If you weren't keen on car salespeople, wait until you try their AI replacements

Car dealerships have a reputation for being intimidating places, with sharky sales people that often get the upper hand in negotiations. So the prospect of Renault’s new cars having an in-built salesman sounds dreadful.

Unsurprisingly, we’re not talking flesh and blood in an R5-branded hoodie, but a digital representative. “Our cars will interact with customers in a highly personalised and conversational way,” says Fabrice Cambolive, the boss of the Renault brand and, tellingly, the group’s chief customer officer. “They’ll give advice through the virtual voice in the car or through the app, to help with maintenance, upgrades and even renewal conditions.” 

Imagine your car telling you two years into a lease that a new model, with superior performance and a fresh design, was available for £299 a month. Or badgering you to upgrade to heated seats in winter.

Welcome to the future of car industry CRM: customer relationship management. What’s Renault up to? As part of its new ‘FutuREady’ strategy, the French want to retain 80 per cent of car-related revenues in the group for the first 10 years of every car’s life. That means compelling servicing packages, over-the-air software features that tempt you to subscribe, and appealing trade-in prices (backed by strong residual values) to keep you – and your ‘value’ – within brand.

Renault’s even talking about creating “digital twins for our cars and customers, boosted by AI analysis to improve customer loyalty and retain vehicles”. That way it can monetise the second and third resale of a car within its network. “OEMs are typically focused on sales and aftersales” and miss out on the downstream revenue opportunities, chides Cambolive. Sure, but Renault’s call-to-arms is just a hi-tech upgrade on today’s CRM.

Here’s a small example of this. I recently received a text message from my local Volkswagen dealership, informing me that “maintenance may be due” on my family’s Golf. This was despite me shelling out £725 on all the trimmings on our hatchback at service time a month ago.

Our 17-plate Volkswagen Golf GTI is no connected vehicle whose on-board diagnostics have flashed a fault to the cloud. It’s just an irritating lack of joined-up systems. If Renault – and the rest of the car industry as it follows suit – gets it right, this new sales push could be a blessing, not a curse.

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