This Women's month, we celebrate the women driving change within the ranks at Nissan South Africa
A woman passionate about creating a positive impact in the world and empowering women, Head of Customer Experience (NCX), Digital and Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Nancy Moodley is immensely proud of the work she continues to do with her team at Nissan. Having worked her way up in this male-dominated industry for over a decade, Nancy has a wealth of experience and wisdom to share with the young women coming up in the motoring industry.
"As a woman in the automotive industry, I have seen diversity and change happen at a much slower pace than other industries, but Nissan is one of the companies that are driving diversity from a global level, which is sure to drive change at a much faster pace." said Moodley
Nissan has seen a global increase of women in management from 6.7% in 2008, to 13.9% in 2020. The company believes that enabling women, particularly in management positions, is essential to providing diverse value to customers.
Get to know Nancy Moodley, Head of Customer Experience (NCX), Digital and CRM
Q: Tell us about your role at Nissan and how long you've been with the company?
A: I have been with Nissan SA for the last 15 years with experience across multiple areas including Product, Marketing, Brand, Digital Transformation, Research, and Customer Relations Management to name a few. I've been in my current role leading Nissan Customer Experience; Digital & CRM since July 2019 and I truly enjoy it because it allows me to challenge the status quo and push boundaries.
In this rapidly changing environment, businesses across industries must adapt fast to be able to revolutionise their business in line with customer needs. Driving transformation both in the digital and physical space requires change at every level and putting the customer at the core of the business strategy.
My role also comes with many challenges however the pandemic has assisted in accelerating NCX by redefined customers' expectations and engagement across industries. There is a need to push the customer agenda which is really the core of Nissan's global mid-term plan. This requires modernising legacy systems, building new revolutionary customer solution that not only resolved customer pain-points, but also builds data science to the level that drives data driven business decision as well as supports artificial intelligence to help drive the future customer value proposition. This forces an overall mind-set change in the way we do business in this rapidly changing digitised world. It takes a lot of cross-functional drive, alignment and real effort to drive all round transformation. Thankfully, we have a passionate, dedicated and extremely hard-working team and together we have achieved great things over the last two years.
Q: As a leader of innovation and change for Nissan's customer experience, can you tell us about consumer-focused projects you've led that you're most proud of?
A: We've worked on quite a few projects which I'm incredibly proud of. Within a few months of the pandemic, we delivered Shop@Home, which is combination of multiple digital solutions that brought the showroom into our customers' homes. From Kaito, Nissan's newest addition to the family, a natural language 24/7 customer support bot with a personality, to live chat, and various other tools. Customers are utilising 'request a quote,' home test drives, video sales calls to viewing the vehicles on the virtual showroom increasingly even with the lock-down restrictions lifted. Through these new digital solutions, we have not only seen a daily increase in customer engagement, but they have driven immense brand value and ROI for Nissan.
One of the digital solutions that I am truly proud of, that my team and our agency have driven is Nissan's pre-finance tool in partnership with WesBank. Nissan was the first OEM to directly integrate with a banking engine and the credit bureau to enable customers to get their pre-approved while shopping for their vehicle online. A customer can complete all their research online, decide on a vehicle and check out their finance approval on our website, without having to go the bank. Convenient, simple and seamless.
Q: Any internal accomplishments you'd like to share?
A: Internally, there have been several accomplishments, but the one that I am most proud of is the revamping of our main office building. It had nothing to do with my core responsibility, but I made it my responsibility to redesign the interior to inspire, motivate and improve employee pride and morale.
From building a boutique to a restaurant, redoing the reception flooring to redesigning the restrooms. This passion project allowed me to bring my true self, the humanitarian, into the workspace.
Another beautiful project that I am truly proud to have played a part in during the pandemic, was ensuring that Nissan is part of the solution while the entire country was going through unimaginable distress. I used my network to facilitate conversations between our corporate communications and marketing team with the Department of Health to see where we can support. Nissan supported the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality with vehicles for frontline government nurses testing for COVID-19. It made me truly proud to be a Nissan employee. You can find out more about this project here: https://bit.ly/3ydJrVh
Q: Can you tell us more about what challenges you've overcome in the automotive industry as a female leader?
A: As a female senior manager in a male-dominated industry, I've had to work harder than my male counterparts to be seen or acknowledged and have felt the need to constantly prove myself. I would like to see more women who are currently in leadership positions prioritise mentoring the next generation to ensure we not only increase the representation of women at senior levels but that we're creating an environment that welcomes women and enables them to succeed. With businesses rapidly transforming for the future, female leadership in organisations can have a positive impact by enabling a much-needed diversity of thought, while ensuring the growth of the business through reflecting the communities and customers' needs it serves.
As a single mum plus the breadwinner for my kids and extended family, the real struggle is being able to achieve a work-life balance without burning out. More than ever, businesses need to adequately support their employees through challenging times to ensure their emotional, mental, and physical health is not being compromised.
Q: In your position as a leader, how do you ensure that you empower other women at Nissan?
A: My passion for women's empowerment and diversity has ensured that I am not only there to share my experiences and knowledge with female colleagues, but to truly be there to listen, encourage and mentor them at all levels. Sometimes just lending a helpful ear and having someone unpack an emotional or stressful situation can be all someone might need. I'm also a strong believer in training, upskilling and matching your team's strengths with the right portfolio to build their confidence and belief in themselves. Giving credit where credit is deserved, acknowledging achievements while encouraging people to overcome their self-doubt and fears is the only way to empower. Mentorship requires emotional and psychological support at the core and we can never be clinical. You need to make the time, be real, genuine, and truly mentor someone altruistically.
Q: Any anecdotes you can share on your work with the Habitat Foundation of South Africa?
A: I'm passionate and committed to giving back to society and the environment through sustainable initiatives. In my private capacity I am one of the members of the Habitat Foundation South Africa, a non-profit organization linking "live off the soil" solutions to provide socio-economic development empowering and educating underprivileged women, children and the disabled to establish skills such as handicraft and cottage industries for formal and self-employment.
I strongly believe my life's purpose was meant to be giving back to society and if you are truly giving back, you need to be able to empower those in need through skills development.
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