Client
Linoln
Company
IBM iX
2019
Role
Digital Strategy
Product Lead
The Background
Across Lincoln 4S stores in China, daily operations depend on fragmented administrative and management systems. Car dealers are required to manually enter and retrieve data across multiple disconnected systems and often duplicating the same information several times. This repetitive workflow not only increases the risk of human error, but also weakens data accuracy and slows down the entire sales process.
The Challenge
Car dealers spend too much time on administrative tasks and approval follow ups instead of building client relationships or closing sales. Limited system integration reduces real-time visibility into inventory and financing status, creating friction at critical moments during ongoing deals.
Lincoln needed a solution that could simplify manual processes, improve system communication, and bring clarity to the dealer workflow, allowing sales teams to focus on converting opportunities into revenue.
The Research
To understand what was really happening inside Lincoln 4S stores, we conducted remote interviews with car dealers across 4 different branches with 12 participants in total.
Rather than focusing on the tools they used, we asked car dealers to walk us through a deal process. This helped us identify where the biggest frustrations and breakdowns occur in their daily workflow.
Chen Wei
“If I can get the right information at the right time, closing deals can be much smoother."
Age: 34
Status: Single
Position: Lincoln car dealer
Location: Hangzhou, China
About
Chen Wei has been selling premium cars for over six years and has worked at multiple 4S dealerships. He takes pride in building long-term relationships with customers and believes trust is key in selling luxury vehicles. His day is split between customer consultations, followups, test drives and internal coordination.
Wants & Goals
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Close deals more efficiently
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Spend more time with customers, less time on admin work
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Hit monthly sales targets consistently
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Build trust and long term relationships with clients
Needs
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Quick access to customer profiles and purchase history
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Clear visibility of inventory and delivery timelines
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Tools to manage follow ups and test drives
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Fewer system switches during the sales process
Frustrations
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Manually entering data into multiple systems
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Losing track of customer follow ups
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Waiting for approvals from managers
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Limited visibility into real-time inventory and pricing changes
Emotional Drivers
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Pride in being seen as professional
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Anxiety around missing sales opportunities
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Motivation from performance bonuses
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Desire to feel in control during customer interactions
After speaking with the participants and reviewing all the interviews, we began to see clear patterns. We narrowed everything down to three core pain points that consistently showed up during their most stressful and frustrating moments on the showroom floor.
Unreliable Customer Data
Updating customer profile takes time, car dealers prioritize customer interaction over data entry and often forget to log details afterward.
This results in:
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Incomplete or outdated customer profiles
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Missed follow ups, upsell or cross-sell opportunities
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Inaccurate sales forecasting
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Weak performance tracking
Fragmented System Visibility
Car dealers constantly switch between systems to collect information during ongoing deals. Fragmented systems make it harder to spot risks early and stay aligned with monthly targets.
This results in:
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Customer disengagement during wait times
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Inconsistent pricing information
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Manual errors by re-entering the same customer data across multiple platforms
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Difficulty tracking overall performance
Unpredictable Financing Approvals
Credit checks can take hours or days. Dealers often wait without status and need to chase constantly chase for updates.
This results in:
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Missing documents without any automatic notifications
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Deals falling through even after an agreement
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Ongoing pressure on the car dealers
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Unpredictable close rates and revenue instability
These insights became the foundation for defining product scope and prioritizing features.
The Process
To address the distinct needs of car dealers, features are designed around their daily sales workflow, ensuring the experience directly supports how they actually work on the showroom floor.
The implementation is planned across three iterative phases, allowing the solution to evolve based on real car dealer feedback while staying aligned with performance targets and business priorities.
Phase 1:
Strengthening the Foundation
Focuses on improving data quality and workflow structure to create a reliable system with better organization, clearer visibility and more consistent customer engagement.
Phase 2:
Empowering Confident Selling
Focuses on equipping car dealers with better tools to support customer conversations and structure deals with greater confidence.
Phase 3:
Increasing Closure Certainty
Focuses on improving transparency and predictability to reduce uncertainty and help car dealers close deals with greater stability and control.
For Phase 1, we focused on establishing workflows and data consistency needed for the app to function effectively. This meant prioritizing features that support daily operations while ensuring processes were aligned and scalable. At the same time, we built a unified design system to create consistency across the platform and lay the groundwork for faster iterations and future expansion.
The Solution
Turning complexity into conversion.
The app opens with a clear overview of the day's agenda. Appointments and follow ups are displayed with color coded indicators to highlight priority at first glance
New appointments and follow ups can be scheduled efficiently using predefined fields, structured tags and smart quick-select options. By minimizing manual input and repetitive data entry, the process becomes faster and reduces manual errors.
Each client is clearly categorized by priority level and sales stage, giving car dealers immediate clarity on who needs attention, what to recommend next and when to follow up. All client interactions can be quickly viewed and logged in one place, nothing gets lost between visits or handovers.
The inventory provides real-time visibility and allows car dealers to instantly confirm stock status, specifications and valid combinations without switching systems or stepping away from the customer.
Online test drive scheduling makes availability transparent to prevent double bookings and sets accurate expectations for clients.
Car dealers are driven by performance, every lead and closed deal directly impacts their targets and income. The KPI dashboard tracks sales progress, helping them stay focused.
All designs are built on a unified design system, using consistent components and interaction patterns across the platform. This foundation ensures consistency, making iterations and new phases faster to implement and easier to maintain.
The Results
The mobile application was first rolled out at Lincoln’s flagship store in Shanghai. We conducted a training workshop with car dealers to guide them through the tool and gather immediate feedback.
All 6 out of 6 participants agreed that the mobile application is an improvement compared to the previous process, validating the overall direction of the product.
4 participants shared that presenting vehicle information to clients on a phone felt awkward, mobile screen size was too small for shared viewing. This feedback directly shifted the product strategy of client-facing features, such as vehicle comparisons and configurations, toward a tablet experience better suited for collaborative discussions.
Based on these early insights, the product demonstrates strong potential for continuous improvement and evolution. Lincoln plans to further monitor user performance before gradually expanding the rollout to additional branches.