CarOnSale: Driving Success with Aircall & Salesforce

CarOnSale’s mission is to connect car dealers and suppliers with buyers across Europe. 

A European car marketplace makes sense on many levels. Some makes produced in northern countries are worth much more than used cars in southern Europe—and ex-rental fleets from the south perform very well in the sales market in northern Europe.

CarOnSale’s vision is to provide automotive markets in individual countries—which still operate in a largely fragmented way—with a shared platform for B2B used car sales. In addition to enabling customers to buy and sell vehicles in digital auctions, CarOnSale also supports them with vehicle valuation, transaction processing, and transport.

To better understand how switching to Aircall has benefited CarOnSale, we spoke to Associate Strategy Director Jan-Patrick Cap, Ph.D., who works to establish new partnerships, finalise contract negotiations, find funding opportunities, and serve new market segments.

Building Trust Through 1:1 Communication

For CarOnSale, “The phone is our most important means of communication in daily business,” Dr Cap says.

He goes on to say that especially in today’s climate, when people are bombarded with emails and adverts, CarOnSale works to build customer relationships in a personal, trust-based way. 

“Our customers know they can call us and speak to someone,” Dr Cap says.

Dr Cap emphasises how important “reachability” is in the used car business. In addition, speed is often crucial. When a car has just been auctioned, for example, it’s vital for customers to be able to quickly sort out the logistics over the phone.

For CarOnSale, it’s important to remain flexible to its customers’ needs. And in an industry often associated with issues like tampered mileage or hidden faults, trust is a vital currency.

That’s why CarOnSale aims to provide a personalised service rather than relying on standardised response texts and anonymous transaction handling.

“For us, it’s important to respond promptly and to take a personal and reliable approach to resolving our customers’ concerns. We earn their trust by being contactable in person,” Dr Cap says. “Clearly, the phone is the number one tool in this context. If customers get in touch by email, our support and sales teams are happy to pick up the issue by phone as the quickest way to resolve it.”

Accessing Quality Data via Salesforce

CarOnSale relies on the phone to communicate with customers, but another key reason the team chose Aircall is its Salesforce integration.

Aircall and Salesforce help sales and support teams access relevant data at any time from anywhere—and contact customers directly. There were other features they considered as well. 

“Our focus on pan-European markets meant we were interested not only in the range of countries covered by a telephone provider but also whether it could cover them cost-effectively,” Dr Cap says.

CarOnSale was also looking for an easy-to-implement business phone solution that offered:

• Intelligent call routing

• The option to set up voice menus

• The ability to track KPIs such as average call time

Making the Switch to Aircall

In a company where employees previously relied mainly on business mobiles, implementing Aircall’s cloud phone system was a major step in the digital transformation of the auction platform.

Carl Wollenhaupt, CarOnSale’s Senior Growth Manager, reflects on the smooth transition.

“Aircall replaced our previous use of mobiles. When we re-evaluated the providers, we found that … Aircall was a scalable solution that could be easily integrated into our systems. As a result, we chose to actively build on the use of Aircall going forward,” Wollenhaupt says. 

For CarOnSale, it’s an investment expected to pay off in both the short and long term. 

“Any international, digitally focused organisation that sees trust as the foundation of its business should consider a suitable cloud telephone solution as a way to achieve more efficient processes and personalised customer care,” Dr Cap says.

By switching to Aircall, CarOnSale made this decision early on. The results so far have been more than worthwhile.