At our third Customer Advisory Group session, we spent the afternoon bringing customers and product teams together to explore some of the developments we're working on behind the scenes.
These sessions give us the opportunity to hear directly from retailers, test ideas early, and make sure the products we build solve real day-to-day challenges. While the conversations are always confidential and collaborative, we thought we'd lift the lid on some of the topics discussed to give all Autotrader customers a flavour of what happens at these sessions and how customer feedback helps shape the future of our products.
Improving leads management and call tracking
In previous advisory group sessions, we’ve heard lots of feedback that Sales Hub in Portal can be difficult to use when trying to operate effectively. Couple that with the high volume of calls, all lacking relevant and useful detail, we can clearly see an opportunity to improve the way leads from Autotrader can be managed.
We know many of you spend a significant amount of time managing customer enquiries, whether that's in Portal or through third-party CRM systems, so we wanted to dig deeper into how you're working today and where we can improve the experience.
To do that, we brought in a handful of our product specialists and researchers to run a session with members to understand more about:
How you currently manage your leads today across different systems
Where the biggest frustrations and inefficiencies exist
Which new features would have the greatest impact on day-to-day operations
The discussion generated some fantastic insights; there was a lot of interest in how technologies such as AI-generated call summaries, call scoring and intelligent follow-up recommendations could help save time and make customer interactions easier to manage.
By involving customers at this early stage of product development, we're able to better understand where innovation can deliver genuine value rather than simply adding functionality for functionality's sake.
“We spend a lot of time thinking about how to create the best experiences possible for our customers but ultimately, they are the ones who have the most knowledge about what their day to day is really like. We want our products and services to help them do their jobs more effectively, so getting feedback from such a diverse group of retailers is hugely helpful for us.”
Enhancing advert performance insights
Another session focused on how we can give retailers a deeper understanding of buyer behaviour on live Autotrader adverts.
“Directly observing and speaking with dealers during these Customer Advisory Group sessions is invaluable. Testing early concepts directly with our customers eliminates guesswork, uncovers friction points, and ensures we build products that deliver immediate, practical value on day one.”
Members were shown early concepts and prototypes exploring how Buying Signals could be surfaced directly within live listings, helping retailers better understand how buyers are engaging with their vehicles throughout the purchase journey.
The group also provided valuable feedback on our existing advert performance reporting, highlighting areas where additional insight or new metrics could help them make more informed decisions about stock, pricing and advertising performance.
With Buying Signals already available through leads and our enhanced ROI tools, insights directly to live adverts is a natural next step. Our ambition is to provide a more complete view of the buyer journey; from the moment a vehicle is advertised through to the point of sale.
Why these sessions matter
One of the biggest benefits of the Customer Advisory Group is the opportunity for customers to influence the products they use every day, and they do this whilst representing every dealer across the UK.
Rather than building in isolation, we're able to put early ideas, concepts and prototypes in front of retailers, gather honest feedback and use those insights to shape our product roadmap. The result is better products, built around real customer needs and informed by real-world experience.
The conversations, challenges and ideas shared during these sessions continue to play an important role in what we build next, and we're looking forward to sharing more updates as these developments progress.
“Continuous user testing is central to how we discover and build products at Autotrader, whether that’s through deep-dive research, 1:1 interviews on the dealership floor or live on-site testing. The Customer Advisory Group adds another vital layer to that toolkit. Having a dedicated forum for raw, unfiltered debate gives us a fast, honest feedback loop, making sure our roadmap directly reflects what retailers genuinely need to succeed.”