10:00 am, December 7, 2024
In times when dealers up and down the country are looking to adopt a blended, omnichannel approach to selling cars, a good online sales experience is crucial to any car business which wants to succeed.
Our Used Car Online Sales Experience of the Year title celebrates the firms which gave customers the best digital buyer journey.
The judges were looking for a website that was smart, well designed, and backed up by brilliant levels of help and advice with performance ranked via mystery shopping scores.
Among the firms to impress were our highly commended outfits – Frosts Cars and Norwich Car Store – but in the end it was Carsa which came out on top in the tightly-fought category.
The dealer group was set up in 2020 by Former Imperial Cars commercial director Jon Churcher, sales director Mike Hawkins and sales support manager Kelly Beattie.
The trio left Imperial after it was bought by Cazoo (remember them?) and have since dedicated themselves to growing Carsa into one of the most exciting used car businesses around.
The firm now has sites in Bolton, Bradford, Cannock, Durham, Halesowen, Mountsorrel, Shrewsbury and Southampton and the service blew our judges away during the mystery shopping process.
Responding to the victory, Matt Gill, Carsa sales director, said: ‘This is absolutely exactly what we were hoping for.
‘To be honest, we have spent a lot of time looking at what we’re doing online and how we deal with customers there so it’s definitely been a focus for the last year and we’re thrilled to have won.’
Richard Bradshaw, the firm’s technical director, added: ‘For us it’s all about the omnichannel approach. It’s all about there being something for everyone and that’s where we’ve built the business from.
‘It’s a bit of the old world and the new world. The pandemic taught us an awful lot and it changed a lot of people’s buying experiences.
‘What we’ve tried to do is to capture all of that because a lot of people want to touch and feel and have that sales experience.
‘I feel like we’ve got that, as well as the online experience which is as equally as important a part of our business.’
- Carsa
- Frosts Cars
- Great Central Auto
- Norwich Car Store
- Pershore Motor Group
Congratulating the company on its, win, Car Dealer’s editor-in-chief, James Baggott, said: ‘Carsa has set a high standard for the online car buying journey, earning them the title of Used Car Online Sales Experience winner for 2024.
‘Their user-friendly digital platform, paired with excellent customer service, has made purchasing a used car more convenient and transparent.
‘By focusing on the needs of today’s digital-savvy customers, Carsa has established itself as a leader in online sales. Congratulations to the team on this well-deserved recognition!’
Main image: The Carsa team of Richard Bradshaw, Jon Churcher, Russell Churcher, Matt Gill, Ian Lashford, Rishi Patel and Kyle Wood pick up their award from Mike Brewer and Chris Wateridge, managing director of Visitor Chat.
