Customising the customer experience with Honda NZ
Industry
Automotive
Location
Nationwide
“Delivering exceptional customer experience, with genuine care and the human touch, is a critical success factor and serious competitive advantage for business today.” – Nobuya Sonoda
“The EMA team have been fantastic to work with and added real value to our business.”
Overview
One of the most well-known car brands in the world, Honda vehicles first appeared in New Zealand in the 1960s.
The iconic Honda Civic, which launched here in 1972, became one of our most ubiquitous vehicles, with its combination of efficiency, reliability, safety, affordability, and versatility capturing a significant chuck of the Kiwi car-buying market.
Today, the Honda network comprises 20 stores in New Zealand, of which nine are owned by Honda NZ and the balance under independent agency agreement.
There are also four Service Stores, providing test drive and online store delivery along with service, and seven Service Centres.
Honda also established an online store in 2021 – the first automotive brand in NZ to provide both retail and online sales options for customers.
To better improve its customer experience, Honda turned to the EMA to develop a bespoke course for its new car and used car sales teams and vehicle technicians.
Identifying Goals
Honda is accelerating efforts to achieve its goal to make EVs and FCEVs represent 100% of its global automobile sales by 2040, with plans to produce more than two million EVs per year globally by 2030.
Working towards the realisation of a carbon-neutral society, Honda is continuing to electrify its products but also take a proactive approach to increase the use of hydrogen as an energy carrier and strive to expand its hydrogen business.
Honda’s long-term top seller is the Jazz, which now has four model variants, including two e:HEV hybrid options. It launched the brand-new ZR-V model in May 2023 to bring a mid-size SUV to the market. The CR-V remains very popular, and October 2023 saw the launch of the new CR-V range, including its first large SUV with e:HEV – the CR-V RS.
The key for Honda is to take its customers along on the electrification journey. A crucial part of that process is improving the customer experience.
Honda needed to help its salespeople, called Honda Ambassadors, to develop genuine, long-term relationships with its customers. It is developing these relationships, with the backing of the quality and integrity of the Honda brand, that ensures the success and sustainability of the business.
Training Support
“Delivering exceptional customer experience, with genuine care and the human touch, is a critical success factor and serious competitive advantage for business today,” says Nobuya Sonoda, Managing Director, Honda New Zealand.
“We’ve worked closely with the EMA team for the past 18 months developing and rolling out our 5 Star Hospitality programme, initially to our Honda NZ store teams and support office staff.”
The customised 5 Star Programme is a key pillar in creating an outstanding customer experience at Honda NZ. The course consists of five half-day modules customised to include scenarios, language and processes relevant to Honda NZ.
The Customer Care module looked at the ‘Honda Way’, discovering the company’s customer experience vision, strategy and implementation plan.
Ambassadors learnt why customer experience is critical and who does it well, and the FISH philosophy of motivation and how to design a great customer service experience.
The second module focussed on building customer experience skills such as hosting, body language, attitude, communication ‘funnels’ and phone and email best practice.
The EMA’s bespoke Puzzle People module helped the Ambassadors learn about four different communication styles, how to be flexible to improve connections and communication with others and how to adapt their body language, voice and choice of words for different customer styles.
The crucial complaints, conflict and ‘tricky conversations’ module focussed on what is actually happening when someone complains: the cycle of escalation and how to practice empathy and listening skills.
The final module took in wellbeing, with strategies to build resilience, develop positive-growth mindset and ways to recharge and refocus.
An additional sixth module is available for Honda to run internally, which is an opportunity for learners to present a key topic or project they have completed through their Honda 5 Star Hospitality programme.
Driven to Succeed
“Feedback from our Associates has been extremely positive, and our NPS results testify that customers agree we provide five-star star hospitality, whether it’s in new car sales, used car sales or from our service and technician teams,” says Sonoda.
“We’ve put new measures in place so we can track the impact of the training, along with regular feedback from our customers and our people.
“The EMA team have been fantastic to work with and added real value to our business.”