How can you engage customers, promote self-service, boost your bottom line and go green, all at the same time? Sometimes, it just takes the right digital tool and an innovative approach.
That’s what Mercedes-Benz Finance found when they leveraged Idomoo’s Next Generation Video Platform to create Personalized Videos for both the beginning and the end of the customer journey.
- At the start of the customer’s journey, the video welcomed them to Mercedes-Benz Finance, explained what to expect, and shared how to manage their agreement in the self-service portal.
- Near the end of their agreement, customers received a video that covered their options and next steps for their agreement.
Combined, the videos represented a powerful, personalized approach to customer communications. Using Idomoo’s platform to seamlessly blend creative with customer data at scale, each video was 100% unique with personalized details like customer name plus dynamic scene logic for different flows.
Take a look at just one of the many personalized welcome videos below.
The campaign was incredibly successful, reducing costs while driving customers to self-serve with a 28% conversion rate, and it was shortlisted for The Wires best video campaign award.
Taking a Deeper Look
Like many campaigns for banking and other financial firms we work with, this one had a few goals.
At a high level, Mercedes-Benz Finance wanted to offer their customers a personalized and relevant digital alternative to their printed pack in a convenient format. These videos, with their personal touch, were designed to elevate the customer experience, removing potential friction from onboarding and end of contract, two critical moments in the customer journey.
The digital solution would also improve cost efficiencies and the company’s impact on the environment by reducing the number of mailings.
Another goal of the welcome video specifically was to point customers to their Mercedes me finance self-serve portal, reducing calls to their contact center and therefore allowing the agents to deal with the more complex calls.
To execute on this, videos were sent to customers via email. New customers received a video welcoming them by name and inviting them to Mercedes me finance, the company’s digital self-service platform.
For customers at the end of their agreement, the Personalized Video included a timely reminder that their contract ends soon and outlined the options available to them at the end. These included the next step in their customer journey, such as exchanging the vehicle for a new one, returning the vehicle or making a final payment to own the vehicle outright.
Why It Worked
With dynamic scene logic to change the scenes shown based on the contract type and personalized data synced from Mercedes-Benz Finance’s CRM, the videos presented a scalable and efficient solution to reach customers.
Videos were quick to watch and customers could refer back to them as needed.
Plus, Mercedes-Benz Finance made sure all of their customers could understand their videos by including subtitles to serve those with hearing impairment, creating a campaign as inclusive as it was personalized.
“We wanted to offer our customers a personalized and relevant digital solution to our printed welcome and end of contract packs as research has shown that customers prefer emails in most cases,” said Gary Lee, Head of CX, Marketing, L&D at Mercedes-Benz Finance.
Here’s his take on the project:
Our digital solution also improved cost efficiencies and reduced our impact on the environment. The other benefit is pointing customers to our self-serve portal, which reduces calls into our contact center, allowing the agents to deal with the more complex calls. The videos allow us to explain finance in an easy to understand way, remind customers what product they’ve taken and their end of contract options. Our videos also allow our customers to refer back to the information whenever they feel necessary.
Campaign Success
As a result of the personalized video campaign, Mercedes-Benz was able to meet several of their top KPIs.
- Videos had high clicks and watch time, including a completion rate over 70% for the welcome video and a staggering 96% for the end of contract video.
- The welcome video also successfully encouraged customers to engage with the online portal: 28% of people converted to the self-serve portal.
- As a digital solution, the personalized videos represented significant cost savings. They sent fewer printed welcome packs, a reduction in printing costs of 86%, and fewer end of contract packs, a 75% reduction in printing costs.
It was shortlisted for The Wires, a global awards program recognizing the best in digital media across industries.
All told, the campaign saved on costs and improved the customer experience with a personalized digital solution in a format customers enjoy.
Based on the success of the campaign so far, Mercedes-Benz Finance is continuing to send these data-driven videos to customers as they stay committed to reducing their impact on the environment and providing an innovative CX. As the Mercedes-Benz tagline says (and told each customer at the end of their video), they’re “here to help.”
