Case Study: Halfords

Partnership in brief

Halfords selected Intelligent Motoring to provide a cobranded Motoreasy warranty, sold via halfords.com.

Policy sales grew quickly, feeding a virtuous cycle of repairs and servicing business back into Halfords’ workshops, as well as a later decision to extend their range of IM partner solutions to MotorEasy GAP, Alloy and Cosmetic Insurance.

Brand Selected: MotorEasy

Platform solutions: Digital Garage, Workshop Trading Platform, Contact Centre, 

Products supplied: Servicing, Maintenance & Repair, 

Workshop solutions: Servicing, MOTs, Repairs referrals

The Opportunity

As a household brand name with a nationwide footprint of retail stores and repair workshops, Halfords have unparalleled access to UK drivers. Delivering a Halfords branded warranty could prove a natural way to better serve the car owner, while leveraging their ability to manage warranty repairs through their Halfords Autocentre workshops.  

Keen to protect their trusted brand name status, synonymous with delivering value and quality of service, they sought a partner able to deliver a high-quality warranty product, with assured levels of customer support.

The Process

Halfords spent some 18-months reviewing the UK warranty marketplace, receiving tender applications from multiple industry suppliers.

Given their specific requirement for customer service, their analysis included an extensive mystery shopping exercise, testing the purchase journey and quality of sales support and advice across each warranty provider.

Halfords also sought a technologically robust solution that could seamlessly knit into the Halfords.com web site. Specifically, it needed to deliver an end-to-end journey that retained the customer in a Halfords branded environment, including web site, call centre and associated policy documentation.

The Solution

IM supplied the content and components needed to support the sale of a Halfords | MotorEasy warranty on halfords.com.

On the strength of the Halfords domain name alongside keyword rich content supplied by IM, the Halfords warranty page quickly gained organic visibility on Google. It now generates a significant share of visits and purchases from consumers seeking a warranty.

Aside from associated commissions on warranty sales, IM are also able to use their Workshop Trading Platform to refer and manage all related garage work, back to Halfords Auto Centres. Workshop bookings include further income from a steady stream of annual services and MOTs required to keep each warranty valid, as well as repairs from warranty claims.

In March 2023, Halfords chose to extend their range of IM supported products to MotorEasy GAP, alloy and cosmetic insurance. As these products are of particular interest to new car and nearly-new car buyers, they provided a way to target a different profile of customer to warranties (primarily of interest to owners of cars aged 3-years or above).

As the partnership evolves IM will further build revenue for Halfords by cross-selling products at different lifestage moments. For example, an individual who purchase a GAP insurance policy on a two-year old vehicle, might be interested in a warranty in a year’s time, when their vehicle exits its manufacturer warranty programme.

In supporting the partnership, IM have a particular ability to close the loop between the sale of protection products and their subsequent need to be repaired through workshops. The interplay between the workshop trading platform and Intelligent Motoring’s data-driven Content Centre provides the ideal channel to cross sell the right product, at the right time.

Aside from the obvious revenue uplifts, it is a process that also helps to sustain customer service, keeping business and loyalty within the Halfords network.