About the customer

The BMW Group employs approximately 8,000 people directly in the UK and a further 14,000 across its network of 147 retailers representing the BMW and MINI brands. The company has invested almost £2 billion in its UK operations since 2000 and the UK is the world's fourth largest sales market.

UK plays an important role within the BMW Group. It is the only place in the world where all three brands of the BMW Group - BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce Motor Cars - are represented by production operations. The BMW Group also has a marketing and sales subsidiary in Farnborough with a vehicle distribution center in Thorne.

In April 2018, the first urban BMW store in the UK opens at the Bluewater shopping centre. Following the model of BMW urban stores around the world, the Bluewater store offers shoppers a new and enjoyable way to experience the latest models in the BMW range.

Customer challenges

The UK's first BMW 'Urban Store' is located in the Bluewater shopping center in Kent, with 28 million visitors to the Bluewater shopping center annually and an average of 450 BMW store visitors per day.

Shoppers can arrange in-store test drives of the latest BMW models; At the touch of a button, customers can purchase their vehicle of choice online using interactive displays.

In the face of intense competition in the UK automotive industry, BMW UK was looking for a digital way to improve the customer experience by integrating new technology that helps deliver product and brand messaging, in-store orientation, collecting valuable customer data for lead generation, driving proactive sales.

Implemented solution

rpc - The Retail Performance Company integrated Pepper as a new digital touch point in the BMW urban store and implemented several usage scenarios to improve the entire customer journey and in-store experience. Pepper helps attract attention, draw people into the store, enable brand interactions, inform visitors about products and services, collect customer feedback, record interactions and emotional data, and - last but not least - leave people smiling.

Results

25% increase in store traffic
28000 interactions with the brand per week
20 qualified leads every week
80 new qualified feedback received from customers
The interactions were carried out with interlocutors aged between 24-45

“You can ask Pepper a lot of questions, he answers back, he's very personable, and he also collects a lot of feedback from us customers to understand what works well in our store.” says Nora de Limon, Modern retailing project manager, BMW UK