Overview
SGS is the world's leading provider of various inspection, monitoring and testing services with a focus on vehicle inspection and theoretical driving tests. For SGS it was clear that location marketing was the most important strategy to continue to generate revenue through its more than 2,600 locations.
To measure its success, the company therefore wanted to learn more about its web-to-store customer journey. Specifically: how well its locations are visible in local search, how consumers interact with them and ultimately convert.
SGS needed to be able to easily present and analyse data to make decisions and improve performance. With Analytics from Uberall, SGS has achieved just that.
Sector: Testing services, including vehicle inspection and theoretical driving licence testing
Number of sites: 2,600
Countries: France and the French overseas territories
The Challenge
For SGS, the Internet and the telephone are important sources of revenue: Its Google My Business pages account for the majority of telephone inquiries and 20 per cent of in-store traffic. 30 per cent of appointments are made online and a full 85 per cent of sales are generated via the branch websites.
As with other companies, requests for technical and theory exams at SGS fluctuate. The lockdown in March 2020, for example, caused the key figures to significantly waver: Many more customers wanted to take theory tests and called the branches or made appointments online. SGS needed to measure calls and clicks holistically to better understand which locations were performing well and which were not.
The requirements for the analysis tool required by SGS were clear: the marketing team needed a clear yet holistic presentation of the data and user-friendly operation. They needed to be able to use the analysis in such a way that they could easily identify irregularities at local level and act quickly at national level.
The Solution
SGS has been working with Uberall since the beginning of 2018, using the Listings, Engage and Locator & Local Pages services to move customers from online search to its shops. As an early adopter, SGS used the new Analytics to measure success.
With Analytics, SGS reviews its marketing forecasts, produces detailed reports and makes strategic decisions at global and national level as well as for individual regions and branches.
Analytics' comprehensive capabilities gave SGS the flexibility to apply the product to its case to better understand its customers' customer journeys and address digital marketing improvements:
- Insights into the performance of individual sites and regions: Interactive charts allow the marketing team to quickly identify which sites are below average conversion rates and performance.
- Corporate network communication: The company has easy access to meaningful information. As a result, regional managers and location managers can better exchange information about the value of the measures and derive meaningful actions.
- New control over reputation: The team can monitor online reviews and fluctuations in ratings. Via the dashboard, the marketing team can find out at a glance what customers think about the company and its branches.
The Results
Analytics makes it easy for SGS to investigate, understand and act on the performance of the brand and individual sites. The tool also helps SGS better understand how customers think about its subsidiaries. Regional managers can now approach the location managers in a targeted manner and take precise measures, for example to obtain better ratings in the future.
As a global company, SGS now determines how digital marketing strategy influences business success. It also identifies precisely those regions or locations whose performance is below the key figures in an overall comparison.
SGS has also used Analytics to retrospectively examine business performance before and after the lockdown. Using the accessible data and interactive charts, the marketing team recorded good news: the number of queries via Google Business Profile has increased with a triple-digit growth rate.
* Sept 2019 to Sept 2020
