Innovating for the future: insights from 2024 and 2025 direction

2024 has been a year like no other for the automotive sector.

It was the first full year of the government’s ZEV Mandate (Zero Emission Vehicle), with retailers adapting to legislative changes aimed at driving sales of new battery electric vehicles (BEVs).

And the year when discretionary commission arrangements, or DCAs, came to the fore following the Court of Appeal’s ruling that car retailers must disclose commissions on finance sales.

Added to the mix was the new government’s Autumn Budget and its financial implications for retailers as employers.

The collective impact of these factors are still being played out. In the meantime, retailers drew upon their resilience to adapt and capitalise on the opportunities these new developments have brought.

2024 vehicle sales

Positively, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) forecasts 2024’s new car registrations will close at 1.94 million units, a 2.1% improvement on 2023.

It expects BEV sales to rise 15.4% year-on-year to take a 18.5% market share, driven by fleet registrations but still short of the ZEV mandate target of 22%. While diesel and petrol are expected to fall by 13.9% and 3.9% respectively.

Turning to the used car market, the SMMT’s most recent data encouragingly showed transactions increased every month from January to September, resulting in 5.89 million sales, up 6% year-on-year.

Our Dealerweb Showroom data reflects these positive trends with a year-on-year 8% increase of enquiries and orders, however average total order values are showing a year-on-year decline.

Driving progress: 2024 highlights

Throughout the year we have been focused on developing the right digital tools for retailers to efficiently engage with customers, build retention and drive profitability.

Here are some of our standout figures from 2024:

• 28 million vehicle images processed online through CitNOW Imaging  
• 2.8 million chat engagements conducted with 690,000 new contacts using CitNOW Conversations
• 13.1m CitNOW Sales and CitNOW Workshop personalised videos created
• Increased enquiry conversions by 12% through video responses
• Created almost 36.5k vehicle appraisals for simple and easy part exchange
• Received over 6k customer triage submissions for pre-diagnostic vehicle assessment
• 2.3 million enquiries captured and processed through Dealerweb Showroom of which 31% have converted to orders
• 3.7 million eVHCs created through RTC Aftersales, with 1.7 billion items of repair work identified.

Innovating automotive technology

Once again, this year we made a major commitment to invest in the latest technology to meet the evolving needs of our customers, which saw a significant expansion of the CitNOW range of products and services.

These are just some of our 2024 technical innovations:

• AutoReel (part of CitNOW Imaging) – captivating and dynamic video using a collection of AI quality-controlled images and combining them with existing vehicle data
• Enhanced iOS and Android Apps – CitNOW Sales, CitNOW Workshop and CitNOW Imaging apps – all-new interfaces and features, five times faster and with enhanced performance
• Equicalc – new equity parity calculator feature in Dealerweb Showroom enabling retailers to maximise all potential revenue from the vast data stored in Dealerweb
• RTC Cloud based Solution – gives customers the flexibility to use a cloud-based server rather than hardware.

Greater CitNOW Group integration

We also delivered key integrations between the CitNOW Group range of products to deliver the tools necessary to enhance the customer experience at every stage of their journey.

• CitNOW Sales and CitNOW Appraise – Digital vehicle valuation straight from your website and your CitNOW Sales video presentation page
• Dealerweb Showroom and CitNOW Appraise – Digital vehicle valuations and part exchanges straight from a Dealerweb Showroom customer record
• RTC Aftersales and CitNOW Triage – A simple and seamless integration creating one single workflow to allow customers to easily capture and highlight vehicle concerns before arriving at workshops
• Dealerweb Showroom + CitNOW Insights – Evaluation of stock inventory from Dealerweb Showroom enabling stock managers to develop effective pricing strategies.

The vision for 2025

So, what are the likely sales trends for 2025?

The SMMT forecasts further growth for new car registrations, up 1.8% to 1.97 million, with BEV market share projected to rise to 23.4% while, Cox Automotive is forecasting 7.4 million used car sales for 2024, rising just 0.3% to 7.45 million in 2025.

We know next year is likely to be another challenging one for the sector, especially as EV sales targets are increased under the ZEV Mandate rules. Customers, with an eye on the wider economy, will be increasingly focused on value for money. Whilst we don’t have a crystal ball to predict the future, what is certain is that retailers with right processes and tools in place to deliver outstanding customer experiences will achieve the best possible outcomes.

CitNOW Group’s mission is to continue to provide retailers with the solutions to create positive and memorable customer experiences. That is why we are working on enhancing our solutions with innovative tech and AI-powered features to deliver a true omni-channel experience from online to offline across vehicle sales and aftersales.

We look forward to sharing more details soon.

Until then we wish you Season’s Greetings and Happy New Year.

Analysis across the top 20 brands shows an opportunity for growth as we enter 2025

2024 has provided us with set of consistent aftersales performance results, with eVHC conversions remaining steady at an average of 46%, this is following a period of decline in the previous year where it fell from 49% to 46.5% in 2022/2023, a positive sign for the industry as it looks forward to the new year. 

Breaking the 2024 data down by brand, we found that although there were some that outperformed others, when comparing H1 to H2 we saw no change in average eVHC Red work conversion (average 46%) and Red sold values (average £138) across the set of 20 brands. 

Of the 20 brands compared, seven improved eVHC conversion including BMW, SKODA, Hyundai and Volvo. 

The brands that improved eVHC Red work conversion saw a growth percentage of 6% on average moving from 49% conversion to 52%, with the highest improving by 12%. 

These brands not only improved conversion but saw an uplift in average value per job, increasing the invoiced value for red work by between £5.10 and £12.48 per job. In revenue terms, for an average retailer this would generate between £20,000 and £60,000 per year in additional revenue from the uplift alone. 

On the flip side, brands that fell, did not fall that far, with performance dropping off by just 1% in many cases, leaving lots of scope to build and improve performance in 2025. 

John Law, Executive Director for CitNOW Insights commented, “It’s great to see the number of retailers and brands that are performing well as we close out 2024, the stable footing we are on provides a fantastic opportunity for growth. 

Retailers have a number of levers they can pull to make a difference today, be that including video with every eVHC (proven to increase conversion by up to 11%), or reduce revisit rates by providing tools to enable consumers to “triage” their vehicle from home (shown to decrease rebooking rates by up to 60% as first-time fix rates improve). 

Moving into the new year, we would actively encourage retailers to look at ways to make these marginal gains, and then deliver them consistently, long term performance improvements will then be seen.” 

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