Dealers, CX, and EVs, Oh my!    A Chat with A2Z Sync’s CEO

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Episode Highlights:

 

(0:00) – Introduction

(0:37) – Episode beginning

(0:54) – Natasha’s background

(2:59) – The “one person sales model” and it’s impact on CX

(7:23) – What’s going to be important for EV manufacturers in the next few years?

(11:24) – How to connect with Natasha

Links

Connect With Natalia Giner

Transcript

Elena: Natalia is here from A2Z Sync and I am excited to have her on the show. Natalia, how you doing this afternoon?

Natasha: Elena, I’m doing great. Thank you so much for having me on. I’m so excited to talk about this today with you.

Elena: I am as well and I would love for the listeners to get to know you a little bit better. So I would love for you to talk about your background, your background in automotive.

Natasha: Sure. Well, the first important tidbit for those of us that know me, my legal name is Natalia gajner. But I go by Natasha. So I’d like to you know get that right out of the way so people don’t get confused. And I have been in the automotive technology space for almost six years now. But my background is very much not void of operations. I have worked for the Schomp organization for 17 years prior to helping on the technology side for them. Aaron Wallace, who is the founder and chairman of the board for A2Z had the idea that customer experience is really what drives the passion of the Schomp Automotive Group and that has been generational and never ending. And so that experience for the client needed to improve. And his idea was to improve that experience through unifying the customer journey with a single person. A single person would be the one selling you a vehicle from beginning to end and advising you on the best opportunities for you as a client. In this how A2Z started. We couldn’t find any technology out there in the market to enable this idea. So we build our own.

Elena: That’s such a huge, huge part of the customer experience when you’re buying a car because really, a lot of times people think that buying a car is you know up there and pain like going to a dentist right? So most people do not find it to be an enjoyable experience. So, you know, we need technology providers, like A2Z to be able to get that customer experience in check. So with that said, Natasha, and I’m sure we should have clarified the Natasha thing in the beginning. I was like well you just get she just threw me a gigantic curveball and now it looks crazy. Like I didn’t even know your first name. But I got that right out of the way in the beginning. Let’s talk a little bit more about so the one person sales model, how do you think that this is going to impact the customer experience as we move closer to mass adoption of electric vehicles?

Natasha: Sure. So from our perspective, we think of customer experience as an entire by insurance. Whether you’re looking to do your research online, whether you’re looking to complete certain parts of the transaction digitally as a customer, we believe the customer doesn’t particularly care or differentiate the difference between the car buying journey whether it is in store online, or someplace in between, or both. We do know that over 99% of clients still buy. And they typically finalize their transaction with some sort of a communication with somebody at the store. Whether that communication is their tool, whether that communication is in person, which is why we hear it A2Z focus on what we call the last mile of the sale, which is really where we believe there’s so much breakdown in the customer experience. I think there’s a lot of digital retail providers in the space that have made it more transparent and easier for a customer to understand their shopping journey. But I think the breakdown and miscommunication that has been the follow through so which is why we here at A2Z we focus primarily on that one specific problem which is the transitional problem in the end of the sale. It’s over the last mile not only do we help with the training part, which is what part of our company is involved in doing is customer improvement sustainment roadmap to change. We also just provide the technology. So when we first started out, we started out to solve this one problem for a dealer. And as you know, with everything in business problems change and so now, the problem that we’re helping to solve is sure we can get a client all the way down to a one person sales model, but we can also help them iterate their sales process, really change capacity, help them understand how much quicker the cars can really be sold. And I think with EVs there’s so much to your point fear of Well, are we going to have a direct to consumer model from dealers. And the answer is, is EVs really that different on an animal than an ice cold? from the consumer perspective? I don’t believe that we have ever really been able to ask that question. Do consumers believe that the journey of buying an ice car versus an Eevee car is actually going to be something different? I believe that the answer is no. If we don’t solve for the consumer experience, powered by employee experience I don’t care what kind of car we’re selling hydrogen TV or ice. It’s still going to be a problem for a customer. And I think that our previous CEO Chip Perry put it best. He said trust is in the very foundation of the purchasing experience. Right to where consumers simply don’t trust dealers. And I think some of that is probably goes both ways. And if you look at some of the surveys that he has performed when he was in charge of two cars is dealers rate lower than politicians that level of trust has been so disparaging. And for somebody that comes from the dealer world for somebody that has my entire foundational family and friends that are in car business, that’s very painful to hear, and think about. So how do we fix the trust of the consumer in what we as dealers do? And I believe that through transparency, and really being able to give them the information they’re looking for and not guide them to the answer we believe that you have. I don’t think we should be thinking about the type of cardboard solid. I think we should be more solving the problem of how we’re selling it doesn’t matter what we’re selling. One of our clients, right invent that also says we’re trying to solve the mobility problem, right? So whatever that mobility or the channel of the mobility may be, doesn’t really matter to us. We’re here to provide or enable customer mobility. And that’s it.

