Employees want self-service, not sales pitches. Here’s how Auto-UX built a platform to deliver just that
This article was produced in partnership with Auto-UX
Auto-UX, led by CEO Greg Parkes, is transforming novated leasing through a groundbreaking, user-first approach. For decades, novated leasing has offered financial benefits, but outdated processes, hidden fees, and inefficiencies have frustrated employees and employers alike. Auto-UX redefines the experience, eliminating hassle while maximizing savings and transparency. Built for businesses with a vision for the future, its platform streamlines workflows, boosts employee engagement, and delivers the best novated leasing UX on the planet.
For years, novated leasing has promised big savings for employees - up to $10,000 a year in some cases - but it’s still one of the least understood and most underutilised employee benefits in Australia.
Greg Parkes, CEO of Auto-UX, is out to change that. The company isn’t just in the leasing space - it’s trying to completely reimagine how employees interact with this often-daunting benefit. And it starts with simplifying what is, at its core, a complex process.
“The problem is that novated leasing is very complicated,” Parkes explains.
“It’s a convergence of the vehicle industry, the finance sector, personal taxation, and company taxation. On top of that, it’s facilitated and processed through an employer’s payroll and accounts payable function.”
Adding in the rise of electric vehicles, shifts in the automotive industry, and evolving tax legislation, and it’s no wonder that many employees do not know where to start.
Traditionally, the industry has responded by pushing information through in-person sessions or sales calls. But Parkes argues that today’s workforce wants something very different: autonomy.
“In today’s day and age, employees want to explore complex benefits on their own terms and in their own time – especially if it takes some brain power to process,” he says. “This is how they’re used to exploring any other finance benefit or product, through digital self-exploration.”
That insight led to the creation of Auto-UX’s flagship product: Auto-Pilot. It’s the first fully digital, end-to-end novated leasing platform in Australia, designed to let employees self-serve entirely. That means no phone calls, no meetings, and no waiting around for someone to explain every bit of terminology.
Still, Parkes notes that creating a self-serve platform in this space comes with its own challenges.
“Your average employee may have 20-40 questions to ask, and so the challenge for us was around how to answer those questions without actually speaking to the customer,” he says.
Auto-UX tackled this with a feature called ‘Click Assist.’ Whenever an employee encounters a data point - say, a finance cost or a servicing budget - they can click on it to get a detailed, context-specific explanation.
“We’re industrialising the delivery of information through technology,” Parkes says. “We’ve taken our 50 years of collective industry experience and bottled it into concise, accurate, easily digestible information that is delivered in the same way every time.”
This is also where the platform shines against traditional methods. In the old model, user experience varied widely depending on who you spoke to and how much they knew.
“You can have fundamentally different user experiences depending on who you speak to,” Parkes says. “Through technology, however, we can pose the right question and provide the right answer at the right time, educating the customer in a systematic, highly effective way that has never been done before. This delivers an optimised user experience and equips employees to make informed decisions.”
Parkes says the most common questions they get asked revolve around interest rates, fees, how novated leasing compares to other finance methods, and what happens if you leave your employer. These aren’t trivial concerns, and being able to explore answers privately and on-demand is empowering for employees.
“Digitised self-guided learning is key to helping unlock the benefits of novated leasing for employees,” Parkes concludes. “Auto-UX is investing heavily to further support this functionality in the months and years ahead.”
