Grants Seat, AM Award winner for Best Digital Initiative, has used Twitter to transact almost an entire new car deal.

Car buyer Jemma Rowberry (pictured) bypassed more than a dozen dealers closer to her home in Crawley, West Sussex, to buy her new Leon SE Copa from Essex-based Grants Seat after the business made contact with her through Twitter.

The entire sales process was completed online through a series of ‘tweets’, with Rowberry only making the two-hour drive to Grants’ modern showroom in Braintree twice – once to sign the paperwork on a PCP deal and once to collect her new car.

Rowberry said: “If Grants hadn’t contacted me online and put in so much effort to finding me the right deal, I wouldn’t be driving around in my brilliant new car today.

“The dealership may be nearly 100 miles away but they made the whole thing so effortless for me from beginning to end and they’ll definitely be the first people I contact when I’m in the market for another car.”

Grants Seat got in touch with Rowberry after she tweeted about how disappointed she was that she couldn’t find a suitable finance package for a new Leon.

Darren Williams, Grants Seat managing director, said: "This goes to prove the power of social media to all the sceptics in the motor industry.

"By putting in a bit of effort and striking up a real friendship online we’ve sold a car and gained a valuable customer who will use us again and recommend us to her friends and family."

Seat UK head of marketing, Chris Stevens, said: "I’m really pleased that our dealers are engaging so effectively in the new world of social media.

"This example of best practice by Grants Seat in Essex – a worthy winner of the ‘Best Digital Initiative’ category in the recent AM Awards, by the way – only goes to show how effective social media can be if used really well."