OVERVIEW
The Michelin Group undertook an ambitious, revolutionary global program called ENGAGE, with the centerpiece being reimagining its technology ecosystem and subsequent experiences. Key to this modernization effort was its B2B platform, which allows various Michelin entities and their customers to collaborate in real time via a single tool. "Keeping our lead in terms of product quality and performance is essential, but it isn't enough to guarantee success. So, what's our new focus? Offering a complete and excellent customer experience," said Florent Menegaux, COO and Senior Executive Vice President. The problem Michelin faced was years of neglect that created huge amounts of technical and experiential debt and unhappy dealers across the board.
3 CSAT
Average rating that dealers were giving Michelin over a 10 year period of time
Like most companies, Michelin thought they understood their customers but in fact had made a good deal of assumptions based on what the business hoped to achieve. We took to travel in person to different dealers to meet directly with them and get a better understanding of what they were doing contextually.
Coming out of dealer and customer interviews, we came away with a ton of new insights. Stakeholders were open to changing direction, so we took advantage to co-create in quick sprints, bringing customers and dealers along.
APPROACH
As part of ENGAGE, Michelin realized that they were not doing a good job of connecting the dots between the customer and the dealer. In regards to the dealers, Michelin faced heavy opposition to a digital transformation given the adoption rate of technology to date, the steep investment, and the sheer amount of change management and enablement it would take.
Not part of the initial scope, we quickly realized that Michelin’s design language lack cohesiveness and represented the disjointedness of the organization. I took it upon myself to bring together partnerships across their internal brand teams and third party vendors to focus on a new look and feel.
THE SOLUTION
We hit a snag at a critical point in the testing phase of the engagement. Some early deterrents of our approach, raised flags to key executives in the global office in France. We had to come up with a quick solution to address concerns and turned to our framing and strategy to develop quick video vignettes that can speak to the value of the program.
Details were still important, especially when fulfilling an order. We worked to separate the details, as part of key decisions or ordering flows, making sure dealers wouldn’t lose their place as they were multi-tasking.
We were able to unblock concerns and picked up our momentum. Our first focus was building out the main portal experience, which was the single tool that dealers had issues with previously and a top concern for Michelin to get right as they were looking to create a single destination for connectivity.
One of the insights we gained through contextual inquiry was that most dealers didn’t have a chance to sit down. On average, most dealers and their employees were on their feet between 10-12 hours a day, leaving very little time to sit at a desk to complete work. We noted this and prioritized creating a complementary app that will work alongside the dealer as they managed their day.
Dealers wanted access to information quickly with the ability to skim over the status of their accounts, checking for anomalies and taking quick actions
Contextual relevance was another key ask from dealer feedback. Features like tires needed to have enough relevant information available to make a decision with the ability to dive into details as needed. We chose features like “displaying available inventory” to reduce decisioning and frustration
OUTCOMES
Originally, the challenge confronting Michelin was making the whole organization more agile. To accomplish this, it developed an innovative new tool with Salesforce aimed at making all of Michelin's data — tire references, sales history, and more — accessible in real time. Along with this new platform, the tire manufacturer took another look at its processes. The combination of these two factors allowed Michelin to simplify communications between sales staff and customers. The platform now influences the way sales staff manage their leads, delivery times, and even product complaints. Michelin’s new platform has changed the game in the U.S. by offering a unique entry point for orders, tire distribution by wholesalers, fleet managers, and more. "We are simplified our processes and took advantage of Salesforce to aggregate data and share a 360-degree view of the customer," said Sophie Foucque, Director of Michelin's B2B Digital Factory
9
Revised CSAT rating provided by dealers after the first 6 months of launch
+93%
Dealer adoption rate of within the first month of launching the new tool
+18%
Increase in YoY sales, with larger increases in previously low territories and under-penetrated markets