🚗 Transforming the car buying and ownership experience

Making it easier for customers to buy, own, and sell both new and used vehicles through a more connected, end-to-end experience

Note: To respect client confidentiality, some project specifics have been intentionally left out.

Project Summary

  • Client: Global automotive brand, EU market (40+ countries)

  • Timeline: 3 months (2019)

  • Industry: Automotive | B2C Products & Services

  • My Role: CX Strategist & Researcher

  • Team: 2 UX Designers + Front-end developer + Visual Designer + Project Manager

  • Expertise: Customer Research • CX Strategy • Experience Mapping • Prototyping & Usability Testing • Stakeholder Alignment

Challenge

Emerging players are reshaping how consumers buy and own cars, pressuring traditional brands to modernize. Our client, a well-established automotive company, needed to evolve its digital experience without compromising brand integrity. They faced complex internal structures, high emotional and financial investments from their customers, and the challenge of delivering a scalable solution across 46 diverse European markets.

The goal: to redefine the end-to-end car-buying and ownership experience to meet modern customer expectations, while mapping value across business units and preserving the brand’s legacy of quality, safety, and trust.

Approach

We followed a 3-phase process (Research, Strategy, and Prototyping) to develop an end-to-end experience based on customer needs and cross-departmental business value.

1. Research

  • Mapped the current end-to-end customer journey

  • Conducted 14 stakeholder interviews and reviewed 50+ customer research reports

  • Assessed customer needs via customer interviews in the 3 key markets (FR, ES, UK)

  • Market trend analyses and digital behavior insights (Google Analytics, BI tools)

2. Strategy

  • Co-created a Value Flow Map -- a comprehensive framework mapping customer journeys, user insights, product/service opportunities, business objectives, and internal interdependencies

  • Identified areas of value exchange across 12 departments and facilitated multiple stakeholder alignment workshops

  • Prioritized one high-impact journey (used car-buying) for the prototyping phase

3. Prototyping

  • Translated strategic opportunities into detailed UX and technical requirements

  • Designed, built, and tested an interactive high-fidelity HTML/CSS prototype 

  • Mapped functional flows, UI elements, emotional touchpoints, and backend needs

  • Defined a testing plan and validated the prototype with 30 users in key markets

The Value Flow evolution: from capturing insights in a spreadsheet → creating a mapping tool → implementing strategic vision.

Outcomes & Impact

  • Customer experience strategy adopted across 12 departments to align product and service development around a unified vision

  • Value Flow document became a core strategic tool -- mapping customer needs, business objectives, and future opportunity areas; now referenced in roadmap planning cycles

  • Created alignment across design, marketing, product, and operations, driving momentum toward integrated, user-centered service delivery

  • Prototype proof of concept successfully validated the reimagined used car-buying experience in key markets, informing UX, content, and tech requirements

  • Enabled future innovation: Identified areas for personalization (e.g. usage-based insurance), digital retail (e.g. AR tools, flexible packages), and cross-touchpoint integration (e.g. seamless physical/digital retail experience)

Ready to explore what’s possible for your team or challenge?

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