The AM Awards judges voted Peter Vardy Group as winner of the 2021 event’s Best Online Consumer Experience.

Detailed below is AM’s citation, detailing the reasoning behind the AM100 car retail group’s victory:

In light of the global pandemic, Peter Vardy Group set out to define its online omnichannel strategy across its digital touchpoints.

The group had already created its online buying journey, ‘Storefront’, in 2019 to allow customers to build their deal, transact online or go through part of the journey before completing in store.

The group saw an uplift in sales via the channel and invested in a fleet of transporters to facilitate its offering of home delivery to the online car-buying journey.

The software also allowed guests to save and pick up where they left off in the showroom and provided the option to complete the deal on an iPad in the showroom if they preferred not to deal with a sales advisor.

The car dealer group identified improvements it could make to its website and online experience and increased the overall site speed score of 52 to 90, allowing it to drive a 20% improvement in site conversion.

At the start of 2020, Peter Vardy Group’s online sales team was 10 people, who were focused on generating appointments. In the team, they generated around three deals per day.

However, the group has created a centralised e-commerce sales team to manage online deposits and complete online sales with guests.

At the end of the year, the team had grown to 35 and made up 25% of the overall sales team.

The dedicated team has resulted in faster response times to customers – an average of nine minutes – and improved conversion rates of around 20%.

Peter Vardy Group’s online sales team accounts for approximately 48% of all sales across the group, has a finance penetration of 70% and each sales advisor accounts on average for sales of 50% more vehicles than a dealership-based advisor.

The group has also expanded its digital marketing team, which has trebled in size with new specialised roles being created.

Highly commended:

Perrys Motor Sales

Award sponsor's comment

In 2020 the world was forced almost entirely online and much of the automotive industry had to react quickly in the most difficult circumstances. Traditional ‘bricks and mortar’ buyers had to adapt to an online world, with many consumers still not being tech-savvy. Making the customer online experience frictionless was therefore vital to a dealer's success.

It's absolutely right that our industry recognises those businesses achieving the highest levels of user simplicity and exceptional customer online journeys. One business has taken a strong lead and SecretService™ powered by BookMyGarage.com are delighted to extend our congratulations and award Peter Vardy Group with the Best Online Customer Experience award. 

There was strong competition too from the Highly Commended Perry’s Motor Sales as well as other worthy nominees in the category; Hutchings Motor Group, Sandicliffe Motor Group and Vindis Group. 

Operating entirely online, SecretService™ powered by BookMyGarage.com work tirelessly to improve our own customers’ experience so are proud to have sponsored a category full of incredible businesses and applaud their achievements which resonate so closely with our own values and objectives.