Diary of a DMS Guy

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This car is special

Not because it is a Tesla Model 3 - although that does make it special.

But, because it completes the transition of our fleet of cars to fully electric. This supports our drive towards Zero Carbon - find out more about our efforts at https://dmsnavigator.com/sustainability

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Comparing the buying process

In my diary last week, I wrote about my car buying experience when buying a car with my partner's mother.

This is the 13th Tesla I have bought over the past 5 years. Every single one has been purchased online, with minimal physical interaction with any staff and over the years the sophistication of the IT systems involved has increased.

I ordered this car online. It was a simple case of clicking through the configuration of the vehicle and selecting "Buy this car".   I entered my name, address, email and telephone followed by my credit card for the £100 deposit and that was it at that stage.   The configuration already had quoted me finance costs - so I knew what the deposit and payments were.

I received an email which invited me to go back to the portal that I could log into to complete my purchase.   This had several stages, including finance application (which was completely online and transferred the base details from my previous entry).

I could value and agree to part exchange my car on a separate button (I didn't do this on this occasion but have done in the past - you just enter your registration no, mileage and condition to get an offer).

When it comes to handover, you get an email and a call to confirm the final details.    The invoice emailed has the bank details to make the final payment.

Is this process perfect?

Not by any means.  Tesla are unique in that they really only support the online buying process - even if you wander into one of their showrooms and say you want to buy, they will simply sit you in front of one of their computers and open up the web site.  With some request, they will help you through the process.

It's interesting

To compare the Tesla process and the process I went through the week before, which was somewhat clunky and painful to watch.   The two distinct ends of the spectrum that I witnessed on two weekends back to back keep me to my vision of what I need to ensure that Navigator delivers to it's customers.

The Vision

The vision remains that no matter how the customer wants to transact, whether that's totally online, completely physically or a mixture of these and other methods, we need to be able to supply a turn-key solution to our dealers which allows them to do exactly this, smoothly and seamlessly.

as the days, weeks and months go by, we march ever closer to this utopic solution. As business changes (as it is currently) we simply need to adjust our position and continue.

This is our vision, this is my vision.  

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