Vertu Motors has built a fully digitised remote vehicle purchase capability, using cloud communications platform Twilio. 

Vertu Motors, which operates 147 outlets representing 23 vehicle manufacturers across the UK, has sold almost 3,000 cars a week since the beginning of the most recent lockdown, despite customers being unable to visit the dealerships. 

A multi-channel digital showroom experience was created, encompassing all elements of the process, from meeting the dealer and looking at the vehicle to completing FCA-compliant finance paperwork. 

Video chat was embedded into Vertu Motors showroom products, which is used by its team for day-to-day interaction with all Vertu systems and customers. This ranges from creating and presenting a deal to customers to working through finance calculators in a compliant way.

Furthermore, if the customer has a question about a vehicle they cannot physically see, the Vertu Motors team can simply “walk” the customer over and let them see any elements they needed to be sure of via the tablet camera. 

Once the customer has made the decision to proceed with a purchase, Vertu Motors is able to send a customer a link to a digital document via SMS as well as a four-digit code. Once happy with the content of the document, all the customer must do is to reply with the four-digit code and their date of birth to sign.

Since the introduction of this system, Vertu Motors has sent more than half a million SMS signature messages, in compliance with FCA regulations. 

To conclude the transaction, all signed and countersigned documentation is sent in a batch to the customer for their records, using Twilio SendGrid.

“This has not been a shift from analogue to digital: Vertu Motors was already moving forward with digital acceleration, but the pandemic meant we had to put our foot on the accelerator. Because of COVID-19, things that would have taken months became an immediate priority so we could continue to meet the needs of our customers and our business” said Chief Operations Officer at Vertu Motors, David Crane. 

“With the model we’ve implemented, our customers tell us they can’t believe how easy it is and we’re delighted to have been able to build a simple solution to a complex problem that’s delivered clear value. As we look ahead to what may come in the next year, it’s clear that, whatever happens, the great strides we’ve made create solid foundations on which we will continue to build.”