In a fiercly competitive landscape of luxury cars, Ford partnered with Icreon to relaunch its brand Lincoln.
Lincoln is a 100-year-old automotive brand and the luxury division of Ford. However, in 2012, Lincoln faced significant challenges as its sales plummeted. In an effort to turn the brand’s image around, Ford relaunched Lincoln. With a renewed focus on elegance, craftsmanship, and advanced technologies, Lincoln offers discerning customers a refined and luxurious driving experience.
As the personal transportation industry started to transform, Lincoln had the foresight to begin a transformation of their own to retain its competitive edge in the luxury car market in the United States. Their challenge was to prepare to shift from Auto Manufacturing to Personal Mobility and from Vehicle Ownership to Brand Membership.
Learn how Lincoln turned to Icreon to understand its customers’ personal transportation expectations on a deeper level, so they could engage with them in more meaningful ways.
In the fast-moving world of luxury cars, the Ford Motor Company’s brand, Lincoln had been stuck in the slow lane, with older buyers and a lack of desirability. Lincoln was driven to change that. The brand set out to redefine consumers’ perception of the brand with a full-scale transformation. From revenue generation, to the role of dealers, to the relationship with their customers, to the connectivity of their vehicles, down to the service and support they had to offer their customers - everything was about to change. Taking a pragmatic and intentional approach to solving the problem would be key to their short term and long-term success.
Lincoln’s goal was to outdeliver its competitors in terms of tailored customer experiences, design, and quality. Additionally, as part of its reboot, Lincoln aimed to target Gen Y & Gen Z consumers with savvy advertising and online communications across its own social platforms to appeal to them. To achieve its objectives, Lincoln’s vision required exclusive technology and expertise that could sustain long-term success. Lincoln parterned with Icreon to strike the right balance of luxury and technology and to revitalize brand strategy with a new focus on innovation, craftsmanship, and the customer experience.
Lincoln’s business transformation was geared towards embarking on a journey that would build the business model of the future. By defining the 10-year future state, they developed a roadmap to know what to do first, then experiment to define what’s next.
By understanding the personal transportation and mobility trends surrounding the Lincoln driver, Icreon was able to understand the specific expectations of the driver today, while plotting out the expectation path for the future. Icreon leveraged this information to build the end-to-end customer experience for the driver, building out the tools and platforms to best connect them to their experience, then activating the dealers and customer support teams to develop and deploy the programs needed to bring the experience to life through “This is the Lincoln Way” app.
Lincoln’s relaunch was focused on regaining relevance in the luxury car market that would sustain for the future. In order to gauge the success of the loyalty project, Icreon focused on three primary metrics. The first metric was customer satisfaction with their driving experience in a Lincoln vehicle. The second metric was the number of customers who purchased new Lincoln vehicles after participating in one of their programs. Finally, Icreon's team measured customer retention rates. As Lincoln introduced new programs, Icreon observed significant improvements across all three metrics over time. These improvements suggest that Icreon team efforts to enhance the customer experience and incentivize customer loyalty have been successful.
To help Lincoln seamlessly structure its technology projects and policies to achieve its desired business strategies and stay resilient in the face of market change, Icreon developed a 10-year roadmap for Lincoln. With a solid enterprise architecture strategy in place, Icreon was able to have a holistic view of our client’s organization and increase the business’s profits and revenue growth.
The team at Icreon assisted Lincoln in preparing for the future while maintaining their sales models by understanding customers' evolving needs and expectations. Icreon tackle the challenge of adapting to the rapidly changing landscape of the luxury sector, enabling companies to successfully navigate and thrive in new marketplaces with tailored strategies and innovative approaches.
Navigating change in an organization requires the cooperation of leadership and its employees. Icreon offered our change management services to Lincoln’s executives and employees alike, so they could start leveraging our cutting-edge technology across the bussiness immeadiately.
Icreon teamed up with Lincoln to design loyalty strategy that went beyond the purchase-repurchase lifecycle to deliver a loyalty program around membership actions. Through targeted outreach and meaningful engagement, Lincoln experienced remarkable growth in sales, solidifying its position as a top-selling luxury car brand.
In a digital age where everything is moving at a rapid pace, slowing down experiences with a personalized touch can empower each user. Icreon redesigned the UX experience for over 30,000 Lincoln customers, so that every customer experience was unique to the individual and their interactions with the brand.
Through deep analysis of consumer behavior and preferences, Icreon helped Lincoln reshape its brand identity and effectively communicate its emphasis on luxury and heritage across various platforms. By targeting new consumers and engaging with them in more meaningful ways, Lincoln experienced increased sales and market share, successfully appealing to a wider audience and establishing itself as a top-selling luxury car brand in the United States once again.
Icreon's understanding of personal transportation and mobility trends enabled the Lincoln brand to create a tailored end-to-end customer experience for Lincoln drivers, enhancing connectivity and deploying the "This is the Lincoln Way" app to bring the sophisticated experience to life. The result has been a significant boost in sales and an increase in customer loyalty. The company has experienced growth in its membership models and other long-term engagement opportunities for its buyers.
Icreon's efforts to enhance the customer experience and incentivize loyalty resulted in significant improvements across all three key metrics including improved customer satisfaction, increased vehicle purchases, and higher customer retention rates.
