ALLEN PARK, MI – Delivering high-level customer experiences “is tougher than it looks,” says Elena Ford, great-great-granddaughter of Henry Ford and an executive of the auto company he founded.
But she and her team are in high gear working on assorted initiatives aimed at making the brand stand out for making customers happy.
“It’s a journey,” Elena Ford, the company’s chief customer-experience officer, says of recent efforts to boost customer satisfaction and retention.
Referring to the success of Ford’s segment-leading fullsize pickup truck, she adds: “If we want to be like the F-150, we need to do what it takes to get there. Investing in customer experience is just like investing in the F-150.”
Ford has doubled its CX investment, she adds.
Jason Sprawka, Ford’s director of CX in North America, says: “We spend billions of dollars to attract customers to showrooms. We need a deeper focus on customer experience. We need to refine what it means to own a Ford.”
At a media event here at Ford’s customer-experience center, Elena Ford and other executives highlight projects that are in place, pending or in test phases in the U.S. and elsewhere.
They include:
FordPass Rewards. It is billed as an industry-exclusive, loyalty rewards program that offers complimentary vehicle maintenance when members purchase or lease a new Ford. Customers also earn points on service spending at Ford dealerships.
An all-new customer contact center. It opens in Houston this month. Ford is hiring 500 staffers to field phone inquires and “own calls,” meaning they are assigned with resolving issues, not transferring them to superiors. The automaker says the new call center will be a model globally. Forty-percent of calls in the U.S. are from truck owners, Ford notes. A group of specialized agents will be solely dedicated to serving truck owners.”
Ford Mobile Service. Dealership auto technicians using trucks carrying service tools and equipment travel to customers’ home or work to perform maintenance and light service work on their vehicles.
The service began in the U.K. two years ago for commercial fleets. In the U.S., a pilot program involving five dealers currently runs in California and will expand to dealers in Texas, Illinois, New Jersey and Florida. Based on results, Ford will decide whether to expand it.
Personal Lease Assistant. In a pilot phase, staffers will help about 1,000 customers of select dealers in Philadelphia and New York navigate the lease renewal process.
Drive New. Now. Ford Credit, armed with substantial customer information, will provide personalized vehicle offers. The idea is to offer them the right vehicle at the right time.
Ford Signature. In the past four years, more than 1,000 U.S. dealers have invested a total of $2 billion to upgrade their facilities to enhance the customer experience.
With dealer and customer input, Ford is expanding that effort with Ford Signature, designed to provide a new retail look and greater transparency in the sales and service departments.
Ford Signature includes replacing traditional deal desks with purchase rooms with shared screens; monitors with service prices and video feeds of the service garage; and celebration areas for new-vehicle delivery. (Elena Ford, left)
Ford has 70 Ford Signature stores around the world. It will expand to 300 globally by year’s end, with thousands slated for completion in coming years.
“Our goal is to create an environment that reinforces trust and transparency,” Elena Ford says. “We’re aiming to do this in our retail outlets – as well as every touch point in our customers’ ownership journey.”
Ford Smart Labs. The idea is to put mini-dealerships in shopping malls and other high-foot-traffic areas. The first opened in Brussels, Belgium.
The model came from a Ford dealership that on its own opened a small satellite store in Turin, Italy.
Ford plans to roll out five additional Smart Lab designs by the end of 2019, including one in Germany and another in Canada. “We’re exploring retail formats,” says Robert DeFilippo, Ford’s global in-store retail experience director.
Several executives involved in the amped-up CX strategy say putting a Ford family member in charge of it signals its importance.
The automaker has 3,000 dealers in the U.S. and 10,000 worldwide. Globally, the company sold 6 million vehicles last year.
Noting that many of the CX projects rely on the participation of dealers who are independent business people, Elena Ford says, “We’ve brought dealers along on the journey.”
Asked if it were a tough sell to convince dealers – whom she describes as “realists” – to join in, she says, “We can’t tell them directly what to do. But we can say, ‘This is the direction we’re headed and we would like you on the journey.’ All dealers aren’t going to go along. It isn’t like we are dragging them.
“But (progressive) dealers are asking us what can be done to get to the next level. The ones that aren’t coming, well, that’s their situation.”
Elena Ford last year was named to the newly created post of chief customer experience officer. She and colleagues consulted with non-automotive companies such as Zappos, Apple, Marriott and Delta, which are known for their CX efforts, she says. “We applied a lot of that learning to our retail network. We’ve built a transformational action plan for Ford.”
Ford also borrowed some CX programs its luxury brand, Lincoln, has initiated in its efforts to reinvent itself.
In the impending age of electric and autonomous vehicles, automakers will stand out largely by their CX-delivery skills, she says. “I’ve spent years with customers and dealers, and I’m here to advocate within the company.”
The CX efforts aim to make Ford “the world’s most trusted company,” she says.
Ford has been middle-tier when it comes to CX among mainstream automakers, she says, describing her current efforts “exhilarating and, in a way, liberating.”
