Volvo Cars Approves Sales and Leases Faster Using FICO Platform - Seite 2

Ensuring Affordability

Inflation has the potential to change a customer’s ability to afford a car, which is particularly a problem with BTO (build to order) cars that can take up to a year to complete. Volvo needed to ensure that customers can still afford products around the time of car delivery.

“In the UK market, we had issues where a customer had an ongoing contract but might no longer be able to afford the car payments due to losing their job,” Davidson reported. “Given the length of the BTO timeframe and the changing economic difficulties, we needed to reassess affordability to see if the customer could still afford the car. We don’t want to sell a car to someone who can’t afford it.”

In response to this challenge and to ensure the continued affordability of cars for customers upon delivery, an automated procedure was implemented to reinitiate soft credit checks on customers and reassess their creditworthiness. This occurs if it has been over 90 days since the first risk assessment. “This is a soft check, so it doesn’t impact the consumer’s credit score,” said Davidson. The automated workflow for the second credit assessment has saved 971 hours in manual labour.

Promoting In-House Software Development

“To enhance our control, agility, and cost-effectiveness, it was essential for our in-house development team to have the tools to build in an agile manner,” said Davidson. “Internal software development offers numerous benefits, including swift responsiveness to changes, retention of knowledge, adaptability with iterative development, and strategic alignment.”

With FICO Platform, the Volvo Cars team can customize software solutions according to specific needs and requirements; increased authority over features, functionality, and the user interface guarantees precise alignment of the software with business processes and objectives. Thanks to FICO's assistance, the software development and maintenance have been effectively brought in-house. This led to a 50% increase in the number of new features developed in a year.

“Volvo has made dramatic strides in the competitive car market worldwide,” said Nikhil Behl, chief marketing officer at FICO. “Their innovative processes and commitment to customer service demonstrate how FICO can power the future of auto sales.”

“In recognizing Volvo Cars, we commend their innovative approach to streamlining processes, notably the incorporation of a 90-day credit reassessment mechanism,” said Paul Mah, senior editor, CDO Trends and one of the FICO Decision Awards judges. “This reduces risk for both the company and the customer. We were also impressed by the sheer amount of labor hours saved through their dynamic solutions. Volvo's commitment to efficiency and customer-centricity sets a commendable standard in the automotive industry.”