The importance of a personalised approach to motor sales is nothing new, but in 2026, technology allows this personalisation to go further than ever before.
This development comes with plenty of questions, ranging from which technologies are proving effective, to where the line between automated and human communication should be drawn and how customer privacy should be considered.
Monique Limerick, future retail implementation manager at Vines Group, says the BMW and Mini dealer group has a focus on embedding intelligent automation.
She explains: “Our ambition is to embed intelligent automation throughout the Vines customer journey across SMS, email, WhatsApp, BMW App notifications, automated call lists and AI powered conversations, alongside meaningful contact from our teams.”
Limerick says that strong engagement with AI email conversations has led it reduce some outbound calling activity, “freeing our teams to focus their time where they can add greater value”.
James Smith, head of innovation at Motorsales.ai, says there are four technology areas which are delivering successful personalised marketing for dealers: collating customer conversations from different platforms in one place; tailoring finance messaging to customers’ actual positions; using enquiry intelligence to contact customers with pertinent updates to listings and similar cars becoming available; and lifecycle automation.
Of the latter, he says: “MOT and service reminders, finance renewals and proper follow-up are not the most exciting parts of the technology, but they can produce some of the best returns.”
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Good marketing needs good data
Ian Godbold, an automotive industry marketing and digital transformation consultant, agrees it is important to get the basics right, such as tailoring communications to areas of a dealers’ website with which customers have interacted, and targeted car alerts.
For Godbold, a foundational element of personalised marketing is the quality of the customer data that is being used.
He says: “Personalised marketing is only as good as the data that’s put in. Even an MOT reminder – really basic stuff – you’d be surprised about the number of wrong dates that are put in.
“There are so many good tools out there now that can automatically cleanse your database that there should be no reason for that.”
Even if dealers have accurate data, they can still face difficulties if it is split across different systems.
Limerick explains: “Customer data sits across manufacturer and retailer systems and, dare I say, sometimes even in notebooks. This makes it difficult to build a complete and accurate view of the customer.
“As AI becomes more prevalent, poor or fragmented data only amplifies the problem and risks undermining the credibility of our communications.”
Intrusion risk?
As big as the benefits of personalised marketing can be, dealers may fear a negative impact if it goes too far, leading customers to feel that they are victim to intrusive targeting.
Smith says: “The practical test is: would the customer be surprised? Surprised that the message exists, or surprised that you knew that information. If either answer is yes, you have probably crossed the line.”
Smith explains that there are issues with dealer databases combining details of customers whose contact details have been obtained in a range of different contexts being grouped together in a single undifferentiated pile.
He says: “The sensible approach is to capture consent and preferences properly going forward rather than trying to make a legacy database fit a new campaign.”
As Limerick explains, Vines Group actually reduced its contact rate to avoid the risk of overwhelming customers.
She says: “We mapped our entire sales and aftersales customer journey alongside our manufacturer and key partners, and it highlighted just how easily communications can accumulate and ultimately overwhelm the customer.
“We have since rationalised our approach, reducing customer contact by 43% in favour of fewer, more meaningful interactions.”
Although data privacy is often a contentious topic, Godbold argues that it is not always perceived negatively, and that generally customers do appreciate the benefits to them from businesses having their data.
He says: “Most consumers will understand that if they accept all cookies, they’re actually going to get a better personalised experience than if they don’t accept cookies.
“When a consumer rings up about a car, and that car is sold, in many cases, unfortunately, the phone goes down. With engagement marketing, you’re able to say ‘OK, that car has sold, but we know this consumer also looked at this car, this car and this car’, so then you can start to speak to them about those vehicles and increase the conversion.”
Quick and on point
AI is of course the topic of the moment, and it has a potential role to play in personalised marketing and customer communication. For one thing, automated responses can shorten the crucial length of time before a customer’s enquiry receives a reply, without putting them off with a low-quality, unhelpful response.
