We are delighted to be shortlisted for the AM Awards in their “Supplier of the Year” category. After winning this accolade in 2020 we are proud to be recognised again.
It is always good to take a step back and reflect. When you enter these Awards that is exactly what happens. It has been a year of continuous challenges which has driven a lot of change in the way we all operate as businesses. How consumers now buy and as an industry, we have seen an acceleration of digitisation and online selling in a relatively short period of time.
Over the past year, CitNOW’s digital communications tools have become crucial in enhancing the contactless customer experience and bridging the digital to physical gap. During lockdown 1.0 when car showrooms were closed and workshops only open to key workers, we quickly suspended our monthly subscription charges while actively encouraging retailers to use their CitNOW solution to engage with customers in a safe and contactless way.
To support motor retailers in adapting to the ‘new normal’ and help them continue to sell cars remotely, we launched a range of new features that were offered as part of existing subscriptions. This included the accelerated launch of Live Video, which replicated face-to-face interactions with customers remotely. During the last national lockdown, we saw the daily average number of live video sessions surge by 244% and it has now become an essential communication tool for retailers.
We also launched a new screen-sharing platform, Desktop, to help replicate the in-showroom experience, and an industry-first audio enhancement, Clarity powered by Dolby.io, to boost the audio quality of videos and ultimately improve the customer experience. We also released a series of blogs and How2CitNOW videos to encourage retailers to embrace video.
Our efforts were not only limited to product features – we also moved our Academy learning services online to support our customers when they needed it most and ceased charging for it. We’ve seen a positive uptake in our online training and webinars along with an encouragingly increase in video production of 120% as a result.
We pride ourselves on working closely with retailers to help them use digital communication to enhance the customer experience. Research conducted by us last year found that industry professionals thought video was the most valuable digital tool for dealership operations in 2020! We hope the AM Awards judges feel the same, we’ll find out on the 8th September! Good luck to all of the <a/ href=”https://www.am-online.com/news/dealer-news/2021/08/04/the-2021-am-awards-finalists-part-1″>finalists, we look forward to seeing you there.
** 8th September Update **
Following the release of this article celebrating our shortlist we went on to win Supplier of the Year for the second year running. We are thoroughly delighted and honoured to have won this accolade and would like to thank everyone who voted for us. We will continue to support our customers and the industry and put our customers at the heart of everything we do.
