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This success story focuses on aftersales growth, where Pentagon Motor Group has used Force24 to bring externally managed campaign activity in-house and build an automation programme around timing, relevance and measurable commercial impact. Automation is now central to how Pentagon engages customers after purchase, generates service demand and passes opportunities to the teams best placed to act.
From agency-managed comms to smarter in-house control
Before using Force24, Pentagon’s customer communications were managed through an external agency, covering service reminders, MOT reminders, campaign emails and wider customer comms. The setup worked, but it came with extra costs around send volumes, retainers and design work. Over time, that created a more cautious approach to marketing activity, where every additional communication had to be weighed against spend.
Bringing communications in-house gave Pentagon’s team more control and better visibility from a lower-cost model. It also gave the team direct access to performance data, making it easier to understand what was working and improve campaigns with confidence.
Immediate growth from personalised aftersales journeys
Aftersales quickly became one of the strongest examples of what their automations could achieve. Rather than sending a generic reminder to say work may be due on a vehicle, Pentagon instead uses customer and vehicle data to make service communications personalised on a 1-1 basis. Data from their DMS, Keyloop, helps identify the work likely to be relevant for each vehicle, including mileage-based service requirements and additional maintenance needs. That data is then pushed through Force24’s API, allowing Pentagon to segment customers based on the specific work due and build personalised communications around those needs.
This means customers receive a more useful reminder, showing the work that is relevant to their vehicle and explaining why it matters. The message moves away from a generic cost prompt and becomes a more helpful, timely service recommendation.
More service leads for the call centre
Pentagon also improved the booking journey that customers reached after engaging with a reminder. Using dynamic microsites created in Force24, customers are taken to a personalised booking page where their details and relevant service work are already presented. This reduces friction and makes it easier for customers to submit an enquiry.
That personalised journey has helped Pentagon achieve a 63% higher booking page completion rate compared with its standard website booking page, whilst also passing 68% more service booking leads to the call centre compared with the website and inbound model.
For the call centre, this creates a stronger flow of warmer leads. Customers have already engaged with a relevant reminder, understood the work connected to their vehicle and taken action through a form, SMS response or tracked phone call. It means automation is now not only generating more demand, but helping the call centre focus on better-qualified opportunities.
A commercial impact attributed to marketing activity
The commercial results show the difference between sending service reminders and building a proper aftersales automation programme. After onboarding Force24, Pentagon immediately increased service booking leads driven from emails by 218%, with that figure growing by a further 43% by the end of the first 12 months.
Across the service reminder journey, Pentagon also saw a 36% increase in responses, reducing the reliance on the call centre team to follow up. This is where the value of the programme begins to impact the wider business; the success is not just in better engagement, but in more service opportunities, stronger call centre support and a clearer connection between marketing activity and commercial output.
Campaign metrics that bode well for the future
A healthier, more future-proofed customer base is one of the biggest long-term wins from Pentagon’s approach. For Pentagon, this matters a lot because audience health is part of long-term growth. Better targeting has helped the team generate more response while protecting the customer base for future service, retention and sales opportunities. Service plan post-delivery emails saw a 60% increase in open rate and a 21% increase in click-through rate, while unsubscribes in this sequence declined by over 50%.
Service reminders saw an even bigger shift in the same areas, with click rates increasing by 10x, unsubscribes falling by 68% and SMS unsubscribes by 88%.
Supporting the sales team with stronger intent signals
Pentagon’s automation programme now also supports sales opportunity identification. Using quality scoring, their marketing team can identify customers who may be closer to buying again and surface those opportunities straight into their sales team’s internal messaging platform. A machine-learning-based scoring system does this based on factors such as renewal windows, proximity and engagement levels, with high scores proving over twice as likely to convert.
Each of these opportunities surfaced gives the sales team a clearer view of the customer’s recent activity, helping them understand who may be worth prioritising and why. This turns their marketing automation into a practical handover tool, helping their sales teams see customer behaviour, not just customer history.
A stronger lifecycle marketing model
Pentagon’s story is a strong example of what happens when automation is used with clear commercial purpose. The team has reduced reliance on a higher-cost external model, created more relevant customer journeys, increased service booking opportunities and given both the call centre and sales team better insight to act on.
Find out more at Force24.co.uk