How HelloCars 5x its Customer Success Rate Overnight

Doing the same thing and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.

So when customer numbers started to dip for HelloCars, a leading car subscription company based in Australia, it knew that rather than simply throwing more marketing dollars at the problem, it had to change its strategy.

Following the adage of “that which is measured improves, that which is measured and reported improves exponentially” the revolution for HelloCars began by taking a step back and looking at the raw data provided via Loopit.

Only a few months earlier, business as usual for HelloCars was achieving over 95% utilization rate on a regular basis. However, the data revealed that as the subscription market in Australia continued to boom, the strategy of simply buying leads and seeing results was losing its impact.

Adapting to a booming car subscription industry

As competition in search engine marketing increased, HelloCars saw its acquisition costs grow. And without increasing the budgets this meant that utilization began to creep backwards.

Another observation was that despite consistent new customer acquisition, an equal number of customers were churning each week. While this is inherent of the subscription model, it did mean HelloCars were fighting an uphill battle to grow utilization even when activations were running hot.

Data-driven decision making

HelloCars made another astute observation while deep-diving into the data. When they considered where their leads were coming from, they were relying on heavily qualified customers. These were either people that began to book a vehicle, or that reached out via the contact form.

But car subscription is a much more deliberate and calculated transaction, with far more consideration invested by the customer. This means generating more lead flow from customers at the awareness and consideration stage of the transaction process, rather than simply following up with the customers that were ready to transact.

This was achieved with a tried and tested solution, removing the hurdles and capturing customer information on the very first page. HelloCars updated the call to action from a simple button allowing customers to browse available cars, turning it into a form where potential customers could choose their preferred pickup date, location and provide some basic details before viewing available inventory.

The result was a 5x growth in leads almost overnight with no change to the overall marketing budget. But this strategy alone was never going to see results at the other end of the pipeline.

A higher volume of unqualified leads is hardly a win, just ask any salesperson.

So HelloCars backed this with a new outbound lead process, recruiting the sales and customer service teams to follow up every lead under a purposeful and structured nurturing process, backed by CRM automation. Each and every lead received a phone call within the hour to assist them with their enquiry, boosted by the expectation that they were in need of a car.

In a sea of faceless car hire companies, the personalized outreach was an instant hit with customers.

With each lead receiving personalized outreach, consideration and awareness quickly turned to action. The result was HelloCars more than 5xing its customer success rate practically overnight.

So what can we learn from HelloCars' experience? Going back to the data, understanding customer psychology, and implementing human-centric strategies pays off. Have you reviewed your lead generation and nurturing process lately?