Nic. Christiansen
BRAND WEBSITES
SPEED UP
LEAD GENERERATION

A mobile-friendly site with clear calls to action helps customers in their research for a new car and invites them to book a test drive. Umbraco CMS with headless technologies ensures a platform on which it is easy to create content, and with everything hosted on Azure, codes can be input in next to no time. The solution won the prize for Best Editing Experience at the 2020 Umbraco Awards.

Hyundai.se became the first of Nic. Christiansen Group’s brands to implement the solution. It has led to a significant increase in newsletter sign-ups – by as much as 38%.

As one of Scandinavia’s largest automobile sales groups, which comprises several brands and dealers, Nic. Christiansen faced a challenge, in that every car manufacturer and dealer had their own site. This made it difficult to ensure uniformity in their commerce processes, share data, and scale the platform.

The Nic. Christiansen Group imports Land Rover, Jaguar, BMW, Hyundai, Honda and SsangYong and are keen to help their dealers increase online visibility and ensure lead generation. They also wanted to facilitate customers’ bookings of test drives and thus establish a path to their showrooms.

The plethora of websites meant that the group could not standardise or support sales. It was IMPACT’s task to solve these problems.

Typically, one does not buy a car online and have it delivered by the mailman. So Nic. Christiansen sought to address the first stages of the customer journey in order to increase the number of customers booking a test drive or coming to the showroom to look at cars.

Customers spend an average of 14 hours on research before even taking the car on a test drive. Before the age of the internet, a customer would visit a car dealer seven times on average before making their decision. Today, this figure has been reduced to 1.3 visits.

And this is why there is significant potential in capturing customers’ attention digitally, since the more customers arrive in the showroom, the more sales are made.

What was needed was a new, responsive Content Management System: in other words, state-of-the-art technology that would serve as the foundation for Nic. Christiansen’s new solution. Previously, a mobile device user could access the site only in a pared-down version. These days, mobile devices are important research tools, so it was evident that this had to be improved.

Another focus area was providing a clear call to action. It was necessary to simplify processes and create easy access to newsletter registration, test drive bookings and contact forms. Besides enticing more customers into the showroom, clearer calls to action would ensure that more leads were generated for Nic. Christiansen.

Since there were several different brands at Nic. Christiansen, each brand’s site has to be constructed on the same model whilst catering to the brand’s needs.

The successful development of a solution for Nic. Christiansen was a direct result of close collaboration. Nic. Christiansen put forward a team of three people who contributed to the entire process. One was the Group Online Manager. With control over the budget, he was able to make decisions on finance as well as on design and features. Editors were also brought in so that they quickly became familiar with the new solution.

This close collaboration has resulted in a job completed to Nic. Christiansen’s satisfaction. On IMPACT’s latest survey of customer satisfaction, the Nic. Christiansen Group was among IMPACT’s most satisfied customers – giving them a score of 4.9 out of 5.

Nic. Christiansen wanted a content-friendly platform. It had to be user-friendly and not require too much technical skill from the user; that way, the various brand editors would quickly feel at home on the platform. The choice was Umbraco CMS with headless technologies, where CMS and the web are separate and can thus be scaled independently of each other.

To achieve a modern website, the solution uses the latest front end technologies – including Angular and Docker. The entire platform is hosted by Azure, and with this, codes can be input in 10 minutes without any downtime at Nic. Christiansen.

Click here to watch Nic. Christansens solution in action.

Hyundai.se became the first of the Nic. Christiansen Group’s brands to implement the solution; they had only recently taken over imports of Hyundai to Sweden.

Since Hyundai is a brand that attracts both families and car enthusiasts, the menu allows customers to select family cars, SUV or electric cars, etc. and when clicking on a car type, see images of the various models along with prices. This makes it easy for the customer to find the exact vehicle that matches their needs.

The solution creates an intuitive experience for the editors due to the inline editing feature in the Umbraco back office. Everything they see in back office is a reflection of what the customer sees. At the same time, all content is tailored to Nic. Christiansen’s needs. Nic. Christiansen won the prize for Best Editing Experience at the 2020 Umbraco Awards.

The intense focus on calls to action has quickly proved its worth for Hyundai. The conversion rate is measured quarterly and was compared to the quarter before launch.