Volkswagen Financial Services

Creating online community for dealer business managers

The challenge

VWFSI wanted an innovative solution to transform its relationship with its Dealer Network. They wanted to improve their sales processes so they could drive new business and increase revenues.

The main challenge was to provide a solution that allowed Volkswagen Financial Services Ireland to manage and push sales and contract renewal Opportunities to the VWFSI Dealer Network.

The key business objective was to provide an online community for the network of VWFSI Community Dealer Business Managers. This community is the user interface that the Dealer network relates to when dealing with VWFSI.

Through this community, VWFSI can manage and push PCP/HP end-of-term contract renewal Opportunities to the VWFSI dealer group to empower them to proactivity sell new Cars/Finance to current VWFSI Customers.

VWFSIrequired a solution that provides a modern, seamless digital experience for VWFSI dealers to manage their Opportunity pipeline.

 

The approach

Merkle worked closely with the VWFSI team to create a custom Sales Cloud solution that would allow VWFSI to manage opportunities being pushed to their Dealer Network.

We developed a custom Lightning Community that allows the Dealer Network to access and manage their contract renewal opportunities, with the look and feel that matched company branding. The Community experience was tailored for each individual user, as per the brand(s) which they dealt with.

Using a component directly on the home page of the Community, VWFSI has the ability to publish brand and dealer specific News records to Community users.

The solution also enabled CRM administrators to upload and update data relating to opportunities, while allowing account managers to easily manage opportunities.

 

The outcome

We delivered a multi-cloud Sales and Partner Community solution that:

  • Exceeded expectations - Delivered and surpassed the business goals defined in the Business Case.
  • Stakeholder confidence - Proved the Salesforce Platform strategically was the right choice. Phase 2 is in progress to further expand the solution.