Hatfields

Published: November 2023

Interview with Craig Petty, Sales Director at Hatfields

Hatfields is an independent, family-run business, retailing Jaguar and Land Rover brands across the North West of England and Shropshire. The company was established in 1922 and over the past 100 years has attracted a number of prestigious awards for service and performance.

The company was looking to streamline communications and offer a consistent omnichannel experience to customers across its nine sites using data-driven automation.

How long have you been working with Marketing Delivery?

We began a phased introduction of Marketing Delivery’s software in early March this year; first establishing VoiceBox for Sales, followed by the Aftersales module a few weeks later.

We have used VoiceBox Sales to optimise interactions with prospects who may not have found the right car on their first visit to the showroom; keeping them in the sales funnel via automatic alerts regarding stock which matches their requirements. VoiceBox Aftersales sends automatic customer reminders about MOT and service appointments improving retention and conversion to maximise workshop utilisation rates.

What made you invest in Marketing Delivery products?

We already had a robust contact strategy in place, but it wasn’t visually appealing and – crucially – was very labour-intensive to operate. With VoiceBox, our communications are now specific to each retail site and deliver a stronger brand identity, while automation saves a huge amount of the team’s time.

Each communication is now more intuitive for customers and can be replied to easily and conveniently, as well as offering GDPR compliance. With Stock Alerts, we focus on sharing info about our latest used cars. With the enhanced content in our database, issuing relevant and timely messages has helped us improve customer satisfaction.

How was the implementation journey?

The implementation team were faultless, they guided us every step of the way and helped us create a bespoke customer journey. The benefit of working with Marketing Delivery is that we have a dedicated account manager who is only a phone call away.

If we want any messaging amended or scheduling changed, we can rely on them as if they were an extension of our own team. It frees us up to focus on the day job.

How easy was it for the team to adapt to Marketing Delivery

Our team has been able to adapt to the new system easily, helped by expertly delivered training. To start, we received extensive demos from our Marketing Delivery account manager to make sure we fully understood the software. Our sales, aftersales and CRM teams received separate training to ensure they were confident with the specific features available to them.

On the software side of things, the integration with our existing DMS works brilliantly. No manual cross-checking is needed, and our database was seamlessly integrated into VoiceBox without any manual input from us.

What’s been the overall feedback from your team?

Our CRM database staff have noted significant benefits to using VoiceBox. The CRM executive at the site no longer has to manually create and send the acknowledgements and correspondence, it happens automatically, regardless of annual leave, absence from work or more pressing workloads, freeing up their time and allowing us to focus their efforts elsewhere within the business.

What are you most excited about when using our product?

Before VoiceBox, it was difficult to analyse real-world data in any meaningful way. With the new software in place, we will be able to utilise and analyse data in more detail, especially around ‘lost’ sales which can then inform strategies for improvement. We are also interested to see how our sales improve with the use of Stock Alerts to keep customers engaged.