Transparency is one of those words that gets bandied around so much in automotive that it almost loses meaning, but it’s the word that has quietly gone about its business and slowly reshaped this industry, says Nicholas Malcolm, chief executive at Autoflows..
Walk into any dealership today and the meeting rooms where finance agreements and created are glass so there are no hidden conversations away from the customer. Video is provided as evidence to aftersales customers, so they understand and see where maintenance work is needed.
Customers demanded openness in how cars are sold and fixed, and the industry rebuilt itself around that demand.
Here’s what I don’t think we talk about enough: dealers wanting that same transparency turned inward, on their own operations. They’re drowning in dashboards and satisfaction scores but starved of the one thing that actually helps them run the business — a clear, honest view of what’s happening with their own data.
That’s genuinely where Autoflows began our own innovation journey. Not with AI and not always with automation, but instead with a rather direct (Danish) and stubborn stance on questioning what story the data actually tells us.
Some 15 years ago, working with some of the biggest automotive groups in the Nordics, we’d get handed a customer satisfaction report and told “you’re at 4.3 out of 5.” And my reaction was always: so what? Which customers? Who did we actually reach? If 80% of customers responded to a survey, what happened to the other 20%, and why?
We questioned those numbers relentlessly. Not because we didn’t trust the people producing them, but because an average score tells you nothing about what to fix on Monday morning.
You can’t manage a business off a single number. You manage it by understanding the individual stories that roll up into that number — the micro that builds the macro.
That’s the lesson dealers need today, and it matters more now than ever because everyone wants to talk about AI. Fine, but AI without a solid grip on the underlying data is just noise wrapped in a chatbot.
Before you can ask a clever agent, “how do I improve my business,” you need to already know the answer to a much less glamorous question: What does my data actually say about how aftersales is performing right now? Which customers have we invited back? Who responded? Who fell through the gap, and why?
Close that loop first, that’s innovative thinking.
The intelligent layer only earns its keep once the foundation underneath it is honest.
Which brings me to the second point: aftersales has stopped being the quiet, dependable younger cousin of the sales showroom, and it’s time everyone treated it that way.
For years, new and used car sales got all the commercial attention — the targets, the urgency, the events and the “why didn’t they test drive?” energy.
That’s changed, and it’s changed fast. The best aftersales teams I meet now think like a sales floor, to the point where they’re asking: Who opened a service reminder but didn’t book? And, perhaps more importantly: Why not? They’re treating a missed upsell with the same urgency as a lost test drive and are demanding innovation.
That shift matters because aftersales isn’t a cost centre anymore, it’s the profit engine of the dealership. That comes with its challenges, of course. EVs, for instance, are reshaping what a service visit even looks like but the workshop is where retention, recurring revenue and genuine profitability actually live.
However, and this is the part I’d push back on if I were sat across from a retailer, none of that commercial ambition works if the data underneath it is shaky. You can have the smartest most innovative AI tool in the world sat on top of your customer base, but if it doesn’t know when a car is genuinely due its next service, or which customer has quietly gone quiet, it’s just guessing.
So, here’s my honest advice to any dealer group serious about innovation: don’t start with the technology question. Start by finding your gaps — the data gaps, the activation gaps, the revenue leaking out of the workshop that nobody’s noticed yet. Get transparent with yourself first. Then let the smart tools do what they’re actually good at: helping you act on what you now know.
Author: Nicholas Malcolm, CEO at Autoflows