Kwik Fit Outbound Case Study

Fresh insight and proactive account management deliver incremental sales for Kwik Fit

The Kwik Fit Group is the largest independent automotive parts, repair and replacement specialist in Europe and one of the largest in the world. The Group, which includes Kwik Fit Netherlands, as well as the UK operation, was established in 1971 and is now owned by the Japanese Itochu Corporation.

It has national UK coverage of more than 600 service centres and 200 mobile tyre fitting vehicles, making it the UK’s leading tyre, exhaust, brake and MOT specialist. The company’s status as the corporate sector’s number one supplier for its comprehensive one-stop shop of fast-fit services is underlined by the fact that it has won more than 80 industry and customer awards in its 47 year history. The Kwik Fit business model is based around a commitment to provide the best possible service to all customers reflected in a code of practice, the ‘Kwik Fit Way’, which technicians follow and abide by for each car in their care.

Campaign objective and project background

In July 2017 Kwik Fit UK put out a request for tender for telemarketing support for their MOT sales effort. A number of agencies were approached and, having been short-listed for the work, The Telemarketing Company was engaged based on their experience and their open, flexible and consultative business model.

Project execution

The objective of the engagement was to contact existing customers within four days of the due date for their annual MOT and/or Service. The telemarketing effort was to work alongside both national and regional marketing campaigns across multiple channels including radio, website/SEO, online advertising and triggered email promotion and reminders based on annual due dates.

A briefing took place at the agency’s premises with a broad group of callers from which core callers with the best fit would be assigned. Callers were briefed on Kwik Fit’s MOT proposition and legal requirements set out by DVSA (Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency, formerly VOSA) as well as their general service offer. This information together with key benefits such as reliability from the UK’s No 1 MOT tester, competitive pricing and same day booking could then be used by callers to persuade customers to sign up. Callers had access to Kwik Fit’s central bookings tool to view pricing and live availability at one of the 500+ centres, allowing them to book appointments at the most convenient centre for each customer.

Daily data uploads were provided by Kwik Fit with relevant information appended including type and recency of transaction as well as MOT/Service due dates, so that the agency could segment and prioritise accordingly. For example, the strategy was to focus initially on customers who had had their MOT with Kwik Fit in the previous year, and then work backwards to call less recent customers. Daily exports of called data supplied back to Kwik Fit ensured the client’s CRM remained current.

Results

Following an initial pilot, the campaign is now ongoing. Having taken on an established campaign worked previously by another agency, it was essential to take a fresh, open-minded approach and work closely with the client to identify areas for improvement. Close collaboration was supported by weekly on-site review meetings in the early stages as well as shared call recordings, live call listening, and access to real time reports, analytics and results through the online client portal.

A number of new approaches were tested:

the optimum time to call customers
the most receptive customer segments
conversion rates for lapsed versus more current customers
response rates from mobile versus landline phones

The experience gained by callers working through high volumes of data and the agency’s proprietary calling and reporting systems provided fresh insight into processes and identified areas for improvement.

Data was segmented and analysed by ‘last transaction date’ in order to prioritise sections of the data.
Successful outcomes were segmented and analysed by time of day in order to inform decisions around shift patterns.
Bespoke reporting was developed by TTMC’s in-house developers to track which hours of the day – from 8am to 8pm - performed best by contact rate and sales volume.
Feedback from calling agents on Kwik Fit’s central bookings tool led to changes which directly impacted productivity.