vehicles. The same data that powers the Index is used by the Office for National Statistics to make the UK’s official measures of inflation more robust, as well as the Bank of England to feed the broader UK economic indicators.
For more information, please visit: plc.autotrader.co.uk
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