For LSH Auto UK, one of the country’s leading Mercedes-Benz and BYD retailer groups, aftersales has always been central to its business strategy. But as the rise of electric vehicles began reshaping the service landscape, the group realised that traditional methods of managing customer communication were holding them back.
“We see aftersales as being one of the biggest contributors to auto retail going forward,” explains Vaughan Blackman, Managing Director at LSH Auto UK. “And we have this underlying challenge of the rise of electric vehicles, which require a very different schedule of maintenance compared to ICE vehicles. So what do we need to do to combat that as retailers? That’s really dive into our existing car park and our customer base deeper and really focus on customer retention and customer value.”
Meet the Team Behind the Change
The success of LSH Auto’s transformation lies with a diverse leadership team united around a single goal: modernising the aftersales experience.
At the forefront is Vaughan Blackman, Managing Director for LSH Auto UK, overseeing six Mercedes-Benz dealerships and five BYD dealerships across the country.
Supporting him is Louise Connell, Group Contact Centre Operations Manager, who leads the customer communication and outbound booking teams that play a critical role in aftersales performance.
Katherine McLoughlin, Head of Aftersales, drives the strategic vision for service excellence and customer retention across the network.
On the technology front, Chris Gensmantel, Chief Information Officer, ensures the group’s systems and data infrastructure enable digital innovation and operational efficiency.
Finally, Kristian Tunnicliffe, Senior Marketing Executive, bridges the connection between marketing and aftersales, ensuring campaigns are data-driven and aligned with customer needs.
The Challenge: Manual, Fragmented, and Time-Consuming Aftersales
Before partnering with Autoflows, LSH Auto’s aftersales operations were heavily manual, relying on spreadsheets, weekly data dumps, and disconnected systems.
“Before we started using Autoflows, it was quite rough for us as a marketing function if I’m honest,” recalls Kristian Tunnicliffe. “We didn’t have any level of automation whatsoever. Everything was very manual for us.”
From the contact centre’s perspective, the process was equally frustrating. “We were working on the basis of a weekly download onto spreadsheet, which wasn’t the most effective way of having the team work,” says Louise Connell. “We would download the information and extract from Mercedes-Benz and implement the data into our Excel spreadsheets and allocate those out across the team.”
She continues: “By doing so, this made it incredibly difficult to manage what the team were doing day to day, look at the volume of data that we had, but also by having a weekly data dump, so to speak, would really impact our efficiencies. Towards the end of the week we would run low on leads and then we would have a boom scenario on the date that the leads were entered. It was also an extremely manual process. It was completely out of our hands how and when we manage the data and worked through the follow up calls.”
For Katherine McLoughlin, this lack of precision created a blind spot in customer engagement: “Before it was very difficult. It was just a data pot. We managed it on Excel and we’d share that pot around. But it was really in a bit of a blind hope of we were contacting the right customers at the right time.”
From the IT and strategy side, Chris Gensmantel saw the same issue: “The challenges we saw before working with Autoflows was we just weren’t sure we were maximizing the customers we’ve got. We’d seen problems, we’d seen issues, we knew there were certain customers that weren’t getting interactions from us.”
“There's nothing more frustrating than calling the customer two or three months outside of a service window.”
Louise Connell
Contact Center Operations Manager
LSH Auto UK
That mission - to future-proof aftersales through smarter engagement - led LSH Auto to discover the Autoflows Aftersales Automation Platform.
The Turning Point: Choosing Autoflows
When LSH Auto began exploring new solutions, Autoflows quickly stood out as the partner who could transform how the business engaged its customers.
“For me, it was the moment I saw the dashboard,” says Chris Gensmantel. “The moment I saw information in a clear, concise way, delivered and accessible by multiple people. With Autoflows, it’s all about everybody having visibility all of the time. So everyone’s on the same page, everyone’s looking at the same data, everyone’s sharing information. That, for me, was a light bulb moment, because business growth doesn’t come from a single person. It comes from a team of people collaboratively working together.”
From the aftersales side, Katherine McLoughlin highlights the difference in partnership approach: “The biggest difference for me with Autoflows is that they listened, they understood what we wanted, and they were really, really happy to come on that journey with us and work together on what the future looked like for service reminders.”
Vaughan agrees that Autoflows changed how they communicate: “We’re able to automatically target customers in groups via algorithms that help us reach customers at the right point in time, as opposed to more of a spray and pray approach. This is much more targeted to a customer’s unique journey.”
“The biggest difference for me with Autoflows is that they listened, they understood what we wanted, and they were really, really happy to come on that journey with us and work together on what the future looked like for service reminders.”
Katherine McLoughlin
Head of Aftersales
LSH Auto UK
Seamless Implementation and Support
Rolling out Autoflows across the group happened during one of the busiest times of the year, yet the process proved surprisingly easy.
“The team was super efficient with helping us with any support that we needed to get the system up and running,” recalls Louise Connell. “We rolled out Autoflows in March, which was during our busiest period. The team at Autoflows were able to provide us with training ahead of go-live date, which was really simple and efficient.”
Katherine McLoughlin echoes this sentiment: “One of the highlights really for me through implementation was that it just seemed very easy. A lot of the times when we’ve rolled out projects, new systems, new processes, we find that it can be quite hard and it takes a lot of input from our end. I think Autoflows took a lot of that away from us. It was really seamless and I just felt really supported throughout it, and I know the team did too.”
She describes a clear “light bulb moment” early in the rollout: “I remember when we first set the first campaigns, we were a couple of months back and it was so exciting for the first couple of days seeing customers start coming through and interacting with the communication. Once those first interactions started coming in from customers, we were like, oh yeah, we are doing it now.”
Transforming the Aftersales Business
Since implementing Autoflows, LSH Auto has seen substantial gains in efficiency, customer engagement, and business performance across every department.
“We’ve seen a huge increase in the team’s productivity and efficiencies,” says Louise Connell. “So much so we’re performing at a rate of 125 percent increase on our outbound bookings than what we’d done previously. They trust the data, they believe in the data, so they’re more inclined to work through it and to actively work through the outbound records.”
Kristian Tunnicliffe adds: “It’s kind of made us operate a bit more closely internally because what it’s brought out in us as a business is it’s made us as a marketing function work a lot more closely with the aftersales function. So it’s made us almost think a bit more strategically.”
From an IT perspective, Chris Gensmantel describes Autoflows as transformative: “With Autoflows we see it as the new hub of data because it has the ability to integrate with so many other systems that we currently use.”
On the business performance side, Vaughan Blackman reports: “We’ve seen an increase in retail visits year on year, which is really positive. Most of the market is not growing, and we are. We’ve seen an increase in service visits as well, so scheduled maintenance, and to really encourage people to come in when they’re due with the right offers.”
For customers, Katherine McLoughlin sees a clear benefit: “I think it’s definitely improved for the customer because we’ve really been able to fine-tune and tailor-make how we communicate with them and what we communicate with them and when.”
"We’re performing at a rate of 125 percent increase on our outbound bookings than what we’d done previously."
Louise Connell
Contact Center Operations Manager
LSH Auto UK
Results at a Glance
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125% increase in outbound bookings
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Significant growth in retail and MOT visits
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Double-digit growth against national trends
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Stronger collaboration between marketing and aftersales
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Seamless data visibility across departments
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Tailored, customer-first communication
LSH Auto’s journey shows how intelligent automation, data visibility, and a collaborative partnership can unlock the full potential of aftersales. What began as an efficiency challenge has become a model for customer engagement and growth, powered by Autoflows.
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