Case Studies » Major credit reporting agency

Uncovering new opportunities for innovation

opportunities for innovation

Engagement at-a-glance

Within the heavily disrupted automotive industry, car-buying preferences and behaviors have changed dramatically. A major credit reporting agency knew they needed to update their understanding of today's car buying journey from end to end in order to realign their offering and launch new products and services. To help them do that, they turned to the experts at Celerity.

Our team of innovation experts focused on:

Uncovering the key moments and pain points that could make or break a customer’s experience across the car-buying and ownership lifecycle

Identifying high-value opportunities for realigning their services and potential new offerings

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Exploring the potential implications of industry trends, like online & omnichannel shopping models, impact of autonomous vehicle fleets, and rise of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to consumer purchasing

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Introducing the organization to design thinking — a proven method for approaching innovation by breaking down silos and embracing customer-centric thinking

The challenge

As dealers rapidly embrace new dealer management systems, this core credit check service—and others like it—are becoming more commoditized and more distant from their core consumers: lenders, dealer finance officers, and consumers. To stay competitive but even relevant, this organization recognized its need to realign with today's car-buying journey.

How? First, they needed to regain customer empathy and intimacy by understanding each step along the consumer, lender, and dealer journeys. They also needed to improve how they manage dealer and lender experience.

Celerity's mission

To enable the organization to better understand the car-buying journey, empower them to create competitive new offerings, uncover additional ways to add value along the way, and—ultimately—help them overcome their inside-out, siloed approached to building new products and services.

The solution

To achieve these lofty goals, Celerity quickly got to work on multiple fronts. We knew that delivering on their objectives would require us to work within the organization and without, leveraging internal SMEs and gathering external feedback from multiple points in the car-buying journey.

Building a foundation

First, our team created an ecosystem map to help the client understand the multiple actors and their relationships within the automotive space. Then, we conducted one-on-one interviews with customers, dealers, and lenders to understand and build empathy with their motivations, needs, and pain points. Next, we translated what we learned into a service blueprint to help the client visualize process flows and integration points across each audience.

Surfacing key insights

Now armed with a solid understanding of the changing industry, we identified points of friction across the service ecosystem and worked collaboratively to translate each one into actionable insights. On top of that, we paired these insights with key industry trends to give the client a 360-degree picture of the industry, their customers, and where they had opportunity to add new value.

Putting it all together

Lastly, we facilitated an ideation session to uncover implications and opportunities of the trends, insights, and friction points we surfaced. The session also generated a raft of ideas for new products and services the client could launch, as well as areas to observe for future opportunities.

The outcome

At the start of the engagement, the client only had visibility into the lenders' role in the car-buying and car-ownership experience. But by the end of our engagement, the client had a comprehensive understanding of the entire process, including consumers, lenders, and dealers. In addition, Celerity was able to:

  • Uncover high-value insights necessary to realign the client's offerings and launch new products and services
  • Introduce the client to necessary tools, cross-functional approaches, and the design-thinking mindset for staying competitive in a quickly changing and disrupted industry
  • Deliver valuable insights that informed future strategic initiatives and brought teams together with a shared vision

Get in touch

In today's world of relentless change and disruption, you don't need to go it alone. Ready to see how Celerity can help you deliver better customer experiences and create a problem-solving culture that turns change into opportunity? Reach out to us today.