Pete Green – Volvo Trucks

Pete Green is the Customer Data and Insights Manager at Volvo Trucks UK  & Ireland. In this role, he is responsible for ensuring Volvo Trucks makes the best use of the customer data and retail excellence research that they have, as well as driving efficiencies across the business in terms of offer enhancement, employee recognition and customer connection.

AUTHENTICITY BUILDS TRUST

With more than 13 years of experience, Pete is passionate about people and consumer behaviour and about bringing insights to life via market and consumer research. “Great brands are clear and honest about what they do, what they offer, and what they stand for,” he states. “And they explain why that is different or complementary to what else is out there. Fundamentally, it’s about keeping your customers happy. For us here at Volvo Trucks, that means that we always aim to keep our customers moving, keep them mobile, and that we keep maximising their uptime towards their own customer commitments. That is part of our brand ethos. We want to do right by our customers, have the right products and services for them, and offer them real value.”

“Authenticity is very important when building trust with your customers,” Pete adds. “If I think of a selection of brands that haven’t succeeded, part of that often came down to them not being honest with their consumer base about who they were, what they did, and what they stood for. Another thing that comes to mind when we talk about authenticity, is consistency in your messaging. Your customer base will likely become confused if your brand message constantly changes. When I look at brands myself, I identify most with the ones that are honest and transparent, and consistent in their stories.”

“I identify most with brands that are honest and transparent, and consistent in their stories.”

Brand perception and Brand loyalty

Pete talks about how brand perception is established: “One thing that really fascinates me about brands is that you begin to form brand perceptions from the minute you’re able to understand sight and sound. Two-year-olds have brand perceptions. Your brand perceptions are incredibly strong and many of them will stay with you for your whole life.”

“People often can’t even explain why they love a certain brand or why they think one brand is better than the other,” he continues. “They love it just because their grandparents used it, and then their parents. They’ve never had a reason to not be brand loyal or to look elsewhere. For us at Volvo Trucks, that’s huge. Many transport and haulage companies are often family owned and family focussed businesses, passed down through generations. If you have a fleet of vehicles, and certain brands have been reliable, easy to do business with and have had good product offerings throughout the years, you generally won’t have a reason to invoke too much change, as long as you remain successful. In many ways, it’s quite a loyalty-based industry for many of the truck manufacturers.”

“Your brand perceptions are incredibly strong and many of them will stay with you for your whole life.”

A SUCCESSFUL BRAND NEEDS A QUALITY PRODUCT

What’s Pete’s opinion regarding the role of the product versus the role of the brand in customers’ consideration? “It’s generally acknowledged that the strongest brands in the world correlate to having the strongest product, or an overly innovative or unique product,” Pete explains. “Those products generally have key features that people really want or desire, and struggle to get from other brands. It’s very hard to build a very successful new brand if it doesn’t come hand in hand with an exceptional or innovative quality of the product or service offering. New brands are born every year, but it can take years, even decades, for that brand to see success or to become a household name – if ever – or to become the best at what they do in their industry.”

He adds: “With that in mind, it will be interesting to see what happens with some of the well-known disruptors we’ve seen in the automotive industry when it comes to electric cars. They’ve disrupted the market and the status quo. But no brand is perfect in all of its different product offerings and features, and in the way it conducts itself. The Moment of Truth will come once parallel products become available from other brands. Will people continue to love the disruptor brand, or do they care more about the product and its features, and will they shift to another brand with more established historical brand credentials, or more appealing prices etc?”

“No brand is perfect.”

CHANGING A WHOLE INDUSTRY

Pete realises that the heavy goods vehicles industry is now at that same gateway as the car industry was eight or nine years ago, moving towards alternative fuels. “Of course, lots of haulage companies are aware that there are many advantages in moving away from diesel and the internal combustion engine. But that means changing a whole industry that has been relying on ICE technologies for decades. It takes time and lots of positive messaging and communication to influence that change. At Volvo Trucks we help our customers in this transition by explaining very consistently, very boldly, and in quite simple terms that our new products can meet the needs of their brand and their company, and that they can even bring additional benefits too.”

“It’s about managing that change in people’s behaviour and in their mindset, away from some of the comforts of familiarity they may have had up until now.”

Changing behaviours, like switching from fuelling to charging, can generally be managed in many situations. This is a whole industry shift – whether you look at cars, bikes, taxis, or long-haul heavy goods vehicles. It’s about managing that change in consumer’s behaviour and in their mindset, away from some of the comfort of familiarity they may have had with refuelling ICE vehicles. Most people are coming round to the realisation that it does eventually have to happen. That shift is rapidly accelerating and we are delighted to be driving it forward with our customer base.”

A SOLID BASE FOR INNOVATION

So how do you bring together consistent brand messaging and innovation, in a way that impacts the Moment of Truth when your customers consider your new offering? Pete continues, “Innovation can impact a brand in a negative way when it’s too much change happening too quickly or innovating away from what the customer actually needs. When I think of really strong brands whose customers have embraced innovations, it’s those who already had a solid base with a meaningful product of consistent high quality that met its customers’ needs.”

Pete concludes: “Strong brands have that consistency and strength, and they innovate on top of that. You need to first deliver on your promise, so that you can then add additional enhancements and benefits on top for your customer base.”