Godbold says: “It’s no good pinging out ‘Thank you for contacting us, we’ll get in touch’. All that’s doing is infuriating the consumer. You want to go back with an answer to the consumer’s questions.
“We’re seeing more and more dealers become much better at responding, because if they don’t respond quickly enough, consumers will just go to a competitor.”
Smith says a dealer’s first response to a customer enquiry should be issued within minutes, and ideally within seconds – even out of hours.
He explains: “AI can now do much more than send an acknowledgement. It can understand the exact vehicle the customer is asking about, including things like specification, mileage and availability, and then help them take the next step.”
Godbold also highlights the out-of-hours benefits of AI; and adds that, regarding the question of when AI should hand over to a human dealership employee, there is a case for this to be as late as possible, with staff only getting involved at the appointment confirmation phone call stage.
He says: “Out of hours, the AIs now are more than capable of booking appointments. But you also want that facility that the consumers, in working hours, can be passed over to a dealer to have that conversation.
“But honestly, what we’re seeing more and more is that AI is getting a higher appointment ratio than many salespeople. So, a lot of the time, you’re better off leaving it to AI to book that appointment.”
Smith says that the time for dealership employees to enter the process is when subjective decisions are needed.
He says: “AI should handle information. Humans should handle judgement. Availability, specification, mileage, opening hours, booking a test drive or starting a finance journey can all be handled quickly by technology. Negotiation, part-exchange discussions, affordability, personal circumstances or anything that needs judgement should move to a person.”
What’s the story with WhatsApp?
A strong recent trend has been the introduction of WhatsApp into dealer-customer communications. Smith reports that this move is paying off.
He says: “Across dealers on our platform, those using integrated WhatsApp are generating around 1.2 times the leads, 1.5 times the finance applications and 2.4 times the funded deals compared with dealers not using WhatsApp.
“The technology is not creating more traffic; it is helping more of the people already showing interest actually complete the journey.”
This is a picture that Godbold recognises, saying that some of the platforms he works with are seeing their highest conversion to lead rates via WhatsApp. He says that the app is particularly effective in conjunction with AI chatbots.
He says: “Particularly at weekends, consumers will be using WhatsApp to speak to dealers, thinking there’s a dealer there. This is where the virtual assistant has the conversation.”
Smith says customers appreciate the flexibility WhatsApp offers.
He says: “If somebody is at work, on the school run or walking around Tesco, answering a sales call means stopping what they are doing. Replying to a WhatsApp message does not.”
Despite the strong results, Smith believes there can be operational and privacy risks with WhatsApp where dealership staff are using it on their personal phones rather than via an integrated platform – also a less successful approach according to Motorsales.ai data.
He explains: “The dealership then has limited visibility of the conversation, the customer history and what happens if that salesperson leaves. If the customer relationship lives on an employee’s handset, it is not really part of the dealership’s customer record.”
Smith also cautions that WhatsApp needs to be treated as a permission-based service channel, not a cheap broadcast database.
Human element still important
Despite the increasing role of technology in personalised marketing, Limerick insists that the human element remains crucial.
She says: “People must remain at the heart of the customer experience. People buy from people, and technology should enhance, not replace, that connection.”
Godbold emphasises that the aim is for the technology to be helpful, both for customers and for dealership staff.
He says: “It’s not about chasing an AI dream. It’s about ‘Can it make it easier to sell a car?’, ‘Will it make it easier for the consumer’s experience?’, and ‘Is this going to give me a potential cost saving in the business?’.”
This issue will be explored further during AM’s free webinar, Identifying the innovations that count, at 2pm on Thursday, 24 September.
Our expert panel will examine how dealership leaders can distinguish technology that produces a meaningful return from tools that merely add another layer to an already crowded technology stack.
Reserve your place for the AM Innovation Week webinar now and follow AM throughout Innovation Week as we examine innovation in marketing, sales, aftersales and dealership culture.