Honda’s digital assistance smooths CX during roadside distress

The Situation: For car owners, breaking down is one of the most frustrating experiences. Car manufacturers can support and assist customers during these unexpected events using the unfortunate circumstance to generate loyalty and peace of mind by creating transparent end-to-end experiences. Honda worked with partner Bosch Service Solutions to create a digital roadside assistance solution that has generated better transparency, efficiency, and experiences for its European customers.

Differentiating through customer experience (CX) for car manufacturers is more challenging than ever, with expectations for real-time response, greater transparency, and immediate assistance increasing. At the same time, digitalization trends such as connected cars, cloud-based systems, and mobile apps have opened tremendous opportunities for improvements in roadside assistance (RSA) in recent years. Honda sought to improve the driver experience through its connected cars and mobile app, aiming to make the experience of being stuck at the side of the road easier for customers. In addition to improving CX, Honda wanted to achieve greater visibility across all stakeholders in the RSA ecosystem, know what customers thought about the service, and do it all in real-time. Doing this required effective coordination across the stakeholder ecosystem, as HFS describes in our OneEcosystem framework. Bosch and Honda leveraged this OneEcosystem approach, one of common goals and purpose, to develop its new digital RSA solution.

Bosch’s roadside assistance capability combines with connected-car data to improve driver experience

Honda selected Bosch as a partner to design and implement a new digital customer journey for drivers experiencing breakdowns and accidents on the road. Bosch’s roadside assistance capability is part of a suite of mobility offerings for the automotive industry that supports breakdowns and accidents, including eCall and emergency assistance, stolen vehicle services, and concierge services. To start the engagement, Honda and Bosch embarked on a several-month-long examination of the customer journey, including benchmarking key metrics to identify areas for improvement.

The resulting solution for Honda’s European customers leverages connected vehicle information via the MyHonda + app. When a car has a roadside problem, the app transfers connected car data to Bosch for analysis and diagnosis while the customer is connected to a Bosch solution expert to identify the appropriate assistance services. Bosch taps into its robust partner ecosystem of RSA specialists, including technical integration for data transfer, to send the fastest, most appropriate help to the scene and transfer the vehicle to a workshop, if necessary.

While waiting for the tow truck, customers are continuously updated on their personal devices. The app provides status information about estimated arrival times, the progress of rental car and accommodation bookings or even locating nearby cafes while the customer waits for service. The app also facilitates customer feedback and reimbursements for any transportation costs incurred during this fully digital process, which is included with customers’ subscription service plans.

Tapping into the stakeholder ecosystem unlocks new sources of value

The resulting changes have put traditional “fire and forget” RSA models to shame; meaning they just dispatch the service with no follow up. The Bosch solution has reduced call answering time and physical response time and greatly improved transparency. Before the Bosch solution implementation, the success rate for getting customers back up and running roadside (without towing) was only 20%. That number has leaped to 70%, and the goal is to increase to 80% eventually. The success is due to the improvements in diagnostics and understanding common customer issues. Bosch will endeavor to resolve as many cases as possible on the phone with technical agents who can do remote diagnostics. In some cases, a new car owner’s lack of familiarity with the vehicle can be the root cause, so providing the customer with information on how to operate the vehicle often solves the issue, and can provide Honda with useful feedback for future improvements. In other cases, the information provided by the solution specialist to the RSA enables them to be more prepared to solve the issue when they arrive at the scene.

Beyond these efficiencies, the solution has also helped Honda tap into the holy grail of customer loyalty and ecosystem transparency. Reassuring the driver that the best help possible is available generates brand loyalty. Across the ecosystem of stakeholders servicing the customer—Honda, the RSA providers, the network of mechanic shops, OEMs, and rentals—there is more transparency at all levels of the process. “Having all of this data within the digital service record gives us insight into how to make the customer journey better, and much greater flexibility,” said Peter Hall, former AfterSales Country Manager, Honda. He also highlighted the short development and agile adjustments that are made in the customer journey within a few days (rather than the usual months) after a new “recurring issue” is identified; the agents are trained on the issue and it is inserted into the failure tree.  This agility and highly reduced time is a vast improvement compared to the “traditional” approach from roadside clubs, where low transparency and visibility is the standard.

The Bottom Line: In CX, sometimes the moments of truth are the most difficult ones. Honda and Bosch are leveraging technology, expertise, and the ecosystem to differentiate with a smooth RSA experience.

Often generating loyalty isn’t about creating “delightful” experiences as much as it is about reducing customer effort and taking some of the stress out of an inherently stressful situation. Honda wants to ensure that customers feel supported and cared for when things don’t go to plan. And this is just the start; Honda aims to expand these services, including to connected motorcycles. Ambitious organizations across all industries are looking for ways to differentiate by reducing customer effort, but they must look beyond their four walls, and even beyond their customers, to a broader ecosystem to understand the customer journey and develop holistic experience solutions. In this case, Bosch Service Solutions has the combination of automotive background and deep know-how in the connected mobility service environment, with 30 million vehicles running on their own mobility platforms with many (around 8 million) more already contracted.  Perhaps more importantly, this partnership enabled collaboration across multiple organizations, with Bosch as a neutral integrator across the ecosystem. Executed well, collaboration across multiple organizations with common objectives will drive new sources of value across the customer life cycle.