Elena: And speaking of mobility, that’s been also a hot topic for manufacturers, automakers. So Natasha, what do you think is going to be important for evey manufacturers? Right? What’s going to be important for them to consider in the next few years here?

Natasha: I think right now, the studies suggest that while EVs are driven, they’re very clean and emissions free, but the production of the batteries are highly intense, and they’re highly intense because of the mining and the refining process. So I think people that manufacturing cars should be focused on that. If we’re trying to solve the carbon footprint by implementing the EV vehicles to be our choice, then we should be solving the problem how to make because if the batteries are more intensive to produce, then the ice cars to that company, and we don’t have enough research to tell us how long the batteries actually last. We don’t really have enough information to decide whether that’s a good way to go or not a good way to go currently based in Furthermore, in places like California, for example, there is a pending mandate that everything needs to be electrified by 25. So I think to somebody like myself, some of the questions that come up in my mind is well, what is the economics? So how could people afford to buy a vehicle that on average costs $64,000 Because the average income for a person is less than that. So if you put 20% down on a vehicle of that value, you’re looking at over $1,000 car payment a month. And I guess my question is, who can afford that? The affordability issue is such a hot topic right now and especially now that we have more of the OEMs manufacturing. I talk to clients very frequently and I think it’s a really big concern for them because initially, they were no cars to stuff. People can afford to buy the car that they have to sell. And so the question I think becomes a lot is how we train advisors in store and can they actually help solve the financial problems that customers are facing? Because to earlier conversation, the problems change. So are we ready as dealers to solve those problems based on the resources that we have to put against the problems that we’re trying to solve? And so if the customer on average, depending on the market, right, whether it’s a luxury market, or whether it is domestic or otherwise, if our average car payment is $1,000. Imagine that how difficult that is for somebody to consume that something that I’ve heard as well from some of my dealers is that they are seeing dual household to merge to a single car ownership is a profitability factor. Furthermore, you know, considering working from home as something that they can do as well in order to reduce the overall expenses and keeping the vehicle for a lot longer than they have in the past, because they simply can’t afford to pay the new car payment mandate now, and so some people are just kind of holding off and waiting, but we the amount of pent up demand that the market has kind of put through COVID if you will, and it’s coming now to the surface. I still think people are going to be forced to buy cars because they really don’t have a lot of choice, which is unfortunate due to the type of affordability crisis that we’re facing.

Elena: Yeah, there’s so many different factors and it’s so interesting what is going to be ahead for this year but I know again, you and A2Z sync are on the frontlines solving problems getting ahead of customer experience. That’s what I really admire about you guys. So I would love for you to share with the audience where they could connect with you and also where they can learn more about A2Z.

Natasha: Absolutely. And thank you. I’d love to chat with you anytime Elena and our website, a2zync.com gives you a little bit of information about what we do and how we do it. What type of technology platform that we provide, in Furthermore, will enable you to look at some case studies about some of the results that we’ve had with some of the groups with which we work with or any of the viewers are welcome to contact me directly.

Elena: I will put that in the show notes to make sure that you have that information Natasha slash Natalia. It’s been amazing.

Natasha: Thank you Elena for having me. Have a great day.