Context
Toyota Motors North America aimed to reimagine the dealership experience for both customers and sales/service staff across its extensive U.S. dealership network. The goal was to modernize digital tools and processes to improve efficiency, usability, and customer engagement.
- Outdated UX slowing down the sales process and leading to a fragmented customer experience.
- Limited content management functionality, suboptimal search capabilities, and poor usability, resulting in low adoption (only 30% of the 10,000+ user base actively used the system).
- Lack of integration with critical applications, including financial services and inventory management, creating inefficiencies.
- Opportunity to digitize business processes, streamline internal workflows, and create a seamless, engaging customer experience.
This initiative aimed to modernize dealership operations, enhance user adoption, and deliver delightful, integrated digital experiences for both dealership staff and customers.
My Role
As Executive Design Director, I led a nine-month engagement with a six-member design team, including a lead researcher, UX designers, and HTML prototypers.
Our design team collaborated closely with technical architects and developers to ensure early validation of designs, proactively managing engineering trade-offs and feasibility considerations. Additionally, we led all interactions with business and product stakeholders, defining success criteria and articulating business requirements to align the project with Toyota’s strategic goals.
Current State Assessment
Field Research
The user research phase involved on-site visits to 15 auto dealerships across the U.S., engaging with 58 users in various sales and service roles. The study encompassed large, medium, and small dealerships, ensuring that insights captured needs and challenges across different scales of operations.
Journey Mapping
Design Highlights
The redesigned platform streamlines workflows for sales and service personnel, enabling more effective and engaging customer interactions. The app offers quick and intuitive access to inventory data, vehicle specifications, and parts information, significantly shortening the sales cycle while enhancing the overall customer experience.
Additionally, the app integrates with Toyota Financial Services, providing real-time quotes for both buying and leasing options, ensuring a seamless and efficient purchasing process for customers.
Design Solution
The solution included a redesigned portal for desktops and laptops, along with a companion iPad app, designed to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of sales and service personnel.
The iPad app introduced new workflows, such as vehicle configuration and auto-finance modeling, enabling sales teams to assist customers seamlessly—whether in the parking lot, on the showroom floor, or during a test drive. This mobile-first approach empowered dealership staff to deliver a more personalized and dynamic customer experience.
Business Impact
The app has driven significant improvements in dealership performance, delivering:
- 30% increase in vehicle sales
- 22% reduction in sales cycle time
- 17% growth in add-on and optional sales
These results were achieved within the first six months of deployment at pilot dealerships across North America, demonstrating the app’s effectiveness in enhancing sales efficiency and customer engagement.
See other Case Studies.
abhijit.design 