Background

When you’ve been around for almost a century and employ over 160,000 people worldwide - 3,000 in Australia alone - ensuring a high quality and consistent level of service becomes a challenge. Especially for a car manufacturer that has become a true-blue cultural icon. Making sure customers get the best experience is difficult when operating a vast network of dealerships.

For Ford, however, this issue has been overcome thanks to an innovative and inventive programme developed and implemented with Power2Motivate.

The Challenge

The Ford Guild programme was established to enhance the customer experience at a dealership level. Measured against benchmarks set by the company around customer satisfaction, sales and service performance. Ford recognises important individuals and dealers that deliver success, contribute to building a customer-focused culture , motivate and coach their team. Participants have four tiers of qualification to strive towards - Certified, Professional, Master and the coveted Gold Master. While the Guild programme had been running for two years relatively successfully, there was one problem.

A lot of the communication around the programme was only received by the Dealer Principal. With no certainty that the messages and encouragement would flow on to the full cohort, Ford wanted the platform to be more effective at communicating to and incentivising everyone.

Solution

Ford worked with Power2Motivate on the project, continually adding new capabilities to the programme to increase its effectiveness. Last year, the programme shifted to an online model in order to make it both more accessible and engaging to the broader dealership audience. This includes sales managers, service manager, parts managers, sales consultants, service advisors and principals across Australia.

Power2Motivate recommended several tactical campaigns throughout the year to help kick-start the digital platform and revitalise the programme.

Whenever an individual sold an eligible part, they would receive a digital token to play a spin and win game. This would allow them to earn credits that could be cashed in, for any number of the 30,000 products and services offered in  Power2Motivate’s global rewards gallery. Several incentives were run throughout the year to engage sales teams within dealerships to push eligible products, such as the “Accessories Slam Dunk” for the after sales division.

Results

The online platform made it easy for principals and individuals to track their performance and engage in other competitive activities. It also delivered far more targeted communication towards each division, rather than tasking the principal with this. Of the 70 per cent of dealership personnel engaging with the programme, the number of members qualifying to be recognised by the Ford Guild increased by an incredible 235 per cent. But it was more than just a digital platform that enabled these stellar results. Field staff were invited to training sessions to promote the system and educated on how to use it. Principals were offered a compelling travel experience if they could reach

Gold Master status. This ensured that all participants properly understood what they could gain, and also provided a tangible reason for principals to rally support from everyone within the dealership.

Strategically implemented gamification elements also helped hold the interest of members. Employees could engage with their performance data in a fun and exciting way and receive rewards instantly when they hit certain achievements.

Ultimately, it was the combination of a comprehensive strategy, high quality tactics, attractive rewards and clear, consistent communication that enabled Ford to boost its customer experience across the board.

Without the help of Power2Motivate, such an improvement would not have been possible.

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