Background
In 2023, SsangYong was bought by KG Group and relaunched as KGM. In the UK, that brought a full rebrand and an ambitious plan to grow the dealer network. The KGM team knew the existing website couldn’t keep up. Large parts of the old CMS needed change requests and lead times to update. Some features didn’t work on smaller screens, and session recordings showed customers dropping off midway through configuring a car. National and dealer sites often fell out of sync on time-sensitive offers because nothing was syndicated automatically. The used car stock also sat on a separate subdomain, which held back SEO. KGM needed more than a brochure site. It wanted a customer experience hub that could scale with the network and connect to a new CRM.
Solution
We built a composable digital experience platform on Umbraco Cloud. We chose Umbraco for its flexibility and scalability, and because we knew about the potential of Umbraco’s new baselines feature. The new site is mobile-first, with shorter forms and a field order based on testing data. A customised back office built on Umbraco Block Grid lets KGM’s team create campaign pages without developer support.
New dealer websites are quickly and reliably deployed from a baselines template while products and offers are managed centrally and syndicated automatically. A secure Customer Zone connects to the CRM and holds each customer’s vehicles, service dates, warranty status and preferences.
We also integrated the website with Visarc’s proprietary used car platform. Stock is automatically pulled from the Uks largest channel partners such as Autotrader and shown on the national websites domain, as well as each dealer’s specific stock being displayed on their own dealer website.
Impact
The year of launch saw SEO performance improve along with all core web vitals, by August that year, the three month lead-in had seen a 449.6% increase in brochure requests over the same period in the previous year.
KGM’s team now builds campaign landing pages in hours rather than days, and new dealers can launch sites that stay in step with national offers. The Customer Zone gives KGM a direct, ongoing relationship with owners, plus richer data for analytics and targeting. The platform won Best Umbraco Cloud Solution at the 2024 Umbraco Awards. The judges highlighted how smoothly it used the latest Umbraco Cloud features in a composable DXP.
Results
“The new website and Customer Zone have been designed with mobile users in mind, which has brought us closer to our customers. Additionally, the newly created dealer websites [feature] has enabled us to get new dealers onboarded quickly, and give us more control over how our brand is portrayed”
