CitNow has hired Carol Fairchild as chief customer officer, promoting her from her former role as commercial director.

Fairchild will continue to oversee her board-level responsibility and all client services activity, but she will now focus on introducing feedback-led improvements to the customer experience and fostering close customer partnerships.

CitNow says her promotion will allow her to help the communications platform deliver more customer-led strategies throughout the business.

Fairchild said: “Customer service is at the heart of of CitNow, and we want to improve the experience and satisfaction even further by prioritising our customers, and ensuring we are implementing their feedback.

“Treating our customer relationships as a partnership, we take the time to understand our customers and their individual challenges and build bespoke solutions toward a common goal, and we want to spread that approach throughout the business.”

Alistair Horsbugh, chief executive officer at CitNow, said: “Carol came to us with plenty of experience in the sector and has made a big difference to CitNow, helping us go from strength to strength over the past year."

CitNow specialises in the automotive video industry. It provides app-based video solutions to the car industry, with the aim of offering an accessible car buying experience.

A 2016 study proved that usng video technology to showcase cars in stock helped Volkswagen retailers cut two weeks off the amount of time those cars spend on the forecourt.

Last year it was revealed that almost half (42%) of workshop technicians believe electric and hybrid vehicle know-how will be more important than traditional mechanical knowledge in just five years’ time.

The research by CitNow also found that 18% of professionals ranked EV expertise as among the most important skills over the past decade.