Autorola Group: Voice of Customer Across 3 Business Units in 19 Countries
Peter Grøftehauge asked his leadership team one question: Can you tell me if our customers are satisfied? Surprisingly, the answer was no. That's how a VoC programme across 3 units and 19 countries began.
Peter Grøftehauge - co-owner of SurveyGauge - chose the platform as strategic CX partner for his own company. That says something about trust
70,000 car dealers, 3 business units, 19 countries - and for the first time, one unified picture of customer experience
As a result, CX data went from living in individual conversations to becoming a standing item on the board's agenda
What we'd do differently: start with one unit and scale from there, rather than rolling out to all three simultaneously
"SurveyGauge has given us a common language for customer experience that extends from the individual employee all the way up to the board. It has changed the way we make decisions."
- Peter Grøftehauge, CEO & Owner, Autorola Group
The question that started it all
"Can you tell me whether our customers are satisfied?" When Peter Grøftehauge put that question to his leadership team, the answer was honest: not really. However, not because Autorola Group's customers were unhappy - but because nobody had a systematic picture.
With 70,000 car dealers on the platform, three business units, and operations in 19 countries, customer feedback lived in individual conversations and spreadsheets. For example, a country manager in Germany had his sense of things. A sales director in Brazil had hers. But a unified picture? It didn't exist.
Peter Grøftehauge is co-owner of SurveyGauge. That gives this case a unique angle: he didn't choose SurveyGauge as a vendor that won a tender. He chose it as a strategic partner because he knows the platform from the inside and knows what it can do. When you put your own product to work in your own company, you set the bar high.
Autorola in brief
Autorola Group, founded in 1996 in Odense, Denmark, is critical infrastructure in global vehicle remarketing. Over 750 employees. 22 subsidiaries. Revenue exceeding DKK 1 billion. Clients including BMW, Sixt, and Santander Banking.
The group operates three business units. Marketplace runs online auctions with 70,000+ car dealers from 31 countries. Indicata provides business intelligence analysing 15 million vehicles daily. Solutions offers software for fleet management, digital showrooms, and repair platforms.
Three units, three worlds
Specifically, the first thing we discovered was that Indicata customers, Marketplace customers, and Solutions customers had fundamentally different expectations. Same company, three entirely different customer groups.
A car dealer buying vehicles on Marketplace thinks about speed, price, and delivery reliability. A fleet manager using the Solutions platform thinks about uptime, integration, and support. An Indicata customer - typically a leader making decisions about pricing and inventory - thinks about data quality and insight.
Furthermore, layer on 19 countries with different cultures, languages, and market conditions. A car dealer in Poland has different expectations than one in Australia. This isn't just a logistics challenge - it's a methodological one.
The board wanted one number. Reality demanded nuance.
What we built together
We designed three separate VoC flows - one per business unit - with shared KPIs at group level. NPS and CSAT are the same everywhere. However, touchpoints, questions, and timing are tailored to each unit's customer journey.
Workshops that built culture We participated in Autorola Group's internal conferences, where employees from all countries gather. Importantly, VoC wasn't presented as yet another IT project, but as a new way of running the business. That's an important distinction. You can roll out systems. Culture has to be built.
Leadership briefings in all 19 countries Every country manager receives ongoing CX briefings. In particular, not just dashboards - but concrete recommendations. What's going well? What needs action? As a result, this ensures data isn't just collected but actually used.
Board-level reporting For the first time, Autorola Group's board had a consolidated view of customer experience across all three units and all countries. Consequently, it changed the conversations in the boardroom. CX went from being "something customer service handles" to sitting on the agenda alongside finance and strategy.
Watch Autorola Group tell their story:
Results
- 3 business units with active, tailored VoC programmes
- 19 countries with ongoing CX briefings to leadership
- Board reporting - customer experience is now a standing item on the strategic agenda
- 70,000+ car dealers on the platform, all covered by systematic feedback
- Cross-unit benchmarking - for the first time, Autorola can compare customer satisfaction between units and countries
What we learned
If we were to do it again, we'd start with one business unit - probably Indicata - and scale from there. In retrospect, rolling out to all three units across 19 countries simultaneously gave us breadth from day one, but it also meant the first months were more chaotic than necessary. A phased rollout would have given us better data to refine the model before scaling.
That's an honest assessment. Moreover, it shows something important: even when you know the platform inside out, implementation in a global organisation is always more complex than you expect.
Key Figures:
- 3 business units with active VoC programmes
- 19 countries with ongoing CX briefings
- Board and executive management reporting
- Over 70,000 car dealers on the platform
- 750+ employees with access to CX insights
Frequently Asked Questions
That Indicata customers, Marketplace customers, and Solutions customers have fundamentally different expectations. For example, a car dealer buying at auction and a fleet manager using a software platform live in two different worlds. Consequently, it required three separate customer journeys with one common reporting format. It took several iterations to find the right balance.
Peter Grøftehauge is co-owner of SurveyGauge. That gives this case a unique angle. Indeed, he knows the platform from the inside and chose it not as a vendor agreement, but as a strategic decision. When you invest in a product you co-own, you set the bar high. Therefore, the Autorola implementation is effectively SurveyGauge's most demanding internal test.
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