I’ve worked with automotive manufacturers and dealers for more than 20 years, and the same challenges surface over and over again. Corporate teams struggle to successfully roll out new programs and initiatives across their network of highly dispersed dealerships. Dealers feel inundated with information from the corporate office, and lack the support and tools needed to succeed. And the field gets to play mediator, stuck in the middle of that strained OEM/dealer relationship.

Last October, we stepped in to help one national auto brand solve these challenges when they rolled out a new customer-loyalty program. By leveraging technology to roll out and monitor program performance, the client saw positive changes across the organization in three key areas.

One department within this automotive company was focused on driving customer satisfaction and retention. It wanted the entire organization to rally around that goal, and set out to launch a loyalty program that would reward dealers with strong performance and encourage weaker dealers to improve performance. But to make it work, the deapartment needed a way to align communications in order to ensure that all parties—from the individual dealerships all the way up to the corporate office—were actively doing their part to deliver on that brand promise.

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