'Automotive industry must increasingly connect with customers via video platform'

UK's CitNow believes that use of technology will increase further in 2016 – the ‘Year of the Video’ as consumers will expect video as part of their experience by end of the year.

By Autocar Professional Bureau

15 Feb 2016

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'Automotive industry must increasingly connect with customers via video platform'

The next 12 months is the timeframe in which the car sales industry must positively adopt video, according to automotive video service provider, CitNOW.

The use of personalised video by dealerships and garages has increased rapidly over the last three years with CitNOW, which provides video software to dealers, making three million videos for its customers last year alone.

The technology allows sales executives in dealerships to respond to enquiries from potential customers with a personalised video, meaning that the customer can do a virtual ‘walk round’ of a car they are interested in, without necessarily have to visit the dealership.

With 2015 seeing an increase in 182% in the number of videos created by dealers and an estimated 65,000 hours of film created, the UK-based video innovator is predicting that customers will be actively demanding video by the end of 2016 and that dealers who don’t adopt the new technology will start to disappear as they fall behind the pack.

CitNOW’s chief executive, Alistair Horsburgh, said: “Last year saw an unprecedented phase in the adoption of video technology, as automotive businesses switched on to the tangible benefits it could provide. Now that the technology has made its mark and proven its worth, 2016 will be the ‘Year of the Video’. With more than 50% of the UK’s franchised dealerships using video in sales and/or aftersales, we are at a tipping point for the industry. Those dealers not using video are already being left behind; given the sheer volume of videos being produced, we will see consumer expectation driving demand by the end of the year.”