LeasePlan Corporation N.V.

With Salesforce, we can keep our business in the fast lane and continue to blaze a trail in predicting and delivering next-generation mobility services.”

—Michel Alsemgeest, Chief Digital Officer, LeasePlan
 
6600 Employees
Salesforce Client Since 2012

1M+

emails sent during first campaign

 
 

LeasePlan puts digitalisation in the fast lane with Salesforce

Self-drive. Electric. Shared. Cars and the ways we use them are constantly evolving. And that means leasing companies, such as LeasePlan, need to be ready to lead the next automotive revolution. To stay one step ahead, LeasePlan has launched a digital initiative that will help it continue to improve its customers’ journeys, ultimately delivering ‘any car, anytime, anywhere’.

“Our role is all about connecting supply and demand – whether that’s leasing vehicles, selling second-hand cars, scheduling maintenance, or simplifying insurance,” said Michel Alsemgeest, Chief Digital Officer at LeasePlan. “By creating flexible digital services and platforms, we’re able to easily adapt the business to our customers’ needs.”

Digital ecosystem enables instant customer service

Salesforce is the lynchpin of LeasePlan’s trailblazing digital ecosystem. With omni-channel services, automated lead nurturing, and personalised marketing, LeasePlan can build the agile and sustainable foundations it needs for the future.

“With Salesforce, we can turn our digital ambitions into reality,” said Alsemgeest. “It will help us achieve our vision of a centralised, digital ecosystem that instantly connects our customers with the automotive services they need.”

And LeasePlan’s 180-strong team of digitalisation engineers are already making this vision a reality. The ‘Digital Hub’ team has used the Salesforce Platform to develop apps that will enable instant customer service, such as online bookings for car healthchecks with third-party suppliers.

 

With Salesforce, we can turn our digital ambitions into reality. It will help us achieve our vision of a centralised, digital ecosystem that instantly connects our customers with the automotive services they need.”

Michel Alsemgeest, Chief Digital Officer, LeasePlan

Balancing consistency with flexibility on a global scale

With 1.8 million cars across 32 countries and 50 years’ experience, LeasePlan is a world leader in Car-as-a-Service for new cars through the LeasePlan brand and the high-quality three-to-four-year-old used car market, through its CarNext.com business. The company aims to offer all the benefits of car ownership without the hassle, which means providing customers with supplementary services, such as roadside assistance, insurance, and maintenance.

But with processes spread across country borders, Alsemgeest needs to do more than just digitalise the business; he needs to standardise and optimise it too. “To deliver a personalised customer experience, we need a unified LeasePlan,” he explained.

As well as this unified approach, the needs of local teams as well as their customers and cultures must also be considered. “With Salesforce, we can achieve the right balance between consistency and flexibility. As an open platform, it can be customised for different geographies and teams. It’s easy to rollout, manage, and use, which is key with a global community of users,” said Alsemgeest.

From pilot project to end-to-end business platform

LeasePlan has been using Salesforce since 2012 after it embarked on a pilot project with Sales Cloud and Service Cloud. The company has since added Pardot, Marketing Cloud, Einstein, and Chatter to the mix, with Community Cloud being deployed in late 2018 / early 2019.

"Our Salesforce journey started with one team deploying Sales Cloud and now it involves almost the entire business,” said Alsemgeest. “It has helped bring greater transparency, efficiency, and agility to our operations and the customer experience.”

Global dashboards keep sales and service on track

The sales and service delivery teams have experienced the biggest transformation. As well as logging every opportunity in Sales Cloud, LeasePlan also tracks renewals, tenders, international account plans, and relationships with existing customers.

To unify data from different sales teams, LeasePlan has created global dashboards powered by Einstein. “We now have a 360-degree view of our commercial performance across every geography and business line,” explained Alsemgeest. “The Commercial VP can engage directly with sales reps at the front line via Chatter and congratulate them personally when they close a deal.”

LeasePlan’s customer support teams also have greater visibility of previous interactions and current queries. Conversations with thousands of drivers and fleet managers across different channels are all captured in Service Cloud. “We don’t want to waste people’s time asking for information that we already have. Service Cloud has transformed the relationships we have with drivers and fleet managers,” said Alsemgeest.

Better segmentation enables greater personalisation

LeasePlan is also transforming the customer relationship with smarter marketing and sharper lead nurturing. “With Pardot and Marketing Cloud we can automate the lead acquisition flow for every country to ensure nothing falls through the gaps,” said Alsemgeest.

Leads, especially those from SMEs, can then be segmented and sent targeted and relevant content. This has improved engagement rates significantly over the past two years. However, the most noticeable change has been in the quality of leads, with the number of qualified leads being passed to sales increasing significantly.

Transforming marketing with customer journeys and campaign analytics

LeasePlan is taking this personalisation one step further by creating customer journeys for enterprises, SMEs, and individual consumers. “With Marketing Cloud, we can track how different campaigns resonate with different customers, and analyse their impact on a global scale,” said Alsemgeest.

These insights have been invaluable for high-profile marketing initiatives, such as the company’s ‘What’s Next?’ campaign, featuring Richard Hammond. “Using Marketing Cloud, we were able to reach a global audience, sending out more than one million emails during the two-month campaign. Emails were personalised, and contained targeted offers relevant to individual business segments. We were able to centrally monitor open and click through rates, as well as form submissions, allowing us to see how different segments and global regions were responding to the campaign,” explained Alsemgeest.

Social Studio was also used to monitor public reaction across social channels.

LeasePlan blazes a trail in next-generation mobility

For LeasePlan ‘What’s Next?’ isn’t just a campaign; it’s part of the company’s culture. As a result, it’s a question that Alsemgeest poses to his team on a regular basis. “There’s no end destination with digitalisation; we need to keep innovating and improving to stay ahead of the competition,” he said.

Next on the digital programme list is an online partner community. Built on Community Cloud, this will enable a wider group of suppliers with easy access to relevant leasing information.

“With Salesforce, we can keep our business in the fast lane and continue to blaze a trail in predicting and delivering next-generation mobility services,” said Alsemgeest.

Explore the products that are helping LeasePlan Corporation grow.

 
 

SALES

Improve your sales with the best CRM app in the world.
 
 

SERVICE

Deliver personalized experiences with Service Cloud.
 
 

MARKETING

Drive action with intelligent marketing using Marketing Cloud.
 

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