Providing Improved Retail Experience to the Customers

Lookers plc is a leading UK motor retail and aftersales service group and is listed on the London Stock Exchange

Our strategy is to have the right brands in the right locations, alongside excellent service and a commitment to providing an outstanding retail experience for our customers.

We don't just provide motor retail and aftersales services. We’re proud to call ourselves a people business. This doesn't just mean a personal service for our customers; it extends to the
communities we work within and to all the people across the UK and Ireland who make us who we are.

CIO Position at Lookers:

An Executive committee member  to lead the business change, digital transformation and all the technology that underpins it.

Journey: When COVID hit:

The turnaround and transformation into the digitally agile business we are today is remarkable, let me set the scene for you when the covid pandemic began:

•  We had 150 dealerships closed with only some Aftersales departments open to key workers

• We had roughly ~£300m stock depreciating

•  There was no Online shop we could offer our customers and had catalogue of stock at best

• No contactless way to buy a car

•  All our Call centres were closed

• We had very Limited WFH options for our people

• We had a reduced team due to furlough

Our Mission was clear: Keep the Business Going

That was the challenge, next comes the solution and what we did:

What we did:

Our dealership remained central to the customer journey, but the online and dealership experience had to move close together and reshape themselves to service the hybrid omnichannel journey that

customers now come to expect.

We defined our Online Digital Strategy & delivered a Digital Transformation Programme, and I will touch on some of these in more detail:

• Established an Online transactional capability (Click & Drive, Click and Sell)

• Delivered an improved Website look, feel, and performance improvements (UX/CX)

• Digital Dealership (Our Digital strategy, broken down below)

• Seamless Customer experience Online & Instore – Omni Channel

Click and Drive: Step 1 of the digital dealership:

Our award winning , fully digital, contactless, purchasing experience.

Click and Drive does not replace dealerships it works with them. It provides  customers with the choice of a digital or dealership experience.

Click & Drive has been an essential part of the continued growth in sales via the Lookers’ website. Inquiry conversions continue to improve as we refine the customer journey and improve the service. We anticipate this will continue to grow in future as more people become comfortable purchasing big ticket items through digital channels.

Contactless Sales: Step 2 of the digital dealership:

Having delivered the online capability to enable our customers the ability to manage their own sales online and reserve vehicles, we turned our attention to delivering a contactless sales process to start completing deals and handing over vehicles.

The challenge was to enable a contact-free handover to our customers.

The objective of the Contactless Sales Process was to design and implement a FCA compliant process, using technology to enable our sales teams to remotely support our customers to purchase Lookers’ vehicles.

We were able to deliver the following:

• Digitisation of the traditional signature-based sales process into streamlined PDF form for remote customer approval using Adobe e-sign.

• 16 wet signatures reduced to just 3 e-signatures

• Roll-out of a Digital deal file structure integrated and configured with Lookers’ own SharePoint document management tool.

Aftersales Offering: Step 3 of the digital dealership

We also rolled out our new Aftersales offerings allowing customers too:

• New online self-check-in solution
• New finance integration and payment options
• Vehicle status tracking

New online self-check-in solution: This allows customers to remotely check their vehicle in for a booked service or repair appointment using their own device, from anywhere.

New finance integration and payment options: This is designed to complement our vehicle health checks, allowing customers to spread the costs of their repairs over the course of the next three months interest-free. We also include the flexibility to also allow the customer to spread the cost of any pre-agreed work.

Vehicle Status Tracking: This service allows customers to track the status of their vehicle whilst in our workshop.

Click and Sell: Step 4 of the digital dealership

We also rolled out our new ‘click and sell’ option for customers to sell their used vehicles quickly where an instant valuation is generated by inserting the car vehicle registration number. 

Click & Sell is a brilliant new addition to our website that allows customers to sell their vehicle to us - all in a few easy steps!

Full Online Payments: Step 5 of the digital dealership

We launched our new service in December where customers can now purchase a non-commercial vehicle online in full. This new option follows the same process as the existing Click & Drive reservation model, though currently customers will not be able to complete an online part exchange.

