CX Trend #1: The Expanding ROI of Automotive Customer Operations

Originally published on LinkedIn on September 3, 2026.

Connected vehicles and increasingly complex ownership journeys are creating new opportunities for automotive customer operations to contribute business value. From connected-service adoption and proactive customer engagement to vehicle-health interventions and warranty decisions, the article explores how customer operations can generate revenue, prevent costs and create more value across the ownership journey.

We recently asked Percepta VP of Sales Paul Feder and SVP of Business Development and Client Solutions James Goldberg which automotive CX trends automotive and mobility leaders should be watching most closely. Over the coming months, Service Lane will explore five of those trends, beginning with a broader way of thinking about the ROI of automotive customer operations.

Operational efficiency will always matter, but organizations also have more information about vehicles and ownership behavior to inform decisions. This data-driven approach creates opportunities to recognize a customer need, opportunity or risk earlier. The bigger question is what they do with that knowledge.

Increasing customer lifetime value through customer operations

For much of automotive history, the vehicle sale represented the industry's primary revenue event. That model is changing. General Motors ended 2025 with a record 12 million OnStar subscribers, while deferred revenue from OnStar services, including Super Cruise, reached $5.4 billion, up 65% year over year. The vehicle sale is increasingly becoming the beginning of an ongoing commercial relationship.

Consumer adoption, however, should not be assumed. McKinsey found that only 39% of consumers favor subscription payments for vehicle connectivity services. Putting a feature in the vehicle does not guarantee customers will understand it, activate it, use it or decide it is worth paying for.

That gap between availability and adoption often becomes apparent during vehicle handover. Dealer partners for one global automotive brand were seeing customers leave without fully activating their connected services. Percepta partnered with the OEM to create an inbound support line providing real-time activation assistance, complemented by outbound education during the trial period. Security-service activation reached 84% with Percepta's inbound support compared with 38% through dealers, while trial-to-paid conversion rates increased from 5% to 20%. Subscriptions sold increased 537% in one year.

As recurring revenue becomes more important, customer operations can help close the gap between product investment and customer adoption. In this case, the approach also improved the dealership experience by giving dealers real-time support during handover and helping customers leave more educated and activated. That helped enhance the overall connected-services experience while creating more opportunity for continued adoption, retention and increased customer lifetime value.

Proactive customer engagement creates new value

As ownership journeys become more connected, organizations have more opportunities to recognize and respond to customer needs earlier. There are moments in the customer journey when solving a customer need and creating economic value for the business can be the same action.

RV Industry Association research found that nine out of ten RV owners identified at least one improvement they wanted after purchase, while new owners were frequent purchasers of parts and accessories, spending more than $500 on average during in-store purchases. Those purchases are part of an ownership experience that can be daunting for someone entering the category for the first time. A new owner may be learning how to level the RV, operate electrical and water hookups, manage fresh, gray and black water tanks, understand towing and weight distribution, or determine what equipment is actually necessary for the way they plan to travel.

A traditional support operation may not become involved until uncertainty becomes a problem and the customer asks for help. Proactive customer engagement can anticipate those questions, provide useful education and uncover legitimate needs for accessories, equipment or services. Keeping the customer need at the center also changes the nature of the commercial opportunity: it follows the need rather than the other way around.

For one automotive brand, Percepta built 12 proactive touchpoints across the customer journey, including welcome calls with live video vehicle walkthroughs. The program achieved a 37% engagement rate while NPS increased 167%. As electric vehicles, connected vehicles and other mobility products become more complex, reaching customers at the right moment can improve customer satisfaction, build brand loyalty and create value for the business.

Preventing avoidable costs before they grow

Creating revenue is only one way customer operations can contribute financially. Sometimes the larger opportunity is recognizing a risk early enough to prevent an avoidable cost.

McKinsey examined a fleet of more than 10,000 vehicles experiencing frequent diesel particulate filter failures. Telematics revealed driver behavior contributing to the failures, giving fleet leaders an opportunity to intervene through coaching before those behaviors continued to result in repairs and downtime. The example illustrates an important point: connected-vehicle data creates value when an organization can interpret it and act.

Percepta has seen that same opportunity with vehicle-health alerts. For one global automotive brand, associates proactively contacted customers when alerts were triggered, explained the issue and helped schedule a service appointment. Scheduled appointments increased 118 times, while the program achieved an NPS of 91.5, encouraging customers to address maintenance needs before minor issues could become larger concerns.

But not every problem can be prevented. When a component fails and a warranty claim follows, the need shifts from early intervention to informed decision-making. U.S. truck, bus and heavy-equipment manufacturers paid nearly $4 billion in warranty claims in 2025. At that scale, applying the right expertise to determine what happened, what is covered and what the business should appropriately pay can have significant financial consequences.

For one global automotive company, Percepta routes claims according to value and complexity, with former technicians and specialized adjudicators applying deeper expertise to high-cost and high-risk repairs. The program generated a 2,000% return on investment, increased annual cost savings by 80% over five years and achieved 108% of the client's savings target.

The return came from acting earlier when problems could be prevented and applying better judgment when they could not.

A broader definition of automotive customer operations ROI

As automotive and mobility organizations gain richer data across increasingly complex customer and vehicle ownership journeys, the economics of customer operations are expanding beyond efficiency alone. Across programs focused on cost avoidance and revenue generation, Percepta has delivered more than 15x client-value ROI. That value comes from combining signals from the vehicle with knowledge of the customer, the dealer network, and the ownership experience to determine the right response and right opportunity. The data itself isn't the return. What an organization is able to do with it is.