Matt Morgan.
In a sector addicted to dashboards and awash in behavioural breadcrumbs, Hyundai has flipped the script, from over analysis to real action.
With TBX, the customer insights tool developed by lowercase (part of the Innocean Group Australia) and embedded into the Innocean Digital team, Hyundai is no longer just collecting data, it’s listening at scale and designing CX solutions that actually shift the needle.
Forget a 12-month transformation roadmap. This is intervention in real-time, based on 10,000 1:1 conversations, not assumptions.
The Complexity Crisis: When Big Data Gets in the Way
Hyundai had the full stack. Salesforce. CDP. GA4. Dealer CRM integration. Voice of Customer programs. A wealth of customer data. But something wasn’t landing.
“The volume of data was becoming a barrier, not a benefit, because data without human context is just noise. Hyundai’s biggest risk wasn’t a lack of information—it was data overload.” — Matt Morgan, MD of lowercase & Head of Digital at Innocean
In 2024, pre-orders were slowing. Hybrid sales were dropping. NPS scores were in decline. But the ‘why’ wasn’t obvious, despite all the customer data Hyundai was collecting.
“Even with all this data and tech, Hyundai didn’t feel like they really knew their customers. If your only measure of customer experience is NPS, you’re flying blind.” — Andrew Stamatakis
There was a clear business challenge: Hyundai were building better cars, but selling them at higher price points against a nationwide cost of living crisis.
Often the key to unlocking a business challenge already exists within an organisation, but is hidden from leaders by data siloes and lack of knowledge sharing. So Hyundai decided to do something different; before speaking to customers, they interviewed their employees.
And quickly a common theme emerged: “We need to do more to show customers how they can afford these cars.”
But affordability wasn’t just a market trend, it was an emotional and psychological blocker. Hyundai knew the answer wasn’t in the metrics, it was in customer conversations. But with barely any budget, they knew a handful of customer interviews wasn’t going to convince C-Suite to invest in solving the affordability challenge.
TBX: Human Insights in a Machine World
That’s where Hyundai turned to TBX.
“There’s a reason we used TBX. We were drowning in dashboards but starving for insight. TBX doesn’t just visualise data—it finds meaning in it. It’s like sitting down with 500 customers for a 1:1. You get to the truth faster, with context that changes how you think about the whole customer journey. This is qualitative depth, at quantitative scale. It’s not about having more data—it’s about getting to better decisions, faster.” — Andrew Stamatakis
TBX uses AI to replace the human interviewer, meaning you can conduct thousands of real customer in-depth interviews simultaneously, extracting themes, emotions, and unmet needs—at scale, but with human nuance. It uncovered five major blockers to purchase—from hidden cost anxiety to decision paralysis—issues dashboards simply couldn’t see.
“This is not synthetic data. These are real people, with real lives, making real decisions. And when you actually listen to them, you realise just how much of your current marketing approach is built on assumptions. TBX strips those assumptions away and gives you something far more valuable than dashboards—truth.”
What TBX Found That The Stack Couldn’t
So what was the truth behind dropping pre-orders, declining NPS and a stagnating Hybrid sales?
- Affordability isn’t a number. It’s an emotional hurdle. Buyers weren’t just comparing sticker prices—they were worrying about future regret, hidden costs, and financial pressure.
- Cost anxiety ruled. 80% of people were anxious about ongoing costs. 100% said these were dealbreakers.
- Employees had no idea. 75% thought affordability = RRP. Dealers assumed premium cars sold themselves.
- Car maths is hard. Especially when digital tools are clunky, journeys fragmented, and support patchy.
- Decision Paralysis. Car shopping is a marathon of decision-making. Customers were overwhelmed, rushed, and often paralysed by the number of choices.
Affordability wasn’t just about price, it was about value and buying confidence.
But the real value of insights at scale is having confidence in what you design and implement. Innocean Digital teams were able to use 500 customer interviews to design tools that reduce stress and increase confidence across the whole ownership experience, create ‘Car Maths’ content and integrate Hyundai Capital into a streamlined website user experience - invested by the Execs with confidence.
The Takeaway: Less Measurement. More Conversations.
- Truth beats dashboards.
- Insight beats infrastructure.
- Conversations at scale are a shortcut to the right customer problem.
"In a world of complexity, clarity wins," said Jasmin Bedir, CEO Innocean Group. "Conversations at scale don't just deliver more insights. They are the antidote to bloated marketing stacks, useless dashboards, and performative personalisation."
That's why lowercase is such an important business for us. It helps our clients build 2-way relationships with their customers and feed real customer insights into creative, media, digital and CX.
Because when you combine cold data with conversations at scale, you don’t just make better decisions for your customers — you build a 2-way relationship with them.