Here’s How Valvoline Leverages Data to Improve the Customer Journey

Our increased reliance on advanced data analytics has allowed us to gain new insights into the ways customers experience our brands. From how easy our website is to navigate, to customer satisfaction and NPS scores, data drives business decisions in a manner which is evidence-based and without bias.

This is what motor oil supplier and oil change service provider (through its Valvoline Instant Oil Change subsidiary) had in mind when it decided to leverage customer satisfaction data to make sure its customer journey was the best it could be and make any improvements it thought were necessary.

What VP of Corporate Operations Tony Puckett knew was that he wanted the organization to shift from one which focused on transactions involving vehicles, to one which was more concerned with building relationships with people and marked this culture shift as the starting point

Service Management Group

To achieve its goals. Valvoline partnered with Service Management Group, a research organization based in Kansas City, MO which specializes in customer and associate data and the definition, aggregation, and critical appraisal of such information to drive business decision making.

"Puckett knew his vision would require a fundamental culture shift in operations — from processes and transactions to relationships,” said SMG in a white paper. "He also knew the cultural shake-up would be a critical step toward winning within a very competitive industry, as customers choose to take their cars where they know and trust the people.”

The first stage of this project was to implement VIOC’s customer satisfaction index program and leverage the data gleaned from it to gain a greater understanding of what was important to customers during their service center experience and identify which specific actions VIOC needed to take to build and maintain a trusting relationship with those customers.

The VOIC customer satisfaction index confirmed what Valvoline already suspected, which was that its customers valued speed of service over all else. When they were coming in for an oil change, they did not want it to take up a significant portion of their day and expected VIOC to make good on the "instant” portion of its name. This led to Valvoline reducing the number of appointment slots it offered during the working day, cutting the number of services offered, and cutting down overall service times.

These moves were recognized — and appreciated — by customers. Subsequent applications of the customer satisfaction index revealed Overall Satisfaction scores improved nine percentage points over the course of the year, and Likelihood to Return for their Next Oil Change increased from 74% to 80% of customers. These results indicate that customers came to trust VIOC to deliver on its speed of service goals and functioned as evidence that this data-driven approach had indeed yielded positive results.

Onwards and Upwards

Not content with resting on those laurels, Valvoline has continued to apply the customer satisfaction index to ensure standards around speed of service are maintained. However, with speed now improved, it became clear that a new consideration – Not Being Pressured to Buy – had taken the top spot for customers concerned with building trust, leading to Valvoline shifting its focus to improving in this area.

VIOC had previously created an Oil Guide to educate customers on the attributes of oil types — in particular, the benefits of higher-grade oils. They wanted to help customers feel informed and positive about selecting premium oil, even at a higher price point than conventional oil. However, the Oil Guide has some unexpected side effects.

"The survey data, combined with transaction data, revealed the Oil Guide was having an adverse effect on those customers who had purchased premium oil on the prior visit,” said SMG. "These customers were foregoing the premium oil and trading down to lower-quality oil, which was negatively affecting VIOC’s average ticket. VIOC was quick to respond by directing Service Centers to show the Oil Guide only to those customers who had purchased conventional oil on the previous visit.”

Data also suggested that new customers felt more pressure to buy than returning ones, so Valvoline implemented new training for its service center staff which helped them vary their dialogue when talking to distinct types of customers.

Final Thoughts

Leveraging customer satisfaction data is a fantastic method to gain greater insight into the journey of your customers and drive decisions which will improve their experience significantly. Whether you are dealing with B2B or B2C interactions, all companies should be using data to improve the customer journey in this manner.

You can hear Manager of Digital Partner Efficiency at Valvoline, Michael Trout speak at B2B Online Chicago 2023, being held in May at the Marriott Chicago Downtown, IL.

Download the agenda today for more information and insights.