Home Delivery:

We have also invested in a dedicated nationwide fleet of specialist delivery vans to bring customer vehicles straight to their door as part of a new and enhanced service for our online shoppers.

Our customers have already been enjoying a home delivery service for their vehicle purchases through third party agreements. However, this now means we can fulfil and track more orders using our own dedicated fleet and experienced teams.

Motivating our people:

Developing people and highly effective motivated teams is essential and at the core for us to be able to deliver transformational change at pace.

Our people showed great empathy, compassion and resilience to get us where we are today: The teams adapted to a new way of working with the world of Teams/Video Calling meant it connected people and bought everyone closer (meeting family members, dogs and cats!)

People adjusted work/home life and made the balance very quickly which made them more productive, working to suit what was happening at home.

How we got buy-in from the business?

We had to take the business with us on this journey, and it was all about them. “It’s not what you do, it’s what they get”

The importance of our transformational changes was clear, these deliverables became the highest priority for the organisation and all teams involved were able to dedicate all efforts in delivering the changes.

We had clear transparent reporting and governance on all changes, and worked in partnership with the business to deliver on our transformational activities.

A large percentage of group wide technology change is driven by our Executives  and senior business stakeholders. 

My amazing Change Team and IT Business Partners partnered with the business to help to bring these changes to life focusing on benefit, value, scope and speed of implementation, working together on delivery.

IT now viewed as an enabler to the business:

Technology is fundamental to every business process within Lookers; the sale of a car, booking of a service, purchase of a part etc. 

The transformational online sales work we have completed and journey we have been on within the last couple of years have enabled the business to succeed in a difficult economy.  The delivery of our group wide business saving technology changes in incredibly tight timescales, to such a high standard, with amazing results has allowed us to lead the market to give customers choice, re-inventing our market position in an ever-competitive landscape.

IT is now part of board level conversations, and we are driving innovation &business strategy. We have demonstrated the value that can be attained from working together #OneTeam with our colleagues to deliver positive change.

How did Disruptors in the market help or hinder Lookers?

In one way or another Digital now touches every sale.

Every business should welcome a disruptor and the automotive industry is no different.

We had disruptors such as Cazoo, Cinch who burst onto the automotive market. I think its healthy competition that have helped push the speed of technology change within the industry and changed the overall customer experience.

The market has changed again, with these disruptors now moving towards a more traditional method of supporting customers, with physical dealerships and aftersales offerings. If anything due to our scale, experience and capability I can see us becoming a disruptor to them.

Where are we headed?

Our Customer expectations are changing - Omni-channel hybrid customer offering, whether that is choice by foot, by phone or by web.

We will continue to strengthen our digital journey and give our customers choice – we have embarked on a hugely exciting sales transformation programme in partnership with Salesforce.

• Make it easier for our customers to do business with us, via omnichannel capability and persistent basket technology.

• Make it easier and more enjoyable for our people to make our customers feel special

• Enable our customers to fully self-serve, end-to-end.

• Bringing together all our customer channels  (dealership, call centre and online) with much improved marketing data analytics within one platform

• Provide a full 360-degree view of our customers with a single source of truth.

The Lookers IT function has received numerous recognitions and accolades over recent years:

So proud of the team and the numerous recognitions and accolades over the years:

RITA 2020Enterprise Team of the Year

Click and Drive Digital Transformation of the Year 2021

AM Awards Online Consumer Experience of the Year 2022

We don’t stop here however and are striving to achieve even more!

Brief bio of Andy’s

Appointed: October 2020 Membership: ExCo & OpsCo

Skills & Experience:

• Over 15 years’ experience driving technology enabled change and transformation in major omni-channel retailers

• Proven C-suite IT professional in all aspects of IT strategy, delivery and day-to-day operations

• Led significant technology changes to stabilise and modernise the Lookers’ business

• Leading the digital transformation at Lookers including key strategic projects across the business Started my career in technology at Fujitsu and have worked for several big retailers over the years, such as B&Q, Screwfix and Travis Perkins, holding a range of senior roles in both technology & business change.