Benfield Motor Group case study

Situation

The Benfield ‘About’ page states:

image thumb Benfield Motor Group case study Benfield Motor Group is an independent family owned business that was founded in the North East in 1957. From modest beginnings the Company has grown over the past 50 years, investing over £20 million in brand new sites and refurbishment of existing dealerships, to become one of the largest and best known private companies in the motor retailing market.

Benfield currently has 30 dealerships across the, North East, North West,, Yorkshire and Scotland,, representing the following brands – Alfa Romeo, Ford, Kia, Lexus, Nissan, Renault, Skoda, Toyota, Volkswagen, Honda, and Hyundai.

When Souter Consulting first met with Benfield, they outlined some key challenges:

  • “Customers are now approaching Benfield at a different phase of the buying cycle” because they do their research on the web. In doing so, they “want to make their own choice, it’s their own destiny”.
  • Therefore “the next challenge is to influence customer behaviour”, and “develop the positioning and reputation of Benfield Motors”.
  • Benfield’s online presence was part of “a better overall experience for the customer”, and “having an organisation which is in tune with its customers” was seen as key.
  • Furthermore “there was a real sense of urgency in all this”. There was concern about the pace of change associated with Social Media, and which platform to use, as they change so much.
  • In summary “This is about determining a future online customer communications strategy”

What SCL did

  • Together with Nicola Cook, of Aurora Training, SCL delivered a social media introduction & strategy workshop to key players in the Benfield Motor Group.
  • Set up online tools & desktop counterparts, based on outputs from the workshop
  • Provided advice and mentoring to key internal stakeholders
  • Created and delivered a tools education workshop to help launch the initiative
  • Got Benfield to the stage where they can take the initiative forward themselves.

What difference did it make

  • Got Benfield up & running and helped overcome that “Where do I start?” feeling
  • Equipped Benfield with appropriate tools for the first phase of their social media effort
  • Put boundaries around the initiative, and helped Benfield work out how to organise internally to make the initiative viable over the medium- to long-term
  • Help Benfield structure their effort and answered questions – e.g. about what to say online
  • Moved Benfield from tactical to strategic – i.e. engage social media activities across the various business functions to ensure a consistent customer experience.

What did the Customer say?

“Souter Consulting have got us where we want to be with social media. They’ve given us the understanding of the tools, together with the confidence to use them and — by explaining the whys and the hows — have helped us ease our way into this area.

We’re now ready to pick up the pace on our own and engage with our customers more fully online, by combining our website with our successful traditional marketing activity and now on sites like Facebook, Twitter and our blog. We’d happily recommend Souter Consulting to other businesses in a similar position.”

- Mark King, Internet Sales Manager, Benfied Motor Group