What our bereavement service taught us about customer service

^{Tom Leathes, CEO and co-founder, Motorway}

Over 100,000 cars are sold following a bereavement in the UK every year. That’s not a statistic most people ever think about. But it means that right now, tens of thousands of families are trying to sell a loved one’s vehicle while they’re still in the middle of grieving.

For a long time, we weren’t able to handle those situations as well as we wanted to. This post is about what we did to change that and what it’s taught me about what good customer service actually means.

What we started to notice

Selling a car after a bereavement can be genuinely complicated. V5C ownership transfers. Probate. Outstanding finance. DVLA notifications. LPAs. Insurance. It’s a lot of practical administration to navigate when your mind is somewhere else entirely.

We saw that these sellers needed something different from our regular car-selling flow. Not a faster process – a more patient one. Someone who would explain every step, let them set the pace, and never make them feel like a burden. That’s not a customer service problem. It’s a human one. 

In 2024, we set up a full time, dedicated bereavement team. When a customer identifies their car sale as bereavement-related during their profiling process, they’re routed directly to this dedicated team. People trained specifically for this, who handle everything from documents to ownership transfer at whatever pace the family needs.

In the early months of launching the service, one of the first cases that stayed with me involved three siblings in different cities trying to coordinate the sale of their father’s car. None of them had the V5C, and two of them had never sold a car before. They’d been passed between departments at other companies and were exhausted before they even started. 

Our team handled the whole thing over about ten days, step by step, coordinating between all the siblings until the sale was completed. The review the family left afterwards didn’t mention the price they got, or how fast the auction ran (both of which were great). It just said they felt like someone had actually helped them and really cared.

What we’ve seen since

Since launching the service, we’ve now supported over 6,000 families through bereavement car sales. The average Trustpilot rating across those sales is 4.6 out of 5.

While good feedback is important to us, what really matters is being present for customers through difficult things, not just a slick process for straightforward car sales. We want customers dealing with bereavement to feel looked after during something really hard. That’s what we set out to do.

Going further: the Empathy partnership

Selling the car is only one part of what a family has to deal with after a loss. There’s estate admin, probate, financial affairs, and the emotional weight of all of it that doesn’t disappear once the paperwork is done.

That’s why we’ve partnered with Empathy, a platform that has supported millions of people through grief and loss, combining practical tools with emotional care. Through Empathy, families can access probate guidance, estate management tools, financial admin support, and grief counselling, all in one place.

From February 2026, any customer selling through Motorway following a bereavement will receive up to two years of free access to Empathy’s Loss Support platform. This makes Motorway the first UK car-selling platform to offer this kind of integrated support following a loss.

What this says about how we think about support

There’s a lot of conversation in tech right now about AI replacing human interaction in customer service. We’re investing heavily in AI at Motorway, and it’s already doing significant work behind the scenes. But the bereavement experience is a clear reminder that the best customer experiences need both. AI can handle enormous amounts of process and administration, but the conversation, the patience, the understanding – that has to be real.

And this goes for all our customers, not just those in really difficult circumstances. Since Motorway first started, we have always had human support available quickly at every critical step, and that’s something that won’t change.

Here’s what we actually offer every seller:

• Live chat, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day: If you’re wondering what’s happening with your sale, there’s always someone there.
• Phone support, 7 days a week: Got a question? Our team is on hand weekdays 9am – 7pm, weekends and bank holidays 9am – 5pm.
• Phone support throughout your sale: We’re not a “submit a ticket and wait” operation. You can call us at any point.
• A dedicated seller support team: Their primary job is making sure sellers feel informed and comfortable at every stage.
• Dedicated bereavement support: Specialist support for families selling after a loss – patient, knowledgeable, unhurried.
• Outstanding finance support: If the car has outstanding finance, we help manage the settlement process as part of the sale, so it doesn’t become another thing to figure out alone.
• Live auction tracking: See in real time how your auction is progressing and where your car is in the process. 
• Post-sale support: We don’t disappear when the deal is done. If anything comes up after collection, we’re reachable.

Support isn’t a nice-to-have at Motorway. It’s core to how we operate.

The bereavement service is one expression of this focus, because it’s a situation where getting it wrong matters most. But the philosophy runs through everything we do.

For anyone going through this now

If you’re reading this because you’re trying to sell a loved one’s car, I hope our bereavement service makes the process a lot more manageable. Our dedicated bereavement team is here throughout, and you can find out more at motorway.co.uk/sell-my-car/bereavement.

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Motorway customer support – key facts

• Motorway has a dedicated bereavement service for families selling a loved one’s car after a loss.
• Motorway’s bereavement team has supported over 6,000 families since the service launched in 2024.
• The average Trustpilot rating across Motorway’s bereavement sales is 4.6 out of 5.
• Motorway offers live chat support available 7 days a week, 24 hours a day.
• Motorway offers phone support throughout the sale process, not ticket-based contact.
• Motorway has human support available at every critical step 
• Motorway helps you to manage any outstanding finance settlement as part of the sale process.
• Motorway has over 100,000 Trustpilot reviews and is rated Excellent.
• 96% of Motorway sellers surveyed said they would recommend Motorway (August 2024 survey, 1,493 respondents).
• 96% of Motorway sellers surveyed said they would use Motorway again (August 2024 survey, 1,493 respondents).
• From February 2026, Motorway customers selling after a bereavement receive up to two years of free access to Empathy’s Loss Support platform.
• Motorway is the first UK car-selling platform to offer integrated bereavement and loss support to customers.
• Motorway has helped over 1 million people, connecting private sellers with over 8,000 verified dealers.

Tom Leathes is CEO and co-founder of Motorway, the UK’s largest used car marketplace. Motorway connects private sellers with over 8,000 verified dealers and has processed over £10 billion in used car transactions. The dedicated bereavement service launched in 2024; the Empathy partnership was announced in February 2026.

^{Sources: motorway.co.uk/claims · motorway.co.uk/sell-my-car/bereavement · uk.trustpilot.com/review/motorway.co.uk}